New England Dinghy Tournament

First of all a HUGE thanks to Salve for yet again allowing the UNH Wildcats to host the New England Dinghy Tournament. Ice is still not out but soon.

Saturday greeted sailors at the New England Dinghy Tournament with knarly conditions. The water was 44 degrees, the wind started from the NNW and choppy water with 18 and bounced between 15-20 with gusts to 25 making it feel as though we were back in NH on a frozen lake. Capsizes were immediate, right out of the basin. After competitors settled in things looked much better with minimal capsizing. Mid afternoon in race 5A a downspeed race occured and sailors were challenged to shift gears allowing the lake sailors to strut their stuff. Late in the afternoon the Rivah Chuck Phenomenon occurred and the breeze did a 180 shifting to the South by late afternoon providing flat water sailing. Expecting very breezy conditions tomorrow as well, building throughout the day.

We sailed 8 A races and 6 B races. Many of the races had close finishes and lots of 'good racing' was heard after the finishes. Many thanks to sailors who helped out from UNH, Emily Chase Master Patient Scorer, Andrew Angione Mark Motorboat Extraordinaire for the many rescues assisted by Ben from Middlebury who also assisted and took hundreds of pictures, Molly Cravens who helped significantly in the RC boat learning that its colder than you think to be out there all day not moving around much and Mike Horn for hearing one redress and being the NEISA rep for the weekend.

A couple of comments, coaches, please take note. Sailors coming to a venue without lifejackets is a no no. Sailors racing in frigid and high winds with only spray gear or shorty wetsuits is an accident and liability for everyone. That's just foolish. Wearing your hoodie inside a drysuit with the hood out is risky to you when and if you capsize (yes your drysuit did get quite wet inside and caused some severe problems) to your team as well as the event in general. It really behooves all of us to make sure our players are dressed for success. There were quite a few extremely wet and close to hypothermic sailors today. Boats had to be sailed in by others. Please make your on the water experience a safe one. It impacts not just you, but your team and the host and the venue.

Today the breeze greeted sailors again from the S shifting left towards for the last set. Temps were a bit warmer in the high 30' and peeking (just barely) at 40 degrees around noon. A trapezoid with some tight reaches allowed hoops and hollers from sailors in the building breeze. Only a few capsizes and a loose out haul caused challenges for some. The day started with 12-15 building to 15-18 with gusts to 25.

If by chance you picked up a drysuit by accident on Saturday only to discover once you got home that yours had been picked up by your teammate please contact Bates as a teammate lost theirs on Saturday.

http://scores.collegesailing.org/s13/new-england-dinghy-tournament/

Congratulations to PC and Weslyan for qualifying for the New England Championships next weekend.

The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.

The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.