CNU Sailing

Saturday had Easterly breezes all day with W 3’s & W 4’s.  8 races in each division completed. Two protests heard and both were disallowed. Sunday brought rain at report time and then a beautiful sunny westerly for nearly the whole day.  Breeze started SW and shifted right building to about ten knots. Fourteen races completed (all W 4’s) one protest resulting in a dsq.  Congratulations to top four South teams for qualifying for the War Memorial Oct 31-Nov 1st (St. Mary’s, Georgetown, UVA & ODU). Dan Winters, John Griffin & Mike Callahan heard protests.

Some events are fun on which to report, some are painful. This is one of the most pleasant tasks I have had in many years. First, here is why this event was so important. It was the first of two events at which we can qualify for the War Memorial regatta, in effect, the season’s championship. Four teams from the South Region may do so at this event. Also, the top four club teams from the south can qualify for the Club Championships on November 7-8. Two teams will qualify from those who did not next week at Georgetown. Note that Hobart, Washington, Navy, Fordham and USMMA are not from the south and participate only to give some of their team members experience.

IMAGE: Jessica Thal right after the final race

St. Mary’s, Georgetown, Old Dominion and Virginia qualified. That sets up a shoot out between CNU, Maryland, William & Mary, and Hampton for the final two spots. But the event has more significance for CNU because we have qualified behind Maryland most of the last few seasons. By beating them this week, we set ourselves up to do so again next week. Making the St. Mary’s performance of even more significance is the rapidly improving performance of our team that has many new sailors. The final plus for the weekend was the performance of Jessica Thal and Sarah-Daye Hand who went into the final two races of the weekend with Maryland a point up on us. Jess and Sarah gave us two points on Maryland in both races to let us finish in 10th place and three points ahead of Maryland. Next week is going to be exciting! But keep in mind that both Maryland and William & Mary are two of our favorite competitors and while the competition will be intense, it will also be a friendly competition that typifies our events in the South Region of MAISA.

IMAGE: Sarah-Daye, Jessica, Lynn, Taylor, and Brennan

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 27th, 2009 at 8:44 PM and is filed under 2009-2010 Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.