In the midst of the windy Charles River, every fall and spring, Northeastern University’s Sailing Team, or NUST, navigates Boston’s waters with hoisted sails and intimate knowledge of the wind and current. 

“In sailing, there’s no difference between genders,” said Eva Ermlich, a fourth-year marine biology major and assistant captain of the team. “The sport, being historically male-dominated, created women’s events and teams in order to incentivize women to come join teams and feel better, safer and happier.”

Ermlich has amassed various experiences throughout her sailing years. She was born and raised in Maine, a state with a strong sailing tradition. But her sailing career, outside of collegiate sailing, has veered to locations around the U.S. and offshore including Newport, R.I., and Bermuda.

That versatility across different waters gives Ermlich the tools to calmly manage troublesome moments, and because of this, she finds it helpful to bring it back to the basics.

“Part of it is being physically in shape and mentally prepared for a different and new experience. At the end of the day, it’s still sailing,” Ermlich said.

Sailing and weather go hand in hand, and the unpredictability of weather conditions adds to the challenge and uniqueness of the sport.  

“Sailing is probably the most weather-dependent sport, and you can’t control the weather, obviously,” said Carter Anderson, a third-year computer science major and captain of the team. 

Weather conditions, such as wind direction, humidity and temperature, are out of the sailors’ control, so the team sails knowing that what it encounters might be different the next day. 

Those complexities are approached with quick decision-making, learning from past experiences and evaluating available options.

Anderson said it comes down to “wisdom from other teammates or a coach that can explain to you or teach you how to sail on those conditions, or experience from previous times.”

Jotting down descriptions about the weather each day and highlighting what worked well and what needs improvement helps sailors when they feel inexperienced with unconventional weather, Anderson said. 

The team sails boats called FJs and 420s, which are both small two-person boats that are about 13 feet long and have two sails.

The boat is sailed by a skipper, who steers the boat, and a crew person, who helps the skipper execute their plan.

The teams in NUST are divided into fleets of sailboats, with the A-fleets hosting the most experienced sailors, followed by the B-fleets and C-fleets. The fleets attend different regattas, which each award points differently. Courses are rated by an independent jury beforehand so teams can set up their pairs prior to the race. 

The Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association hosts weekend regattas across New England. The association is divided into six conferences, and Northeastern competes in the New England Sailing Association. 

On each regatta, teams race around a course marked by buoys, sailing toward the wind before turning downwind, and then repeating the loop twice. To ensure fairness, sailors rotate sailboats after both loops so all teams sail under similar conditions. In total, there are 14 races, and standings are determined by a combination of scores from each individual race.   

The team’s ability to learn and execute concepts in the water is achieved thanks to the coaching done from the shore.

NUST’s coach, Jonathan Farrar, is an important figure in the team and the international sailing community. He was a 12-time member of the U.S. Sailing Team from 1993 to 2004, a distinction that differs from the Olympic team, as not all national sailors are pulled in for the smaller Olympic roster. His coaching style includes technical workouts and meticulous precision. 

“Jonathan loves repetition; some of his favorite drills are multiple tacks in a minute,” said Grant Smith, a third-year mechanical engineering major. Tacking is when a sailor changes the direction of a sailboat relative to the wind. 

Farrar’s expertise as a sailor is proven off the water, where he manages to handle the students’ packed schedules and the high demands of the sport.

“Our coach puts a premium on staying healthy, getting your work done and being in good standing with the university,” Ermlich said. 

Since NUST often has multiple regattas each weekend, Farrar attends the A-fleet’s race, leaving the other teams without a coach.

Few collegiate teams face those challenges.

“A lot of the other schools have assistant coaches who can go with them, and oftentimes, we are the only team ever who travels without a coach,” Anderson said. 

For this problem, the team came up with an efficient solution.

“Coach Jonathan is pretty spread thin,” Smith said. “You come together as a team, and you put minds together. You have a lot of very highly experienced people on the team, so we have some fifth-years who are out of eligibility come back and act as assistant coaches. It’s just like finding other resources to learn from other than our coach.” 

They pull from other sources as well. 

“We talk to a lot of our alumni and, occasionally, they’ll come and help out during regattas and as a guest coach at practice for free,” Anderson said.

This method of coaching is unique but effective as NUST is  a “club team that competes at a varsity level,” Smith said.

NUST practices on the Charles River, leasing sailboats from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — which is also a competitor along with other varsity teams including Harvard University and Boston College. The team does not have its own fleet, so much of its funding is allocated to its lease with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I think going against Harvard, [which] is a well-respected varsity team, is honestly pretty cool because we are a club team, and we get pretty good results against them. So that’s a confidence boost,” Smith said.

Collegiate sailing differs from Olympic sailing and ocean sailing, which require bigger sailboats and longer routes. 

Smith started sailing in the summers as a hobby and recalls when he began to love it as a sport.

“I think when I realized how unique sailing was and how much of a gift it was to be able to do it. It’s a great combination of being out in nature and being physically active,” he said. 

Anderson and Ermlich said they hope to continue sailing to tackle long-form races. 

“I’m looking forward to getting into the bigger boat offshore races, like for multiple days,” Anderson said.

Ermlich is looking forward to sailing “out in the open ocean.”

The memories formed among team members, the community built at the regattas and the lessons gained from competing at the highest level have changed the Huskies’ outlooks on the sport. 

“I’ve always loved sailing, and I’ve always loved the people that I met through it, but I used to put so much pressure on myself that it really wasn’t enjoyable,” Ermlich said. “I think [at Northeastern], I really learned how to love [sailing] again and have a lot of fun out in the water and not be so stressed out.” 

With this perspective, leaving the sport now seems like an arduous task.

“It’s hard to imagine a life without sailing,” Smith said. “My summers would be pretty boring.”