Hamble Winter Series- Weekend VI

(Hamble, England)- After weeks of gales, it was with some trepidation that the Garmin Hamble Winter Series fleet nosed out of the river on Sunday in time for their start. Fears of wintry weather were misplaced, however, and some hours later the fleet returned with grins on their faces. ‘Awesome day on the water’ and ‘Champagne sailing conditions’ were some of the phrases heard bandied around the clubhouse after racing by competitors sporting that most unseasonal of things – sun-kissed faces.

The north-west 15-18 kts breeze provided some delightful but testing sailing conditions for the assembled racing yachts, with big shifts offering up big gains for some competitors with their eyes out of the boat and big losses for the less fortunate. One race was sailed.

In IRC 0, David & Kirsty Apthorp’s J/111 J-DREAM continued to sail a consistent series in their class and maintained their strong record with a 2nd this past weekend to hold on to their bronze podium position as well as their gold position in the J/111 one-design class overall.   For sailing photo credits-  Paul Wyeth Pictures   For more Hamble Winter Series sailing information

MOJITO Blasts Around Hong Kong Islands!

Veteran J/Sailors Love Windy, Wavy Conditions
(Hong Kong, China)- Hong Kong's largest and most inclusive sailing event, the Tommy Bahamas Around Island Race, featured more than 200 sailing boats, together with outrigger canoes and coastal rowing boats.  All teams battled it out over the 26nm course that is known as the “Round Island Race” (e.g. all around the islands that comprise Hong Kong)!  Cool race, spectacular vistas of the world-renown city and breathtaking views of the ginormous, lush, jungle green mountain-tops. Anyone looking out of their window in Hung Hom or Chai Wan on the morning of the start would see hundreds of boats converging on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour from every point of the compass for Hong Kong’s biggest annual celebration of sail and paddle on the water.

The Around the Island Race became an annual event in 1983, however its origins go back to 1864 when six boats raced around Hong Kong Island to Starboard (clockwise) and Hong Kong’s sailors have since regarded this route as a tricky challenge with unpredictable wind shifts.  The race course features a 26nm circumnavigation of Hong Kong Island to starboard, which has been sanctioned by Hong Kong Marine Department since 2003. This year there was record-setting breeze, so the Royal Hong Kong YC PRO, Ms Inge Strompf-Jepsen, managed to fire off twenty separate starts for sailboats at RHKYC’s Kellett Island clubhouse.

With the replenishment of the northeast monsoon filling in overnight, many competitors took one look at the conditions and decided that prudence was the better part of valor.  This included the majority of the beach cat classes, where even the most battle hardened sailors took one look at the conditions whipped up by the 15-18kt easterly in the harbour and decided that the 25kts plus and two to three metre seas at Cape D’Aguilar were not for them or their boats.

With 258 entries, this was the biggest prospective fleet recorded for the 26nm circumnavigation.  With even Cyberport Gate getting a good 20-25kt blow and the relatively flat stretch along the south and south west of Hong Kong Island meant the entire fleet would likely be on record-setting paces for their respective classes.  Indeed, after the finish times were recorded and handicap times applied, it was pretty clear that most records fell from previous years.

Amongst the J/Teams, there were some excellent performances.  In the highly competitive IRC 2 Class, the J/111 MOJITO sailed by Simon Blore had a tremendous race, taking second overall and narrowly missing the overall win by a mere minute and a half!  For more Tommy Bahama Around Island Race sailing information

Peruvian J/111 Offshore Report

(Lima, Peru)- Since July 2012, the J/111 CHALLWA (means “fisherman” in the native Peruvian language), has being sailing and racing in Peru’s and Ecuador’s offshore racing circuits under the ORC handicap rule.  Their latest event, the Copa del Pacifico Regatta, belongs to a series of races between Peru and Ecuador that is held annually.  This particular event is sailed in Paracas Bay 150 miles south of Lima- the capital of Peru.

German Fuchs, sailing aboard CHALLWA, reports the following about their experiences in this year’s Copa del Pacifico: “We had a series of eight windward-leeward races and two offshore- one of 32nm and the other 28nm.  The fleet was quite competitive with teams from Peru, Chile and Ecuador.  We sailed in ORC Class A against a new Soto 48R, Sydney 46, Swan 45R, two Grand Soleil 42R’s and a Soto 42R.  Most of our races were sailed in 15-20 kts TWS, except one W/L was sailed in 6kts TWS. Our best results on the J111 were in light winds and running or reaching in 16-22 kts TWS.

For this regatta we opted to set a bigger spinnaker of 157sqm instead of the J/111 one-design class size of 130sqm.  This change for ORC handicap racing gave us very good results in light winds and we were able to get the boat into “planing-mode” (like the J/70) in just 16 kts TWS for best VMG downwind! In fact, we reached average 15kts boat speed with just 22kts TWS running downwind- this monster kite cost us only 1 sec/mi in GPH, that is nothing compared with the benefits gained!

From the racing perspective, we had great success against some of the top offshore teams in South America.  We managed to win both long distance races in ORC Class A and two W/L in light winds in Class A2.  We also managed to finish 4th in Class A and 2nd in Class A2 for the Regatta Series.  It sure helped to have Wally Cross and Kerry Klinger from Quantum Sails onboard to race with us, especially after their experiences in winning the J/111 North American Championship in Chicago!  By the way, we’re planning to race the 2014 Chicago-Mackinac Race in a J/111 as a preparation for the Galapagos 2014 Race that will be held in October 2014 here in Peru!  Looking forward to see other J/111 sailors soon in America!  Best, Germán”

J/111 PIRANHA Speed Sailing on Baltic Sea

(Baltic Sea, Germany)-  The Piranha Department of Autobahn Speed presents its latest small cruise of the season 2013.  Crazy Germans are we?!  You bet.  We LOVE sailing as fast as we can drive our cars (your basic Porsche, BMW or Mercedes) down the Autobahn in Germany, especially in the sinuous, windy curves of the famous Black Forest.

Nevertheless, we digress!  Recently, we had the opportunity to hop aboard the PIRANHA and take here “for a cruise” in the Baltic Sea, just your cool breeze howling out of the Northeast with 1-2.5 meter breaking waves and winds around 7 m/sec— really just your average small gale.  It was a spectacular day of sailing for the PIRANHA crew!  Record speed: 22.64 knots!!  Yah!  We are still learning how to sail this speedster faster.  Any tips for us??  Please see our J/111 PIRANHA website to contact us.  Here’s the sailing video of the J/111 PIRANHA on “cruise-control” in the Baltic Sea.

J/111 Gone Fishin' in Middle Sea Race?!

(Gzira, Malta)-  We had an interesting update regards the performance of Massimo Colossimo’s J/111 J/STORM in the recent Rolex Middle Sea Race- the 606nm race that starts/finishes in Malta and goes around a series of islands in the Mediterranean that includes several active volcanoes like Sicily, Italy!  Said Colossimo about their race, “we had some bad luck on J/STORM during the Middle Sea Race.  After the fast run from Malta to the first mark in the Straits of Messina (between Sicily and mainland Italy), J/STORM was amongst the leaders of the race.  By playing the left of the course, we were able to hold nice speed before rounding Stromboli and were leading the ALL of the J/Teams in the fleet.

However, during the first night of the race, we caught a huge fishing net in the rudder and propeller.  I ended up jumping overboard at night to clean the bottom after we realized we had a speed problem!  You cannot believe what I found (see picture here of the offending nylon net and buoys)!!

The sad part for us was that the whole situation took place in light air and was much more complicated than we expected.  As a result, it took place long enough for us to lose contact with the leaders and, unfortunately, delayed us from catching the next good breeze.  Short delays, in a distance race, as you know, add more delays and more frustration!

The rest of the race became an uphill battle for our crew, but we never lost concentration and to catch back up with the leaders in the light air windward beat at the Lampedusa Island rounding.  In fact, we were ahead of the J/122 ARTIE RTFX and near the J/122 OTRA VEZ.  Then, we had one unfortunate tack that took us back out of the lead!  In any case, it was a Herculean effort and we hope next time to have a little bit better luck!”

Hamble "Winter" Series Update- Weekend III

(Hamble, England)- "Windy, wet and lumpy" was how one competitor described Sunday’s racing in the third weekend of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series. It was a breezy day indeed that saw a base wind of 23 knots and gusts of up to 30 that greeted the fleet as they made their way to the start on Sunday morning. A gusty breeze, combined with a steep Solent chop and intermittent heavy rain squalls kept competitors on their toes – and, occasionally, their boats on their sides in tricky conditions.

Ian Brown from One Sails, the day sponsor, was on hand back in the HRSC clubhouse to present day prizes to the exhausted crews as they enjoyed beer for £2.50 a pint and hot food. In many classes the challenging conditions shook up the overall results.

In the IRC 0 Winter Series class, the all J/111 class continues to see the team of David & Kirsty Apthorp on J-DREAM leading by virtue of their 1-1-1-2-1-1 record this past weekend.  Richard Barnes's BIELA-MUNKENBECK is very close behind having scored an equally impressive 2-2-2-1-2-2 to hold onto second place.  Lying third is the British Army team led by William Naylor aboard BRITISH SOLDIER.  These standings for the Winter Series scoring are virtually identical for the Big Boats J/111 One-Design Series scoring.

Next weekend hosts the final weekend of the Doyle Sails Hamble One Design Championships, as well as the fourth Garmin Hamble Winter Series race day.

Congratulations to all winners and competitors for some masterful displays of big-breeze sailing in what proved to be some challenging sailing conditions. Thanks to all the volunteers who braved the unpleasant conditions to man the committee boats and mark laying RIBs and to run the galley back in the club– the event couldn’t go ahead without them! Thanks for contribution from Ben Meakins.  Sailing photo credits- Malcolm Donald/ GHWS Ross Elliston/ HBBC Trevor Pountain   For more Garmin Hamble Winter Series sailing information