LYC Sailors Compete at ICSA National Championships
May 25-June 3, 2009
San Francisco, CA
Georgetown skipper Nik Holtan with crew Carly Chamberlain go
for boat speed at the ICSA Team Race Nationals.
Photo by Glennon Stratton
Two former LYC junior sailors and three current LYC junior sailing instructors competed at the Intercollegiate Sailing Association Spring National Championships. Lily Beck, a senior at Boston College helped her team to a third-place finish at the ICSA Women’s Nationals and senior Nik Holtan and his Georgetown team finished third at ICSA Team Race Nationals.
Beck and her Boston College squad came into the event as the defending women’s national champions, but had to earn a spot in the finals by sailing at the women’s semifinals the day before the event started. As the B team crew at the semifinals, Beck and Boston College advanced to the finals. Beck and skipper Martha Pitt were the substitute skipper and crew in the A division at the championship, sailing in four races off the San Francisco Cityfront at St. Francis YC and helping the Eagles to a third place finish overall. Yale won the event and Charleston finished second.
Lily Beck with skipper Martha Pitt flattening out of a roll tack at
ICSA Women’s Nationals. Photo by Glennon Stratton
Holtan and Georgetown returned to the Team Race National Championship, where the Hoyas are perennial contenders. In the more protected waters off of Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, Georgetown qualified for the Final Four and finished third overall, behind champions Boston College and runners up St. Mary’s College.
Three LJYC instructors competed in the championships as well. 420 coach Megan Magill, a sophomore at St. Mary’s College, raced in all three events for the Seahawks, finishing sixth as a skipper in the A division at the Women’s Nationals, second as a crew at Team Race Nationals and second as a crew in the A division at Co-Ed Nationals, leading St. Mary’s to its first co-ed national championship in seven years. For her efforts, Magill was named an ICSA Women’s All American.
Coach Emily Lambert, a freshman at Harvard, finished tenth as the B division skipper at Women’s Nationals and Harvard finished tenth overall. Coach Lauren Gineo, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, was the substitute A division skipper as URI finished fifteenth overall at Women’s Nationals.
St. Mary’s win at Co-ed Nationals was also a victory for its coach, LYC member Adam Werblow. In Werblow’s 21 years at the helm of the St. Mary’s program, the Seahawks have won three co-ed national championships, four team racing national championships and two women’s national championships.
For complete results and photos, please visit the ICSA Spring
