News

The Nantucket Hgh School sailing team played host to the Tabor Academy Seawolves on Saturday in a dual meet, featuring a best-of-five series between both the varsity and junior varsity teams from both schools. Tabor - arguably one of the best teams on the East Coast - sailed past the Whalers, winning the varsity regatta by a margin of 4-1 and the junior varsity regatta 3-2. The loss to Tabor drops the Whalers to 6-3 on the season.

Tabor came out strong in the first race, dominating the start. While the majority of boats piled up on the boat end of the line, one Tabor sailor hit the pin end at the gun, and took off on port tack with an impressive lead. Tabor rounded the windward mark in first and second, a lead they would not relinquish despite the best efforts of the Whaler sailors.

The second race was a much more evenly-matched affair, as the Whalers opted for a slightly different strategy at the start. Each boat blanketed a Tabor boat, in the hopes of negating any advantages the Seawolves might get at the start. Again, though, the Tabor sailors took first and second, assuring them of the win in  race two.

After falling down 2-0, captain Adam Ceely rallied his teammates before the start of the third race to discuss strategy. Under Ceely's guidance, the Whalers came out strong in race 3, and utilized textbook team racing strategy to finish 2-3-5, a combination that gave them the race, and put them back in the series which now stood at 2-1.

After the third race, the junior varsity sailors took over, and while might expect a drop-off in the skill level of the Tabor sailors, the Seawolves demonstrated how deep their teams are, as their junior varsity sailors executed their strategies almost as well as their varsity counterparts. Tabor took the first two races, with Nantucket winning the third. So at the end of three races, both the varsity and junior varsity teams faced an uphill battle.

The varsity sailors rotated back in after three junior varsity races, and Tabor took both of the final two. The junior varsity Whalers fared slightly better, splitting the two races, winning the fifth and final race in commanding style, taking the three top spots.

In other sailing news, Nantucket hosted the Cape and Islands Women's Invitational, a fleet race regatta featuring eleven different schools from the area. Each school was allowed to enter one boat in each of nine races, and the school with the lowest point total was declared the winner. The racing was extremely competitive and featured some of the area's best high school fleet racers. Nauset, Barnstable and Dennis Yarmouth took the top three spots, with Dartmouth narrowly missing out on third to D-Y. Nantucket finished in the ninth spot. The CIWI results do not factor in to the Whalers' season totals.

After a well-deserved day off on Sunday, the Whalers are back at practice in hopes that Friday the 13^th will be their lucky day, as the Dennis-Yarmouth Dolphins come to Nantucket to sail against the Whaler teams.