June 8, 2012

Austin, Texas. (June 8, 2012) - Today was the last day of theICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy National Championship, the last of three highlyanticipated spring college sailing National Championships. The eventswere co-hosted by the University of Texas Sailing Team and the AustinYacht Club on Lake Travis. Light and shifty winds made for difficultconditions today, but it did not stop the Hoyas from dominating theregatta. Leading all three days of the event, Georgetown Universitywon the National Title and the Henry A. Morss Memorial Trophy.
Competitors arrived this morning around 9 a.m. and sailing waspostponed for a lack of wind at 10 a.m. The weather was cloudy, hotand humid. Forty-five minutes later wind began to fill in andA-division hit the water for their first race. The winds were about3-5 knots out of the northeast. The wind direction was similar toyesterday, but the shifts were long and spotty.
Roger Williams University won the first A-division race, 11 A andHarvard University won the next race in the set. B-division hit thewater for their first set of the day in a northeast breeze around 3-5knots.
The cloud cover was shifting the wind around and race 13 in A-divisionfaced the brunt of the unstable conditions. The race was abandonedthree times before the wind direction and speed held steady. Thefourth try was a success, but by this time it was 4 p.m. and time inthe event was running out. This was the last race for A-division inthe regatta. The University of Wisconsin-Madison won the race by about43 seconds followed by Yale University and Tufts University.
The last race of the day and the event was 13B, which had one generalrecall. Georgetown was leading the race in the beginning, but wasovertaken by Brown University. Brown won the race followed by Yale andthe College of Charleston.
Three races in each division were completed today for a total of 13 ineach division for the regatta.
Georgetown sailed a solid and consistent regatta to win the title andthe Henry A. Morss Memorial Trophy awarded to the winning team. Thetrophy was donated by a group of nationally known yachtsmen as amemorial to Henry A. Morss, a Boston yachtsman and 1907 Bermuda Racewinner, as well as an MIT alumnus and benefactor."Georgetown approached each day of the event like three differentregattas, " said Mike Callahan Georgetown's head coach. "The sailorsstarted each day fresh and did not worry about other teams, they justfocused on their own sailing".
Typically at the end of a regatta the leading team has to be carefulof close competitors, however Georgetown had a significant lead oversecond and clinched the regatta before the last race. They finishedthe regatta 32 points ahead of second place.
"It was fun to go into the last race winning the event," Callahansays. This is the second time Georgetown has won the ICSA/GillChampionship and the fifth time they have placed in it in the lastnine years.
Callahan is especially proud of the seniors who competed in the event,B-division sailors, Evan Aras '12 (Annapolis, Md.) and Katherine Canty'12 (Vero Beach, Fla.). "I am happy for the seniors to win a nationaltitle in their last year of college," he says. Aras was always able tocatch up when he fell behind and Chris Barnard '13 (Newport Beach,Calif.) and Hilary Kenyon '13 (Wayzata, Minn.) in A-division were rocksolid, Callahan says.
"Georgetown had good starts, they were solid tactically and alwaysseemed to do the right thing," Bill Healy, Yale's assistant coachsaid..
For additional regatta information and results visit the eventwebsite: http://2012nationals.collegesailing.org/.
FINAL RESULTS1. Georgetown University, 1372. Roger Williams University, 1693. Yale University, 1714. College of Charleston, 2075. Harvard University, 2136. Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 2317. Boston College, 2318. Stanford University, 2469. Tufts University, 25210. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 25511. University of South Florida, 26312. Boston University, 26413. University of Miami, 26714. Dartmouth College, 27715. Brown University, 28416. U.S. Naval Academy, 30617. Old Dominion University, 31818. SUNY Maritime College, 358