Sailors come to the University of Hawai'i for the warm weather, big-breeze conditions and laid-back lifestyle. The Rainbow Wahine are on their way to Rhode Island now because they were desperate to get back to the Intercollegiate Sailing Association Women's National Championship, despite all that will be foreign to them.

Hawai'i had grown accustomed to annual visits to the nationals. It won the national title in 2001, was second the following year and top six the next two, but has missed qualifying twice the past four years.

Rhode Island, with its 55-degree water, strict yacht club dress codes and weak winds predominantly from the southwest, might as well be on the other side of the sailing world. Still, the 'Bows are overjoyed to be back and inspired by a simple memory — their national title was won in Boston, which is just as cold, stuffy and calm.

They also might be the only people in Hawai'i happy to see Kona weather recently. It more closely resembles what they will experience in Newport, R.I. The only difference is the frigid feel if they fall in the drink.

"We've got to be realistic," said coach Andy Johnson, who last sailed for UH in 1983 and has been its coach since 1989. "This year we've done the job within our district and achieved one of the two spots from the West Coast to go to the national championship. We're a pretty young group, and real talented. To say we could win a national championship might not be realistic. But I think we can go there and have a good showing, represent Hawai'i well. I think if we're top 10, that's a good goal."

Nationals start Monday at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, hosted by New York Yacht Club. The club, considered home to America's Cup, is based in midtown Manhattan but has its "clubhouse" in Rhode Island. Sailors will have to wear evening dresses to the awards ceremony and Johnson has to scare up a coat and tie.

He is just thankful to be back for the ninth time in 11 years, with a team that is unranked and ready to roll.

"When you miss it, it feels like you're left out of the big party at the end," Johnson said. "We're looking at it as a big adventure."

Becky Mabardy, an all-Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference skipper and one of three UH seniors, calls it a "celebration." She compares it, in one well-marketed way, to Las Vegas.

"To be there, sailing against the best people in the country ... you know that and you know you're supposed to be there also, so it's an honor," said Mabardy, from San Rafael, Calif. "It gives you a chance to meet people. It's really fun. The sailing is fierce, the competition is cut-throat. But once you're off the water ... what happens on the water stays on the water. You don't bring it on land. You have fun with it."

Of the 18 schools that qualified, only six are not on the East Coast. Stanford, at No. 4, is the only ranked team not on the Atlantic Seaboard in this non-scholarship sport.

Along with Mabardy, Hawai'i's Jackie McLoughlin — the only home-grown sailor — and freshman Hannah Tuson-Turner, who grew up on Orcas Island, Wash., were selected all-PCCSC in coed sailing. That team won the 2004 national title.

McLoughlin, a 2006 Sacred Hearts graduate, is "so stoked" by the upcoming opportunity and calls it a "mind-blowing" experience. The work it took to get there — the team practices three days a week the entire school year and travels to at least five regattas — wasn't bad either.

"Sometimes when you are out there and battling the whole side ...," McLoughlin said. "For me, when you're going for the finish line and you choose a side, at the last moment when you are trying to figure out if you can make it first to the finish line, that's the biggest thrill for me. It's pure cunning and skill. That's the most fun for me — a battle to the end and then you celebrate."

Johnson compares Tuson-Turner favorably to former UH All-American Molly O'Bryan.

"Hannah is probably further along at the same age than Molly, which is saying a lot — except she is a freshman," Johnson said. "Molly, at her first nationals, was crying on the sideline because she was a freshman. I expect we'll have some good races, I expect some tough races, but we'll represent the university well and who knows? I'd say maybe even top 7."