Stanford Sailing Wins Women’s ACCs in Boston

On October 11 and 12, the Stanford Cardinal sailing team made the long journey to Boston to sail in the Women’s Atlantic Coast Championship Finals (ACCs), hosted by MIT. The Cardinal came back home to the Pacific Coast with a convincing victory. The ACCs (not to be confused with the Atlantic Coast Conference) are an annual fall showcase event for college sailing, and generally serve as a decent preview to the College Sailing Fleet Racing Nationals in the spring.

The ACCs follow roughly the same format as fleet racing nationals, with two 18-team semifinal regattas followed by the 18-team finals. The top nine teams from each semifinal advance to the finals. For the ACCs, the bottom nine teams in the semifinals sail in their own showcase in the form of the “Atlantic Coast Tournament,” which takes place at the same time as the ACCs Finals.

Of the 18 teams that sailed in the event, Stanford was the only team from the Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference (PCCSC). The Cardinal were one of only three schools not from the New England Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (NEISA) or the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA) to qualify for the finals, along with the College of Charleston (South Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association, SAISA) and Tulane (South East Interscholastic Sailing Association, SEISA). In recent years, NEISA and MAISA have come to somewhat resemble the sailing equivalent of college football’s SEC and Big Ten conferences, in terms of the concentration of elite teams.

After finishing second (behind Roger Williams University) in their semifinal on October 4–5 at Yale, the Cardinal cruised to victory on the Charles River in Boston this past weekend. After 28 total races sailed (14 in both A and B divisions), Stanford totaled 136 points, comfortably ahead of second-place Harvard with 152. Per the regatta report on scores.collegesailing.org, racing on Saturday saw light to moderate breeze, while Sunday was gusty with puffs in the low 20s and lulls around 10 knots.

Two-time defending Women’s College Sailor of the Year Vanessa Lahrkamp (with crews Piper Blackband and Alexandra Jones) skippered for the Cardinal in A Division, recording the best score in A with 69 points. Lahrkamp and company finished outside the top five in only four out of 14 races.

Stanford head coach Chris Klevan sailed two different skippers in B Division, with Ellie Harned sailing races one through eight and Samara Walshe sailing races nine through 14. Kit Harned crewed the whole regatta in B Division. Both skippers recorded two bullets (Harned in races two and three and Walshe in races 12 and 13), though Harvard just edged them overall in B Division.

The Cardinal will sail in the Open Atlantic Coast Championship this coming weekend at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. The team is looking to win the Leonard M. Fowle Trophy for the best overall team in college sailing for the third time in four years.

You can find the full scores from the ICSA Women’s Atlantic Coast Championship Finals here.