Many of you may not know this, but WU has a club sailing team that competes against Division I schools from around the country. Oh, and they’re damn good, too. WU had its first regatta of this season this past weekend in the Davis Cup at Iowa. The Bear’s took second, seven points behind first place Western Michigan, and 38 points ahead of third place University of Minnesota.
A sailing regatta is scored in a very different way than most sports. There are 14 teams competing with 14 boats. Each teams has an A and B squad with four participants in each boat. There are two races matching the A teams against each other, then the boats come in and the B squads go out. This happens all day Saturday and Sunday as each team uses each of the 14 boats so as to make the regatta fair. Certain boats race faster, giving each team a fair chance to win. For each race, the first place team gets 1 point, second place 2 points, and so on. After the two days of competition, the points are tallied up and the team with the lowest score wins.
The Bears’ next regatta is this weekend at the Fall Fury in Wisconsin. WU will also compete in the Buckeye Invitational at Ohio State on the weekend of October 13-14.
To get information and pictures for the sailing club, check out www.rescomp.wustl.edu/~sailing/ links.html.