No. 5 Bulldogs to Compete at ICSA/Gill Dinghy National Championships

June 1, 2008

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The No. 5 Bulldog coed sailing team is set to compete at the ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy National Championships hosted by Salve Regina, Brown and New York Yacht Club in Newport, R.I. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The Bulldogs, who qualified for the national championships by placing second at the national championship semi-finals on Apr. 26 and 27, look to improve on their third-place performance in 2007.

The ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy National Championships will be held in 420's, which will help the Bulldog sailors as they are very used to practicing in the boats at the McNay Family Sailing Center. Eighteen races will be completed over three days, with A Division and B Division sailing concurrently in boats supplied by Salve Regina and Brown, respectively. Depending on the weather conditions, windward-leeward and triangle courses will be used.

The Bulldogs have performed successfully at the national championship in the past. In 2007, the team placed third at the championships behind the College of Charleston and Dartmouth, both of which have lost their top sailors from their 2007 squads to graduation. The Bulldogs, on the other hand, return the sailors who sailed the vast majority of the races at the 2007 nationals. Seniors Zachary Brown and Abigail Coplin along with junior Grace Becton and sophomore Thomas Barrows are all returning All-Americans and will represent the team at nationals.

In 2007, Barrows and Coplin sailed very impressively, winning the B Division title and the Robert Allan, Jr. Trophy by 25 points. The B Division win was the first time since 1976 that a Bulldog sailor had won their division at coed nationals. The third-place overall finish was also the best for the coed sailing team since a second-place finish in 1981. The Elis have not won a national title in coed sailing since 1975. Brown and Becton placed 10th in A Division in 2007. While the team missed out on qualifying for the national championships in 2006, the team placed ninth in 2005 behind a strong second-place finish in B Division by Brown, then a freshman.

The ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy Championships will feature 18 of the top teams in fleet racing from around the country. Each team first qualified from their district championships for one of two national championship semi-finals, which were held on Apr. 26 and 27 at Hobart and William Smith and at USC. These 18 team semi-finals qualified the top nine teams from each semi-final to the national championship. In previous years, teams merely qualified for the national championship based upon their performance at district championships, but the new qualifying system ensures that the level of competition is at its highest at the national championships.

All 18 teams competing at the national championships are ranked in the top 18 nationally and 11 of the 18 teams competing this year also competed in 2007. The Bulldogs are one of the top returning teams. No. 1 Boston College placed fifth in 2007, No. 2 Georgetown placed eighth in 2007, No. 3 St. Mary's College of Maryland placed sixth in 2007 and No. 4 Brown placed seventh in 2007. College of Charleston, the 2007 champion, is currently ranked sixth while Dartmouth, second in 2007, failed to qualify for the national championship this year.

The Eli sailors will begin competition on Monday afternoon. Practice will occur from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. before racing begins at 12 p.m. The Bulldogs, who have not competed in a regatta since May 3 and 4, have been training for the past month with this one regatta in mind, an advantage for the team as much of the competition has had to split time over the past month training for both the ICSA/Gill Dinghy National Championship and the ICSA/APS Team Race National Championship.

The teams competing at the national championship are:

Boston College

Brown University

College of Charleston

Connecticut College

Georgetown University

Harvard University

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

University of Pennsylvania

Roger Williams University

University of South Florida

Stanford University

St. Mary's College of Maryland

SUNY Maritime College

USMMA-Kings Point

University of Vermont

University of Wisconsin

Yale University

Report filed by Caleb Dorfman '09, Yale Sports Publicity