When many of the top college sailing teams in the country assembled in Maryland at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis recently, most of them had well-financed programs, they had trained on fancy boats, and they sported those cool nautical nicknames.
There were the California Maritime Academy Keelhaulers, the University of California at San Diego Tritons, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy Buccaneers, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Mariners, and the Navy Midshipmen, of course.
But the field in the Kennedy Cup, a national championship regatta, also included the Rockets of the University of Toledo Sailing Club. The University of Rhode Island was there, too, backed by its nearly 90-year-old program, a fleet of 50 boats, a full-time coach, and its history of producing Olympians and All-Americans.
The Toledo team, a 100 percent student-run organization with a scant budget, no paid coaches, and a sailing group that until this year did not have a reliable fleet to practice with, proved it belonged with the aristocracy of collegiate sailing. The Rocket sailors finished first in one of the races at the event, which is also known as the Intercollegiate Sailing Association’s Keelboat Championship, and Toledo placed seventh overall after the two days of sailing.
“We are the smallest and least-funded team out there,” said Craig Mueller, a 2019 UT graduate who serves as the team's alumni adviser. “We're proud to say Toledo got seventh against the top teams in the nation. It is quite the underdog story.”
While most of the other schools sailing in the Kennedy Cup have significant experience, in both this event and sailing in the Naval Academy’s custom-designed Navy 44’s sailboats, this marked the first time in the 56-year history of the championship that UT has competed in the event. On a Friday, the Rocket sailors got two hours of practice in the boat supplied by the Naval Academy, and the competition commenced the next day.
Toledo took sixth, fourth, sixth, and then an impressive first place in the Saturday races and stood in third place. Sunday proved a tougher sail but nobody was dejected about placing seventh overall in what amounted to a national championship event.
“The races in Annapolis were supposed to be for the best team from each region of the country, so we really did achieve something amazing just by being there,” said senior Jayson Miller, the club's commodore who skippered the boat in the Kennedy Cup. “It was one of the first times that our abilities were recognized.”
The Rockets had been building their national profile earlier this year, finishing first in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta at Columbia Yacht Club in Chicago. That impressive showing earned them an invitation to sail with the Collegiate Offshore Sailing Circuit in Larchmont, N.Y., in the Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta, but that event was scrubbed due to unsafe seas.
The disappointment of having missed that opportunity was softened when the invitation to sail in the prestigious regatta at the Naval Academy came in. But there was a fairly steep learning curve involved when they stepped onto an unfamiliar boat for that practice session.
“We definitely were struggling in the Friday practice because those boats are an absolute bear to sail. It takes a lot out of you,” said junior Carly Fraker, who first learned to sail just two years ago. “We were really excited to be there representing UT, and we felt like we were out to prove we were good enough to be there.”
Miller, who was just 4 years old when he started sailing with his grandfather while living in Florida, said the UT Sailing Team has an open door policy – anyone can join and sailing experience is not a prerequisite for membership. There are several members of the eight-person team that sailed at Annapolis who never stepped onto a sailboat until college.
“Some of the people on our team have only been sailing for about six months, while the people on some of the teams we competed against have been sailing all of their lives,” he said. “It is really cool to get out on a playing field with people who have found out how to succeed so quickly.”
Mueller, who learned to sail as a UT freshman in 2015, said he attributes the team's success to grit and determination.
“They put their blood, sweat, and tears into everything that they are doing. It doesn't matter what they are faced with, they will go out there and try their hardest,” he said.
The team puts in a lot of practice time out of North Cape Yacht Club, where longtime sailor and club member Duane Burgoyne has witnessed their prowess.
“The way they competed in the Naval Academy regatta — this is a big deal,” he said. “They are good sailors and their notoriety is spreading across the U.S. Everybody loves an underdog story, and they are the underdog when they go up against these established teams.”
Fraker said the practice time on Lake Erie has worked in UT's favor since Erie can be volatile and unpredictable.
“The different conditions we deal with here are probably unlike anything you would find anywhere else in the world. Lake Erie kicks up a short chop, different from what you see on the ocean, so it gives us a different training environment,” she said. “At the Chicago event that we won, we saw a lot of heavy air, something we have experience with on Lake Erie, and we knew how to handle it.”
Burgoyne said Toledo's showing against the elite field at the Kennedy Cup is a testament to the sailing skills the Rocket sailors have picked up while operating on their own as a club team.
“Some of those other kids who Toledo was sailing against, they are at those schools on full scholarships because of their sailing abilities. At UT, these kids get nothing but a yawn,” Burgoyne said.
Fraker said the UT club operates on a budget of about $3,000 and she heard from a member of the Rhode Island team that they were looking for a new coach but had been unable to find one who would work for less than a six-figure salary.
“These schools have dedicated boats, lots of funding, nice facilities — we really have nothing when compared to these other teams,” she said. “We compete evenly, even though we don't train evenly.”
Miller added that the lack of support from UT's administration has been a source of frustration for the team.
“That's one of the problems we've had — the university likes to take credit for our success, but not support us,” he said. “The university pretty much says good luck, but they're not helping us out.”
Miller, who plans to return to UT next year for graduate school or law school, will continue to sail with the Rockets since the loss of the 2020 season due to the pandemic allows additional eligibility.
“Sailing is all I do, but my goal has shifted from trying to win as many races as possible to trying to bring a sport that is so special to me to as many people as I can,” Miller said. “Sailing is not a sport that is accessible to everyone, so the sailing club is an important way to introduce people to the sport. Sailing helps people find out a lot of interesting things about themselves.”
Besides Miller and Fraker, the UT Sailing team that competed in Annapolis included Nathan St. Clair, Shelby Level, Brian Pribe, Alex Schock, Brigid Monihan, and Jon Gibson.
First Published November 20, 2021, 1:00 p.m.
