NEW ORLEANS – No. 6 Harvard Sailing finished in fourth place at the 2026 ICSA Women's Team Race National Championship on Lake Pontchartrain. The Crimson finished in the top-5 for the third straight season, marking the first time in program history it has accomplished the feat.
Overall, Harvard finished with a 12-10 record, finishing behind the champion Stanford (21-1), Yale (18-4) and Brown (13-9). The Crimson has now finished in fourth, third (2025) and fifth place (2024) the last three years at women's team race nationals. Prior to its current run, Harvard had finished in sixth in 2022 and eighth in 2023.
Representing Harvard at nationals were skippers
Kate Danielson,
Sophia Montgomery and
Zoey Ziskind, and crew
JJ Drummond,
Christina Chen,
Rosella Irfan,
Katherine Shin and
Amelie Zucker. For Chen and Irfan, the duo was competing for the fifth straight day after helping the Crimson win the coed championship the previous three days.
The Crimson opened the day needing to get through five more races to complete Round 1 action and began with a 3-4-6 loss to Brown. Harvard, however, answered with three wins in its final four outings (1-2-5 vs. Cornell, 1-2-3 vs. College of Charleston, 3-4-6 vs. Stanford, 1-3-4 vs. Dartmouth) to end with a 9-5 record and advance to the Round of 6.
Harvard won its first two races to begin second-round action, dismissing Brown, 1-3-6, and Tufts, 1-2-3. The Crimson momentum was stopped after that as it fell in succession to Stanford (2-5-6), Yale (1-5-6) and Dartmouth (3-4-5). Despite the losses, which dropped Harvard to 11-8, the Crimson still moved on to the Final Four.
In the final round of the two-day regatta, Harvard fell to Stanford (3-4-5) and Yale (2-4-6) in its first two contests, but like earlier in the day, showed its resiliency. The Crimson ended the event with an impressive 1-2-6 victory over Brown, netting Harvard its 12
th and final victory.
Next up for Harvard is the ICSA Fleet Race National Championships in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Crimson is guaranteed to compete in the open regatta (May 19-22) and will learn its women's championship fate in the coming days as it awaits the ICSA's announcement. The women's fleet race is slated for May 15-18.
