Not many teams at Brown can claim they are the best in the nation. After the club co-ed sailing team finished in first place at the Atlantic Coast Dinghy Championship last weekend at MIT, it can lay stake to this claim as the team garnered the number-one ranking in Sailing World's College Sailing Rankings. The women's team finished an impressive third.
"We were really excited, to say the least," said Richard Hale '06. "It's the sort of thing we all knew we could do, and we were waiting for the opportunity to do it."
Prior to the recent top billing, the team had been ranked No. 4, but it dominated just about every competition this fall.
One week before the Atlantic Championship, the team won the Thames River Race at the University of Connecticut and went on to win the Shell Trophy at MIT.
"It took a while for us to get started this fall," Hale said. "We had to shake some of the bugs out in September, but after the second week in October, we haven't lost an event."
At the Atlantic Championships, the Bears raced three 420-class boats with a female and male team member in each boat. According to captain Edward Young '05, one of the factors that has enabled Brown to enjoy its success this season is the team chemistry.
"Our team is meshing really well," Young said. "There are a lot of people who are good enough to sail, but the fact is that we are all there as a team. It's so easy on so many teams to compete against each other, to see who gets to sail on the big regatta, but we are all about putting that past us and it's working out great."
And of course, it helps that the team has a throng of skilled sailors.
"Everyone can go out there and perform, not just two or three boats," Young said.
The team has seen much improvement over the past few years, which can be traced to the arrival of Head Coach John Mollicone. In 1999, Mollicone came to Brown to coach both the co-ed and women's teams.
"Before John, the previous coach didn't really take things seriously. John has upped the level of intensity," Ward said. "When he started we were lucky to have four or five boats in the water for practice, and now we have 18 or 19. And every sailor on the team has been recruited by him."
For years before Mollicone's arrival, the team rarely broke into the top 20 in national rankings.
"We wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for what John did for the team," Hale said. "He not only put us back on the map, but back on the top of the pile."
Last year the sailing team saw equal success, with the co-ed team finishing the fall season ranked third in the nation and the women's team finishing ranked first. This year, the women's team continued its excellence and finished ranked third amid heavy competition.
In the final fall regatta, the women's team competed at the Atlantic Coast Championships. After a third-place finish, behind host College of Charleston and Yale, the women's team dropped from its previous No. 2 ranking to No. 3.
With only four team members, the women's team does not have the same personnel luxury afforded to the co-ed squad, at least not in competition.
"We all practice together," said Annie Davidson '05 of the co-ed and women's team. "As our co-ed team is getting better they push us at practice, so (our performances) are an entire-team effort."
During the season, the teams practice four days a week at the Edgewood Yacht Club in Cranston. Last weekend's action marked the end of the fall season, and the teams will be back in action in mid-February, or as soon as the water thaws.
With talent spread out across the classes, the team hopes to be able to stay on top for a while, but the competition will not get any easier - the co-ed team will have the most difficult schedule in college sailing for the next year.
