With the help of moderate winds, the Georgetown sailing team edged out the College of Charleston and 26 others for a third-place finish in the 26th annual Rose Bowl Regatta on Sunday. The Hoyas entered the race as defending champions but fell just short of their rival, the top ranked Boston College Eagles.
The team competed against 30 of the top- ranked teams from Hawaii to the East Coast during the two-day race, which was put on by the University of California and held at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach, Calif. With 30 collegiate programs and 56 high school teams, the Rose Bowl Regatta is the nation’s largest combined collegiate and high school sailing event.
Sophomore Chris Barnard played the role of lead skipper for the Hoyas in the race, which was contested on two-person, 13-foot CFJ dinghies. Barnard was joined in his boat by sophomore Hilary Kenyon.
Barnard, who hails from Newport Beach, Calif., was just one of many West Coast sailors who attend East Coast schools. The recent East Coast dominance of the Regatta paradoxically has much to do with the high proportion of West Coast sailors in the programs, but many sailing programs on the West Coast sail out of Long Beach regularly, making for an exciting race.
The Blue and Gray started off slow with 18th- and 14th-place finishes after the first race of the day, dropping to seventh place before turning things around. As the wind picked up, the Hoyas found their footing and finished among the top five in almost every race on Sunday.
Barnard and Kenyon, who competed in Division A, finished the regatta with a total of 41 points, landing them a second-place finish in Division A. Senior Michael Campbell and sophomore Annalee Leggett did their part with a sixth-place finish in the B division with a total of 63 points.
The team finished in third place overall with a total of 104 points, just behind Boston College and St. Mary’s, which completed the regatta with 87 and 89 points, respectively.
