J/Teams @ Border Run Party!

(Newport Beach, CA)- Starting on February 22, the “come one, come all” Border Run Race is the first, point to point, international ocean race of the 2014 Southern California offshore yachting season. Part of the Ullman Offshore Series, the Border Run is for experts and beginners alike. With three courses to choose from, starting from Newport and sailing to Dana Point or San Diego, the Border Run offers sailors of all skill levels a great time. The Border Run has always been about inclusion, fun and competition.

In order to ensure that all members of the family, from the sailors to kids and friends alike, are having a wonderful time, the BRR makes every effort to be inclusive of everyone ashore, too!  Three Parties are an integral part of the camaraderie of the event: the Newport Send-Off Party; the Dana Point Trophy Party; and the San Diego Trophy Party.

While sailing and having fun is the underlying theme, there is a “higher calling” for those sailors so inclined during this event for “matters of the heart”.  In the last three years, the sailors of the Border Run have raised over $75,000 for LLS, City2Sea and the Craig Williams Memorial Fund. This year the teams will be helping to raise money to help another worthy cause!

J/Teams are participating in two of the three courses on offer to the sailors.  On the San Diego course there are 50 boats sailing including the following J sailors:

In PHRF Light B Division, competing for silver are the J/111 STAMPEDE sailed by Glenn Griley from King Harbor YC and the J/133 FORGIVENESS skippered by Joe Simpkins.   Everyone is hoping the “Pineapple Express” weather systems that have started to bedevil the West Coast don’t materialize with big breeze and tropical downpours of blinding rain! For more Border Run International Race sailing information

Get Ready For Sailing Key West!

Calling All J/70, J/80, J/105 & J/PHRF Teams!(Key West, FL)- The 25th Anniversary edition of Key West Race Week was by all accounts a great success and your Key West hosts are looking forward to building on the enthusiasm that was generated last year and delivering another memorable Key West Race Week 2013 for the one-design J/80 and J/105 classes, for the popular J/PHRF class and for the new J/70 class!  The competition is world-class and the evening socials at the Kelly’s Caribbean shoreside venue have proven to be very popular for skippers and crews.

For the 26th edition of this winter classic, ten races over five days are planned for J/One-Design classes and the J/PHRF classes.  A Key West hallmark has been strong class racing and we are hoping to grow those fleets that have supported Key West for years.  Positive news from all four J/Classes point to another year featuring great competition- so far 35 J's are signed up, about 42% of the 84 boats planning to participate already.  Come one, come all, let's make J's 50% of the fleet!  The more the merrier!

For J/105s, the big news is that one of the class's newest owners, Dennis Conner (recently honored as "America's Greatest Sailor" by US Sailing/ Sailing World Magazine) will be sailing USA 3- DC's PHOLLY, one of the oldest J/105s in existence.  DC just finished sailing the J/105 SoCal Championships and the J/105 North American Championships in San Diego and has proven to be a competitive J/105 sailor-- DC and crew are looking forward to sailing Key West and invite all J/105 sailors to join them for some "phun and phrolic with PHOLLY!"  To date, Damien Emery's champion ECLIPSE from New York has taken up the invitation as has Bennet Greenwald's PERSEVERANCE traveling cross-country like DC from San Diego, California!  What an opportunity to say you "crossed-tacks with DC (the America's Cup most famous sailor) and lived to tell the story"!  Join DC and crew for the J/105 2013 Midwinter Championship!

The J/80s have a quartet from Annapolis showing up with Kristen Beery, Bert Carp, Jeff Jordan's WILLY T and J-World's ANIMAL HOUSE looking forward to some rocking & rolling in the crystal blue-waters off Key West.  Joining them are Gary Panariello's COURAGEOUS from New York and Ron Buzil's VAYU 2 from Chicago, Illinois.  The J/80s will again be hosting their 2013 J/80 Midwinter Championship in conjunction with the Key West regatta-- it's a great way to have "your cake & eat it, too"!  Win class prizes, daily fleet prizes, door prizes and take a well-deserved break from the freezing grip of winter to work on that tan and catch up with sailing friends from around the world!

The J/70s debuts at Key West 2013 for its first J/70 Midwinter Championship on a special circle just west of Sunset Key (Tank Island), past the NW Passage.  The racing promises to be fun, fast and challenging for what may be the first time many of the teams will be racing one-design. So far, with 18 boats registered and over 30 expected to participate the fleet is beginning to look like a "Woodstock" sailing festival with many legendary J/Sailors from the past participating as well as some of the latest rockstars. Known participants include Mark Ploch (winner of first J/24 Midwinters in 1978), David Ullman, Don Trask, Tim Healy, Rod/Jeff Johnstone, Heather Gregg-Earl, Don Finkle, Jimmie Allsopp & son Cole, Kerry Klingler/ Rick Lyall, Henry Brauer/ Will Welles, Mike Sudofsky, John Gottwald, Bruno Pasquinelli, Chris Snow and Blake Kimbrough, amongst many others.

Finally, the J/PHRF Time-on-time handicap class is shaping up to be yet another great fleet of boats.  Last year, past winners Bill Sweetser on the J/109 RUSH and Robin Team on the J/122 TEAMWORK both said it was some of the best handicap racing they've ever sailed at Key West.  With Rod J handling the PHRF TOT handicaps, the racing was fair, fun and extremely competitive with the outcome of the entire week coming down to the last race.  This year promises to be just as much fun.  So far, two top J/109s are sailing, Sweetser's RUSH and Gary Wesiberg's HEAT WAVE; four J/111s are expected to sail including Doug Curtiss' WICKED 2.0 and class newcomer Bob Hese's LAKE EFFECT from Youngstown, NY.  Also sailing are Glenn Gault's J/120 REBECCA from Texas, Adam Esselman's J/124 STILL MESSIN from Michigan and David Alldian's J/95 CYMOPOLEIA from New Jersey.

REMINDER! NOTE TO SELF- be sure to enter NOW (no cost obligation) if you believe that you will be racing with us next January 2013 – here are the links to the online entry and the current entry list – it is easy to do and the entry fee is not due until later in December.  To enter Key Race Race Week, please click here   Sailing photo credits- Tim Wilkes

25th Key West Race Week

Big J/80 Class, Cool New PHRF J/Class
(Key West, FL)- While the world has not seen the best of times, nor the worst of times in the past few years, what has remained a constant, nearly magnetic attraction to the sailing world has ben the annual midwinter pilgrimage to Key West to sail Race Week.  Many top teams from the Americas as well as from Asia and Europe attend the event for a bacchanalian sailing feast for a week in January that most describe as "tropical sailing conditions" in spectacular azure-blue sailing waters around the reefs of the Gulf Stream and the Florida Keys.  Sunsets and the "green flash" are signature events that put an exclamation mark not only on the day's sailing, but usher in evening festivities that perhaps only can be best described as "epic" and "off-the-wall"!  After all, that's what Key West is renowned for down at the bottom (or beginning) of the famous Route 1 roadway that goes from Key West to Easport, Maine.

One of the features of this year's 25th Key West is the very welcomed sponsorship and support from Quantum Sails, whose headquarters in the Great American Midwest belies the subtle, laid back, but competitive approach they have to supporting their sailors, their teams and their customers.  "We recognize that Key West Race Week is the flagship regatta in this country and has been for well over two decades," Quantum President Ed Reynolds said. "This has been reinforced by many people we've spoken with both here and abroad. Even with the smaller fleet sizes of recent years, this midwinter, big-boat regatta is very important to North American and international sailboat racing. We would like to see it continue and are committed to supporting the regatta during this transition period."

SAIL Magazine's Best Around the Buoys competition is another regatta highlight-- a remarkable "award" for the team that qualifies to sail in a supplied boat with sponsors J/BOATS, NORTH SAILS, HARKEN and others.  The aim is to grow sailing at a grass-roots level with both one-design and PHRF competition- growing awareness that sailing can be fun with family and friends.  This year, the SAIL BAB sailors from Dallas, Texas will be racing a J/80 one-design against some of the top teams in the country.

Yet another special feature of this year's 25th Anniversary is the creation of a J/Class.  It's quite a turn-out of some of the top J/Teams that have raced Key West over the past few years.  At the top of the food chain in PHRF 1/ J-Class is the J/122 TEAMWORK- Robin Team from Lexington, NC- these guys have done it all, won Lauderdale-Key West and Key West IRC Class and will always be a team in contention at the end of a week long series like Key West.  A new team from Detroit is the J/120 HOT TICKET sailed by Bob Kirkman from Bayview YC in Detroit, Michigan-- no shrinking violets this crowd is, having beaten all other multiple Chicago/Bayview Mac Champions to the finish line in the 2011 version of the races.  More new faces to the Key West crowd include the J/111 trio, including the J/111 WICKED 2.0 sailed by Doug Curtiss from Buzzards Bay (he sailed his J/124 in Key West last year); the J/111 MENTAL sailed by Paul Stahlberg from Chicago YC (a very fun-loving crew); and the J/111 WARLOCK skippered by Tom Hickey from Newfoundland YC, St John's, NB, Canada (a fast-rising team from near the Arctic Circle and the cool Northwest Passage).  If this fleet wasn't' tough enough, you only need to toss in two well-sailed J/109s, like a past J/109 North American Champion and Key West Champion, Bill Sweetser's RUSH from Annapolis YC in Annapolis, MD; he's accompanied by Gary Weisberg from Gloucester, MA sailing his J/109 HEATWAVE in Key West for the first time.

The J/80s are sailing their J/80 Midwinter Championships, the 19 boat turnout makes them the biggest class for Key West-- quite a remarkable achievement over the course of time!  In addition to the SAIL BAB Team (which must feel like they're getting fed to the sharks), you will find the J/80s led by World Champions like LE TIGRE- Glenn Darden from Fort Worth Boat Club in Fort Worth, TX and Swedish Champion ROCAD RACING sailed by Mikael Lindqvist from KSSS (Royal Swedish YC).  Plus, you have multiple Key West J/105 Champion Brian Keane on SAVASANA from Buzzards Bay, MA and J/80 North American Champions John Storck and family on RUMOR from Storm Trysail Club in New York rounding out the leaders.  Finally, toss in Bruno Pasquinelli on TIAMO from Fort Worth Boat Club and he's sure to be a factor amongst the leaders so long as he doesn't argue with his boom!

The PHRF 2 Class have ten boats participating. It will be a competitive fleet with two J's flying the flag and leading the fleet home (we hope)- the J/105 MAX POWER sailed by Gerrit Schulze from Cape May, NY and the J/95 STILL CRAZY sailed by Ed Palm from Grosse Pointe, MI and Naples, FL.  For more QUANTUM SAILS Key West Race Week Sailing information