CEHS Sailing Team Qualifies For, Competes in New England Fleet Race Championship
By Tess Straw
On Saturday, May 13, qualifiers for the New England Fleet Racing Sailing Championship were held around New England. SailMaine served as the northernmost venue, with the top 5 teams moving on to compete for the overall New England Championship and the O’Day trophy.
After a day of action-packed racing that saw Cape Elizabeth fluctuating between 2nd and 7th in the standings, Cape’s A fleet boat of co-captains junior Tess Straw and senior Cora Johnson wrapped up their last set with a solid 4th place finish, finishing 3rd overall and just 2 points behind Massachusetts' Sharon High School (which had just taken 2nd overall at the New England Team Racing Tournament). Straw and Johnson’s 38 points made them the highest-ranked team from Maine in the A Fleet—two and three points ahead of local rivals Lincoln Academy and Falmouth respectively.
Qualifier slots, however, are determined by the combined scores from both the A and B fleets and a number of teams remained within striking distance of the top 5 positions based on their combined fleet scores.
As such, after a long day with 13 races already in the books, it all came down to one last race in the B fleet by sophomore skipper Story Straw and crew Norah Shroder. Coach Andrew Schoene did the math and told the team that in order to ensure their advancement to the New England Fleet Racing Championship for what is believed to be the second time in team history, Straw and Shroder needed to finish 4th or better in the final race.
With the wind picking up and Straw and Shroder having been overpowered in a prior race, Coach Schoene strategized and swapped Shroder for sophomore Kingsley Burch, who had rotated with Shroder throughout the day. The sophomore duo sailed out to the line while teammates T. Straw, Johnson, Shroder, Alex Haskell and Celeste Tourangeu headed down to the Eastern Promenade to watch the action unfold. The starting whistle blew and Straw and Burch took off in a solid position as the fleet raced around the course.
As Straw and Burch rounded the leeward mark in fourth, they took a gamble--cutting to the opposite side of the course from the boats around them. This put them at risk of hitting an unfavorable shift of wind while the rest of the boats sailed past on the other side, which would lose them their position in the front of the fleet and the team’s qualifying spot. With a better view of the water from their vantage point on land, the observing Cape team couldn’t look away from the water as they watched for the lighter waves (an indicator of slower wind) that would be the downfall of their teammates. But as the boats converged on the finish line, with Lincoln Academy and Portland High School right on their heels, Straw and Burch took fourth as the Cape team wildly cheered their teammates on from shore.
When the dust settled, Cape tied in points for 3rd with Rhode Island’s East Greenwich High School (which had taken 1st place at the New England Team Racing Tournament the week prior) but took 4th overall, earning CEHS what is believed to be its second-ever trip to the New England Fleet Racing Championship in school history.
At the New England Fleet Race Championship the next day, the team finished 17th overall against the top teams in New England, with the Straw sisters, Haskell, Johnson, Shroder, and Burch holding their own against national powerhouse teams--sailing competitively, losing respectably, and even beating the eventual New England Champions in one race. One of the top seasons in Cape sailing history will wrap up next weekend with the Maine State Team Racing Championship, followed finally the next week by the New England Girl’s qualifier and championship.
