Collegiate Times

Freshmen new recruits Eileen Stevens and Lindsay Day practice sailing techniques in Claytor Lake.

The wind whipped across choppy water as the boat clipped along the banks of the St. Mary’s Inlet, its sails full under the hot late-afternoon sun. In front of us the next marker danced half hidden by shifting waves as she hiked over the port side.

My stomach muscles screamed in protest as we skimmed through the blustery waves, our bodies parallel to the water in an attempt to balance out the heeling boat. In front of us, Georgetown University’s team tacked around the buoy, the skipper and crew ducking expertly under the swinging boom as the sailed shifted gracefully to the leeward side.

I could hear the Christopher Newport University captain yelling above the wind and clanging halyards for his crew to prepare to tack, as we carefully maneuvered to keep them from stealing our wind.

After tagging along to a regatta last spring, the Virginia Tech sailing team is imprinted in my mind. Based out of a school located more than 300 miles from the nearest beach, it could be expected for the team to have a less than optimal crew, unreliable boats and zero funding. But sailors are creating a name for themselves on Tech's campus. 

Tech is a part of the Mid Atlantic Collegiate Sailing Association and is often faced with a David and Goliath situation when competing against other teams.

“We usually compete with any school on the coast. Most of the schools actually have sailing as a varsity sport, such as (Old Dominion University), St. Mary’s and Navy. They’re are all nationally-ranked teams, and we’re competing against them...(while) we don’t even have a coach and all the other teams do,” said Alex Vann, racing captain and senior computer science major.

Since its founding eight years ago, the team has remained an official organization on campus after several failed attempts to gain club status. Team members want to change their status, Vann explained, in hopes the university will help pay for uniforms, hotels, food, gas or an entire host of other expenses the team accrues during a regatta.

“We’ve tried to apply for it before and keep getting turned down," Vann said. "If we could get club sport status, we’d be golden.

"In the past it's been hard for us to get money."

The team travels to approximately 10 regattas each year, although the exact number varies depending on how many it qualifies for.

According to commodore and senior ocean engineering major Tricia Middleton, for a typical regatta, the team leaves on a Friday afternoon after classes, drives five to six hours to the host school and settles for the night with someone's family or at the host team's apartments.

They sail all day Saturday, socialize that evening and sail again Sunday morning. The team usually sails eight races during a regatta, alternating between two different sets of skipper and crew.

“I really like the other teams. I’m friends with alot of the kids from (University of Virginia), (Christopher Newport), Maryland and Salisbury. There's always a good group of people," Vann said. "What's nice about sailing competitions is that they’re really friendly. There's not really rivalries like football. I mean, can you imagine the football team asking to sleep at the other team's house?”

Trip Ivey, the team’s cruising captain and a senior industrial design major, has been involved with the organization almost since its founding and is responsible for the organization's non-competitive events.

“I organize lake days and barbecues — (to) make sure people are having fun,” Ivey said of the team’s numerous excursions to nearby Claytor Lake. “Theres nothing like being on the lake on a windy day with the wind blowing hard, our boats out and people having fun. There's not as much pressure as going to regattas.”

Although it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the Tech sailing team -- it has struggled to find funding, hold organized practices and maintain a group committed to make long weekend excursions -- the team knows how to keep an upbeat attitude no matter how fair or foul the weather.

A version of this article appeared in the Oct 29 issue of the Collegiate Times.