Sailing enjoys win over Williams

Author: Sarah Poling Leuhrman

Last weekend, the Middlebury sailing team coasted down to Amherst for the first regatta of the year, Western Series 1, against Amherst, University of Vermont (UVM), Williams and Worcester Polytchnic Institure (WPI). Four Middlebury sailors, Meaghan McGrath '08, Dean Atyia '08, Adam Weisman '08 and Ben Neel '08 withstood unstable weather conditions certainly not optimal for sailing in two divisions.

Nonetheless, McGrath and Atyia earned two fourth place finishes in the A division and Weisman and Neel a second and a third place finish in the B division to put Middlebury in fourth overall.

Boats dealt with shifty wind when there was any at all, but sailors managed to fit in four races in each division before the wind died and the event was called.

"When there was [wind]," said Weisman, "it kind of spiraled around the small pond in a way that made it come from a few directions." The wind speed peaked at around 8 knots throughout the course of the day, with temperatures in the high 40s on water only recently thawed.

The race was one of friendly competition between schools with many new sailors just learning the ropes. Weisman commented, "UVM was the only team that really showed up with their game faces on and didn't really look for social interaction."

The Racing Committee set a Windward Leeward course for the day, and first to sail was the A boat of Atyia and McGrath. The division managed to race two full laps (each leg close to 100 yards), before the B boat of Weisman and Neel did the same.

"We set ourselves up down wind on a starboard, headed the other boat up and called for buoy room around the windward mark so we could sneak ourselves inside and pass which ever boat was in front of us," said Weisman. "We tried to stay a bit upwind when the wind was coming from diagonally behind us and stole Williams' wind to ultimately pass them."

Both divisions then raced a second set, but in the middle of the A division's third set, the wind died completely. The boats later restarted the race, only to get stranded in the middle of the course, once again lacking the necessary wind. After waiting for almost an hour and a half for the wind to pick up with no luck, the officials called the regatta at around 2:00 p.m. and all boats headed in.

The regatta was the first for all four Middlebury sailors, and they performed admirably under less than desirable circumstances. "We all really enjoyed the regatta atmosphere," Atyia commented. Furthermore, they beat Williams in both divisions "always a good feeling," said Kara Zarchin '06.