NEW ORLEANS (April 27, 2026) – With a clutch performance on Monday, the Tufts University women's sailing team earned a fifth-place finish out of 15 teams at the 2026 Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) Women's Team Race Championship.
This is the Tufts women's team's best finish at a national championship regatta in 16 years, since the 2010 squad was fourth at the National Fleet Race Championship.
The Jumbos were in ninth place at the end of Sunday's racing. Needing to get into the top six to advance to the next stage, the Tufts team did so on Monday morning by winning three of its five remaining first-stage races. The Jumbos finished with an 8-6 record and in sixth place at the end of the first round robin. Tufts was one of four teams with an 8-6 record at that point, but advanced in a tiebreaker with the help of a victory against Cornell on Monday. The Jumbos also defeated MIT and Michigan, while losing to Dartmouth and Georgetown.
Stanford, Yale, Brown, Harvard and Dartmouth advanced along with the Jumbos to a Top 6 round on Monday. There, Tufts moved up a spot to fifth place with a 2-3 record in the second stage. They defeated Brown and Dartmouth, but lost to Stanford, Yale and Harvard. Tufts was not one of the teams to move on to the final round of four, as they earned fifth place with a 10-9 overall record at the Championship.
The Jumbos were making their second appearance at the Women's Team Race Nationals, an event that started in 2022. Tufts was 11th last year, which makes for an improvement of six spots by this year's squad.
Stanford won the ICSA Women's Team Race national championship today with a 21-1 final record at the event.
Racing for Tufts on Monday were senior skipper
Ella Hubbard with sophomore crew Kate Castlerry, first-year skipper
Maddie Janzen with senior crew
Lilly Ladd and sophomore skipper
Sophia Hubbard with junior crew
Eloise Goedkoop.
The Tufts women's team will learn if they have earned an at-large berth in the ICSA Women's Fleet Race National Championship on Tuesday evening. The Fleet Race Nationals in St. Petersburg, Florida will start with semifinals on May 15-16.
--JUMBOS--
