2/5/2010 12:07:00 PM College sailors making waves overseas
Somers Cooper
Graduates of the early days of the Bermuda Optimist Dinghy Association (BODA) are now making names for themselves in North American collegiate circles, sailing for some of the best colleges and universities in the United States.
These sailors include: Jesse Kirkland - St Mary's, Josh Greenslade - St. Mary's, Peter Miller - Connecticut College, Sean Bouchard - Roger Williams University, Ryan Saraiva - Roger Williams University, Haley Powell - Roger Williams University, Cameron Pimentel - Roger Williams University, Oliver Riihilouma - Stanford University, William Hutchings - Tufts University, Katrina Williams - Old Dominion University.
All of these young sailors have blossomed into highly competitive sailors and are valuable members of their respective teams due in large part to the local development coaching and advanced coaching they received from the likes of Carola Cooper, Paul Doughty, Luis and Jorge Chiapparro, Dino and Pablo Weber.
Below they provide an update in their own words on how sailing was for them during the fall term.
Peter Miller
Connecticut College
This fall was very much a rebuilding season for the Connecticut Camels. We are a very young team, with most of the squad being made up of sophomores.
We lost a great number of seniors last year, leaving the more inexperienced sailors, such as myself to the starting positions on the team. While some of the results that we had were not so great, the lessons learned this fall are applicable for the spring and my remaining years as a college sailor. The spring looks promising as the Camels get to host the New England Dinghy Champs, the qualifier for the national semi finals.
At the start of this fall, I was involved with the keelboat team doing bow. We finished second at the Pine Trophy and third at the New England Championships, narrowly missing out on a spot for nationals. Towards the end of the fall I began to be a starting skipper for our co-ed dinghy team contributing to a ninth place finish at the Schell Trophy and fifth place at the Atlantic Coast Tournament.
William Hutchings
Tufts University
I had a pretty good first season sailing for Tufts. I am the number one freshman sailor, and I had a few good regattas. I won my division at two low-tier regattas.
In my best regatta of the fall, the Freshman New England Championships, I finished second of 17 in "A" division. Boston College finished first and Brown University finished 3rd in "A" division. Overall for that regatta (A and B combined), we were third. The regatta was held in CFJ's (Club Flying Juniors). I also competed in the New England Men's Single-handed Championships (Laser Full) where I placed 13th of 22. This was not my best performance.
I wasn't too upset considering it was my most competitive regatta and I had not sailed Lasers regularly in over a year.
Katrina Williams
Old Dominion University
Well, the season at ODU started out really well with our womens team moving into first place in the U.S. sailing world rankings from pre-season till the end of October.
After sailing in Weymouth with Paula and Peta Lewin in Elliot 6m's, I came second at our Faye Bennet trophy at the Naval Academy in Radials which also are qualifiers for singlehanded nationals. We placed first at the Finger Lakes intersectional at Hobart Williams Smith in FJ's.
I then won the radial division at the Navy Fall Womens intersectional and our team placed third overall with A, B and C divisions combined scores. We placed fifth in the co-ed MAISA trophy, the War memorial regatta and I came second in the B division co-ed Hoyt regatta at Brown, beating Sean Bouchard, Oliver Riihilouma and Josh Greenslade.
I ended up a disappointing eighth at Singlehanded Nationals out of 18 in Corpus Christi, Texas.
At the women's MAISA fall championships we placed second overall and came sixth at the Atlantic Coast Championship at Brown. Our womens team finished up the season at the fifth ranked team in the nation.
This next semester is my last one competing as a collegiate athlete and my coach expects great things from me.
The spring season is a little different from the fall season and includes team racing instead of single-handed Laser sailing. I expect to be attending both women's and co-ed regatta's.
Our team was in a great position to win women's nationals last spring but ended up fourth so I am hoping to make my dream of winning a collegiate National Championship a reality in Wisconsin in May.
Note: Katrina was named 2009 Bermuda Sun Female Sports Personality of the year via a poll done by the newspaper
Jesse Kirkland
St. Mary's College
This Fall has been somewhat of a transitional period for me as I have sailed with a freshmen crew. With the goal of the spring season, and more importantly, the College Nationals, I have been training a crew throughout the season with the hope we will be "well-seasoned" for the championships.
Having said this, I have had a pretty mediocre fall (probably my worst in college sailing), but with three years under my belt, I understand that the fall season is simply practice for the end goal of the Nationals in May/June.
Heading into the spring season, I am excited and eager to end my college career on a high note with the goals of trying to win both the Co-ed and Team Race National Championships.
Though they are lofty goals, we have the same team returning from last year where we finished first and second in the respective championships.
Note: Jesse has also recently started his 2012 Olympic bid with his brother Zander in the 49'er skiff.
Sean Bouchard
Roger Williams University
The fall season started out promising as we had a very impressive group of freshman sailors coming on to an already established team.
The team started out hot winning a number of intersectional regattas including the Hood Trophy where I won B division by fifteen points. We also had two Laser sailors qualify for collegiate Laser Nationals where they finished fifth and eighth.
We also tied for first with Boston College in the only team racing regatta of the Fall without fielding our top team.
Individually it was a good fall for me as I was able to get a shot at sailing in the Atlantic Coast Championships (ACC's) hosted at Boston University when our "B" Division sailor was struggling. I was able to step in and record a number of top five finishes and was third overall in my respective races.
The division was stacked with a number of good sailors and it was a lot of fun to be able to race along side a number of the old Opti sailors such as Jesse Kirkland and Jackson Benvenutti.
Unfortunately our "A" division skipper Cy Thompson was not on his usual form either and we could only salvage a ninth place finish overall.
The spring is looking very good for us however as we are gearing up for what should be a fun team racing season. With two of our three boats returning from last year and me stepping in to become the third we have a shot at qualifying for Nationals.
It is going to be a busy spring and there is a lot of training between now and the start of the season but all of the off-season workouts will hopefully pay off big when it comes time to get back on the water at our first event which will be down in Charleston on February 27-28.
Cameron Pimentel
Roger Williams University
My first semester participating in RWU sailing was a success. Roger Williams has a great team (currently ranked seventh in the U.S. for the collegiate standings) with great coaching and also a talented group of freshman sailors.
I am new to the style of sailing in college and also to the boats that are sailed so it has been a good learning experience.
In the regattas in which I have participated, I have done well, which includes coming second in The Freshman Symposium regatta at Tufts in the "A" division (my first time in a Lark dinghy) and also coming second in "A" Division at a regatta hosted by RWU.
Note: Cameron won the Bermuda Sailing Association Youth Sailor of the Year Award in 2009 and recently was crowned 2009 Bermuda National Laser Champion.
