What was once the world’s primary form of long-distance travel is now a competitive sport.
Texas A&M’s club sailing team currently practices at Lake Bryan, sailing two times a week, with the race team’s sailors practicing an additional day. The practice team, a feeder program for the racing group, doesn’t attend competitive events.
“To get on the race team, you get either invited or you ask to join,” agricultural systems management sophomore and practice team captain Drew Gourley said. “We go through a skills evaluation to make sure you can safely operate the boat and are actually ready to race and travel.”
In the scoring system of sailing, the team with the lowest number of points wins, with the number dependent on the position they finish the race in.
“The first person to go through the line gets one point, second person two, third person three,” Gourley said.
The race team competes in two types of races during the year. In the fall, they participate in fleet races, consisting of two boats from A&M with a skipper and a crew on each. In the spring, team races require three A&M boats with a skipper and a crew on each.
“The whole goal is to get a combined lower score than the other team,” Gourley said. “So it’s a little bit more technical and skills-based.”
A series of sailboat races is called a regatta, and the Aggie sailing team has placed second in two of the three they’ve attended this spring. The team will compete in a total of eight regattas this semester.
“We know how to compete against those who are nearby to us, but we’re struggling to compete on a national level because people outside of our district recruit for sailing, and Texas A&M does not,” industrial engineering junior and captain Kate Hennig said. “It’s not going to keep us down, and we have hopes to do better on the national level.”
The highlights of the fall 2024 semester include placing second at the South East Interscholastic Sailing Association Women’s Fall Championship and third at the Kathryn Hammond Regional Regatta, both hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. They also received fourth at the Fall Fury Regional Regatta in Wisconsin and 13th at the Stoney Burke Regional Regatta hosted by Berkeley.
“We travel to a bunch of further away regattas,” Gourley said. “Went to California, and we did alright there.”
The Aggies will head to North Carolina for the Sailpack Oriental Intercollegiate Regatta on March 29, where they aim to show their capabilities on the national level. But the team doesn’t just have goals for their performance on the water.
“We want to build a better culture between the club and the team,” Hennig said. “We want the team members to act as mentors to the club members.”
Sailing should be an approachable sport, Hennig said. It’s not very common for parents to put their children in sailing camps when they’re young, and it’s difficult for adults to get into the activity as well. Sailing at A&M is an easy way for students to get into the sailing community.
“Once you develop relationships there, you can continue to sail for the rest of your life,” Hennig said. “It’s truly a great thing.”
