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2 July 1999 |
Vol. III, No. 1 |
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BU sailing team skipper Stan Schreyer (CAS'99) (left) and crew member Rich Bell (CAS'99) duel with the Old Dominion boat in the national championships June 4 on Boca Ciega Bay in St. Petersburg, Fla. Photo by Pam Royal |
BU sails to third national dinghy championship
By Brian Fitzgerald
On June 4 in St. Petersburg, Fla., Brad Churchill was grabbed by a bunch of rowdies and thrown into the ocean. But he didn't mind. The coach of the BU sailing team knew that it was an appropriate celebration for winning the national coed dinghy championship.
The drenching he received, courtesy of his Terriers, wasn't exactly a traumatizing experience, temperature-wise: the water off the western Florida coast was a balmy 81 degrees. What did shock him was the fact that he honestly didn't expect BU to win. "We were ranked sixth in the nation entering the event," he says. "I would have been happy finishing third."
But Boston University held a 16-point lead after the second day of the three-day tournament, and BU's crews were consistent over the final eight races. BU's A Division team of skipper Stan Schreyer (CAS'99) and crew Rich Bell (CAS'99) finished fourth, 10 points behind Tufts University. However, BU's B team, piloted by Brian Stanford (CAS'99) and Christine Retlev (CAS'01), won the division title.
It was BU's third national title. In 1982 and 1985, the Terriers also captured the Inter-Collegiate Yacht Racing Association Coed Dinghy Championships.
"At the championship level, it takes two divisions going strong to emerge victorious," says Churchill. "Should one skipper have a bad race, the other must pick up the slack." This was certainly the case for the Terriers at the national championships. After seven races, Stanford and Retlev led the fleet of 16 colleges. "Stan Schreyer and Rich Bell faltered in the third and fourth races, finishing 14th and 7th respectively," says Churchill. "However, they sailed very well the rest of the way and won three out of the last five races."
Few predicted this scenario last September. "Stan and Rich had been sailing consistently well throughout the year, except for a few bumps in the road in the early spring," says Churchill. "But Brian and Christine struggled through the fall season, and warmed up in the early spring." Then, in May, Stanford and Retlev sailed past their regional foes at the Moody Intersectional Regatta in Rhode Island and at the New England Championships, winning their division in both events, before grabbing the biggest collegiate sailing prize of them all.
The weather throughout the ICYRA Coed Dinghy Championships was fickle, as it often is on Boca Ciega Bay, a small inlet on the intercoastal waterway that leads out to the Gulf of Mexico. There was a light wind on the first day, but competition was interrupted by a thunderstorm. Day two began with an easterly breeze, which was replaced by an afternoon sea breeze. Again, racing was called off in the late afternoon when thunderstorms emerged. On the third day, racing was postponed until a sea breeze formed in the afternoon. "The weather would not cooperate," says Churchill.
Churchill is a wind expert of sorts -- on the Charles River. After serving as program director of community boating on the Charles from 1980