J/Fest + Harvest Moon Rising!

(Houston, TX)- A lot is happening in parts of grand'ole Southwestern America.  They think big down there whether it's "honky-tonks" with mechanical bulls, epic parties, enormous blond hair, rattlesnake boots, dude ranches and, sometimes, even huge regattas!  First up on the agenda is the Harvest Moon Regatta, or "HMR" as the locals call it.  This year's 27th edition starts the 17th of October and can be a real "trick or treat" event.  HMR was hatched over drinks in the Lakewood YC bar by a few sailors that wanted to use their boats more!  The October weather window between the summer doldrums and the blue northers makes for spectacular sailing along the Texas Coast.  Add in the beautiful "ginormous" Harvest Moon and a course from the Galveston Jetties to Port Aransas and you have the HMR.  Just a 100 plus mile jaunt down the coast with over 200 sailboats!

With several classes there is a place to race or cruise for every type of boat.  The Bacardi PHRF Racing fleet is about 50% J/Boats with the J/105, J/109, J/120, and a J/44 the primary entries.  Every year epic stories hatch of blast reaching at over 15 knots for 8 hours, or drifting in the same spot for hours!  The cruisers seem to enjoy regaling the racers with how they enjoyed watching the race boats zip by with the crew hanging over the lifelines chomping on a energy bar or MRE as they sipped a nice chardonnay and enjoyed exquisite hot cuisine under the bimini.  At Port Aransas all of the sailors come together for a lively party, brag a lot, tell mind-blowing stories (real or not!) and a wonderful time is had by all.  Almost all the boats start back on Sunday- either motor sailing down the cut or back out in the gulf.  It's no wonder this event attracts 200 entries every year to become one of our nations largest offshore point-to-point races! Put this one on your bucket list!  For more Harvest Moon Regatta sailing information
J/Fest Southwest is next up on the agenda.  Shortly following the Harvest Moon Regatta, be sure to note the deadline Friday is fast approaching!!  The skippers bag has well over $100.00 in product goodies such as Rejex Wax and boat wash, dinner coupons, t-shirt and J/Fest coffee mug!  After Friday the entry goes up by an additional $50.00!

Don't miss the racing action, live music, free beer, Kattack race tracking and thousands of dollars in goodies to be raffled off from Velocitek, Marlow, Torqeedo, Harken, Blackburn Marine, North U.  Along with these great product sponsors we also get financial support from the City of Seabrook, North, Quantum, Torqeedo, Hayes Rigging, Hays Insurance, Sundance Grill, Gulf Coast Marine, and Sundance Grill!

What does all of this mean?  The J/Fest Southwest Regatta committee puts on great racing designed to maximize your time on the water and our sponsors put the shoreside activities over the top to produce one of the highest quality events in the nation with a lot of bang for your buck!  There's a class for every J/Boat ever built and we want y'all to come on down to Galveston Bay and play! Come join the 50 fellow J/Owners already registered! So don't delay register today!   For more J/Fest Southwest sailing information

J/Fest San Diego Preview

(San Diego, CA)- The San Diego J/Fest boasts a long history of being one of the most fun and well attended regattas in Southern California.  And, it's exclusively for J/Boat owners! The regatta is open to one-design classes as well as a J/PHRF fleet!

Hosted by San Diego YC the J/Teams will enjoy three day of competitive, fun buoy racing from September 27th to 29th.  Friday is the fun, casual race around set marks and government marks, followed by two days of course racing on Saturday and Sunday.  Inside the bay will be the smaller boats (like J/22, J/70 and J/80) and offshore will be the larger boats (the J/105s, J/109s and J/120s).

While the sailing is always nice in sunny San Diego, J/Fest is perhaps most renown for its onshore festivities.  Saturday evening is the traditional J/Fest Party, basically a giant cook-out on the lawn with live music and lots of awesome swag and giveaways from the sponsors.  The fun factor is a key element of the event, a reason why over fifty boats have attended every year.

The J/105s have yet another great turnout with most of the top local teams sailing, including Chuck Driscoll's BLOW BOAT, Steve & Lucy Howell's BLINK!, Rick Goebel's SANITY, Dennis & Sharon Case's WINGS, Rich Bergmann's ZUNI BEAR, Jon Dekker's AIR BOSS and Gary Mozer's CURRENT OBSESSION 2 fro Los Angeles.

The J/120s have traditionally offered very tight competition with a modest-sized fleet.  Again, a number of local favorites are sailing and should be factors at the front of the fleet.  Familiar faces like John Laun's CAPER, John Snook's JIM, Chuck Nichols' CC RIDER, Gary Winton's SHENANIGANS and Mike Hatch's J/ALMIGHTY have all had their fair share of great performances in J/Fest.

The J/109 class will see past local and regional champions sailing again, including Gene Pitkin's GERONIMO, Rex Butler's JD, John Shulze's LINSTAR and Daylen Tercen's GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!

The J/70s will debut as a class and their six boat fleet should present a lot of fun racing on San Diego Bay.  Having been traveling to the last three major J/70 events on the West Coast, Dan Gribble's GO-RILLA, Eric Kownacki/ Tom Jenkins' DFZ, Karl Pomeroy's ZERO TO 60 and Craig Tallman's JAYA may have a leg-up on the fleet. Nevertheless, 70 sailors have proven they're climbing the learning curve fast in this simple boat, so expect to see good competition from Hugh Bennet on CHEETAH CUB and Sean O'Keefe on DECOLORES 3.  For more J/Fest sailing information, please be sure to contact Joanne O'Dea at joanne@jk3yachts.com.  Or, go to the San Diego YC website.

Good Times J/Fest San Francisco!

(San Francisco, CA)-  This year's J/Fest hosted by St Francis Yacht Club had another strong turnout of San Francisco Bay area J/Teams.  Leading the way with twenty boats was the J/105 class, with good sailing for the J/24, J/70 and J/120 teams as well.

The J/105 class on San Francisco Bay continues to remain a strong fleet and fresh blood is always popping up over the course of time to make life interesting.  Such was the case this past weekend.  Leading the way home was Steve Kleha sailing the renown DONKEY JACK to first place with a 3-5-10-4-1 record for 23 pts to just nip a group of four veteran boats hot on their tail.  Second was the team of Jason Woodley and Scott Whitney sailing RISK to a 4-2-5-5-9 tally for 25 pts, just two points back.  Third was Pat Benedict on ADVANTAGE 3 putting on a strong effort to finish in the money with a 5-7-6-6-3 scoreline for 27 pts.  Rounding out the top five based on a tie-breaker at 29 pts were Scooter Simmons on BLACKHAWK in 4th and Walter Sanford on ALCHEMY in fifth.

Similarly, the J/120s have such an evenly matched fleet it's often the case the top three are all just about tied on points after the smoke clears on the race course.  For this event, it was Dick Swanson's GRACE DANCES that started off strong with two bullets to finally win the regatta with just 11 pts.  Second was Barry Lewis's CHANCE with 13 pts, climbing up the score ladder quickly  in the last three races with a 1-2-2.  Third was Steve Madeira's MR MAGOO sailing a "barbell" series, weak start and finish scores bracketing a solid 2-3-3 to finished with 18 pts.  Incredibly, though not too surprisingly, for this fleet was that 4th was a tie-breaker with John Wimer's DESDEMONA taking it over Timo Bruck's TWIST.

Familiar faces did prevail amongst the leaders in the J/24s, with Darren Cumming's DOWNTOWN UPROAR taking first by only one point over his buddy Mike Whitfield's TMC RACING!  Third was Valentin Lulevich's brilliant, metaphorically named boat- SHUT & DRIVE! Smart guy, Valentin is-- drive that bus fast!  :)

As for the J/70s, Jim Cascino's EOS prevailed while Chris Andersen's OLD AND IN THE WAY stayed out of the way!  They apparently had some amazing rides blasting around San Francisco Bay at about 100 kts with afterburners and vapor-trails smoking behind them!  OK, well maybe 15-18 kts at GPS speeds. :0
 Sailing photo credits- Rolex/ Daniel Forster.   For more J/Fest San Francisco sailing information

J/Fest San Francisco Preview

(San Francisco, CA)- This year's J/Fest hosted by St Francis Yacht Club has another strong turnout of San Francisco Bay area J/Teams.  Leading the way is perhaps one of the strongest J/105 fleets in the country followed by the always competitive J/120 class on the Bay.  In addition, the J/70s are making their debut in this year's event and will be sailing alongside their stablemates, a fleet of a half-dozen J/24s.

For the J/105 teams, there's a likelihood that you may see past Rolex Big Boat Series Champions like Scooter Simmons on BLACKHAWK, Bruce Stone on ARBITRAGE and Adam Spiegle on JAM SESSION amongst the leaders.

The J/120s have such an evenly matched fleet it's well-nigh impossible to forecast a fleet leader as nearly all of the boats have won some regatta or another over the course of time.  In any event, you should see amongst the leaders Barry Lewis's CHANCE, John Wimer's DESDEMONA, Dick Swanson's GRACE DANCES and Steve Madeira's MR MAGOO.

Familiar faces should also be amongst the leaders in the J/24s, including Darren Cumming's DOWNTOWN UPROAR, Mike Whitfield's TMC RACING and  Rich Jepsen's RAIL TO RAIL.

As for the J/70s, it will be interesting to see how their first San Francisco Bay regatta ends up for the competitors.  Amongst them are Jim Cascino's EOS, Chris Andersen's OLD AND IN THE WAY and Mark Nelsen's SUGOI.  Sailing photo credits- Rolex/ Daniel Forster.   For more J/Fest San Francisco sailing information