Maine Maritime Academy Sailing opened the spring season finishing 12th out of 16 teams at the Icebreaker Invite hosted by Tufts University. Mariners Sailors Quinn Collins (Stowe, Vt.), Courtney King (Appleton, Maine), Lochlann Ludwig (Patuxent Rover, Md.), and Nicho Paulu (Yarmouth, Maine) were starters for this event.
With a pending cold front coming through the East Coast this weekend, there was a rush to get races off on Saturday morning. Mystic Lake is a challenging venue, but conditions were favorable for the first A-Fleet races, starting 6-8kts from the North and building. Collins and King struggled to maintain a lane on the reach leg in the first races, but solid starting, and clean upwind legs landed them a high finish of 4th for the day. Ludwig & Paulu sailed the first B-Fleet races in a building NNW breeze, that saw gusts into the 20s and 10-15 degree shifts. After finishing 13th in the first race, the breeze built, and capsizes landed them & several other boats DNF for race 2. Racing was postponed after the B-Fleet sets, and ultimately canceled for the remainder of Saturday, and all of Sunday.
Mariners Sailing returns to action next weekend at Connecticut College for the Camel Fleet Race and US Coast Guard Academy for the J/70 Invite.
