Victorian Urn Women's Intersectional Regatta
This past weekend, October 29-30th, our women’s team traveled to Cambridge to compete in The Victorian Urn intersectional regatta at Harvard. Irene Jacqz, SEAS’13, and Ali Rosenfeld, BC’13, sailed in the A-division and Mary Margaret Meehan, CC’15. and Rebecca Newman, BC’12, sailed in the B-division. Both divisions sailed in Harvard’s FJs on the Charles River.
On Saturday, the breeze was coming from the east-northeast and ranged from 5-17 knots. The breeze was fairly strong and picked up in huge puffs for most of the day. However, it was only slightly shifty as the wind was coming relatively down the river, rather than through Boston’s buildings. Each division sailed eight races in W-4 and W-3 courses. At the end of the day a storm came through giving the area several inches of snow. The Sunday start time was delayed until 10:30 to allow teams to cope with getting to the boathouse after the storm. Sunday’s wind was crazy, ranging from 4-17 knots out of the north-northwest with huge blasts from the northwest and smaller blasts from the north-northeast. Each division sailed four races on W-4 and W-5 courses. The conditions were extremely unpredictable and shifty.
Overall, the weekend was a great learning experience for all of our sailors. We had intense competition from the other women’s teams and it was great to sail against such experienced athletes. Notable moments include the B-division’s turtle into the bank of the Charles and getting stuck in a foot of mud and having to siphon gas into the car on the way back since the storm had wiped out power and gas stations all throughout Connecticut. A huge thanks goes to the Rosenfeld family who provided us with housing, delicious food, and emergency roadside assistance the entire weekend.