Just before mid-day Saturday, several white boats bearing the NC State insignia on their sails zipped across the cool, dark waters of Lake Wheeler. Each boat was crewed by two sailors, who were working furiously to take the lead during one of the many two-lap races held throughout the day.
At the end of the first race, one of the USF boats lagged slightly behind the rest, and on its last turn heading to the finish, the boat capsized, sending both despairing sailors into the water.
As the USF sailors wrestled with their overturned vessel, two NC State team members quickly converged to help. Moments later, the four industrious sailors successfully pulled the overturned vessel upright.
The sportsmanship shown Saturday at the SAISA SailPack Women’s Regatta, which NC State hosted at Lake Wheeler Park, characterizes the sailing world and is one of the key components of collegiate sailing, according to head coach Dana Magliola.
“College sailing is great for sportsmanship,” Magliola said. “[It’s] really just friendly competition. Teams are competitive on the water but get along and support each other off the water. Our team as a whole has a great dynamic, we get along really well, we’re very supportive and we really push a no-macho attitude out here.
“You have to feel comfortable asking questions if you have them; and if you hear people asking questions, your first response is to help them learn, not to say I can’t believe you don’t know that. It’s the opposite. It’s how do you learn, how do we help you learn, and how do we all come together.”
The women’s regatta was the first home regatta of the 2015 season, with the club competitive NC State team taking second place to the varsity USF team that made the trek to Raleigh.
While competition is important, the aforementioned sportsmanship and the family-like atmosphere of sailing programs are equally important to success. According to senior sailor Annalisa Kristoffersen, the amount of time the teams spend together nurtures the individual bonds.
“We’ve all become really close because we wake up at 6:30 a.m. twice a week and workout,” she said. “We have practice twice a week here at Lake Wheeler and then we have a dry practice on Thursday evening. We usually get together on the weekend and sometimes watch a movie or get snow cones after practice.”
During races, however, competition is fierce. Despite being a club program, the NC State team competes against varsity programs around the country and loves victory just as much as the next team. At Saturday’s regatta, the Sailpack lost out by just one point to South Florida.
Over the course of the afternoon, the teams battled difficult sailing conditions. On multiple occasions, the wind came to a complete stop during competition.
“Lake Wheeler is notorious for having shifty and low winds sometimes so we get pretty good at light wind sailing,” junior sailor Jackie Welles said. “Sometimes it works to our advantage against other teams. But ‘I’m hot’ is basically what first comes to mind.”
Races were quick, two-lap affairs: Sail out to a buoy and back again. The first boat to finish is given a one; the second placed boat gets a two, and so on. Similar to cross country scoring, the team with the lowest cumulative score at the end of the day wins the regatta.
In the upcoming weeks, the NC State club sailing team looks forward to facing more conference opponents and traveling to intense regattas.
“We’re right into the heart of our conference schedule,” Magliola said. “We have a race this weekend at Tennessee. Next weekend we go to Clemson. We’re also taking a squad up to New England to Tufts University in Medford in Boston, and we’re racing at the hood trophy Regatta up there. That’s one of the biggest Regattas we’ll go to all year. NEISA is their conference. They are the oldest most storied conferences.
“If you were to compare [NEISA] to football, they would be the SEC. The big heavies are in NEISA, so for us to go up there and race in that conference at a regatta really puts us into a deep pool and is a great learning experience for us. We’re really looking forward to that event.”
With much of the season still ahead, the team is very optimistic that it will be able to make an appearance at the national championship regatta in San Diego this spring.
Sail boats at the Lake Wheeler docks before the first Sailing Club women's regatta on 9/19.
