(Fort Worth, Texas)- Hosted by the Forth Worth Boat Club, this year's
College Match Racing Nationals were sailed in J/22s. In the end, the
Tufts University "Jumbos Sailing Team" won the event.The Tufts University Jumbos team of Will Haeger, Paula Grasberger, Solomon Krevans and David Liebenberg, overcame a first race loss in the best of three finals to overtake Yale University to win their first college match racing crown. A pre-start penalty and late start was too much for Tufts to overcome in race one but Yale was over early in race two which set the stage for the finale. Tufts held a slight advantage at the start and went right into covering mode. Yale’s double tacks were initially hard for Tufts to cover but the Jumbos settled down in the 10-13 knot Southerly and pulled away with superior speed and boat handling the rest of the way through the windward-leeward twice around track on Eagle Mountain Lake.
The
Fort Worth Boat Club in Lake Worth, Texas provided ten perfectly
matched J-22s for the ten national finalists. The initial round-robin
in a light air Easterly saw St. Mary’s College win a three-way tie break
over Tufts and Georgetown. Quarter-finals were then staged on day two
in a more moderate Southerly as Michigan bested Tulane in the 9th place
consolation races. All the quarters were decided in three straight but
one as St. Mary’s beat Cal Maritime, Tufts bested Eckerd, Georgetown
took Washington and Yale, who overcame a first race lose, came back to
put away 5th place finisher So. Florida.
Yale,
with Chris Segerblom at the helm won a hard fought semi-final over St.
Mary’s, 3-1 while Tufts eliminated Georgetown with skipper Nevin Snow,
3-0. The middle race featured a bizarre finish with Tufts holding a
slight lead but a penalty to burn from start to finish. With the brakes
on hard despite spinnakers up, Tufts parked in front of Georgetown next
to the finish line. Georgetown couldn’t quite slow down enough and
tried to take room at the committee boat. After spinning around
Georgetown’s spinnaker grazed the RC boat before finishing in reverse
right behind Tufts. After the smoke cleared Tufts was declared winner
via offsetting penalties. Georgetown went on the defeat St. Mary’s,
with skipper Jake Ledow, 2-1 in the petit finals setting up the exciting
finals between Tufts and Yale.In the end, the Final Results were Tufts, then Yale, Georgetown, St Mary's and South Florida to round out the top five overall. For more college sailing results.
