Malvern sailing is on pace to capture its second consecutive league championship.

Malvern has another top varsity water sport. It’s not crew, or even swimming or water polo. It’s sailing — and they compete co-ed.

Malvern Prep’s sailing team competes at the Corinthian Yacht Club on the Delaware River in Essington, Pennsylvania. They compete in two boats against other schools in Flying Junior (FJ) boats, according to junior captain and team founder, Kieran Cullen.

Each FJ has two people in it at a time. The person in the back of the boat is the skipper, who steers the boat and decides what strategy they will take. The person in the front of the boat is the crew, who uses his weight to keep the boat balanced.

When the wind picks up, it pushes against the sails causing the boat to move forward, but also to lean, and potentially capsize. The sailors must lean off the boat to keep it flat and sailing fast, according to Cullen

The Inter-Ac does not have a sailing league. Instead Malvern sailis in the Main Line Scholastic Sailing Association (MLSSA) against schools like Conestoga, Devon Prep, Harriton, Villa Maria, and Notre Dame, according to Cullen.

Malvern competes every Sunday in regattas with and against these schools in two different fleets: the regatta fleet and the open fleet. In the open fleet, sailors compete in a similar boat to an FJ called a 420 as individuals and not as a team; sailors from different schools will sail together. In the regatta fleet, each school has an A and B boat who compete for their schools in FJ’s, according to Cullen.

Malvern competes for the MLSSA championship, the Bell Cup, in the Fall and Spring. Last year, the Friars took home the Bell Cup, and they won in the Fall this year too, according to Cullen.

“Malvern has such a large lead it doesn’t really matter,” Cullen said. “We won the fall, and came into the spring with a large lead.”

The team’s main skippers, Cullen and sophomore Louis Margay, have been “sailing really well and have been building on our lead,” according to Cullen.

Cullen says their success comes from “really good teamwork between skipper and crew, hard work in practice, and sailing smart.”.

There are eight members of the sailing team: eighth grader Will Himmelreich; freshmen Brendan Lord and Ethan Surovcik; sophomores Mikolaj Figurski, Pat Sayers, and Louis Margay; and juniors and captains Tommy Pero and Kieran Cullen.

“We always looking for more kids,” Margay said. “The majority of our team is underclassmen with little to no sailing experience.”

A very young team isn’t always a good thing. The struggling Philadelphia 76ers are a perfect example, however this is not the case on the sailing team.

“It works out well. We are well on our way to win this year, and we are not losing any seniors,” Cullen said. “Most of our tough competition are losing valuable sailors this year, and we are not losing anyone.”

One of their competitors, Notre Dame de Namur, is losing both their A and B boat skippers this year.

Both the A boat, Pat Sayers and Kieran Cullen, and the B boat, Louis Margay and Tommy Pero, will be returning next year.

“I think we are set up to be a dominant force in the main line sailing circuit next year and years to come,” Cullen said.