The weekend of May 8-9th, ten Northwestern University Sailors and coach Arthur Blodgett headed up to Madison, WI to attempt to qualify for the ICSA Team Race Nationals. The conditions of first day of sailing were “not pleasant”. Sailors, volunteers, race committee members, and umpires endured very cold temperatures, wind speeds of 18-23 knots, large waves for lake Mendota, and two hail storms.
Seven teams competed and two round robins were completed on the first day. St. Thomas, Ohio State, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Notre Dame, University of Minnesota, and Northwestern were all present. In the first round robin, Northwestern won 4 races against St. Thomas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Minnesota. Northwestern unfortunately lost to Wisconsin and Michigan. In the second round robin, St. Thomas retired due to the cold, so Northwestern only sailed 5 times. This time, Northwestern only lost to Wisconsin and brought their total wins up to 8. At the end of the day on Saturday, Wisconsin was in first with 11 wins while Minnesota and Northwestern had 8 wins each with the tiebreaker going to Northwestern. Saturday was a long day and Northwestern was ahead by a sliver.
Sunday presented very different conditions. It was 60 degrees and there was no wind the entire day. Racing was postponed and the day of sailing was eventually abandoned at noon. With this end of racing, Northwestern officially qualified for the ICSA Team Race Nationals! The entire team got in a 420 for a celebratory photo. The team enjoyed Ian’s Pizza and the ice cream in the Wisco union before the car ride home.
Congrats to Tod Reynolds, Nina Lincoff, Kim Wieczner, Maija Mikkila, Michael Cornew, Geoff Pedrick, Andrew Wein, Noah Aldonas, Bryan Stenson, and Allie Gullquist for qualifying for Team Race Nationals!
-Michael Cornew, WCAS 2013
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment