Eight Gaels took a wet and rainy boat ride over to the Royal Military College of Canada this past weekend for the CICSA Fleet Racing National Championships. Looking to regain their title, and win for the 5th time in 7 years were first year athletes Arie Moffat, Nicholas Shute, Hugo Matheison, Georgia Stein, Aleksander Magi, James Juhasz and Liam Bruce, and team veteran, Jonah Burke-Kleinman.

Saturday brought a classic Kingston breeze out of the south-west and by the end of the first day, after 12 races, Queen's was two points behind McGill, landing themselves in 2nd, well ahead of McMaster (3rd), UofT (4th) and UBC (5th). With a few 1sts, many 2nds and a 3rd, Queen's dominated the A Division, with Arie Moffat skippering, and Nicholas Shute as his crew.

Starting out day two, sailors were postponed on shore due to a lack of wind. Around 11:30am, the wind picked up, and the Race Committee went out with intentions to get four races off and then wrap up the series. Knowing that they just needed to stay ahead of McGill in all the races, Queen's came off the water after two races with a 3rd and 4th to McGill's 2nd and a 5th. This meant the Gaels were still two points behind, with two races to go. The close out the regatta, Liam Bruce and Jonah Burke-Kleiman went out to the course and had a 5th in the first race, where McGill finished 3rd. Now four points behind, the Gaels sailors needed a big victory over the McGill team to clinch the title. At the end of the final race, Queen's crossed the finish line exactly four spots ahead of McGill in the fleet of 11 boats, bringing the teams to a tie.

While other tiebreaks have favoured the team this year (beating McMaster at WLU/UW invitational, and getting themselves to the finals at Team Racing National Champs over McMaster) our sailors were on the unlucky end this time around. Having posted two 1st's over the event to McGill's four 1st's, the Gaels settled close-call for 2nd place. This event wraps up another Queen's Sailing Fall season with incredible success. Congratulations to all our sailors at this event, and all others in the weeks previous!