[Nat Sound: three whistles]
The Northwestern University Club Sailing Team is traveling to Boston in two weeks to compete in the Inter-collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) college nationals. They will participate in the women’s and open fleet race championships. They are one of 36 teams competing. However, as one of the few club teams to qualify for the championship, they are grappling with unique financial and logistical hurdles.
The team has a wide variety of skill sets, from members who have been sailing competitively since they were young to members who haven’t been in a boat prior to coming to NU. This unique aspect of the team is widely appreciated, even by the most competitive sailors.
Jake Weinstein, a Weinberg first-year who will be traveling with a select few to nationals in a couple of weeks, has sailed competitively throughout high school, including three summer seasons. He says watching his friends learn how to sail and share his passion is one of the reasons why he loves the team.
[JW] It’s really fun to watch them discover sailing and learn to sail and being able to teach them a little bit and share this. Because it’s been such a big part of my life for four years to be able to share that with them a little bit, so that’s definitely something very special and unique here that we wouldn’t get if we were a varsity team.
College sailing is not an NCAA sport. It is organized under the ICSA. Therefore, it is one of the few sports with no divisional boundaries. Seven conferences contain both varsity–DI or DIII–and club teams. In other words, club teams can compete against varsity teams in the same competition.
NU is in the Midwest College Sailing Association (MCSA), which is composed of only club teams. Cora Star, a Weinberg sophomore traveling to Boston, explains the process for qualifying for nationals.
[CS] First, we had to sail at a bunch of different MCSA regattas which basically gets us a qualifying berth for the qualifier for nationals. So these are a lot of smaller, more local regattas, some in Michigan or Wisconsin, as well as our own NU Spring and Becky Blank regattas. And then, once we got a berth to the qualifying regatta, we sailed against the top 10 to 15 teams in the MCSA, with the top two teams going to nationals. And this year, we were lucky enough to be in the top two for women’s and co-ed.
Both Star and Weinstein say that while the MCSA is a great conference for new sailors or people who don’t want to sail at a varsity level, the level of competition for them will drastically jump when they go to Boston.
[CS] But as we go to nationals, we’re sailing against the best sailors in the country. A lot of them have plans to go to the Olympics or be pro sailors in the future. A few of them have already made Olympic campaigns. So we’re going from pretty recreational racing to being with future Olympians and the best in the nation.
To prepare, they have been practicing around four times per week. Members are typically required to attend two practices weekly.
[CS] We’ve also been competing at a lot of regattas just to get additional training. And so recently, we flew out to Boston so we can start sailing against some of the teams we will see at nationals.
[JW] We’ve been watching a lot of the videos from the team race nationals, which were a couple weeks ago, and we’re just trying to be at that level of the teams competing there and so we’re just doing our best to get there in time.
Because the team is classified as a club, it faces financial and logistical challenges that its varsity counterparts do not. Co-captain sophomore Cole Abbott voiced the difficulties they experienced in finding flights and housing.
[CA] Since we’re a club team we don’t have, like, that much money… I don’t know, almost 10 flights to Boston, that’s a lot of money. And also we have to find housing which luckily, we were able to find housing for free with a team member.
In addition, the races start on May 20th and continue throughout the week, while most other schools are done with their semesters. According to Star, NU, Dartmouth, and Stanford are the only other schools still in classes. The difference? Dartmouth and Stanford are varsity teams.
[CA] Some of our people are having to miss an exam. So, I wish there was a little more support from the school to help with that.
Instead, Abbott says the students going to nationals have to negotiate with their professors who have not been that understanding.
[CA] We’re still student-athletes, even though we’re not a varsity team. The varsity teams get all these privileges, and they’re traveling. One of the professors said that the varsity people travel with a coach or with staff and they [school staff] can proctor the exam. But since we’re just a club team, we’re not traveling with any school employees and there’s no one to proctor the exam.
They’re still figuring out a solution, but right now, Abbott says, their best bet is to fly back to NU for one day to take the exam and then fly back to Boston to continue racing.
[CA] I wish there was more of a way that me as a captain could have more of a say in that because I really don’t have much say over the professors and neither does the club sports office.
Star says that she will be studying for her exams all the time she is not spending on the water.
[CS] Being at Northwestern makes nationals quite difficult. So I’m glad we’re able to go, but we have a lot of additional layers added on to it.
According to Abbott, the team could not afford to send their coach to Boston because of the expense.
[CA] If we could send him for free, we obviously totally would, but to send him on a flight and then pay for his housing and pay for his food and pay for the hours that he’s working, it just is so much money. We’re already spending a lot of money to go to nationals. We can’t really justify that.
The team is trying to fundraise to raise money for this year and future berths to nationals.
[CA We can fundraise and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to nationals. We need to pay for it. ‘ That’s a big opportunity.
Despite the challenges, Weinstein and Star–who are paired together—say they are excited to test their skills against the best of the best.
[CS] There’s one other team from the MCSA, so we want to just try to be sailing at a level equal to or above them.
[JW] I want to feel like I have sailed well. I think we can definitely get top 10 in a race—if not in multiple. I think we can be up there.
Weinstein sees this as a way to get good experience, no matter how well they place.
[JW] Because we are coming from maybe not such a competitive region, we’re not a varsity team, we don’t have any kind of pressure on us, right? If we go and we get dead last and like, that’s what we did. We went, we sailed, we had fun, right? We had a good time. We’re gonna still go try our best. But, however we do, we do and it’s just gonna be a good experience.
[Nat Sound: boats on the lake]
For WNUR News, I’m Amelia Donhauser.
