ST. MARY’S CITY, Md. - Stanford sailing won its second national championship of the season on Friday evening, capturing the ICSA Women’s Fleet Race Championship for the third consecutive season.
The Cardinal paced a strong 18-team field with 198 points, holding off runner-up Tulane (209 pts) and third-place Harvard (223 pts) through 16 races.
Friday's victory marks the program’s seventh overall national championship, as Stanford became the first school to win three consecutive Women’s Fleet Race Championships since the United States Naval Academy from 1979-81.
The Cardinal has been particularly dominant since claiming the program’s first women’s national title in 2023, having now won five of the last six national regattas.
“This championship required a full team’s effort. Our team came together, picked each other up and found a level required to take home hardware,” said head coach Chris Klevan, who has guided the Cardinal to six national team crowns. “This year’s team took the lessons learned watching legends of the past and applied them to the present. That speaks to something more than just two days of hard work and perseverance. Our competition made the challenge harder, but in turn, the victory seemed extra sweet. I could not be more proud.”
Stanford varsity teams have now won 171 national championships overall (77 men, 92 women, 2 coed). This is Stanford's fourth national team title of the 2024-25 campaign. In addition to Sailing also winning the ICSA Women's Team Race championship last month, the Cardinal has secured national crowns in Artistic Swimming and Women's Water Polo.
Action kicked off on Tuesday and Wednesday with the Eastern Semifinals, where the Cardinal outperformed the likes of Cornell, Boston College and Harvard. Over two days of competition, Stanford tallied 69 points and secured four victories, finishing with an 18-point lead over the rest of the field.
Following a rain-shortened Thursday session which featured just three races across both divisions, the Cardinal stood in fourth place in the team standings, trailing leader Tulane by 12 points.
The action continued on Friday as the Cardinal flourished in the final 13 races of the championship, taking a lead it never surrendered after six races. Fueled by six wins in the A division and 10 top-10 placements in the B division, Stanford held strong to secure its third straight Women’s Fleet Race title.
Vanessa Lahrkamp and Alice Schmid led the A division with seven wins and 52 points in 15/16 completed races. Lahrkamp teamed up with Ashtyn Tierney for a fifth place finish in race 7 to put the A division trio at 57 points overall, clearing Harvard’s Cordelia Burn and Margo Silliman by 32 points.
“B” boat duties were handled by a combination of Cardinal duos, starting with Ellie Harned and Kit Harned, who earned 67 points through the first eight races. The remaining eight races were controlled by Sophie Fisher and Piper Blackband with the duo recording 63 points as the Cardinal “B” boat earned an eighth place finish with 130 points overall.