The long holiday weekend was hardly a break for Georgetown (No. 6 coed, No. 5 women), which competed in four regattas between Saturday and Sunday.
Even with such a busy schedule, the Hoyas performed well in most of the races, including an impressive first-place finish in the Tom Curtis Memorial Regatta. The event, named in honor of Tom Curtis (CAS ’68), who passed away in a sailing accident in 1979, is Georgetown’s only home race of the fall season, and therefore an important victory for the team. “[The Potomac] is not a very easy place to sail,” Head Coach Mike Callahan (SFS ’97) said. “We had a home court advantage, and we used it.”
Seniors J.B. Turney and Caroline LaMotte headed the regatta in the “A” boat, sailing into first place with ease. “J.B. and Caroline were really the star performers of the weekend. They sailed extremely well,” Callahan said. Top freshman recruit Marco Teixidor and junior Jamie Loeks finished second in the “B” division, helping secure the victory for the team.
Callahan explained the importance of the win: “This regatta is a kind of a ladder event; the top teams need to sail in this event in order to qualify for the conference championship.”
Many of the 16 other schools represented in the Tom Curtis emorial Regatta brought their best sailors to the competition, but Turney and LaMotte, who generally race “B” division in national events, defeated all of the other “A” boats without difficulty. According to Callahan, this race showed how well the team is sailing in comparison to other schools.
Curtis’s mother and sister, who have long been patrons of Georgetown sailing, were present at the memorial regatta.
Also this weekend, the women’s squad competed in the Navy Fall Women’s Regatta at the U.S. Naval Academy, in which it placed fourth overall. In the “A” division, junior Blaire Herron raced with senior Emily Siguler and sophomore Brooke Crawford to a fourth-place finish. The “B” and “C” boats both ended up in seventh place. “They did fairly well there,” Callahan said, “and they beat Stanford, which was the number one team in the country going into the event.”
At the MAISA Men’s Singlehanded Championships in Annapolis, Md., senior Langdon Mitchell, who qualified for the event two weeks ago by placing second in the Laser South races, was the only Georgetown competitor.
Due to harsh weather and strong winds this weekend, Mitchell was unable to overcome some of the larger, taller sailors who were better equipped for handling such conditions. “If it were a little lighter air, then he would have had a better chance,” Callahan said. “He would have had a speed advantage.” itchell placed 15th in the competition.
The fourth and final race in which Georgetown sailed this weekend was the Intercollegiate Offshore Championship at the Larchmont Yacht Club in Larchmont, N.Y. In this event, the Hoyas took on much larger boats than they generally navigate. The vast majority of college sailing, according to Callahan, takes place in dinghies, which are smaller, lighter boats. In the Intercollegiate regatta, Georgetown’s sailors handled 33-foot and 37-foot vessels in longer distance racing. “It’s a promotional regatta for college sailing,” Callahan said. “It’s a huge event, with about 33 teams there.” Even without much experience in such competition, the Hoyas placed first in the 37-foot boat division, with junior Chris Behm as skipper, and second in the 33-foot, led by senior Dan Esdorn.
Next weekend, Georgetown will compete in the Yale Women’s Intersectional and the Navy Fall Coed Intersectional. “Most of the top 20 teams will be at the [Navy Fall] Coed this weekend,” said Callahan of the upcoming race. “It will be a good gauge of where we are in the fall season.”
