Greetings Sportsfans!
The 2022 ICSA spring season is just about underway, and we here at Sail1Design, along with everyone else, are excited to get back on the water! We are especially excited to introduce our new S1D/ICSA Team Race Ranking Panel: Ken Legler (Tufts), John Mollicone (Brown), Thomas Barrows (Yale) and Chris Klevan (Stanford). We do have room for one or two more panelists; if you are a college sailing coach and would like to learn more about joining, please send us a note (mail to: editor@sail1design.com) !
One new very exciting addition this year: the ICSA Women’s Team Racing Championship! We will attempt to track these teams and results as well, as we work to get up to speed with COED Team Racing. Please scroll down for our very first, never-seen-before ICSA Women’s Team Race Pre-Season Rankings!
Yes, our first pre-season spring 2022 Rankings are LIVE! Remember, you can click on any ranked team to read coach comments/sound bites they may have written. We don’t over-bake the calculus here; rankings are based quite simply on the average of each Coach Panelist’s individual rank. Nothing’s perfect, but we hope you enjoy the rankings and find them valuable.
Here’s to the old USTRA mantra: Because in Heaven, everybody team races.
To see the ICSA TR Pre-Season Rankings, CLICK HERE
SPRING 2022 PRE-SEASON PORGNOSTICATION, by Ken Legler
Great intrigue meets the world of college team racing with the new qualification system. Rather than the conference champs determining all the qualifies, only one spot are guaranteed from each of five conferences (MAISA, NEISA, SAISA, MCSA, PCISA) and the remaining eleven come from an impartial committee using data from the current year in coed TR regattas. Problem is, there haven’t been any yet but March is bustling with high-end team racing regattas, concentrated in Maryland and scattered around the Northeast. Qualifiers wrap up April 10 with selections due out two days later.
Prognostications start with last year’s TR nationals except that nearly half the top ten teams were unable to attend due to COVID while others were unevenly restricted in their preparation. That said, Navy won it as predicted while Roger Williams and other teams did get to shine. Here’s a quick look at the conferences, then the rankings.
NEISA remains the deepest though MAISA is close, while Yale remains the team to beat. Roger Williams, Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth are in the chase but Boston College and Tufts has legitimate shots at making nationals as well. Coast Guard, Connecticut, Bowdoin, and Boston University all have really good teams but less of a shot to qualify. MIT, URI and others have a sail-in regatta just to make the New England’s.
Southern MAISA teams get off to a fast start every year. St. Mary’s used to travel to Navy and ODU for ‘tri-meets” with 18 boats, six teams (A and B from each) for continuous high level practice races. The Seahawks also benefit from hosting other teams for spring break. The week Tufts is there, for example, Yale is also there. I imagine a daily tri-meet with those teams will include Yale’s women’s team, expected to be ridiculously fast. Navy leads the conference again, no doubt, but Georgetown, George Washington, Penn and Hobart will be working hard with some talented sailors to find a berth for nationals.
Stanford tops the Pacific Coast as usual but, Santa Barbara looks quite strong this year, having dominated the three-division PCCs last fall while Stanford’s top skippers were at match racing nationals. Tulane’s young varsity status has allowed four years of recruiting now and could easily get a spot. They look better now than any of the South Atlantic teams that graduated great sailors from Jacksonville and Charleston. The Midwest gets an automatic berth and I believe a deserving Wisconsin will win it in a tough race with Michigan.
Pre-season spring 2022 Rankings are LIVE!
2022 will see the first ever ICSA Women’s Team Racing Champs. Like the Coed champs, five berths are automatic from the five conference champs and anther seven will get selected for a weekend of nationals in late April. NEISA as always has the most large and talented women’s teams but other teams from Cornell to Stanford to Tulane, as well as a few Mid-Atlantic teams will be in contention to qualify. Below please find our first ever Women’s ICSA TR Rankings:
Rank | Women’s Team | Overall Rank | Comments |
1 | Brown | 1.5 | A pereniel contender in women’s fleet racing for decades, Brown deserves to host the first women’s team racing nationals. Olivia Belda/Emma Montgomery are the fastest but Caroline Bayless has oodles of team racing experience. |
2 | Yale | 2.8 | Yale might start three freshmen skippers and win with twins Emma adn Carmen Cowles along with Mia Nicolosi. |
3 | Stanford | 2.8 | Stanford has all kinds of talented women sailors led by Quantum Sailor-of-the-Year Michelle Lehrkamp |
4 | Boston College | 4.0 | BC likely start Sophia Reineke, Libby Redmond and twin speedsters Collen and Michaela O’Brien |
5 | Dartmouth | 4.5 | Maddie Hawkins/Yumi Yoshiyasu lead a pretty solid Green team. |
6 | Cornell | 6.5 | The Big Red have many excellent women sailors but not sure what is their best combination yet. |
7 | Navy | 9.0 | Olivia Olazarra leads the Midshipmen to women’s regattas. |
8 | Harvard | 6.3 | Emma Kanetti anchors the Crimson |
9 | Tulane | 8.5 | Ciara Rodriguez-Horan leads the Green Wave with some depth now. |
10 | Penn | 10.0 | Freshmam Sofia Segalla joins Amanda Mjernik and for a chance to qualify |
11 | St. Mary’s | 12.8 | Catherine Bennet is the most experienced sailor on the Seahawks women’s team. |
12 | Jacksonville | 14.0 | ILCA 6 star Charlotte Rose will be quickly learning team racing this spring. |
13 | Coast Guard | 13.5 | Depth could be a problem for eperienced skippers Emily Bornarth and Emma Snead. |
14 | MIT | 11.5 | MIT skippers like Dana Haig are small and fiesty. |
15 | Tufts | 14.3 | Talia Toland leads a Jumbo team that can go big or small depending on the conditions. |
16 | Bowdoin | 15.0 |