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Palio di Anzio Regatta
(Anzio, Italy)- The second edition of the Palio di Anzio J/24 Regatta was won
by Quartiere Lavinio Mare. The crew, skippered by Gianni Riccobono, wins for
the second consecutive year. In second place was from Anzio was Marco
d'Aloisio sailing DON J and third was Massimo Noons at the helm of JULIO CAESAR
with a local crew from Anzio's neighborhood sailing center.
It was a beautiful and historic sailing event blessed by good winds, good race
management and organized by the non-profit organization Palio Anzio. The
event is a celebration of the history of the port of Anzio and the eight
districts that make up the city surround the port.
For some historical perspective, it was in 1761 that Cardinal Antonio
Pignatelli of Naples was planning on joining the Conclave in Rome sailing by
water. However, he was caught in a gale which forced him to take shelter
in the Gulf of Anzio. Here the generous citizens of the town welcomed him for
the time necessary to be able to return to the sea and reach Rome, carrying a
promise that, if he became the Pope of the Catholic Church, that he would build
the port of Anzio. That promise came true, as he was elected Pope Innocent XII.
After a few months of living in Rome, he recalled the promise and returned to
Anzio, this time by land, to lay the first stone of the new Port of Anzio near
the ruins of the ancient port of Nero! Today, the crew of Anzio Lavinio,
by winning the trophy for the second time may have the opportunity for a
three-peat performance next year! For more J/24 Italy sailing information
(Youngstown, NY)- 181 boats raced on five circles in the 40th and Final
Youngstown Level Regatta on the weekend of July 27-28. For most of its
history the Level has been the largest weekend keelboat regatta on Lake
Ontario, at one time hitting a monstrous 466 boats! Those were the
days of 50 boat J/24 fleets and one design starts for most of the J designs
popular at the time. Since then things had settled down to a more
manageable size but the Level still held a prominent place on the calendar for
most racers within hundreds of miles. Youngstown Yacht Club finally
decided 40 years was enough and the organizers and volunteers deserved a break,
so this was the last Level, to be replaced next year with a new event with
details to be announced this fall.
Sailors did not want to miss out on the fun of the final event so
attendance was up by almost 40 boats over 2012. Conditions were generally
favorable, light to moderate with the exception of a brief squall that came in
Saturday afternoon that curtailed racing for the day. Various J models
were entered in 9 of the 26 divisions, and the largest division in the event
was the J70 class with 17 boats. In IRC 0 Bob Hesse and crew aboard the
J111 Lake Effect lost the tie-breaker for first place, settling for second as
they had done in Key West in January. They have been dominating local
PHRF racing this summer. Stephen Trevitt in Crime Scene won the J35 class
by two points over Mark DePaul in Remarkable. In PHRF 1 the four J109s
took the top four places, with Robert Eckersley's Blue Streak finishing ahead
of Ed Werner in Moccasin and Murray Gainer in Lively. Mark Bowman's J29
FROB Untamed was second in PHRF 3 and second and third places in PHRF 4 were
taken by Mike Seitz in his J27 Northern Seitz over Dan Mather's very successful
J30 Crusader. The PHRF 7 division was made up of J22s and J24s, with Jack
Doyle in his J22 winning over the J24s of Kevin McAuley and Tom Raes. In
non spinnaker racing Doug Clarke's J35C Rogue Wave was second in M&J 1.
The headline J70 fleet enjoyed their first major one design event
on Lake Ontario with boats coming from Newport, the Chesapeake, Lake Erie,
Connecticut, New Jersey, Ontario, Indiana, Florida and various NY ports.
In addition several borrowed boats were helmed by out of town sailors,
including past J105 NA Champ Rolf Kaiser of San Francisco and long time J24
skipper Mark Pincus of Florida. Competition was stiff with 5 different
boats taking bullets over the 8 race series. In the end Kerry Klinger
edged out Marty Kullman by taking the final race, with Kris Werner finishing
third. This was Kris's first taste of real action in his new J70 and he
had J24 hotshot Rossi Milev aboard to help him get up to speed.
The regatta was judged to be a terrific success with many fond memories being
shared and praise was lavished on the volunteers for their years of hard
work. Everyone wants to know what YYC has our our sleeve for 2014 but we
aren't quite ready to announce the sequel just yet. Sailing photo credits- Tim Wilkes @ TimWilkes.com.
For more Youngstown Level Regatta sailing information
J/70 CATAPULT, J/24 HELLY HANSEN,
J/22 JULIAN ASSOCIATES Winners
(Newport, RI)- As has been the tradition for years, the Sail Newport team led by
Brad Read and a select group of PRO's provided excellent race management over
the course of the two-day Bacardi Newport Regatta to ensure most classes had
four good races.
As the largest fleet in the regatta, remarkable considering it's "the new
kid on the block", the J/70s managed to put twenty-two boats on the line
for a highly competitive and fun event. Perhaps most importantly, the fleet has
demonstrated that newcomers to the fleet can be quite competitive against
earlier season "veterans" and sail quite well. Following on
earlier season success, Joel Ronning's CATAPULT team from Lake Minnetonka, MN
sailed well with a 1-7-7-1 series for 16 pts to just beat out Bruno Pasquinelli's
STAMPEDE team that sported a 9-4-2-2 scoreline for 17 pts-- it all came down to
who-beat-who in the last race. Taking third was Bennet Greenwald with a
4-1-6-10 tally for 21 pts-- fresh off wins on the Pacific Coast at Cal Race
Week and Long Beach Race Week. Dave Franzel's SPRING sailed a solid
series, capturing a consistent 6-8-5-4 for 23 pts for fourth and lying fifth
was newcomers TOUCH 2 PLAY sailed by Martin Kullman with a 5-6-1-12 record for
24 pts (nearly pulling off an overall win in their first try were it not for
the last race "bomber" race!).
For the sixteen J/24s, it was a double-whammy, a District 2 Championship
World's Qualifier and US Adult Sailing Championship Qualifier. And, to no one's
surprise, it was Tim Healy that ran the table with straight firsts on HELLY
HANSEN to take the J/24 title. Fresh from sailing over in Europe was Mike
Ingham (world-traveler man!), taking the second spot with a 5-2-2-2 record for
an easy second place. Sailing yet another BANGOR PACKET was Tony Parker
taking third. Fourth was Steve Kirkpatrick on BUCKSHOT and fifth was Mike
Marshall on PIPE DREAM.
Nine J/22s sailed gaining good practice for the upcoming J/22 Worlds sailing in
Newport in October 2013. And, what a practice it was! For THREE teams all
ended up tied at 9 pts each for first place! How often does that
happen? Never heard of it before in decades of sailing. Surprising
some of the teams was the excellent performance by Brad Julian and crew on
JULIAN ASSOCIATES, winning with a 4-2-2-1 record based on having most 1sts and
2nds. Second on the tie-break was Chris Doyle's JUG 4 1 with a 3-3-1-2
tally and third on the tie-break was Jim Bernash with a 2-1-3-3 record-- losing
the tie-break because of last race placing! How cool is that?!
CLose racing and fun for all. Fourth was Dave Godin and fifth was FJ
Ritt. For more Bacardi Newport Sailing information
(Poole, England)- Twenty-five teams from the United Kingdom, Ireland and USA
headed to Plymouth to contest the UK Nationals at the start of July. With
10 races scheduled over 4 days the race committee wasted no time getting going
with 3 rapid fire courses set on the first day to ensure the fleet completed a
series given the patchy wind forecast.
The following 3 days settled into a pattern with competitors enjoying lazy
mornings in the balmy conditions whilst waiting for the sea breeze to fill and
then as the wind arrived reveling in the close quarters racing and tight calls
at every start, mark rounding and finish. With a matter of boat lengths
separating first to last on the water this was one design racing at its very
best. Sail tracker units were carried on all the boats meaning friends and
families could watch races unfold from shore and over 1,300 visitors logged in
to check on the action across the 3 days of racing. You can still view the feed
via the SailRacer site here.
With an all-star cast, including the 2010 and 2011 European Champions, 2013 US
National Champions, as well as multiple UK and Irish National titles shared
between the teams, racing was always going to be tight, with 6 different teams
taking race wins from the 9 races contested and consistency being the key to
establishing a good series. Masters of this were Chris McLaughlin / Ian
Southworth and their IL RICCIO team who, with every result inside the top 5,
put enough space between them and their closest rivals to be able to reclaim the
UK National Championship crown last held by them in 2006.
The UK National Championship Title goes to Chris McLaughlin/Ian Southworth
sailing IL RICCIO with Mike Ingham's HITCHHIKER from America taking 2nd place
and Rob Clark of JUJU taking 3rd. The Westerly Trophy was also hotly contested
and eventually went to the all girls team on NITRO skippered by Alison
Young. Next up is the summer regatta season with a number of J/24's
intending on heading to Yarmouth, IOW to join in with the fun at the Tattinger
Regatta at the end of the month. Sailing photo credits- Tom Gruitt For more J/24 UK Nationals sailing information
(Newport, RI)- What has become a right of passage for New England summer
sailors is the annual pilgrimage to Newport to sail what many consider one of
America's best run regattas-- the Bacardi Newport Regatta. Hosting
nineteen one-design classes is never easy, but the management team of PRO's led
by Brad Read always manage to make it happen no matter what cards the weather
God's have thrown down on the table. So far, the prognosticators indicate
this year's event taking place from July 12th to 14th may end up with some
classic Newport sea-breeze conditions.
The J/70's are "the new kid on the block" and as the world's fastest
growing sportboat class is fielding a fleet of twenty competitors. And,
there's no doubt it will be quite a competitive affair with several top teams
participating from the winter/ spring events like Key West, Charleston, St Pete
and Annapolis. Look for some of these teams to be in the top five,
including James Allsopp's MOXIE, Joel Ronning's CATAPULT, Bennet Greenwald's
PERSEVERANCE, Dave Franzel's SPRING, Blake Kimbrough's NOSTALGIA, Joe
Bardenheier's MUSE, Bruno Pasquinelli's STAMPEDE and Jud Smith's Marblehead
team.
For the sixteen J/24s, it' a double-whammy, a District 2 Championship World's
Qualifier and US Adult Sailing Championship Qualifier. As a result, Tim
Healy is leaping back into the J/24s sailing HELLY HANSEN. They will be
challenged by arch nemesis Travis Odenbach on HONEY BADGER, Steve Wood on
TASMANIAN DEVIL, Frank McNamara on ZOT, Ian Scott on CRACK OF NOON and Aidan
Glackin on MENTAL FLOSS.
Nine J/22s will be racing and for many it may prove to be good practice for the
upcoming J/22 Worlds sailing in Newport in October 2013. Expect to see
amongst the top boats champion J/22 sailor Chris Doyle sailing JUG 4 1, Brad
Julian skippering JULIAN ASSOCIATES, Lowell Thomas on CHAOS and Matt Dunbar on
WHARF RAT. For more Bacardi Newport Sailing information
Will Three Big Dogs Prevail?
(Wayzata, MN)- Lake Minnetonka will again be the playground for J/24s as the
Wayzata YC hosts them for their National Championship from June 20-23. As
J/24 Fleet #1, Lake Minnetonka has more experience than any other club hosting
major events for J/24s over the course of time sailing on the lake since
1977! The Wayzata YC J/24 sailors are looking forward to another
"most excellent" regatta with a stellar group of twenty boats
participating.
Recently, the J/24 class established a "World Rankings" website (http://www.j24worldrankings.com) that gives J/24 sailors
around the world a ranking overall and by country based on performance and
participation. Currently 1,118 sailors and 140 regattas over 4 years were
used in these rankings (best four in past two years count using a high point
system). Not surprisingly, six of the top ten are Americans with Brazil,
Italy, Argentina and Germany filling out the balance of top teams.
Sailing in this year's J/24 Nationals are three of the Americans, including
World #1 Mike Ingham from Rochester, NY, #9 Pat Toole from Santa Barbara, CA
sailing his famous THREE BIG DOGS and #10 Travis Odenbach from Rochester, NY
sailing HONEY BADGER. Not to be outdone are some of the famous founding
members of J/24 Fleet #1 sailing with Rolf Turnquist and John Gjerde on
the mighty yacht OZ! For more J/24 US Nationals sailing information
(Barbados, The Caribbean)- The Barbados J/24 fleet continues to grow by leaps
and bounds, springing from one success to another. This year's Mt Gay
Regatta saw a tremendous, enthusiastic turn-out for the J/24 class with
fourteen boats participating in the event, essentially all the J/24s in
Barbados!
Sailing like a pro was Bailey's team on FULLY COVERED, taking the
regatta counting three 1sts and three 2nds for 9 pts in the seven race
regatta. Talk about a "schooling", seems to many they need to
be handicapped! The dog fight for the balance of the top five made for
some spirited racing within the fleet. Coming out on top was Povey's HAWKEYE
with 23 pts to take second overall. Mayers's ESPERANZA finished third
with 25 pts, Burke's IMPULSE took fourth with 26 pts and Sweeney's ATTITUDE
took fifth. On the short end of that stick in the last race was Rostant's
team on JABULANI, finishing 5th and losing an opportunity to finish on the
podium. For more J/24 Barbados sailing information
