{"id":76596,"date":"2024-01-16T13:09:33","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T18:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=76596"},"modified":"2024-01-17T13:29:50","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T18:29:50","slug":"the-singlehanders-of-college-sailing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/racing\/the-singlehanders-of-college-sailing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Singlehanders of College Sailing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Nick <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n ILCA stars Nick Reeser, of Coast Guard, and freshman Ava Anderson, of Tulane, are the top singlehanders in college sailing today.<\/span>\n Parker Waters<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

The vast majority of collegiate sailing happens in doublehanded FJ and 420 dinghies, but a dedicated group of ILCA 6 and 7 sailors compete for the annual Intercollegiate Sailing Association\u2019s Singlehanded National Championship. And while singlehanded sailors race only two regattas per year\u2014the regional qualifiers and national championship\u2014the fleet is a staple of collegiate sailing and a breeding ground for US Olympic hopefuls.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Reeser, a junior at the US Coast Guard Academy with an elite ILCA background, is this year\u2019s champion in the fleet. From Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Reeser was a two-time champion of the Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta\u2019s ILCA 6 fleet and a second-place finisher in the ILCA 6 fleet at the 2019 High School Singlehanded National Championship before enrolling at the Coast Guard, where he finished seventh in the ICSA Men\u2019s Singlehanded Championship in 2021. Reeser won this year\u2019s nationals by 11 points after dominating the New England qualifier for the event, finishing 21 points ahead of the second-place finisher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWinning in this fleet is all about consistency,\u201d Reeser says. \u201cI didn\u2019t win a single race at the Nationals qualifiers this year. I was aiming to be sixth or seventh at every weather mark and take away a couple of boats on a run; I had to make sure that there was no big risk-taking or critical failures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collegiate singlehanded sailing\u2019s format departs from traditional, long-course ILCA racing for a faster-paced college-\u00adstyle regatta where sailors race upwards of seven 20- to 30-minute races per day. For many orthodox ILCA sailors, adapting to the collegiate \u00adformat can be a challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe best way I could describe it is that it\u2019s almost like a different sport,\u201d Reeser says. \u201cIn the Laser [ILCA], you work really hard on your fitness and boatspeed, and those two things are often what wins regattas. If you\u2019re 10 percent faster in an hourlong race, you\u2019re able to work your way to the front no matter what. In college sailing, you\u2019re probably killing it if you\u2019re 2 percent faster. There\u2019s not really that much boatspeed gains that you can make because the courses are so short. Everybody\u2019s good, and everybody\u2019s sailing in the same boat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The adoption of collegiate sailing rules changes the way the ILCA dinghy can be sailed, according to two-time singlehanded national champion and Yale assistant coach Leo Boucher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things that changes in the collegiate fleet is the boathandling,\u201d Boucher says. \u201cYou can be a lot more aggressive boathandling-wise in college [ILCA] sailing than you can in world sailing because you\u2019re allowed to come out of tacks and jibes faster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As somewhat of a side note to the broader world of collegiate sailing, the Singlehanded National Championship attracts an eclectic mix of sailors who may have not otherwise \u00adcompeted in ICSA events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Laser environment is pretty interesting in the college sailing world because you have a sect of people who are doing an Olympic campaign and happen to be going to \u00adcollege on one hand, and college freshman who put 200 days in the boat the previous year on another,\u201d Reeser says. \u201cYou also have people who are more focused on the doublehanded events but sailed ILCAs in high school who may put a couple of days in the boat before the event. It\u2019s a very interesting environment that makes for some interesting and \u00adcompetitive racing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such college freshman is Ava Anderson, a first-year sailor at Tulane who won the women\u2019s division of the Nationals in November. From Houston, Texas, Anderson came into college with both an elite singlehanded and doublehanded dinghy background, having finished 10th in the youth women\u2019s division of the 2023 ILCA 6 Youth World Championships in Dziwnow, Poland, under the tutelage of elite ILCA 6 coach Ryan Minth, and having competed in the 2022 and 2023 doublehanded High School Sailing National Championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Ava <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Freshman Ava Anderson of Tulane.<\/span>\n Parker Waters<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

Anderson finished the 14-race regatta with 74 points, averaging fifth place and \u00adwinning three races in the 18-boat fleet. Consistently staying in the top-six boats allowed her to stay at the top of an incredibly tight fleet, where every sailor had at least one double-digit finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sailing on home waters at New Orleans\u2019s Southern YC, Anderson\u2019s consistent finishes paid off at the notoriously puffy and shifty venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSailing toward the puffs, staying in phase, and getting off the line clean to get your speed up are all very important to win on Lake Pontchartrain,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cI felt super-fast during the first two races of the first day when the breeze was up. When it died later in the day, I definitely had a little bit of \u00adtrouble keeping my speed up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Training for singlehanded nationals can be a challenge for many sailors because each collegiate team has only a few ILCA sailors. As the qualifiers for the nationals occur amid other national-level fall collegiate dinghy events, many of the fleet\u2019s top performers must balance training for the singlehanded nationals with staying at the top of the doublehanded fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of the work needs to be done out of season,\u201d Boucher says. \u201cMost of the work you\u2019re going to do to be ready for the singlehanded nationals is going to be done the summer prior to the event. What you can do to prepare in school is to stay as fit as you can; normal team workouts may not be enough for most people, so you might need to add something on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Many of the fleet’s top performers must balance training for the singlehanded nationals with staying at the top of the doublehanded fleet.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Collegiate singlehanded \u00adsailing provides an on-ramp to top-level doublehanded sailing that many ILCA sailors might have missed in youth sailing. Both Reeser and Boucher have sailed A-level doublehanded events in college despite not focusing on 420 or scholastic sailing as youth racers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was recruited to the Coast Guard to sail Lasers, but there are only two regattas per year, so I threw myself into the FJ and 420 fleets,\u201d Reeser says. \u201cIt\u2019s taken me quite a while to figure out how to sail with somebody else and how to set up the boats, but now I spend about 80 to 90 percent of my time on doublehanded sailing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many American Olympic hopefuls have made their mark on the ICSA singlehanded fleet. Boucher won the Men\u2019s Singlehanded Nationals in 2019 and 2021 while sailing for St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland and is now preparing to compete in the 2024 Olympic trials in February. After coaching at Yale this fall, Boucher has plans to travel to Portugal and Australia to train for the event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of the way they\u2019ve done the trials format, I think there\u2019s a lot of benefit from doing college sailing because of the small fleet,\u201d Boucher says. \u201cTypically, they use a world or European championship for the qualifier and there are 60 boats on the starting line, whereas now we\u2019re going to have 40. I bet that toward the end of the regatta, you\u2019re going to know who you have to beat, so the college sailing stuff is going to play pretty big into that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Boucher, Reeser and Anderson all planning to attend the trials among countless other ICSA singlehanded \u00adchampions of years past, it is clear that the collegiate \u00adsinglehanded format is a boon for many rising stars in the US Olympic ILCA fleet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

College sailing today is not all about doublehanded dinghy racing. The top singlehanders on the scene are putting in the hard work too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":76597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Lucas Masiello","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"","arc_website_url":"","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":true,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true,"ad_targeting":"","sponsored_url":"","social_share":true},"categories":[159],"tags":[179,2930,177,178],"class_list":["post-76596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-college-sailing","tag-print-january-2024","tag-racing","tag-sailboat-racing"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}