W. Andrew Loe III

The women are on their second day of the nationals today. Dartmouth started off rocky, but we seem to be recovering lead by some sailing by Adele Wilhelm and Kate Hacker in B division. Follow the results online.

Update: The women finished 12th.

We didn’t have too much wind on Saturday morning so we decided to measure ourselves. I ended up being the tallest, but I Paul Durkee (D 06’) has the longest arms. Adele Wilhelm is the tallest girl, and Betsy Bryant is the smallest. It’s amazingly ironic that Betsy crews for both the tallest boy and the tallest girl. It was really cool to see Jon Kling’s (D 04’, Thayer 06’) numbers. His arms are 4 1/8” longer than his height, a crazy positive APE index in climbing parlance.

Heights:

Wingspans (check out how the shorter people are marked lower, it graphs like height vs 1/wingspan):

U.S. coverage of the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals is on Versus, the network formerly known as OLN. There is also excellent web coverage lead by sail.tv. As it stands now, Emirates Team New Zealand is up 2-1 over Desafío Español in Semi-Final A. In Semi-Final B, it is Luna Rossa over BMW Oracle Racing 2-1. Both series are a best of 9 races, there is plenty more sailing to be done. Tomorrow is a lay-day, the perfect opportunity to catch up on the action (Race 2 between Luna Rossa and BMW Oracle is the best so far!).

May 5-6 @ CGA in FJs & 420s
A: Erik Storck/Killarney Loufek & Anne Megargel
B: Andrew Loe/Betsy Bryant & Matthew Cohen

Saturday: Crazy. Again, seems to be the theme at Coast Guard this year. Day started with a dying Northerly that was predicted to shift to a nice Southerly sea-breeze. Didn’t happen. The two breezes fought all day and we were caught right in the middle. Only 4 races were completed, and they were extremely questionable at that. We finished the day tied for 4th, but it was still very early.

Sunday: Strong Northerly! The forecasted 15-20 showed up! We got a full morning of sailing in (4 races) before a lunch break and fleet swap (I started in 420s and went to FJs). The afternoon was not as nice, some sketchy conditions, but we made it work and finished 3rd to qualify for nationals!

Sunday was a great day of sailing, unfortunately the results don’t quite show it. Matty and I rounded the first three marks of the first three races in first. (Yay alliteration) We had a 3, 1, 4, and 2 – great results in breeze. The afternoon went strangely, Betsy and I had two deep races (13, 12) but around them we had a 1, 1, 2. Sometimes our strategy just wouldn’t work out. In the end we finished 3rd in B and 3rd overall.

Qualifying put Dartmouth on the elite list of schools that qualified for all three spring nationals, a testament to the strength of our team and program.

April 28-29 @ MIT (by Harvard) in FJs
Erik Storck/Killarney Loufek, Andrew Loe/Betsy Bryant, Ben Sampson/Kate Hacker

Saturday: Light. Format was designed to follow nationals. Two groups of six teams were created, each would sail a round-robin with the top 4 teams moving on to a round of 8. After the round of 8, initial plans called for another round of 8 and a single final 4, but weather dictated the situation and we did only a double final 4. We sailed decently on Saturday, going 5-0 in our bracket (3-0 going to the round of 8, 2 teams were dropped). We then lost to Yale and finished the day 4-1 in the round of 8 with BC and BU remaining.

Sunday: We rolled up deep in the Sprinter after a Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast. First race of the day was against BC. Unfortunately we lost, but were able to rebound and beat BU to secure our place in the final 4. Final 4 was Yale (6-1), BC (6-1), Harvard (5-2) and Dartmouth (5-2). Before going out we had a nice little pep talk that successfully elevated our game. We went 3-0 in the first round of 4 and 3-0 in the second to finish 11-2 making us the New England Champions. Yale (9-4) and Harvard (8-5) also qualified for Nationals. We had a little drama in our second BC race but it ended up not making a difference for either team.

Betsy and I had a very strong weekend. Our boat-handling, especially down-speed tacking, was much improved and we were both quick to recognize developing situations. Its great to win the Fowle Trophy again, we’ll be a top seed going into Nationals and with some practice we plan to be very difficult to beat. For now, we’ll shift our focus to fleet racing.

April 21-22 @ CGA in FJs & 420s
A: Erik Storck/Killarney Loufek
B: Andrew Loe/Matthew Cohen

Saturday: We showed up to a dying Northerly with high hopes for a good sea-breeze. Unfortunately we ended up with the two breezes fighting throughout the day. Matty and I started off rough, but we got ourselves sorted and started to figure things out. Only 7 races.

Sunday: Light. We continued our surge up the ranks and got as high as second in B before tanking the last set. Good bounce-back from a deep standing. Erik and Killarney sailed brilliantly to win A by a considerable margin. As a team we were up more than 40 points going into the last set. Even with our poor final set we still won the regatta by 18 and re-estabilshed ourselves.

Tied for 4th, not bad after starting with an 18, 9.

Finally, the lake (Mascoma Lake) is thawing! We will be able to have normal practice this week.

85 degrees and wind will do wonders, check out the motorboat trails.

We take our ice smashing duties seriously…

April 7-8 @ Tufts in Larks & MIT in FJs
Erik Storck/Killarney Loufek, Andrew Loe/Betsy Bryant, Ben Sampson/Kate Hacker

Saturday: We started at Tufts, and in typical fashion Mystic lake was… mystical. We sailed well, finishing 13-1 and staying out the protest room. The conditions were crazy but it appears we had it the best.

Sunday: After a fantastic Toga party, we arrived in glorious fashion to MIT. Conditions were windy and cold, and the RC decided that we would only sail one round-robin, not what we were expecting. We dropped some races due to a lack of communication. Our 4-3 record left us 4th overall, not satisfying but we have some ideas on what we need to work out.

March 31-April 1 @ CGA & Conn in FJs
Erik Storck/Killarney Loufek, Andrew Loe/Betsy Bryant, Ben Sampson/Kate Hacker

Saturday: Sailing didn’t get started until around 11:30 when the southerly filled in. We went 6-1 in the first round, only losing to Harvard. We sailed a few races in the afternoon, but they wouldn’t end up counting. Down-speed boat handling was atrocious, but had good starts.

Sunday: Frustrating. We went 4-3 dropping races for tons of different things, all relating to a lack of communication. My boat handling improved but team and boat communication did not.

4th. Disappointing, but its the first I’ve sailed in nearly 4 months. As a team we need to get on the same page, which can only happen if we start talking more. Too many times we would be working hard at the wrong thing. Its early, but we need to get on these things early.

Some video of the ACCs is up.

Atlantic Coast Championships 2006