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When it comes to tacking and reaching, the URI sailing team is hard to beat. URI remains the only collegiate keelboat program in the country to win the Collegiate Keelboat World Cup, sailing to victory in 1990. This year, the team raced against 15 international teams and finished fourth.

No other University team representing any other country has competed as often (11 times) or has been as successful at the annual race, held at different ports and venues either along the French Mediterranean or the French Atlantic seaboard.

In addition to winning the event, the Rams have finished second three times (1992, 1993, 2004) and third twice (1988, 1998).

This year’s team qualified for the World Cup by besting the field at the 2008 Kennedy Cup, hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., last November.

Skippered by Jesse MacGowan Fielding of Wickford, this year’s team members were Alex Baittinger and Scott Millard, both of East Greenwich; Carl Merrill of Hope, Maine; Lauren Gineo of Newport; Westy Barlow of Narragansett; Jeremy Henry of Groton, Mass.; and Liv Gunnarson of River Vale, N.J.