J/Newsletter- November 11th, 2009

J/95 Winning Hearts of Traveling Sailors

It's apparent that the J/95 is striking a sensitive chord in those who wish they could have their "cake and eat it, too".  For once, a reasonable sized boat can be sailed in just about any body of water one wishes to travel to nearly anywhere in the world, be they a spectacular Swiss lake, a romantic anchorage on Italy's Lago Maggiore, a summertime soiree on Lake Dillon in Colorado or an adventurous trip to Lake Titicaca in Peru (well perhaps not, but fun to dream about!).  There are now two J/95s headed over to Europe.  One is going to the London Boatshow to be shown by J/UK- so be sure to contact Paul Heyes and crew soon!  The other is going to Switzerland.

Recently, Peter Bangerter, the J Swiss dealer visited America to see what all the excitement was about.  In short, he was blown away.  In his own words, Peter had this to say about his experience last week on the J/95: "it was simply awesome.  Amazing boat, absolutely a big boat feel.  Very fast.  Easy to handle, turns on a dime! The perfect "little big boat" for European lake sailing.  We picked one up for our Swiss clients who love to travel from lake to lake.  Our Swiss and Austrian sailors like to have a boat they can spend weekends on with family and friends. We love it!"  Be sure to contact Peter soon to arrange a preview and demo sail in the Swiss Alps-- imagine going for a healthy hike (or ski) in the Alps in St. Moritz, then cruising down to Lake Silvaplana for a gorgeous afternoon sail in pristine spring weather.  You can best reach Peter via email.

European Boatshows-

Paris Boatshow- 5-13 December 2009
London Boatshow- 8-17 January 2010
For those of you who enjoy the bright lights and big cities of Europe, be sure to consider taking a fun, romantic, adventurous trip to Paris or London for the boatshows to visit with J/Europe or J/UK to chat about sailing and perhaps your next J dream boat. For more info on Paris, contact Frederic Bouvier and for info on London, contact Paul Heyes.

Regatta Schedule

Nov. 8-29- GARMIN Winter Series (J/80, J/109, J/105)- Solent, Hamble, England
Nov. 14-15- Ice Cup (J92s)- Stockholm, Sweden
Nov. 18-21- J/24 South Americans- Porto Alegre, Brazil- Veleiros do Sul
Jan. 18-22, 2010- Key West Race Week- Key West, FL- invited classes include J/80s, J/105s, J/109s

J/Regatta News

The Sun Never Sets on J's Sailing Worldwide

While the Americas and Australia take a breather on events this past week, the action was hot and windy in Europe.  The Garmin Hamble Winter Series resumed for the J/109, J/105 and J/80 one-design classes. The J/80s continue to have a great time in the Med racing off the Spanish seacoasts of Bilbao, Santander and Palma.  Furthermore, the French had their J/80 Nationals in Cherbourg with a record turnout.  Our Scandinavian friends are warming up in J/92s for their "ice breaker cups" next weekend.  And, in South America, the Brazilians, Peruvians, Chileans and Argentineans are still busily preparing for the J/24 South Americans in Porto Alegre, Brazil.  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.

Garmin Hamble Winter Series

J/109, J/105 and J/80 Fleets Continue Great Sailing

(Solent, Hamble, England)- This past weekend the Winter Series continued with good solid racing taking place in the three J one-design fleets represented in this classic Solent fall series.

In the seventeen boat J/109 class, Luca Rubinelli racing his ARIA has taken over the lead sailing to a 2-3-3-3-2 series with 13 points.  Richard and Valerie Griffith sailing OUTRAJEOUS sailed into second with a 5-2-7-2-3 record for 19 points.  Falling just a little off the pace due to a DSQ was J-DREAM, David & Kirsty Apthorp's well-campaigned boat to an unfortunate 1-1-1-DSQ-1 record for 22 points to settle into third place.

The J/105s were having a good go at it with six of them vying for top honors.  What a competitive fleet!  All top three boats are within one point of each other!  Simon Curwen's VOADOR is atop the heap with a 1-2-3-OCS-1 record for 13 points.  Paul Griffiths is just behind on FAY-J due to a 2-1-2-OCS-3 tally that generates 14 points.  And, Chris Jones'  JOURNEYMAKER 5 recorded a 3-4-4-1-2 record for 14 points to be behind on a tie-breaker.

John Coopers' Team O!! are sailing quite strongly this fall and their record shows it- 2-2-1-1-2-4-DNF-2-1-2-1-1-2 is not bad and only totals 15 points.  Chasing them around the race track has been Ian Atkins'  BOATS.COM, sailing to a solid - 4-1-4-3-3-2-1-1-3-3-2-4-1 record for 20 points.  Thor Askeland is sailing ELLE SAPPELLE  well and is hanging in for third overall with a- 5-4-5-4-1-1-DNF-3-2-1-5-5-5 record that puts him 10 points back from second place with a total of 30 points.  For more info.

French J/80 Nationals

Luc Nadal's GANJA Dominates Championship

(Cherbourg, France- Nov. 7-11)- A record turnout of forty eight J/80s showed up for this year's French J/80 National Championship in Cherbourg.  The hometown hosts were fabulous and put on quite a show despite the somewhat difficult weather conditions they were presented with over the course of the four day regatta. Light shifty four knot winds and flat water to moderate rolling seas blowing upwards of twenty knots offered the fleet tremendous challenges.  It was very difficult to stay out of the bottom of the fleet and maintain some kind of consistency.

However, Luc Nadal and his team aboard GANJA sailed magnificently, demonstrating remarkable consistency across the board to win by nearly thirty points over his next competitor.  Their record of 2-1-9-1-7-1-1 for 22 points speaks for itself...four firsts was unequalled in the fleet.  Second overall was Jean-Yves Jaffrezic racing ATLANTIS with a record of  5-8-21-12-1-3-1 for 51 points, beating JACUZZI on a tie-breaker.  Ludovic Gilet raced the renowned JACUZZI into third place with a 1-6-13-3-5-19-4 also with 51 points but lost tie on most firsts.  Fourth was the famous French woman sailor Christine Briand just three points back sailing J ILE DE RE and finishing behind her was Frederic Denis on ECOLE NAVALE CG29 with 63 points.

On a personal note, it was nice to see Pierre Follenfant- a former 470 and FD sailor whom Drake and Stu sailed against when they were kids in the 470 class in the mid-1970s sailing a respectable series to finish 11th in this highly competitive fleet!  We're glad to see old warhorses like us can still hang in there with the top players in the class!   For more info.

Bancantabria Sailing Cup

FUNDESTIC (Toño Gorostegui)  Winning Overall

(Santander, Spain- 8-9 November)-  The forecast for bad weather in the Bay of Biscay, with orange alert announced and forecast winds of force 7 to 8, meant that the Third Act (Series) of the Bancantabria Sailing Cup was going to be an experience to say the least.  Fortunately, the Race Committee elected to setup the courses in the inner bay, therefore enabling the J/80s to have two fun, very windy races.  Only twelve of the thirty boats raced in the demanding conditions.  And the end of the weekend, it was Tono Gorostegui who maintained their composure to maintain the overall lead sailing FUNDESTIC.

Leaders for the weekend (Act III) were Pichu Torcida on ECC VIVIENDAS; then RAITA finished second and Tono's FUNDESTIC got third.  The provisional Overall standings for the Bancantabria Sailing Cup has Tono's FUNDESTIC in first with 8 points, Paul Santurde's SPACIO in second with 12 points and Pichu Torcida's ECC VIVIENDAS in third with 13 points.  For more info.

Commodores Trophy- Espana

ZEIK Wins Big In Gale Force Winds

(La Coruna, Spain- 9 November)- This past weekend was the penultimate day of Commodore Trophy for J/80s organized by the Real Club Náutico de La Coruña.  It was a blustery regatta, marked by the storm that struck the Galician coast for two straight days with near Force 8 gale winds offshore.

On Saturday at 1600 hours was the first race of the day for the J80 class inside the Bay of La Coruña, with a northwest wind 16 to 19 knots and waves of 2-3 meters.  The Race Committee had to delay until late afternoon because the weather was so ferocious earlier in the day.  Ultimately, it was a good day for the "Big Boy Nautical Aussycrawl" Stuart Shimeld winning two races.  However, by the end of the weekend, it was ZEIK that took the overall event winning on a tie-breaker over MARINA CORUNA with 17 points each, the tiebreaker to "greater number of first "wins" goes to the former. For more info.

J/Community:

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

* Ken Read and Jerry Kirby put on a great show this past Tuesday in Newport at the Jane Pickens Theater in Washington Square.  Great entertainment and, most importantly, the kids absolutely loved it!  A great forum with three members of the PUMA team answering questions about their experiences and some amazing onboard footage of life aboard a carbon coffin (aka sailboat) from the indomitable Rick Deppe.

* Chris Larson deserves congratulations for a job well done sailing this year in some World Championships. It turns out winning the Melges 24 Worlds against some top talent and former M24 World Champions took some excellent training beforehand.  Guess what it was??  Well, like many other Olympic and World Champions before him (like Kenny mentioned above), Chris jumped into the J/24 to race against a raft of other World Champions for the J/24 World Championsip earlier this year in Annapolis, MD.  Looks like it was good training and motivation for Chris and team since he took second place amongst a contingent of hot Latin American sailors from Brazil and Argentina.

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 in 35+ countries around the world.  Sailing is all about friends.  Come join us and expand your social network everywhere!
For background info:
http://www.jboats.com/intro.htm

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