The longest road trip of the season will carry the University of Hawaii women’s sailing team into unfamiliar waters.

Then again, adapting to varying conditions is part of the sport’s allure for the Rainbow Wahine.

“The fun thing of sailing is it can be the same course every time, but the winds are always changing, where you set up on the (starting) line … ” UH junior Kelsie Grant said. “It’s never truly predictable.”

A youthful Rainbow Wahine roster earned the program’s first appearance in the Intercollegiate Sailing Association National Championships since 2018 and the team departs today for New Orleans in advance of the women’s competition, which opens Monday on Lake Pontchartrain.

The UH coed sailing team, under the guidance of assistant coach Jesse Andrews, preceded the Wahine to Louisiana for the ICSA event hosted by Tulane. The coed championships began Thursday and UH sat in 17th after the first day of racing in the 18-team Eastern Semifinals. The semifinals conclude today, with the top nine teams from each group advancing to the final rounds.

UH head coach Andy Johnson will accompany the women’s team to New Orleans following a week of practice at Kaneohe Yacht Club. The club allowed the UH teams to practice in the 420 boats similar to those they’ll sail in during the championships.

“(Lake Pontchartrain) can get windy and it’s shallow and that can kick up some pretty good waves and some good chop, which is something we don’t normally sail in,” Johnson said. “That might be a little different challenge.

“It’s a chess board on the water. There are certain things you can control and then there’s variables that you can’t control, which is the wind shifting, and the currents, and the tide, and you have to be able to figure that out and plan ahead and see it happening. You go out there with a plan, but they have to be able to adapt.”

The regatta is comprised of a series of races to come up with the final point total, and the shifting conditions can alter the results from race to race.

“There’s a luck aspect to it,” freshman Mercy Tangredi said. “But a lot of it can be made up by skill. Consistency is the skill part.”

The Wahine earned an automatic bid into the national championships by placing second in the Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference Women’s Championship held April 16 and 17 at Keehi Lagoon.

UH missed out on a berth in 2019 and most of the 2020 season was canceled. The pandemic limited UH to one regatta, the PCCSC championship, in 2021.

The sailing programs returned to a full schedule for 2021-22, and their road trips were limited to California events.

Competing in a national championship will be a new experience for a group of six Wahine sailors that includes four freshmen (Tangredi, Vivian Bonsager, Sophia Schaeffer and Morgan Carew), a sophomore (Anna Kalabukhova) and a junior (Grant).

While most have a background in sailing, building communication and trust on the water was a point of emphasis for this spring.

“Definitely between the crew and skipper, it has to be the right fit,” said Kalabukhova, who learned how to read the wind in kite surfing. “Sometimes you can have a really good crew and skipper, but if personality-wise you clash, then it’s not going to work out.”

To foster chemistry within the crews, the coaches included a practice session in which one member on the boat was blindfolded, “and you had to solely rely on the other person. So that was good team-building,” Grant said.

“Communication is key on the boat. Communicating what’s happening in the boat, outside the boat, with the other boats, the weather.”

Along with getting to know each other since convening in the fall, the Wahine are familiar with the West Coast programs in the field. Since they haven’t been on the water with the East Coast schools yet, “it’s hard to tell where we are,” Tangredi said. “I’d say we’re confident, and we’re excited to see how we do.”