Jud Smith's J/70 Go-Fast Insights

(San Diego, CA)- Jud Smith- skipper of AFRICA that won the J/70 North Americans in San Diego had some interesting commentary on their success:

“Since the 2014 Newport J/70 Worlds, where we finished a respectable 9th overall, we set out to improve on that performance and hit the circuit pretty hard over the winter.   Starting in the Chesapeake, followed by Tampa, Key West, St. Pete, Miami and Charleston.  All were big regattas with plenty of competition and opportunity to improve our speed and technique. During that time, we developed our flatter J6 Radial Jib for the fresher seasonal conditions we encounter on the East Coast.  With our heavy air performance improved, we placed 4th overall at Key West without losing our good light air speed we had in Newport.   At Charleston race week, we moved up to 3rd overall and topped the Dynasty division; racing both major regattas with my daughter Lindsay, Will Felder and Marc Gauthier.  We race at 725 to 740 lbs depending on our team since I’m one of the heaviest drivers in the class at over 100 kilos.

During these travel regattas, we have refined our trimming and tuning techniques for the new J6 Radial jib.  Our high clew jib allows us to in-haul the jib to the cabin house nonskid, which powers up the main and generates more helm and point.   As the wind speed increases to the 7 to 8 knots max power condition, we start to depower by lowering the traveler toward center line and tension the outhaul all before touching the backstay.  We only start using the backstay once the outhaul is tensioned and traveler car is nearing centerline to keep from having too much helm.  Managing the correct amount of power while sailing close hauled is crucial for the Main Trimmer and Helmsman.

Jib development prior to La Rochelle Worlds
This summer we raced Africa in our local Fleet 9, only missing one race day during my trip to the J/70 Worlds in La Rochelle on Peter Duncan’s “Relative Obscurity”.   We tested our current J6 Radial jib design in mid-June with Roller Battens in preparation for the Worlds.  The Jib performed very well at the Worlds even though the experimental roller battens showed signs of fatigue by the end of a windy event, but overall performed well – winning the last race of the Worlds to place 7th overall.  (The roller batten jibs may have a future in the J/70 once the batten durability improves.)

After returning from the Worlds in July, we made a standard vertical batten version of J6R, which we used to win the competitive J/70 New England Championships during Marblehead Race Week, in a wide range of wind speeds and sea conditions. That was our first win in a sanctioned J/70 championship event since we had started racing in 2013.  So we were improving each regatta in 2015 with the NA’s fast approaching.  Meanwhile Team Hooligan, one of our training partners at the North Americans, won Cleveland Race Week (they placed 7th at NA’s using the same main and jib combo as us.)  At the end of August, we won the regional ONE Regatta in light air conditions that were a lot like San Diego.

Sail Selection for the North Americans
It’s unique to sail a big regatta in a venue where the conditions are so consistently light, but thankfully, there was plenty of time to prepare for this.  Leading up to September, I got invited to do a two-boat testing session in San Diego with Joel Ronning and his “Catapult” team.  Joel had set up a two boat J/70 testing camp in San Diego for the month leading up to the NA’s and invited all the top sailmakers in the class to join in for a few days and test their designs at that venue.  I couldn’t resist that opportunity, since Ronning was second at the Newport Worlds and has been one of the top boats on the circuit since the outset.

From that two days of testing on the NA’s track we learned our J6R performed just fine even in the light air and was especially quick with crew on the rail.  What we also found was that our older Main from the 2014 NA’s in Rochester was a bit softer now and provided more power that would be needed for the light air anticipated for NA’s.   While we came away from the New England’s with a win, I felt like for us to be competitive at our weight range in light air, we would need a better downrange soaking kite if we were going to have a shot at the podium."  Read more about Juddie’s experiences here.