April Regattas
Vietor Trophy at Coast Guard
Lucas Quinn '23. Ellie Murphy '24, Abe Weston '25, Tina Dombrowski '23, and Noah Hallerman '23 traveled to US Coast Guard Academy for the Connecticut Valley Dinghy Championship Trophy April 1st & 2nd. Lots of rain and strong winds left the teams to sail 420's only on Saturday. Coast Guard is known for its shifty winds, difficult current, and narrow river sailing, and it delivered just that! After day one, the team was sitting a few places above mid fleet, and the headed out into New London that night to get some good seafood before the last day of racing. Sunday brought brisk NW breeze in the high teens and twenties. B Division went out in 420's and A in FJ's, but after one race it became apparent that 420's only was the way to go so the FJ's were put away for the day. Six B division races and four A Division races were sailed for the day, but the strong and shifty winds made it difficult for wisco to climb in the standings, and they finished the regatta in 11th out of 16 teams. Although a challenging regatta, the team learned a lot and always excited to come back to this regatta in the future!
Big Ten Team Race
Cal Lutton, Maeve Katics, Teddy Winters, Maddy Netzer '26, Finn Tait, Kerstin Hyer, and Seamus Hendrickson '25 went out to Baseline Lake, Michigan, for the Big 10 Team Race April 22nd & 23rd. Saturday started cold and rainy, showing why this was a dry suit required regatta. Fortunately, the team had six dry suits, so Cal, Maeve, Seamus, Kerstin, Finn, and Maddy suited up for the day. The team had their first race against Michigan, and were able to get in a first win, leading to confidence throughout the day. A break was taken around lunch due to a hail storm followed by dying wind. After a yummy pizza lunch provided by Michigan, the wind filled and racing continued. The winning streak continued, and the day was rounded out with back to back wins against Northwestern. Racing ended early due to storms. After a long but successful day of racing, the sailors took a nap, and then walked around and had dinner in Ann Arbor, saw some friends, and went to bed early. Sunday brought cold but no rain. Wind stayed consistent around 10-12 knots, gusting to 15. Fueled by the bagels provided by Michigan, the team started the day off with a win against Michigan. Unfortunately the team lost the next race to Notre Dame, but it was a valuable lesson in sailing clean. However, the team were able to win as 1-2-3 for all the following races, including a rematch with Notre Dame. This brought them to an impressive amount of wins, 11/1. Racing finished around 1 as the rounds finished. The sailors loved the Big 10 Trophy, and were fascinated with the story of Mr. Griswold on the plaque. BIG thank you to Michigan Sailing for running a great regatta, letting us stay in a house, and the food!
Admirals Cup
On Thursday, April 20th, Reed Weston ‘23, Kate Thickens ‘23, Charlie Herrick ‘26, George Lockwood ‘25, Lucas Quinn '23, Marissa Tegeder ‘25, and Noah Hallerman ‘23 packed up the van and headed to New York. When the group arrived in the city on Friday, they were determined to pack as much as they could into one afternoon. They visited the Oculus, 9/11 Memorial, Grand Central, Times Square, and even Wo Hop, which came at the recommendation of the 2019 IOR group.
In the morning, the group hit Utopia bagels to fuel up for the day and headed to Kings Point shortly after. Reed and Kate started off in A, with Marissa and Noah in B. The day started off with a light NW breeze around 8 kts, but ranged up to 18 kts over the 9 races throughout the day. After the lunch break, the breeze got pretty funky as it fought a south easterly. The south easterly eventually took over and the course was reset. It was tough competition, but those who sailed learned a ton and Reed led a great debrief back at the Airbnb on starting strategies.
The plan for Sunday was to have Charlie and George sail in A, with Lucas and Noah in B. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans and the regatta was called after just one race that day. With a little bit of a head start on the drive, the sailors arrived home before 6am ready to start the new week. In just a few weeks, Wisco will be back at Kings Point for Open and Women’s Fleet Race Nationals!
MCSA Championships and Upcoming National Regattas
MCSA Women's Fleet and Team Race Championship
Mary Castellini ‘25, Emma Komis ‘26, Marissa Tegeder '25, Carmen Lineer '26, Sydney Mandell '26, Lauren Bemis '26, and Claire Considine ‘23 all competed March 31st-April 2nd in the MCSA Women’s Team Race and Fleet Race Championship and National quals hosted by the University of Michigan sailing team. Friday's team racing started off with a brief morning postponement due to weather and a lack of wind. Over the course of the day the wind became shifty and puffy, but sailable. 3 full round robins were completed, and it was a tight competition until the very end, where Wisco claimed second place in Team Race Championship which was a great accomplishment but unfortunately not enough to qualify for Women's Team Race Nationals. On April 30th, Yale went on to win the ISCA Women's Team Race Nationals.
On Saturday the day started in postponement with rain and no wind. When the wind did fill in, there were gusts up to 30 knots. Only two A races were ran before it became too windy for most of the fleet and racing was concluded for the day. The group went out to a dinner at HopCat in downtown Ann Arbor. The wind on Sunday was very different from yesterday, often not even registering enough velocity to start. But, despite difficult wind shifts, six more races were ran. Wisco finished with a solid win, earning a berth to the ICSA Women's Fleet Race National Championship! A huge thank you to Scott Corder, Lisa Corder, and all of the volunteers for running race committee and making the regatta possible, as well as the Michigan Sailing team for hosting the Honey Badgers at one of their houses and for hosting the regatta!
MCSA Open Fleet and Team Race Championship
The MCSA Open Fleet and Team Race Championship were April 14th, 15th & 16th hosted here at Wisconsin! Friday morning greeted the MCSA Open Team Race Championship with light and shifty conditions. The wind gradually built through the day to 15 knots, and the southerly shifts made for some competitive and difficult racing. Wisco Sailors Reed Weston '23, Allison Hansen '23, Charlie Herrick '26, Kerstin Hyer '25, Lucas Quinn '23, Lauren Bemis '26, Abe Weston '25, and Cristina Dombrowski '23 fought very hard, and it was a close competition until the very end when Purdue claimed the lead.
Fleet Race the next day left the team little time to rest, but sailors Reed Weston '23, Allison Hansen '23, Kate Thickens ’23, Abe Weston '25, Cristina Dombrowski '23, Charlie Herrick '26, Kerstin Hyer '25, and Noah Hallerman ’23 were ready to get back to competition. Crazy wind fluctuations made Saturday tough, though the beautiful weather left nothing to complain about. The wind ranged from too low to race, to over 20 knots, forcing sailors to be very careful with their tactics. The team proved their skills, with an impressive score sheet and leading after the first day. Sunday morning had very different conditions, with cold rain, and 5-12 knots of wind. We squeezed out 3 races per fleet to wrap up the regatta. Wisconsin finished with a solid win, meaning you will see us at fleet race nationals again! The sailors for this event were Reed Weston '23, Allison Hansen '23, Kate Thickens ’23, Abe Weston '25, Cristina Dombrowski '23, Charlie Herrick '26, Kerstin Hyer '25, and Noah Hallerman ’23.
A big thank you to Sophie Lusty ’24 and Finn Tait ’25 for running a great regatta! We’d also like to thank the race committee, Scott Corder and Lisa Corder, as well as chief umpire Geoff Pedrick, and umpires John Porter and Mike Kasper. A final thanks to the team race umpire boat drivers Jono Bailey, Dave Elsmo, and Noah Janssen.
ISCA Womens and Open Fleet Race Nationals
With these performance, both Wisco's women's and open teams have qualified for their respective Fleet Race Nationals! The Honey Badgers will travel to Kings Point for their Nationals May 23rd-26th, with the Open team following and attending their Nationals May 30th-June 2nd. Rosters will be set in the coming weeks, but the team is excited to prepare all together give it our best at these two highly competitive events!
Stay tuned for more on this as the event gets closer!
May Calender
The sun is shining, the temperatures are rising, and Lake Mendota is open for sailing!!
Practice
For the past few weeks, the team has been practicing 4 days+ a week in order to prepare for upcoming regattas and ultimately Nationals in only a few short weeks! The docks are in and fixed at Memorial Union so we are also back to sailing out of the Tong Family Marina, and have had countless nights already where we have been able to soak up the gorgeous views of the terrace and the best venue to college sailing!
Last Regatta: NU Spring
Besides Nationals, our last regularly scheduled regatta is NU Spring at Northwestern May 6th and 7th. Wisco sailors Charlie Herrick '26, Noah Hallerman '23, Matt Keberlein '25, and Cal Lutton '26 will travel down to Chicago this weekend with hopes of capping off the regular season with a win!
Follow along on tech score and on the wiscosailing social medias!
Wild Week
The week after finals and school wraps up and the week before Nationals is many team members favorite week of the entire year! Wild week is scheduled from May 15th-19th, where the team will sail all day in preparation for Nationals. Along with our great coach Ian Beckley, guest coach and friendly-face Kyle Easton will be joining us as well to help us prepare. We are looking forward to hopefully some great weather, competitive practicing, and team-wide growth.
Besides sailing during the day, the team takes this time to bond and enjoy the first week of summer by hanging out, playing games in klief park, team dinners, and surely many more fun activities.
SAILOR OF THE MONTH: Tina DOmbrowski!
Our Sailor of the Month for the month of April is Senior Tina Dombrowksi!
Tina is from Chicago, Illinois and grew up sailing at Chicago Yacht Club. She started sailing around 6th grade when she started a CYC summer sailing camp, and fell in love with the sport. She continued summer sailing, and joined the St Ignatius high school team. When looking at colleges, sailing was a really important factor for her, and once she came to Wisconsin, she knew she loved the energy and people on the team, and stuck with us for the past four years!
Tina is a very valuable crew on the team, competing in many regattas over the years and Nationals last year!
Her favorite college regatta is GLIOR because although she doesn't spend a lot of time sailing keelboats, it's a fun experience on a really cool boat (and she says its bonus to get to visit home!)
Her favorite wisco sailing memory has been getting to do crew races at practice. She says it was a fun chance to just mess around in a boat after working hard. Also, she enjoyed spending the summer in Madison last year with some of the team because it was a blast to be hanging out.
Luckily, Tina still has one more semester with us and will graduate next December with a degree in Electrical Engineering! For the rest of her time on the team, she is looking forward to having more time on the water next semester and having an easier school schedule. For the rest of the spring, she is really excited for wild week in a few weeks ahead of Nationals.
Her advice to younger team members is "Make sure to take time for yourself, and don't overload your academic or social schedule. 4 years might seem like a long time, but it's done so fast; just take some time to sit back and enjoy it."
Go Go Tina!