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Dear Friends of Fordham Sailing,
It was officially announced yesterday evening that Fordham has received a berth to the ICSA Match Race National Championship to be held at St. Petersburg Yacht Club on November 13-14.
This is the first year under the new ICSA National Championship Qualification system that uses a combination of direct qualification through conference championship results and at large berths chosen by selection committee. This system is designed to create more competitive fields at the various national championships. In the case of this Match Race National Championship, the first five berths were determined by the five conference champions and the remaining five berths were awarded by the selection committee. In previous years, our 3rd place finish at the conference championship would have left us out of the national championship field, but the new selection system allowed the committee to consider our previous match race success in awarding the remaining berths.
Once the doublehanded competition season ends, culminating on the weekend of October 30-31 with our coed and women's fall conference championships, the Rams will shift their focus to training in the J70 in the two weeks prior to the nationals. This does pose a logistical challenge as we are primarily a dinghy team and only own FJs and 420s, which means we must rely on the goodwill of private owners or local clubs when training for the keelboat Match Race National Championship. To that end, if you own or have access to a J70 in the Long Island Sound area and would be willing to let our team use it for practice between November 1-11, please reach out. We are hoping to head into this event as practiced as possible but we can only do that with your support.
Go Rams!
Coach Norfleet
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