Gilly Chamberlain, the team captain for the University of New Orleans, agrees. Chamberlain briefly attended the Coast Guard Academy, and he does, on occasion, pine for the seemingly unlimited funding of the Academy as well as the top-flight, easily accessible competition in NEISA. But he's also quite proud of the work he's done at UNO. Just three years old, the team qualified for two national championships last year-sloops and dinghies-and spent a few months at No. 20 in the Sailing World rankings.

"What bothered me was that a lot of guys who got All-American last year were from NEISA, and I was up there with those guys," Chamberlain says. "I would've been a good sailor, but I wouldn't have known how to run a team. I was really dependent on Al [Kruger, USCGA's head coach]. I've learned so much about management. If you want to get something done in a business, you've got to deal with red tape."

Though the team receives no regular funding from the school, Chamberlain was recently able to convince the UNO student government- "a lot of mean and ugly faces," he recalls-to contribute $21,000 toward a fleet of six new 420s. Chamberlain's struggle is typical of what teams have to deal with in the South-Eastern Intercollegiate Sailing Association, which is comprised essentially of schools from Texas and Louisiana. Almost all of the teams are student run, and funding is an annual battle, though of late it is a battle that a number of SEISA schools have been winning. In addition to UNO's new fleet, Tulane, Baylor, Texas A & M-Galveston, and Texas all have new boats.

Performancewise, the schools in SEISA, like those in the Midwest (MCSA) and the Northwest (NWICYRA), are still lagging a step behind the better-funded teams in New England (NEISA), the Middle Atlantic (MAISA), the South Atlantic (SAISA), and California and Hawaii (PCIYRA), many of which have consistent coaching and varsity status.