The Texas Sailing team is gearing up to compete in the Southeast Interscholastic Sailing Association (SEISA) Open Fleet Race Championship Regatta at the Corpus Christi Yacht Club through Oct. 25 and 26. Five to six members will be sent to the tournament, and two boats will be competing for UT.
The team competes in five to six regattas, or sailing races, per semester, hosting one in the fall and two in the spring. Their conference brings several schools from Texas and Louisiana together, including Tulane University, Rice University and several schools in the Texas A&M system.
For the next two weeks, the team has a break between competitions to practice for the upcoming championship.
“Most of the schools within our conference will be going to that so it’ll be pretty competitive and lively,” said Mark Carella, economics junior and president of the team.
There will be 20 sailors who compete in the majority of their competitions, and only 5-6 will be traveling to the championship. The team will be manning two sailboats in the regatta looking to take home a win for the Longhorns.
“We try to send our best members that have been to a ton of practices, that have a really good base knowledge of sailing and the tactical part of sailing,” said Ria Chhabra, health and society junior and the team’s public relations officer.
The team has won four Intercollegiate Sailing Association national titles since its establishment in 1968, with their last in 2001. Upon establishment, there was a sailing team and a sailing club, but they merged a few years ago to form the championship team they are today.
“We’ve been around for a while, and we’ve been pretty good,” Carella said.
There are many distinguished Longhorn sailing alumni, including Paul Foerster, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist in sailing. Many former Longhorn sailors have also taken first place in the U.S. Sailing Association Championship.
Only undergraduate students can compete in the College National Sailing Association, and they must remain eligible the entire four years. Many sailors join the team with prior experience, but several began their sailing journey with the team.
“One of our biggest goals is to get as many new people interested in the sport, and get them to that competitive level,” Chhabra said.
The team is entirely student-run, with team members in charge of all administrative and coaching duties. The team practices three days a week, from 4 p.m. to sundown at the Austin Yacht Club.
In addition to the highly competitive conference tournaments, the team also competes in beginner-level competitions to give new sailors experience.
Regattas are competed in a W2 racing style, which involves two laps around the course. The team sails on FJ’s and 420’s, which are two-person boats. The co-ed team also competes across multiple divisions.
“We’ll have three divisions,” Chhabra said. “There’s women’s and open, which is men and women, and we’ll usually have different pairings for both of those.”
Sailing is widely popular in the Northeast and has become a staple of collegiate sports. It has also become a widely recognized sport in Texas. The SEISA is one of the smallest conferences in the nation, but Texas continues to display intense competition in championship races.
“A good amount of public schools have teams in the wider sailing world, private schools pretty much dominate in terms of skill level,” Carella said. “But in terms of our conference, SEISA, I would say it’s split so public schools and private schools both compete evenly.”
With a few regattas left in the fall and more coming up in the spring, the sailing team is gearing up for the 2025-2026 season – and the upcoming championship is just the start.
