Sailing is a varsity level sport offered for men at 11 of the highly selective colleges and for women at 12 of the highly selective colleges. 9 of the colleges with sailing teams belong in Division 1 and only 3 of them belong in Division 3. Between them, they have 290 men and 301 women, averaging 26 men sailors and 25 women sailors per college.

Sailing is generally a co-ed sport with mixed gender crews, though colleges also offer single gender crews.

Though offered by only a small number of highly selective colleges, sailing still offers reasonably good opportunity for athlete recruitment given the size of the crews and the number of boats each of the colleges send out to competitions. Colleges typically seek athletes with sailing experience in the 420, Laser and high school sailing, though coaches also look for athletes with higher level experience as crew.

College sailing generally involves 7 disciplines :

● Coed Fleet Racing

● Women’s Fleet Racing

● Coed Team Racing

● Women’s Team Racing (2022)

● Men’s Singlehanded

● Women’s Singlehanded

● Match Racing Fowle Trophy

● Aggregate performance in all seven disciplines.

Read:

Sailing ICSA Rules and Calendar for Athlete Recruitment

How do top colleges in Division 1 select their athlete recruits?

Athlete Recruitment to a Top NCAA Division 3 College

Watch out for:

How to get athlete recruited to a sailing team

Sailing profiles at the highly selective colleges

List of Highly Selective Colleges with Sailing Teams