COURTESY OF UH Hawaii's Scott DeCurtis and Becky Mabardy will compete in the Intercollegiate Sailing Association Championships, beginning tomorrow in Austin, Texas.

Rested Rainbows head
to ICSA event

UH is off to Texas looking to defend
its coed dinghy national championship

Hawaii sailing coach Andy Johnson hopes a little bit of rest and the right amount of wind add up to another national championship for the Rainbows.

College sailing What: ICSA championships When: ICSA/Layline North American Team Race Championship, tomorrow-Tuesday; ICSA/Gill North American Coed Dinghy Championship, June 8-10 Where: Lake Travis in Austin, Texas Schools: Team Race--College of Charleston, Dartmouth, Eckerd College, Georgetown, Harvard, Hobart/William Smith, Northwestern, St. Mary's (Md.), Texas A&M Galveston, Hawaii, Michigan, USC, Washington, Yale. Coed Dinghy--Brown, College of Charleston, Dartmouth, Harvard, Hobart/William Smith, Old Dominion, St. Mary's (Md.), Texas A&M Galveston, Tulane, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, South Florida, USC, Washington, Yale, Boston College, Georgetown Tidbits: The ICSA includes more than 200 colleges divided into seven districts ... All ICSA competitors are non-scholarship student-athletes ... UH will host the ICSA Singlehanded National Championships Nov. 18-20 at Keehi Lagoon.

Rather than spend the past week cramming for the final regatta of the college sailing season, most of the UH sailors dispersed to their hometowns for a few days of relaxation before meeting up in Austin, Texas, for the Intercollegiate Sailing Association Championships.

The break was partly a cost-cutting move to save on the sailors' air travel to Texas, but also gave them a chance to recharge heading into the championships.

"It's going to be a pretty intense eight to nine days, so to give them a little break is just fine," said Johnson, UH's 16-year head coach. "A little break is always good, and then you come back just fired up."

"We can go do other things and take our minds off of sailing a little bit so when we get to nationals we can just be totally focused on sailing," sophomore Cassandra Harris said. "If you sail too much, there's just so much thinking on the water that your mind actually does start to hurt a little bit."

The Rainbows, ranked 12th nationally by Sailing World, will compete in the ICSA North American Team Racing Championship starting tomorrow on Austin's Lake Travis. They'll then attempt to defend their title in the ICSA Coed Dinghy Championship later in the week.

The team-racing event runs through Tuesday. The coed dinghy races will be held Wednesday to Friday.

The UH sailors haven't raced on the 65-mile-long artificial lake before, and will use a practice session to familiarize themselves with the conditions before attempting to add to the program's trophy collection.

Hawaii won the ICSA women's title in 2001 and captured the coed crown last summer.

"I think we'll be ready for anything," senior Jennifer Warnock said. "It's all about adapting yourself to whatever conditions you come up with and making it work."

Johnson was pleased with the team's practices last week at Keehi Lagoon before taking a few days off. Now he can only hope the Texas breezes cooperate over the course of the regatta.

"I think if we get a lot of wind, it'll be to our advantage," he said. "I'm confident that if we get 15-20 knots I don't think there's another team in the country that can stay with us."

Warnock, Harris, Matt Stein and Bryan Lake -- a three-time All-American -- return from last year's championship team. Scott DeCurtis, Shandy Buckley and Becky Mabardy round out the UH contingent.

Warnock will complete a highly decorated college career at the ICSA championships. Over the past five years, she's sailed with both of UH's national championship teams, earned All-America honors five times, and is this year's female recipient of the Jack Bonham Award, considered UH's most prestigious athletic honor.

She's looking to complete the national championship trifecta if UH can claim its first team-racing title on Tuesday.

"I think our team-racing team is definitely stronger this year than it has ever been in the five years that I've been here," Warnock said. "We're looking good this year and I hope we win both."

A total of 14 schools qualified for the team-racing championship and 16 will compete in the coed dinghy championship.

UH secured a spot in the team-racing field by placing second in the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Association championships in April. The Rainbows earned the opportunity to defend its national crown by tying USC for first in the PCIYRA coed dinghy championships last month.

The team-racing event is divided into two brackets. The teams race head-to-head within their brackets with the top four schools advancing to the finals for another round robin to determine the champion.

The coed event is a three-day series of fleet races in which one boat from each school navigates around a triangular course. Each school enters a team in A and B divisions and accumulates points based on their placement. The school with the fewest points after 36 races takes home the title.

The races take 20-30 minutes to complete, making quick starts crucial to a team's success.

"Because the races are short, if you can't get off the line you're just trying to battle your way back through the fleet," Johnson said.

UH didn't qualify for the women's championship, which opened Wednesday, for the first time in eight years. But the Rainbows hope the extra rest will aid their run at the other two titles.

"Usually by the time it comes to coed and team racing, I'm worn out from the three days of women's," Warnock said. "This time I think I'm ready to put my full energy in and race hard."