This weekend, the sailing team sent athletes across New England. Some trekked to the Mrs. Hurst Bowl at Dartmouth. Others attended the Hood Trophy at Tufts, the Eagle Invite at Boston College and the Sherman Hoyt Trophy hosted by the Bears on the Seekonk River.
The Bears — reigning winners of the Leonard M. Fowle trophy, an award given to the Intercollegiate Sailing Association’s top overall team — finished within the top five at all four events.
“It was a solid weekend,” Head Coach John Mollicone wrote in an email to The Herald. He credited “the depth of the team” as the key reason they were able to fight “for podium positions in every event out of 17-plus teams.”
At the Sherman Hoyt Trophy, hosted by Brown, the Bears’ first squad finished second in each division and Bruno finished second overall, with Roger Williams University pulling ahead in the last race.
“While we would have liked to have ultimately won this weekend, I am still extremely proud of our second-place finish at the Sherman Hoyt,” Guthrie Braun ’26, one of the sailors for the Trophy, wrote in an email to The Herald. “I would credit the quality of our practices leading into the event for our success. Being able to train at the regatta venue, with similar conditions as we had this weekend, no doubt gave us an edge.”
Adaptation proved to be the theme of the weekend, both in competitive preparation and managing rough weather.
“The changing weather conditions, especially on Sunday with some small storm cells moving through, disrupted the status quo on the racecourse,” Braun wrote. “The people who were able to adjust their strategy to these changes ultimately performed the best.”
According to Mollicone, the skill of adjustment was an important one for Bears racing on the road as well.
“It’s hard to prepare perfectly for all the different venues, boats and conditions,” Mollicone wrote. “Luckily, our home venue throws a lot of different conditions at us in a given week of practice. We have two different types of boats, and our sailors are pretty good at adapting to what's thrown at them.”
The Bears’ contingents sent to Boston also performed well. At the Hood Trophy at Tufts, the Bears finished fifth in the A-division and third in the B-division, securing a fifth place finish overall out of 20 teams. At the Eagle Invite at Boston College, the Bears finished third out of six teams with combined division results.
Bruno sent two women’s teams to the Mrs. Hurst Bowl hosted at Dartmouth. The two teams finished fifth and seventh overall out of 17 teams. The B-division team of Laura Hamilton ’27 and Katherine Majette ’27 took second place in its division, only five points off of first.
“The light and shifty wind conditions at Dartmouth were quite challenging and different from what we typically sail in at Brown” Katharine Doble ’26, one of the A-division sailors at Dartmouth, wrote in an email to The Herald. “Finishing fifth place is a good start for our team and our B-division team of Laura Hamilton and Katherine Majette sailed a great weekend and played a key role in this result.”
“New England college sailing regattas are often held on lakes and rivers, where the geography makes for big shifts in direction, and the fall wind conditions are quite light” Doble added. “Patience, versatility and nailing what you can control is crucial in challenging conditions.”
“We are trying to get better when the wind is lighter and shiftier,” Coach Mollicone wrote. “It's still early in the season, so we have a lot of work to do to get better in a wide range of wind conditions.”
Brown Sailing will be back on the water this weekend, sending teams to the Moody Trophy hosted at the University of Rhode Island, the Smith Trophy hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Boston University Invite and the Danmark Trophy hosted by the United States Coast Guard Academy.
“I am going to take a lot of positives from this weekend,” Braun wrote. “We have a lot of talent on the roster and still a lot of room for improvement. I think we are all excited to keep getting better and defend the Fowle Trophy for the second year in a row.”
