J/Newsletter- December 2nd, 2009

December 2nd, 2009

Give The Gift That Lasts All Year!

The new 2010 J/Sailing Calendar will bring enjoyment and inspiration to your friends and family.  It's a beautiful and useful calendar for sailors who love and appreciate the ultimate joys of sailing a J in some of the most spectacular harbors and waters of the world. Whether you are a cruising, competitive or armchair sailor, the stunning photographs will transport you to wonderful sailing experiences in far away places- from thrilling rides surfing downwind in the Pacific to tranquil, romantic, sunset anchorages off St. Tropez.  For those who love the sailing lifestyle, it's the ultimate gift for your family and friends.  Learn more about the J/Sailing Calendar

Regatta & Show Schedules:

Dec. 5-13- Paris Sailboat Show- Paris, France
Dec. 12-13- J/22 Dutch Midwinters- Holland
Jan 8-17- London Sailboat Show- London, England
Jan. 18-22- Key West Race Week- Key West, FL
Jan. 18-22- J/80 Midwinter Championships- Key West, FL
Feb. 14- St. Pete NOOD- St. Petersburg YC
April 8-11- Charleston Race Week- Charleston, SC
June 26-July 3- J/22 Worlds- Schveningen, Holland

We now have an interactive, on-line J/Sailing Calendar for J/Sailing events.

J/Regatta & Cruising News

The Sun Never Sets on J's Sailing Worldwide

The Americas are still suffering a food "coma" from too much Thanksgiving food from last weekend.  The Europeans, however, were doing all they can to keep it together and get around the race track in one piece in England and Spain due to gale force winds.  The J Cruisers were having a grand old time, with two J/130s having a chance encounter/ party in Mexico and a J/42 passed a 50,000 mile cruising milestone!   Read on!  More importantly, if you have more J/Regatta News, please email it or upload onto our J/Boats Facebook page!  Below are the summaries.  Photo Credit- Jesus Renedo/ SailingStock.com 

Garmin Hamble Winter Series

J/109, J/105 and J/80 Fleets Thrashed in Squalls

(Solent, Hamble, England)- Driving rain and vicious squalls marked the final day of the 2009 Garmin Hamble Winter Series on November 29, and with around 25% of retirees it was clearly a demanding day. A rapidly changing low pressure system had made for a tough early morning call, and with both Black and White Fleets cleared for racing in what initially seemed acceptable conditions, it soon became clear that the sports boats could not race safely in the increasing gusts.

For the Black Fleet, the committee laid a start line near Fastnet Insurance buoy and two separate courses were set for the seven IRC and one-design classes. With a wind direction of 200 degrees and a west-going tide the DAKS race buoy was chosen as the first windward mark for all classes.

The J/105 class had a short course finishing at Air Canada. Visibility was changing constantly as each rain squall hit the fleet, and but for some spectacular broaches and spinnaker failures the day was a testament to the good seamanship displayed throughout this competitive series. Even if some were hating the conditions, there were others who called up the race committee with thanks for a great day out as they crossed the finish line. With seven races completed in the Black Fleet series, one race result could be discarded. Overall results in the J/105 fleet: Paul Griffiths on Fay-J is first with 11 points, followed by Simon Curwen on Voador (14) and Chris Jones on Journeymaker 5 (15).

The J/109 class saw class leaders David and Kirsty Apthorp win in J-DREAM with six points followed by Luca Rubinelli in ARIA with fifteen points and OUTRAJEOUS sailed by Richard and Valerie Griffith in third with seventeen.

The J/80s had some spectacular sailing with some wildly planing legs.  The survivors amongst that group included John Cooper sailing well to win on OI! with nineteen points.  Ian Atkins hung in there for second place onboard BOATS.COM with thirty one points and coming in third was Thor Askeland racing ELLE SAPPELLE.  Photo Credits- Paul Wyeth/ PW Pictures    For more sailing and regatta information

J/80 MUNDIALITO CUP

Pichu Torcida's ECC VIVIENDAS Wins

(Santander, Spain- Nov. 29) - This trophy is hosted each year in Santander with many of Spain's best sailors invited to climb in different boats and spend a weekend with their Cantabrian friends and sailors.  This year, Pichu Torcida continued his winning ways racing ECC VIVIENDAS and winning over the twenty four boat fleet.  His VIP "luxury guest" was Malaga Mainemare Vivi and rounding out his crew were Alex Muscat, Pure Ruigómez and Charly Martinez.

The weekend of racing started out with a postponement on Saturday as winds were gusting upwards of forty knots.  On Sunday morning, the sailors enjoyed a beautiful day, with two closely contested races, especially between ECC VIVIENDAS and MAGNIFYING GLASS. The winds were very shifty and puffy and, along with high tide, permitted the boats to play the shores and the beaches for tactical and strategic advantage.

While ECC VIVIENDAS won, Cesar Obregon and David Marazo sailed to a regatta-winning combination of 1-2 on Sunday but were disqualified for inadvertently touching the mark with their boom.  Of note were some good performances from the "guest" sailors.  YATES & THINGS, with Toño Piris at the helm and Vicente Tirado as a guest had a 4-11.   PROPERNOR led one race with current World Junior Champions  Tara Pacheco and Berta Betanzos on board.

After ECC VIVIENDAS in second place was  SPACE 10 sailed by Chuny Bermudez de Castro.  And, in third overall on the podium was FUNDESTIC sailed by Antonio Gorostegui.  For more sailing and regatta information

J/80 Palma Otonocon Trophy

(Palma, Majorca- Nov. 28)- Palma's fleet continues Otoñocon Trophy celebrating the fourth day. On Saturday 28th of November they played two more races of the championship. For the time being leading the fleet is 'Portcall' by Jose Carlos Frau, followed by 'Jose Luis Ferrer Winery' Roses Antonio about unreachable 23 points of difference. Close on the podium is 'Expresso' by Jaime Fiol and Eduardo Horrach.  For more sailing and regatta information.

J/Community:

What friends, alumni and crew of J/Boats are doing worldwide

* The Great Adventure- Dr. Paul McDonough wrote about his experience on the J/42 EIGHT BELLS cruising somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle in the Sargasso Sea.  "So, there you are sitting around on yet another woolen, gray, Sunday afternoon in New England in November.  And, as you’re thumbing through the travel section, you stumble across the full-page color glossy ad for the Willauer Cruise Line’s annual romantic passage on Eight Bells from the “Pink sand beaches of Historic St. Georges in Bermuda to the soothing tropical paradise of the Virgin Islands”.  Before you get all jiggy and succumb to the toe-tapping refrain of “ooey, ooey, baby” of Sam Cooke or Jimmy Buffet’s attitude change, which might begin to sound between your chilly ears, read on.

Having read bits of Carol’s e-mails, I said to myself “Boy, am I glad I wasn’t on that trip!”  Then, I realized, I had been and it occurred to me that both sailing and childbirth had an essential component of amnesia.  Otherwise, there would be no human race and the western hemisphere would be unfettered by marauding Eurocentric, phallocentric, christo centric, smallpox bearing interlopers, and to this day would have its indigenous peoples carrying on their traditional, quaint rituals of human sacrifice, infanticide, cannibalism and sweat lodges awaiting the end of the world on December 21, 2012, without ever having celebrated a single Thanksgiving or even seeing one episode of Monty Python.

Every great saga of the sea from Homer, Coleridge, and Melville ends.  Some end positively, with a buoyant, uplifting, happy finish, like the iceberg that brought Harvard a new library in 1912, or Melville’s launch of the “Save the Albino Handicapped Cetacean Movement”.  Others, though, end sadly, even tragically, like the cancellation of Gilligan to reruns, after a mere 7 seasons.  Ours, too, ended.  Not, however, before the following occurred:

Let’s begin with the weather.  There was some.  In fact, there was all of it. It seems our friend, Ida, didn’t quite behave as expected, baffling and inspiring Aeolus, the other weather Gods and us.

Like most major cruise lines, the Willauer Line, which might more appropriately be named the “Don’t Stop the Carnival Cruise Line”, had a 24-hour, all-you-can-eat buffet.  It was vastly over-hyped.  The standard was set when the sommelier, Jeff, said “Drink the water and try to keep it down”, and “how do you want your saltine?”  Dinner on Tuesday was another mega-feast when we gingerly tried a peanut butter cracker.  Wednesday was the banana.

The cruise was a bit like a cross between Outward Bound, absent the Canyon Ranch pampering, food, or, for that matter, character-building and my Great (times 5) Grandfather Kunte O’Bama McDonough’s maiden voyage from the Old Country on the Middle Passage cruise on the Proto Luxury liner, Good Ship Amistad. 

It was a bit like being a Turducken.  Why a Turducken, you might ask?  Well, it was like being in a washing machine on the cycle that miners use for their coal dust bibs, marinating in diesel fuel, food scraps, metal filings, fish scales, laundry which never made it to the laundry with the ingredients that gave it the title “soiled” in the first place, all sorts of girl chemicals and devices from Carol’s locker, stuffed into the belly of a mechanical bronc at Gillies in Pasadena, Texas and all put inside the mid-ship of a Trojan Horse to be left for a week in the unventilated convection oven of the 17th latitude.

There was no need for naturalist on board since over the 6 days we saw no, that is no sign of life beyond the unfortunate, soggy examples on board.  No birds, no fish, no bugs, no nothing.  Empirical confirmation of Darwin’s correctness and our position on the wrong side of the long-term survival equation.

It was a week of notable milestones during the maelstrom.  First, our trusty vessel celebrated her passage of 50,000 miles of voyaging throughout the World; although 40,000 or so of those happened since we left Bermuda.  And, second, Conor celebrated his 33rd birthday, expressing the hope that all future birthdays would be similarly festive.

It was also a week of green flashes.  A meteorological refraction version of which occurred on Thursday, but they began on Monday with Conor’s basil complexion, continuing with the split pea soup and, finally, with the multi-grain science project on Saturday.

There was no need for a lecture in cultural anthropology on board, since we had Andrew.  There is nothing like a 20-year old, barely post-adolescent to pinpoint the lowest common denominator of conversation.  With 24 hours to work with, he was able to squeeze in more than an ample supply of 2nd grade poopy talk, egged on and aided by, fellow dude, Dr. McDonough.

Despite all the unpleasantness we had a great crew, talented experienced mariners.  Peter rose to every challenge and there were many.  Jeff and Andrew were superb sailors and companions.  When they find our notes in the bottles and the Navy Seals assault team comes, we wish no harm for our captors.  There’s a Stockholm syndrome aspect to our situation.

I don’t want to paint an overly negative portrait of our voyage.  It certainly could have been worse.  After all, we could have been out in fair weather playing golf."

* J/130s Cruising in Mexico- Lee Pryor and Cathy Sweet were sailing their J/130 SCIROCCO going further south after participating in the annual "Baja Ha-Ha" cruise.  Here's her account of their chance encounter:  "What's the probability that two J130's would meet each other in a small remote cove in Central Mexico?  That's what happened last week when Sirocco, owned by Lee Pryor and Cathy Sweet of Oceanside, CA met up unexpectedly with SCEPTRE, owned by Bob Musor and Terri Guerra of Alameda, CA in Yelapa, Mexico.  Yelapa is a very small, quaint town accessible only by boat in south Banderas Bay.  Both SCIROCCO and SCEPTRE participated in the 2009 Baja Ha-Ha cruisers' rally which departs from San Diego and ends in Cabo San Lucas.  But the two boats didn't know each other's plans after the rally."  Cool, eh?

Featured Boat

NEW J/105 Race-ready for 2010

US Watercraft will have a race-prepped and ready-to-rock new J/105 ready to ship by January 2010.  USW does a gorgeous job of building these J/105s.  For those of you interested in jumping aboard the fun, competitive J/105 fleet this is  a great opportunity to get a rocket-ship and go have fun next year.  These USW sailboats have beautifully fair hulls, keels and rudders and are nicely appointed below.  The deck and rigging are top notch and are race-ready.

For more information, please be sure to contact you J/Dealer or J/Boats- Ph# 401-846-8410 or email- info@jboats.com.

About J/Boats

Started in 1977, J/Boats continues to lead the world in designing fun-to-sail, easy-to-handle, performance sailboats that can be enjoyed by a broad spectrum of sailors.  The International J/24 has become the most popular recreational offshore keelboat in the world with over 5,400 J/24s cruising the waves. Today, there are 13,000+ J/Boats, ranging from the International J/22 to the J/65 and ranging in style from one-designs to racers, cruisers to daysailers and, of course, the ubiquitous J sprit boats- J/Boats' innovation in 1992 for easy-to-use asymmetric spinnakers and retractable carbon bowsprits (J/80, J/92, J/95, J/105, J/109, J/110, J/120, J/122, J/130, J/133, J/125, J/145, J/160).

J/Boats has the best track record in sailing for innovation and design as evidenced by:  11 Sailing World/ Cruising World Boat of the Year Awards in 14 years; 2 SAIL Awards for Industry Leadership; 2 American Sailboat Hall of Fame Designs (J/24 & J/35); and the three largest ISAF International One-Design keelboat classes (J/22, J/24, J/80).

Counting crew, every year there are over 100,000 friends to meet sailing J's, populating the most beautiful sailing harbors and sailing the waters of 35+ countries around the world.  Sailing is all about friends.  Come join us and expand your social network everywhere! 

For more information on J/Boats