KINGS POINT, N.Y. – After being one of 18 squads to advance past the semifinal round earlier in the week, the Navy intercollegiate sailing team finished 17th place in the finals of the 2023 Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association Women's Fleet Race National Championship on Friday at the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y.
Kicking off the ICSA's spring championships, the semifinal round was split into two evenly-seeded 18-team regattas, with Navy falling into the western semifinal. The event began on time Tuesday in a nice 10-15 knot northeast breeze, as the Midshipmen got off to a strong start, winning the first "A" division race by a significant margin. The wind eventually died midway through the day, but filled in shortly afterwards out of the southeast. Six more races were completed per division on the first day, as Navy was up and down the rest of the day but remained solidly in the top half of the field, maintaining good position to move on to the finals.
Wednesday began with no wind and a lengthy delay on shore, but a sea breeze eventually filled in a little before 3 p.m. and the fleet was able to get in a pair of additional races per division before the 5 p.m. cutoff. In the end, Navy wound up 7th overall in the western semifinal to earn a berth in the finals, as sophomore
Evie Blauvelt and junior
Julia Christie displayed blazing speed both days and wound up scoring an impressive "A" division victory, while juniors
Aubin Hattendorf and
Catherine Aitken and freshman
Ava Farley wound up 13th in the "B" division.
The finals started out with some breezy and cool conditions out of the northeast on Thursday, with strong currents and a very challenging fleet. Navy got off to a rough start but adapted to the difficult conditions. Throughout the day, the wind decreased and became unstable, with big shifts both ways to go with leftover waves from the previous high winds. The Midshipmen began to improve and posted some top finishes later in the day with an eye on moving up the standings on the second day of finals.
Unfortunately, the championship fleet waited eight hours on Friday for wind that never filled and no more races were completed, as Navy wound up 17th overall. Blauvelt, Christie and sophomore
Maggie Schuler finished 16th in the "A" division, while Hattendorf, Aitken and Farley were 17th in the "B" division.
At the conclusion of racing, Women's All-America honors were announced as Navy's Blauvelt was selected as an Honorable Mention All-American Women's Skipper, her first time earning All-American accolades.
Up next for the Midshipmen is the ICSA Team Race Nationals on May 27-29. Follow the action at ICSA.live and at nationals.collegesailing.org. Results and rotations for all events can be found at scores.collegesailing.org.
