Harvard Sailing Navigates Rough Waters in Four-Regatta Weekend

Harvard sailing faced a challenging weekend across four East Coast regattas, as lineup changes forced several less-experienced sailors to compete against tough opponents.

The Crimson finished seventh at the Open Atlantic Coast Championship (ACC) Round One qualifier in St. Mary’s City, Md., ninth at the Stu Nelson Trophy in New London, Conn., 14th at the Sister Esther Whalen Trophy in Newport, R.I., and seventh in its division at the Long Island Sound Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta in Larchmont, N.Y.

Behind those results, however, was a challenge that extended beyond the water. Senior Robby Meek, a former team captain and one of Harvard’s top skippers, is currently taking the semester off to train in Australia as he pursues a spot at the 2028 Summer Olympics. Meek won the ICSA Open Singlehanded National Championship last fall, earned All-American honors, and helped the Crimson capture the ICSA Open Team Race National Championship last spring. His absence has forced Harvard to adjust its lineups across multiple competitions.

“This was the first weekend where we really, really missed Robby,” Coach Michael O’Connor said.

The absence had a ripple effect throughout the Crimson’s roster. Junior Kate Danielson and senior Peyton Hadfield, initially slated to compete at the Stu Nelson Trophy, were instead moved to the Open ACC qualifier, while freshman Louise Martin shifted from the Sister Esther Whalen Trophy to the Stu Nelson.

“We kind of had to move everybody up into regattas that were more competitive than they had been scheduled to sail in,” O’Connor explained. “So we knew that our results were going to be not what we wanted this weekend.”

At the Open ACC qualifier, Harvard placed seventh within the field of 17 teams with 203 points, just two behind sixth-place Tufts and seven behind fifth-place Dartmouth. Stanford won the regatta with 108 points.

Despite the team’s uneven finish, several Crimson sailors delivered strong individual performances.

In the A Division, junior Harrison Strom and freshman Zia Zucker recorded four top-four finishes across their first 10 races, including a victory in Race Six. Strom later competed alongside Hadfield for two races before reuniting with Zucker for the final two. Harvard finished the division with 114 points.

The Crimson found greater consistency in the B Division, where sophomore Jacob Posner and junior Amelie Zucker earned six top-seven finishes in their first 10 races, including a victory in Race Two and three runner-up performances.

Danielson took over as skipper for the final four races, helping Harvard finish second and fourth in its final two outings. The B Division squad finished with 89 points.

O’Connor praised Posner and Zucker’s speed but pointed to execution as an area for improvement.

“Amelie and Jacob have really good boat speed in a range of conditions,” he said. “They’re smart, but sometimes their execution on the starting line and turning the corners, especially at the top of the course and the upwind marks, needs some work.”

For O’Connor, the challenge is not necessarily making the Crimson faster, but helping its sailors make better decisions when competing against the nation’s strongest programs.

“They definitely have the wheels, the boat speed to hang with the best teams,” he said. “They just need to be more, probably a little bit more conservative at times, and be able to stick in seventh place instead of trying to go for fifth.”

The qualifier’s results will not carry over to the Open ACC Championship, giving the Harvard team a fresh opportunity to improve when it returns to championship competition.

At the Stu Nelson Trophy, the Crimson placed ninth among 16 teams with 112 points in a regatta shortened by inconsistent winds.

Seniors Zoey Ziskind and Christina Chen led Harvard’s A Division effort with 28 points, highlighted by a third-place finish in their third race. Freshman Grace Montgomery and senior JJ Drummond added 33 points in the B Division, while Martin and freshman Noelle Brighton finished with 51 in the C Division.

Only four races were completed in the A and C Divisions, with five in the B Division, limiting opportunities for teams to recover from difficult finishes.

Meanwhile, at the Sister Esther Whalen Trophy, the Crimson placed 14th out of 17 teams with 235 points.

Freshman Max Wolfensberger and junior Mizuki Yashiro provided Harvard’s strongest performances in the A Division, recording eight top-eight finishes across 10 races. The pair finished second in the opening race and third in Races Three and Eight, totaling 72 points.

Freshmen Ross Wilson and Whitney Pickett competed in the B Division, finishing with 163 points as the Crimson continued to give its developing sailors opportunities against experienced collegiate competition.

O’Connor emphasized that although the results were not what the Harvard team had hoped for, the experience could prove valuable as the season progresses.

“Some of our first-year players got to play. Some hadn’t sailed a regatta yet, and it showed,” he reflected. “But it’s still a very good experience for them, and it’s still something that the best development happens in regattas.”

For those younger sailors, facing stronger competition also provides a clearer understanding of what it takes to succeed at the collegiate level.

“They know better what they have to work on and get better at,” O’Connor said, emphasizing the value of gaining firsthand experience against tougher competition.

Harvard also ventured beyond its usual collegiate dinghy competition at the Long Island Sound Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta, where senior skipper Xavier Ayala-Vermont led the Crimson aboard Arcadia, a Lyman Morse 46. Unlike the small, two-person boats typically used in collegiate racing, the 46-foot offshore sailboat requires a larger crew working together to handle the boat’s sails and navigation.

The team finished seventh in the seven-boat Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) division, which uses a handicap system to account for differences in boat performance, with 45 points, recording its best finish of fifth in Race Four.

According to O’Connor, the conditions were less than ideal for the boat, which was designed for stronger winds and longer offshore races.

“The weather didn’t really cooperate very well,” the coach said. “The wind was really light, so it was pretty hard to be competitive in that boat.”

Still, the event offered a different kind of learning opportunity, as Harvard’s sailors worked alongside experienced alumni and gained exposure to larger-boat racing.

“It’s a good opportunity regardless of how they finished,” O’Connor said. “They learned a lot, and they had a great time.”

Across all four regattas, the weekend underscored a challenge the Crimson has faced throughout the fall: turning promising individual performances into consistent results against top competition.

“We need to stick to our process, and we need to give it some time and get some reps,” O’Connor said. “Mistakes are amplified when you’re sailing against really good people.”

Looking ahead, Harvard has a lighter schedule, with just two regattas on Oct. 17-18. The women’s team will travel to St. Mary’s for the Women’s ACC Championship Final, while the open team will head to Dartmouth for the Captain Hurst Trophy.

The women’s squad enters the championship regatta after winning its qualifying round the previous weekend with 57 points, well ahead of second-place Roger Williams, which finished with 92. Although those points will not carry over, the successful performance gave Harvard momentum heading into one of its biggest competitions of the fall.

With fewer regattas to staff, O’Connor expects Harvard to have greater flexibility in assembling its lineups, even as the team continues to adjust to Meek’s absence.

For the Crimson, the focus remains on improving its execution, particularly at the beginning of races.

“We need to be able to start so that we can hold our lane,” O’Connor said. “If we can consistently do that, we will be fine because we know how to make the rest of the decisions around the race course.”

And despite a challenging weekend, the coach remains optimistic about what Harvard can accomplish as championship season approaches.

“If our execution at the beginning of the race is good,” he said, “I think we can finish on the podium.”

—Staff writer Tamar H. Scheinfeld can be reached at [email protected].