NEISA Open FR Champs/Coast Guard Alumni Bowl

It was a beautiful day for racing on day one of the NEISA Open Fleet Race Championship for the Coast Guard Alumni Bowl. Temps in the 70's and lots of sun. Racing started around 12:30pm with a building South/SE breeze for the first four races in each division, ranging from 8-16 knots. Races 5 and 6 in each division saw the wind go to the West/Southwest and get unstable and lighter coming off the land. The wind went back to the South/SE for races 7 and 8 for both divisions to finish the day and built once again to 16 knots and was champagne sailing with some nice waves. All courses were W4 and one W5 with A-division in 2025 Zim FJs and B-division in 2022 Zim 420E's. Two protests were heard resulting in one DSQ for Coast Guard A-division in race 2A and the other protest was denied.

Competitors arrived to big winds and colder temps on day two as a cold front came through. Winds were out of the North/NW between 18-25 knots with some puffs in the low 30's, temps in the 50's. The decision was made at the beginning of the day to sail only 420s and preserve the new FJs for the ICSA Team Race Nationals which begins on Thursday. It was the right decision as it stayed really windy all day and a number of boats flipped and two rudders were lost that were not tied in properly. No protests filed and there were two breakdowns resulting in redress given to Dartmouth A-division in race 10 for a broken rudder line and Coast Guard A-division for race 10 for a mainsheet that ripped. All courses were fast paced W4 and W5's with four races total on the day for each division by 2:40pm, totaling 12 races in each division for the weekend. Competitors handled the conditions well despite the high winds and gusty, shifty conditions.

Thank you to all of the Brown sailors who helped out (Leyton Borcherding '25, Reese Corckran '28, Sasha Gordon '28, Anna Steffen '25, and Marin Soderberg '28), our great group of Judges (Chief Umpire John Mooney, Taylor Eastman, Alex Kitay, and William Price), Rob Migliaccio for taking awesome photos on Saturday, and to Mike Kalin (MIT) for being the NEISA Rep. Thanks to Harvard for loaning a powerboat for the judges as well.

Congratulations to Harvard University on winning the Coast Guard Alumni Bowl for the NEISA Open Fleet Race Championship and to Boston College on finishing second. Both team receive automatic qualification to the 2025 College Sailing Open Fleet Race National Championship in May at the St. Mary's College of Maryland.

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.