Sailing World College Rankings, November 25th 2015

Sailing World’s College Rankings, presented by Gill and Sailors for the Sea, are determined by an open coaches poll. For more information on the poll, or on how your team’s coach can become a part of it, visit http://bit.ly/9jqgev. The number of first place votes a team received is in brackets. This is the fifth national ranking for the 2015 season, based on results through November 25th.

For easy viewing and sharing, the PDF is available here:

Charles Higgins, Assistant Coach at ODU, gives his perspective on the final round of overall rankings for the Fall 2015 Season:

The last major competitions of the Fall have led to the final, and probably most accurate Fall Rankings. Several teams have made significant jumps and drops over the last two weeks and a few teams still seem to be getting the benefit of the doubt from the voting coaches. Over the past two weeks, we have seen some incredibly tight competition at the Coed and Women’s Atlantic Coast Championships as well as the Pacific Coast Championship. While minimal impact is had on the rankings, the ICSA Match Race Championship was held as well, with the Cougars from the College of Charleston prevailing at home, supplanting last year’s champions, the Hoyas from Georgetown in the Semi-Final Round before defeating the Dartmouth Big Green in the Final.

As for the Coed Rankings, a small shuffle at the top as Yale regains the #1 ranking with a slim margin over Georgetown. The Coast Guard academy garnered four of the 14 available 1st place votes by winning the Coed Atlantic Coast Championship and moved up to 3rd. Two teams, SUNY-Maritime and UCSB moved into the rankings this time on the strengths of solid performances as well. UCSB won the Pacific Coast Championship joining Stanford as the only non-East Coast teams to be featured in this edition of the rankings. Roger Williams and Cornell both dropped out of the rankings this time around. The biggest mover was Old Dominion, who moved up 9 spots from #17 to #8 with a strong finish at home at the Coed ACCs.

On the Women’s side, the Lady Rams from Rhode Island helped solidify their spot atop the rankings with a 2nd place finish (losing a tie-break to Dartmouth for 1st) at the Women’s Atlantic Coast Championship. Dartmouth moved up to 2nd after their victory, and Yale rounds out the top 3. Mysteriously they still managed a 1st place vote despite finishing 6th at the Women’s ACCs, behind previously unranked Boston University. And what a move for the Terriers! They jumped into the rankings behind their strong 4th place finish at a tough event. Vermont also made a big jump from #15 to #8. Brown was the only team to drop out of the rankings and their drop, along with Coast Guard’s can only be attributed to “what have you done for me lately” as neither team qualified to compete in the Atlantic Coast Championship this year. One team that received votes and you shouldn’t be surprised to see more from as the year progresses are the Lady Badgers of Wisconsin. They narrowly missed out on the final spot in last year’s National Championship Final and you can be certain they’ll be hungry come May.

For most teams it is now time for finals and boats are being put away until the thaw of spring—but who are we kidding, College Sailing doesn’t wait for the weather to get better! Teams will be back at it come February as sailors gear up for the long grind to the postseason and the reward at the end.

Coed Rankings:

Also receiving votes: Eckerd, South Florida, Roger Williams, Cornell, Hawaii, Univ. Pennsylvania, Connecticut College, Rhode Island, Fordham, Southern California, Salve Regina, Vermont

Also receiving votes: Brown, Old Dominion, Eckerd, Baylor, Harvard, Navy, Fordham, UC Santa Barbara, Roger Williams, Santa Clara, Hawaii, Hobart/Wm. Smith, Wisconsin

14 coaches participated: Stanford, Dartmouth, Cornell, SUNY Maritime, Eckerd, Brown, Harvard, Hawaii, South Florida, Univ. Pennsylvania, Bowdoin, Roger Williams, Vermont, Hobart/Wm. Smith