The Sauder sailing team finished 3rd in the 4th edition of the SDA Bocconi’s MBA Cup. The annual regatta attracted 21 schools from all over the world. Kudos to the Sailing team for flying the Sauder brand high and making us all proud with their victory. (Bellow is a personalized account of the tournament from Jason Collis, president of the Sailing Club).
Santa Margherita and Portofino, which were the two host towns for the regatta, were both beautiful. They were old fishing villages that had been transformed in recent years into an incredible sailing oasis on the Italian Riviera.
We had 10 teammates from The Sauder School of Business in Italy. Eight people in Division A – Craig Terry, Jorge Lobo, Julia Dorofeeva, Enrique Sandoval, Ingrid Hartmann, Julien Traverse, Neil Simpson and myself as the skipper (Jason Collis). In Division B we had 2 teammates – Robin Poirier and Kelly Moss. In Division B our teammates were able to sail on a mixed boat with students from many different schools from all over the world. While some people on the team had extensive racing backgrounds like Craig Terry and myself, most of the sailors had little to no experience prior to this year. The team was extremely committed to doing well and representing the school. We trained several times per week and had a great deal of support from the Vancouver sailing community especially from our volunteer coaches. The team is very multinational, we have members from Venezuela, Mexico, USA, Russia and Canada. We all took sailing lessons at the beginning of the year and received CYA certifications and then continued to hone our skills throughout the rest of the year by training skills and entering local area regattas. By the time we were leaving for Italy everyone’s skills had dramatically improved.
We got in on Thursday September 23rd and picked up the boat that we would be racing for the next 3 days and met the other teams. The other teams were from the top business schools from all over Europe and the US. We spent the first day getting used to the boat and the first night getting to know some of the other teams.
The regatta was split into 2 divisions, with the 1st and 2nd place from each division moving on on Sunday to the semi-finals. The first day we only had one race and it was cancelled due to lack of wind, so by the second day we were raring to go. The breeze was picking up by the late morning and we got a race off. We got a good start and continued that advantage up the race course. The crew work on the boat was excellent, everyone was working together smoothly, our training was definitely paying off. Even with a few equipment breakdowns we were able to win the first race in our division and in the 2nd race we placed 3rd. With this result we moved onto the semi-finals on the last day.
The parties and events that SDA Bocconi had planned were all amazing. The first night they took everyone on a boat cruise over to Portofino into the incredible harbour and had drinks and finger foods, and then back to Santa Margherita for dinner and dancing. The MBA conference was on the Saturday night. They brought everyone to a castle overlooking the coast and we listened to a discussion on how talent would propel the world economy out of the crisis. They had business leaders from Italy and Europe discussing their opinions and we all learned a lot. We then had dinner and drinks and had another great night.
In the morning we were sailing in the semi-finals. The format changed to match-racing on smaller boats. We had to cut the crew number to only 5 sailors so we had some tough decisions to make. Everyone had sailed so well to that point and we made our decisions but this was a complete team effort and we thank everyone who was supporting us from the sidelines and that includes our B division teammates, our coaches, everyone from the sailing club, Sauder and the Vancouver sailing community. The match-racing was something that I had never done before but luckily Craig Terry had extensively experienced this in this racing past and was able to coach us expertly. We did our best and we led the 2nd race of 2 against SDA Bocconi (the eventual winners) for most of the race until they were finally able to get the better of us. We then faced Kellogg for 3rd place and were able to beat them in both of our races to receive the 3rd place. We were absolutely thrilled with our finish. The team really pulled together and performed extremely well and represented Sauder with great skill and class.
We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported us along the way. Sauder for supporting us both financially and with encouragement. Our sponsors, Sperry and North Sails for all of the great equipment that helped us bring home that great result. Our teammates both in Italy and back here in Vancouver for making us the great team that we were. And our coaches and the Vancouver sailing community that took us in and helped us prepare for this without thought of reward. Special thanks to Dean Daniel Muzyka, John Dixon, Jane Lumbers, Tony Boardman, Kin Lo, Doug Ramsey, Owen Griffin, Katriona MacDonald and Claudia and Louis Montpellier.
Jason Collis
President – Sailing Club
