The dates had been sitting in the back of our minds for a full year. April 16th and 17th, 2011. The America Trophy. The brightest stage in the biggest and most competitive college sailing conference in the country. Our team felt we belonged there, and in the end, we proved once again that we did. But reaching this plateau, and then being ready to face the best of the best, was a battle that lasted much longer than a few days or weeks. 

    MAISA, the Mid-Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association, consists of 45 teams hailing from as far south as Norfolk, Virginia, and and as far north as Kingston, Ontario. Some are large, well-funded powerhouses such as the U.S. Naval Academy and St. Mary’s College. Others, such as your GW Colonials, use whatever resources they can find to put up the best fight possible. Despite their diversity, all of the teams are united by one thing: When April arrives, they each want to be one of the 18 teams represented at the America Trophy, the season’s conference championship and nationals qualifier. For the non-varsity teams present, to get in is a rare victory in and of itself. For a student-run team like ours to get in twice in a row, and show marked improvement the second time, is something special. 

    Last year, in our first-ever appearance at the America Trophy, hosted by Cornell, GW had a tough regatta. With wind speeds in the high teens, temperatures in the 40’s, driving rain, a shifty venue, and even some occasional hail, it was sometimes difficult to focus on racing up to our potential. It was a good learning experience, and made us hungry to return. 

    This Fall, we set to work to make that happen. Of the seven teams from the MAISA South Division to qualify last year, including GW, five were varsity, (Georgetown, Navy, Old Dominion, St. Mary’s, Hampton) and the sixth, the club team from UVA, had been consistently finishing ahead of us at each event. To win that seventh spot again, we would have to be very much on our game. For a second year running, our team practiced four days a week, three hours a day, and went to one or two racing events every weekend of the Fall and Spring. We made it our goal to out-work every other club team in MAISA, and it started to show. We qualified for the War Memorial, the Fall Championships, and flashed some speed up at chilly Hobart and William Smith. Our women’s team, the members of which are also integral parts of our co-ed team, made it all the way to the ICSA Women’s Atlantic Coast Championship. Then, at our critical South Division Qualifier for the America Trophy the first weekend in April, the effort paid off. Finishing second behind UVA and ahead of Hampton, GW was headed back to the big show. 

    This year, 2009 National Champion St. Mary’s College hosted the America Trophy. When we pulled up to their impressive sailing center last Saturday, at first it felt like deja-vu, weather-wise. A formidable storm was barreling its way up the Atlantic coast, bringing with it high winds, rain, and even a few tornados! NOAA issued a severe weather warning for all maritime activity in the southern Maryland area. All of the teams present knew that Saturday would be a day to remember, and it did not disappoint. 

    Sailing out for their first set in A-Division, GW A-Division skipper Will Ricketson ’11 and crew Dickie Sant’ 13 were greeted by a beautiful sight. The gorgeous 125’ wooden schooner Spirit of Massachusetts glided into the St. Mary’s River basin to seek a safe anchorage from the coming gale. For Will, a Boston-area native, there could not have been a more encouraging omen. In B-Division, GW sported an all-senior lineup of Meredith Carroll ’11 and Mike Shea ’11, experience being paramount in such difficult weather. 

    Out on the racecourse, the conditions were the most extreme any MAISA team had seen that year. The normally calm and sheltered waters of the wide river basin had been transformed into a snarling and foamy maelstrom. Hats flew off heads, aluminum spars groaned under the strain, and sailors used every ounce of their physical strength to keep their boats from capsizing. Conditioning is paramount in such weather, and this is precisely where hundreds of hours of practice pay off. 

    It was in this environment, against the best boats from each school, and in his last regatta, that Will had probably the best performance of his four-year college sailing career. With Dickie working incredibly hard for hours on end to hold the boat down, they recorded finishes of 7th, 3rd, 8th, 6th, and 6th, with three other races in mid-fleet. Many of these races were just about surviving to the finish, and even boats manned by varsity All-Americans were crashing into the water. However, Will and Dickie stayed upright throughout, and were probably one of the five fastest boats on the upwind legs. At the end of Saturday, GW was in 9th overall in A-Division, the only non-varsity boat in the top half of the fleet. Over the course of the regatta, after 17 races, GW finished in the top ten seven times in A-Division, after doing so only once at last year’s event. Will’s point total from the year before, where only one less race was held, was also 62 points better, a significant improvement. A big part of this was due to the amazing work of his regular crew, Kaitlin Denney ’14, who sailed with him all of Sunday and helped him improve throughout the year. It was a great way to close out his college sailing career.

    On Sunday, it was GW B-division’s turn to shine. This time sailing with Anne Laterra ’11 in lighter winds, Meredith immediately got off on the right track with a 7th place in the first race. However, what happened next stunned the entire assembly of teams. Getting a tremendous start at the pin end of starting line in the second race, Meredith and Anne perfectly anticipated and reacted to the shifting breeze, and crossed the finish line... with nobody in front of them. A first place finish for the Colonials! This would have been a great moment on its own. A bullet in a major championship is something to remember forever. But then they did it AGAIN, in the very next race! With both the GW and Georgetown A-Division boats (and Georgetown coach Mike Callahan) cheering from behind the finish line, GW earned its second consecutive race win. “Did Meredith and Anne just win another one?” was the excited question from All-American skipper Charlie Buckingham (Georgetown) to Will as they both watched it unfold. The only other boats in B-Division to record consecutive bullets at the regatta were Georgetown and Hobart, who finished 1st and 2nd, respectively, in the division overall. 

Despite the excitement, and despite the pride we all felt at competing at the America Trophy, there was one bittersweet element to the weekend. Seniors Will, Meredith and Anne have been competing at GW’s front-line events together since the Fall of their freshmen year. Rarely in college sailing does a core group of sailors stay together for so long, or improve so dramatically over four years. Together, they supported one another, made tough sacrifices, helped each other improve, and fought their way from the bottom to the top third of the conference. This regatta would be their last competing together. Meredith and Anne will represent GW at MAISA Women’s Championship next week, but for “Padre”, as he is known to the team, it was the end of the road. All in all, they had one hell of a run together. 

At the close of racing on Sunday, GW finished in 12th overall, which represents the highest ranking ever for GW’s co-ed sailing team. Nine of the teams who finished ahead of us are varsity, and another is a club team that enjoys a full-time coach and significant school funding. Only UPenn, a talented club that went to nationals in 2009, finished ahead of us. We also beat UVA, and avenged our 2nd place finish at the South Qualifier. Overall, our result was a great accomplishment for a GW team that essentially started over from scratch four years ago.

Special thanks go out to three people. First to sophomore crew and team president Skye Kussmann ’13, who went to the regatta as a medium-breeze crew option but did not get to sail. Skye provided invaluable support all weekend by keeping the sailors on the water healthy and prepared. Jay Sterne, who volunteers his time to coach us whenever he can, went hundreds of miles and many hours out of his way to coach us on Saturday morning, despite being needed at a wedding later that weekend. Finally, more thanks go to out to Georgetown Coach Mike Callahan, who coached us from Saturday afternoon until the end of the regatta. Mike has been among the biggest supporters of our team since we appeared at his practice site one day in 2007. Seeing us do so well, and come so far, brought him a good deal of satisfaction, and we as a team owe him a huge debt. 

So the 2011 America Trophy is in the books. Hopefully we can all be proud of what the GW Sailing Team has already accomplished this year. Remember though, the season is not over yet! Cheer on our women’s team as they compete at Navy next weekend!

Thanks,

-Will Ricketson ’11


Full America Trophy Scores:
http://scores.collegesailing.info/s11/america/