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2000 New England Dinghy Championships
Nobody said it better than Jimmy Buffett; "You Had To Be
There".
As I looked around at my team's puzzled faces it was obvious that it
hadn't sunk in yet. We had just made an incredibile comeback and
qualifed for the National Coed Dinghy Championships to be held June 5-7
at Kings Point. It hadn't sunk in. We were in 9th after saturday,
waited for wind 'til noon on sunday, and when it came, we slowly chopped
down the lead until it came to the last B set. Kaya Haig and Kirsten
Rufleth had finished with a 3,1 in their last set and were sailing so
well. How well? They were "over early" in the race they won!
Brendan
Dwyer-McNally and Christine Retlev had placed 4,7,6 in their last three
races.
There were two races left and we were in 7th, 6 points back of
4th,
the last qualifying spot. NOW BATTING- The K Team; nervous but pumped,
confident yet apprehensive, and most importantly, fast yet Fast. The K
Team flirted with a third but got edged out on the downwind finish by a
whisker. "Oops, we may have needed that point". But we had beaten
all
the players we needed to beat and had closed the gap. The scene was set
with Coast Guard holding a one point lead over MIT for 4th, while BU sat
2 points back in 6th. URI and BC were only a few points behind BU.
Five teams all within striking distance of 4th, with one race to go. I
was trying to hold back my cocky, s--- eatin' grin but it kept popping
out. The K team was on a roll and I had faith in them. But what really
mattered is I could tell they had faith in themselves. We were the dogs
of war and we were going to see this through. I couldn't imagine it any
other way. Working on the "good offense is a good offense" theory, Kaya
and Kirsten saw the heavily favored pin end and went right for it. They
set up high but no one got up to them. As the gun went off BC narrowly
slid across their bow and port-tacked the fleet. Kaya followed suit and
flopped
over a tack. One, Two... off to the races! I turned away and headed up
to the top parking lot and began emptying my pockets. I removed my
shoes and headed back down to the dock. I was thinking ahead. As I
returned, BC and BU had opened up a 15 boatlength lead on the fleet! It
closed up a little, but we had a cushion on third (URI) and URI had a
cushion on MIT in forth. Meanwhile, Coast Guard was in the back of the
pack. Kaya started grinding down BC, slapped on a leebow and forced BC
to tack off to the right. Unfortunately, the next blast came from the
right and BC slipped back into a comfortable lead. However, URI was
clamping on MIT and was not letting them get a passing lane. The fleet
rounded the top mark well spaced and as the K Team sailed down the run
to the finish, the puzzled faces surfaced. It was weird. Instead of
cheers of joy, the BU team stood silent, in a trance of shock and
disbelief. I kept telling them it was a done deal, "we're in", but they
couldn't believe it. It all seem to happen so fast. Somebody should
have started pinching somebody. Here I am all set for dunkin' and my
team's walking around like zombies going "are you sure Brad, are you
sure?". The players were not going to believe anything until they saw
the final tally in writing. The moment was lost, and we never did get
that dunking in.
To backtrack, Brendan and Christine had had a rough first day. They
keep finding themselves to the left of the fleet when the breeze went
right. They weren't grinding anyone back and when the day was done, the
A Team had a 6th, followed by five straight double digit finishes. It's
not easy keeping someone's head in the game at that point. But
apparently, we did. When Kaya and Kirsten started sunday with a 9th and
Brendan/Christine had an 11th, I think most of the team felt it had
slipped away. But hold on, I took a look at the scores, and we were
still only 22 points back and there was wind. "This is still do-able",
was the call. Brendan came to life and finished with a 4,7,6. Combine
that with a 1,4,2 from Kaya and you've got a recipe for a nailbiter and
an invitation to the big show.
I hope the Alumni at the event (Liz Wilis, Brian Stanford, Mike O'Connor
and John Mollicone) might consider throwing in a comment or two on their
viewpoint of the day's activities. It was exciting stuff.
Oh, Congratulations to the victorious Harvard team. Leave it up to the
Crimson to ace another test. The official scores have not been posted
on
the neisa-list yet. I'll send them out as soon as I get them. I'll
probably stare at them for a hour or two and just smile. Boston
University was ranked
as the eighth best team in New England going in to this event. The top
four
were Harvard, Dartmouth, Tufts and MIT. BC, Coast Guard and Connecticut
followed them.
You gotta believe.
-Coach