Sailing coach Allison Jolly looked out from her boat at the flag blowing on the U.S. Coast Guard ship on Wednesday, March 28, frowning about the gentle northeast wind that was making it a calm day for sailing.
Hoping for a sea breeze, Jolly shouted across the water to John Mollicone, coach of the Brown University sailing team, in the other coach’s boat. He and some of the Brown team visited USF’s sailing team for their spring break, practicing together for the week.
Brown University’s sailing team is a big competitor for USF and they are of a higher ranking. They have been visiting USFSP’s waterfront campus for at least nine years, said Jolly, who has been coaching that long.
Here for one week, they brought about 24 sailors, which is half of their sailing team. Their team is the same size as USF’s, and all of the students paid their own way to come here because sailing is a club sport at Brown.
“I feel like we get a lot of benefit from them being here,” Jolly said.
She said impressive it is that the Brown team members, coming from Rhode Island, chose to spend their spring break with the students they practice with and see at school all the time.
“It’s a big deal to give up your entire spring break,” Jolly said.
The past few weeks have been a challenge for Jolly after the full-time, co-ed team coach Gonzalo Crivello left to go work for the St. Petersburg Yacht Club. Jolly said with Brown here it’s not so bad, but once they leave she won’t have that extra coach on the other boat to help keep an eye out while she does the management side to practice, bringing in and picking up students who have conflicting class schedules.
Jesse Combs and Tim King, both who have previously sailed with the team and graduated from USF St. Petersburg, are currently part-time coaches until someone is formally hired to fill Crivallo’s position.
During Wednesday’s practice, which is a newly scheduled day for USF’s sailing team, the two universities practiced fleet racing and team racing. Fleet racing is when all of the boats race together at once, circling the bright markers that the coaches have dropped in the water. With a shortage of USF students, the two schools paired sailors together so that everyone had two people in each boat. They were all practicing for the same upcoming regattas, which took place in Rhode Island over the weekend of March 31.
USF sent six sailors to one regatta and four to another, both in Rhode Island. After sailing in St. Petersburg with temperatures in the mid-80s, the USF team would find a forecast calling for temperatures in the low 40s and rain or snow showers in Rhode Island.
Other schools have visited the campus over the past few weeks. The sailing team has had the chance to sail with Yale and Columbia University, and the University of Wisconsin team is coming on April 2. These schools pay to rent the sailing facilities on campus, which is competitively priced, Jolly said. Aside from the price, schools come here because of its unique location and beautiful winter weather.
Despite light winds, Brown had perfect weather during their spring break sailing trip.
“It’s sailable if you’re patient and work it,” Jolly said.
Photo by Margaret Spears
