Yachtsmen Face Tough Schedule After Disheartening First Loss

It looks like another uncertain year for the Harvard Yachting Club. In the wake of last Sunday's disappointing second in the Coast Guard Quadrangular Invitational Regatta the Club faces two crucial races this weekend. Saturday the sailors enter the first round of the New England Sloop Sailing Championships, and the next day host Yale and Princeton for the Big Three Title Series.

Princeton, which boasts an outstanding skipper in Bill Cox, Jr., and two other excellent men, Spencer Kellogg and Ed Greenberg, is nearly everybody's favorite to defeat the Crimson team of Carter Ford, Mike Lehmann and Peter Farrow. A strong contingent of Yalies headed by New England Monotype Champion Bob Spitz could slip by Harvard to gain second, however.

The Crimson's success on Sunday will depend to a large extent on how the team fares the day before, when they return to New London for the New England Sloop Championships. Ford will skipper a Raven crew which includes Peter Drake, Mike Horn, and Rock Pring. Ford skippered the crew which won last year's championship, and the pressure is on for the Crimson crew this year. Ford hopes skillful spinnaker work will make the difference in this year's competition. Also racing in this first heat will be boats from Babson, B.U., the Coast Guard Academy, Middlebury, Northeastern, and Wesleyan.

After the race, the team members must return to Cambridge from New London by car, and then try to sandwich in a little sleep between the time they arrive here and the start of the Big Three Competition for the Knapp Trophy, which will be held at M.I.T. How successful they are in doing this will be a significant factor in their success against the Tigers.

Last Sunday's disheartening defeat at the hands of the Coast Guard has, for the most part, been taken philosophically by the team members, who now feel that there are other, more important things to worry about.