Photo Credit: Brian Schneider/www.ebrianschneider.com
St. Mary's City, Md. – The St. Mary's College of Maryland sailing took the fourth spot in the Western semifinals of the 2014 ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy National Championship Wednesday afternoon and claimed one of the 18 berths in the championship finals, which will begin Thursday morning.
The Gill Coed Dinghy Championship is the third of the three collegiate sailing national championships co-hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy and St. Mary's College this spring. The top 36 collegiate teams in the nation qualified for this stellar event and competed Tuesday and Wednesday for the 18 spots in the championship finals.
The semifinals were divided into two fleets, an Eastern and Western semifinal fleet with 18 teams each. The top-9 teams from each fleet advanced to the championship finals. The sailors raced on an inner and outer trapezoid course in both FJs and Z420s. Each fleet sailed one type of boat one day and then swapped boats the next day.
St. Mary's edged University of Hawaii by five points to garner fourth place in the Western semis with 55 points while the Seahawks were just one point behind second-place Old Dominion University and third-place Bowdoin College. Yale University, fresh off winning the 2014 ICSA/APS Team Race Championship on Monday, garnered top honors with 19 points while Connecticut College was first in the Eastern semifinals.
The Seahawks have hoisted the Henry A. Morss Memorial Trophy for winning the ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy Championship three times – 2000, 2002, and 2009.
In the morning, the A-divisions sailed on windward leeward four leg courses and the B-divisions sailed on inner and outer trapezoid courses. Then in the afternoon, all of the 420s sailed on the outer trapezoid course and all of the FJs sailed on the inner trapezoid course.
Racing began at 9:30 a.m. and the temperature was in the high 70s with puffy and shifty winds from the northwest at about 5-10 knots. The winds slowly died around 12:30 p.m. and after completing two races in each division in each fleet, the sailors waited on shore for the wind to fill in.
By around 3:00 p.m., the sailors were back on the course to start racing. A southerly breeze around 5-7 knots filled in and remained pretty steady until around 4:15 p.m., when it lightened up again and became patchy on the race course. The sailors started to rotate boats on the water rather than from the dock to try and squeeze in as many races as possible.
The deadline for racing was 5:00 p.m. so the race officials got in as much racing as the conditions would allow. The Eastern semifinal completed four races in A-division and B-division for a total of six races for the event. The Western semifinal completed three races today in A-division and B-division for a total of five races for the event.
Yale University continued to dominate in the racing today and won the Western fleet. They did not place out of the top four in either division during the semifinals. Notable today was Old Dominion who moved up from sixth place yesterday to second place today.
St. Mary's was led to a fourth-place finish in the Western fleet behind the B-division boat's second-place finish. Seniors Fletcher Sims (Annapolis, Md.) and Kelley Merryman (Severna Park, Md.) continued their strong sailing, claiming three top-3 finishes out of five races.
In A-division, seniors Joshua Greenslade (Smiths, Bermuda) and Nicole DeAngeli (Reno, Nev.) placed eighth with 37 points and a point ahead of Brown University. The duo's best finish was fourth-place finish in Race 3A.
Connecticut College overtook Georgetown University today and won the Eastern fleet. They moved up from second place yesterday, one point behind Georgetown, to one point ahead of them today.
The US Sailing Grit Award is awarded to the teams who qualified for the finals in ninth place in each semi-final fleet; the recipients today were the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Boston College.
The scoreboard is wiped clean tomorrow for the championship finals. The first warning for racing is at 9:30 a.m. The top 18 teams will be competing for the national title and the Henry A. Morss Memorial Trophy over the next two days.
To view or purchase photos from this event or the previous championships visit this gallery on photographer Bill Schneider's website: http://www.ebrianschneider.com/gallery-collection/2014-ICSA-National-Championships/C0000zZpBRnclJuY
For additional regatta information and full results visit the event website: http://2014nationals.collegesailing.org/
Final Nine Teams (Eastern Semifinal):
1. Connecticut College, 48
2. Georgetown University, 49
3. College of Charleston, 64
4. Stanford University, 73*
5. U.S. Naval Academy, 73*
6. Dartmouth College, 74
7. Tufts University, 78
8. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 80
9. University of Wisconsin, 105
*Number of high place (1) finishes
Final Nine Teams (Western Semifinal):
1. Yale University, 19
2. Old Dominion University, 54*
3. Bowdoin College, 54*
4. St. Mary's College of Maryland, 55
5. University of Hawaii, 60
6. University of South Florida, 63
7. Harvard University, 68**
8. Brown University, 68**
9. Boston College, 75
*Number of high place (1) finishes
**Head-to-head tiebreaker
To follow live media coverage of the Gill Coed Dinghy National Championship, click on the Live Media link at http://2014nationals.collegesailing.org/. Social media updates are provided daily by collegesailing.org.
UPDATE: Gary Jobson and Chris Love will be filming portions of the Championships for an ESPNU segment, which will air on Friday, July 11 at 7 p.m. ET, Saturday, July 12 at 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. ET and Sunday, July 13 at 8 a.m. ET. This will be the tenth time the ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy National Championships have been covered on ESPNU.
The Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) is the governing authority for sailing competition at colleges and universities throughout the United States and in some parts of Canada. Visit www.collegesailing.org to learn more.
The ICSA sponsors and partners are: LaserPerformance (www.laserperformance.com), title sponsor of LaserPerformance Men's and Women's Singlehanded National Championships and Official Boat Supplier of the ICSA Spring National Championships. Sperry Top-Sider (www.sperrytopsider.com), title sponsor of the Sperry Top-Sider / ICSA Women's National Championship; Gill North America (www.gillna.com), title sponsor of the Gill / ICSA National Championship; Quantum Sail Design Group (www.quantumsails.com/), official sponsor of the "Quantum Women's College Sailor of the Year"; Annapolis Performance Sailing (www.apsltd.com), title Sponsor of the APS / ICSA Team Race National Championship; Marlow Ropes (www.marlowropes.com/), presenting sponsor of the "Marlow Ropes College Sailor of the Year Award" and Official Rope of College Sailing; US Sailing (home.ussailing.org), supporting sponsor of the ICSA National Championships.
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