[SAILING]

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Sailing teams from Charleston, left, and Washington dueled into the wind during the ICSA team championships at Keehi Lagoon yesterday.

Hawaii opens fourth
in team sailing races

Georgetown and Harvard lead
after the first of 3 days

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By Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.com

Adam Corpuz-Lahne and Isaac Gillette have been sailing against each other since small-kid time.

Yesterday was reminiscent of their days in junior sailing, as the Honolulu natives battled each other at the 2002 Intercollegiate Sailing Association team championship.

The three-day team regatta began yesterday at Keehi Lagoon with the first 30 races of a 66-race round robin. The top four teams meet in a final four on the third day in a double round-robin competition.

Each of the 12 teams in the regatta will sail once against each other. In team racing, three boats race against three boats from another school.

A team wins a race only if the combined finish of all three boats is lower than the collective finish of the other team. The placement of the three boats is added up and the sum must be 10 or less for a crew to be victorious.

Although there were as many as 18 boats on the course at one time, the team championship was less chaotic than the women's championship. Only six boats can complete a race at one time, but in the women's championship all 18 flying juniors arrived at the finish line at approximately the same time.

The conditions at Keehi Lagoon were beautiful again with 10- to 15-knot tradewinds. And the temperature felt a few degrees cooler than last week.

Harvard and Georgetown lead the team race regatta with 5-0 records. Tufts (4-1) is in third with Hawaii (3-2) and College of Charleston (3-2) tied for fourth.

Corpuz-Lahne and Gillette sailed in the last race of the day for their respective teams. Gillette skippered a flying junior for UC Santa Barbara that caught and beat Corpuz-Lahne's UHboat. But Hawaii's other two boats finished 1-2, which was enough to win the head-to-head contest against UCSB.

"I kind of got lucky," Gillette said. "It was a tough race. Adam and I have been going at it since we were kids. Sometimes it goes my way and sometimes it goes his way. Luckily, I got by him. That didn't make the race for our team. Our team still lost the race, so he actually came out ahead on that one. But it's a good rivalry. This is a chance of a lifetime. I'm real lucky to be at nationals this year. It's my hometown."

It was fun for Corpuz-Lahne, too.

"We were in front of them for 95 percent of the race, but at the end he managed to get a little bit of clear air and then he was launched," the UH junior said.

"But it was a really good race. He did a good job. I was just glad to be out there."

Corpuz-Lahne spoke respectfully of Gillette at the end of the race, but before it the junior told UH coach Andy Johnson that he could beat Gillette. Corpuz-Lahne figured his chances were good. After all, the two had raced each other for years and he estimates that the series was 50-50.

Their history with each other was one of the reasons Gillette went to UCSB, a school where sailing is a club sport.

"I didn't want to go to UH 'cause I'd have to be on the same team as Adam," Gillette said.

"We're good friends and all, but it's good to be in the race against him.

If I was on the UH team, I'd have to compete with him."

The team championship continues today at 9:45 a.m.