April 24, 2007
Stanford, Calif. - This past weekend, the Women's Pacific Coast Championship was held just up the bay at Treasure Island. On Saturday, a local storm system brought light, erratic winds to the racecourse. Despite the unusually shifty conditions, A Division skipper, Evan Brown, and crew Joanna Madsen, started the Cardinal off on the right track with two first place finishes in the opening set.
The breeze shifted from the South-southeast to the West before B Division got on the water for their first set. On many occasions throughout the day, the women sat in first place around the weather mark, but quickly lost out to a near fleet inversion as isolated puffs filled in from behind. Remarkably, both A and B division Stanford sailors were able to rally back to the front of the pack by the end of the race. With half the regatta still left to sail, the ladies had a 10 point lead over UC Irvine at the end of racing on Saturday.
On Sunday, the typical Treasure Island conditions resurfaced much to the delight of the Cardinal squad. The breeze was steady from the West at 10-12 knots with bigger puffs. The women have shown their prowess in breeze at several other events this spring and certainly did not disappoint. The B Division team of Taylor Grimes and Katherine Schlosser opened with two "bullets". And Stanford continued to walk away from the competition for the rest of the day.
"Katherine did an amazing job with the tactics and helping us to connect the puffs better than the other teams," said B Division skipper, Taylor Grimes said of her crew. The pair finished first in 10 of 14 races, and won their division by 17 points.
Captain Joanna Madsen commented, "I think we were all pretty nervous going into the weekend because we didn't want to just win, we wanted to win decisively and show people we are ready for nationals. Luckily our nervous energy kept us focused in the light stuff on Saturday, until we were really able to show our stuff in the breeze on Sunday."
The ICSA Women's National Championship is set to take place May 23-25 at Old Dominion University on Norfolk, Virginia. The top 18 teams from around the country, each qualifying from their district, will be in attendance.
This weekend the coed sailing squad heads to Hawaii for the Team Racing and Fleet Racing Pacific Coast Championships.
Overall ResultsTeam A B TOT1. Stanford 25 23 482. UCI 35 40 753. USC 41 49 904. Hawaii 57 45 1025. UCLA 56 68 1246. Cal 97 77 1747. UCSD 86 100 186