Yale Athletics

Yale sailors returned to the helm this weekend, placing second at their first regatta of the spring season as they look forward to more team-based racing. 

Sunday, March 5 saw the coed sailors race in two regattas — the Sharpe Trophy Team Race in Providence, Rhode Island, and the Thames River Team Race in New London, Connecticut. The largely successful day of racing marked the start of the spring season for the sailors, who will now focus on more team race events. 

“I’m very excited to finally get back on the water after a long break during winter,” said skipper Nathan Sih ’25. “I am looking forward to getting back into a regular rhythm of practices and regattas as we lead up to nationals at the end of the school year.”

The sailors missed out on the first-place title at the Sharpe Trophy Team Race behind rival Harvard, who ranked first in the ICSA Fall 2022 Rankings, where Yale ranked second.

As the spring season starts up, the team will be focused more on team racing, which is primarily three-on-three races, rather than the fleet races seen in the fall. However, the national championships for both types of races are at the end of the academic year, so they must “stay sharp” in both events, said Jack Egan ’25. 

The team in Providence included Carmen Cowles ’25 with Ben Markert ’23, Egan with Catherine Webb ’23, and Teddy Nicolosi ’24 with Anisha Arcot ’23. The Bulldogs won six of their races, but their loss to Harvard forced them to settle for second place on the day. Sih joined Egan in Providence towards the end of the day, but the planned races were not finished due to a protest that delayed the seeding of the Final Four. 

According to Egan, the spring season brings more wind, challenging conditions and even more competitive racing, so he and his teammates have been practicing on the water whenever warm weather permits. 

“Hopefully, we don’t have to keep the dry suits on for too long this year!” the skipper said.

The group in-state had a more difficult time and earned fifth out of eight teams.

Megan Grimes ’24 noted how much more “technical and strategy-oriented” team racing is than fleet racing. For this reason, the team will be headed to St. Petersburg, Florida, on Friday to train over spring break. 

The Sunshine State’s warm weather will allow the team to “get some more time on the water and kick start [our] season,” Sih said. 

This will be their second team trip to Florida this academic year, as they also trained there after the fall season. That training trip was characterized by “numerous team meetings to talk about team racing strategy,” said Grimes.

This season’s viewers should expect the coed A team to place consistently on the podium, led by Egan, Webb, Nicolosi and Arcot. The team is also expected to have a highly competitive B team at many other events. 

Both teams will be back in action in Maryland during spring break at the St. Mary’s Team Race, followed by the Friis and Boston University Team Races the following weekend. 

“We are hoping to improve upon our season last year as the team matures,” said Grimes. “The competition in NEISA is high, so we should have competitive meets on the weekends leading up to Nationals at the end of the spring.”

Nationals will take place in Kings Point, New York.