TAMPA, Fla. -  The Bowdoin sailing team posted a historic fourth place finish in the Women's Fleet Race Championship over the weekend.
 
The near podium finishes marks the highest finish in program history at the event. Bowdoin advanced to the finals after winning their semifinal, also first for the team.
 
The first day of the finals featured an easterly breeze to start followed big a nice building southerly.  Six races were completed before racing was stopped because of storms.  The Polar Bears sailed well in both divisions earning top scores with the team sitting in third place overall after the first day of racing.  
 
For the final day of racing, racing was moved up earlier in the day in order to sail in the best breeze possible.  The Polar Bears had some harder races to start the day but quickly started firing on all cylinders, earning nearly all top-5 finishes overall. The breeze died after race 12 followed by a long postponement.  The fleets returned to the water at 4 pm yesterday in order to attempt to get races 13A and 13B before the 5 pm cutoff.  Bowdoin was three point behind Harvard going into the final races. The race committee was able to complete race 13A, with Bowdoin beating Harvard by multiple places.  Unfortunately, 13B was abandoned during the run because the breeze shifted and shut off.  After a long redress hearing involving a broken boat part with another team, the results were finalized with the Polar Bears finishing fourth overall, a program best finish.