Tuesday, March 12, 2019

CLEAR AIR Crowned J/24 Midwinter Champion

(Tampa, FL)- Twenty-nine teams from the USA, Canada, and Japan participated in the 41st J/24 Midwinter Championship, hosted by Davis Island Yacht Club in Tampa, FL.  The racing was close over the three days, seeing change-ups on the leaderboard after every day.  In the finale on Sunday, it was a tight battle for the top three spots on the podium, with just five points separating the top three after eight races on northern Tampa Bay.

Winning the 2019 edition of the J/24 Midwinter Championship was the 2017 J/24 World Champion Rossi Milev, sailing with his Canadian crew on CLEAR AIR.  The team was comprised of Dan Borrer, Gayle Gray, Vince Somoza (boat owner) and Mark Goodyear.  Here is how it all went down over the three days of tough, competitive racing in the world’s largest one-design keelboat class.

Day 1- Sunny seabreeze
The regatta started out slowly, with many of the crews anxious to get racing underway. However, the gorgeous sunrise revealed a “glass out” on Tampa Bay, without a zephyr of wind in sight. The teams simply waited for a few hours and many could be seen nervously fidgeting with their boats and rig tune, anticipating a light to moderate seabreeze to develop later in the day.

Just after lunch, the winds rose to around 6 knots and then built to 10 from the SSE, allowing three races under blue skies and temperatures near 80. Robby Brown’s ANGEL OF HARLEM, a full-blown “local knowledge” crew from Davis Island YC, led at the conclusion of racing on the first day with a steady 7-2-3 for 12 pts total. Milev’s CLEAR AIR sat five points back after scoring a 2-1-14 for 17 pts.  Then, Mark Laura’s BABA LOUIE crew from Seattle, Washington was just one point further back with 18 pts after posting a 6-7-5.

Carter White’s YouREGATTA kicked off the Championship with line honors in the first race, ahead of Milev’s CLEAR AIR and Travis Odenbach’s HONEYBADGER. Milev moved up to the top spot in Friday’s middle race, with Brown’s ANGEL OF HARLEM and Dan Busch’s BUSCHWHACKER completing the top three. It was Tony Parker’s turn for the victory with BANGOR PACKET in the final duel, along with James Freedman’s MISS CONDUCT and Brown leading the group back to shore.

Day 2- Another gorgeous sunny, moderate day
Beautiful Florida weather again greeted the competitors on the regatta’s middle day.  Yet again, it was a near “glass out” to start the morning, with a postponement onshore. Nevertheless, the sea breeze kicked in again around noon and racing got underway at 1:00 pm with SSW winds of 6-12 knots. The conditions were perfect to run three more races in genoa-only conditions.

Freedman’s MISS CONDUCT continued their solid performance with Saturday’s opening win, as Brown and Milev followed. The Nova Scotian Evan Petley-Jones and team on CAN 4025 found success in race five, ahead of Mollicone and White. Parker’s BANGOR PACKET, John Mollicone’s HELLY HANSEN (himself a J/24 World Champion with yet another World Champions as tactician- Tim Healy) and Michael Quaid’s ICE CUBE comprised the day’s final top trio.

After six races at Davis Island Yacht Club in Tampa, FL, four teams were within four points to determine the J/24 Midwinter Championship. Milev’s CLEAR AIR moved up to the top of the 29-boat pack with 18 points, after dropping a 14 from Friday and keeping scores of 2-1-3-7-5. White’s YouREGATTA leap-frogged into second place with 20 net points, benefiting from discarding a 12 in race two and holding remaining scores in the top six. Day one frontrunner, Brown’s ANGEL OF HARLEM, dropped to third with 21 points, although just three points off the lead. Mollicone’s HELLY HANSEN ended Saturday with back-to-back seconds, leaving them four points behind Milev with 22 pts net, after tossing out a disastrous first-race 24th place.

Day 3- Thrilling Finale!
Sunday dawned with a near carbon-copy of the first two days.  Yet again, the fleet waited for the seabreeze to develop and with more blue skies, temperatures hovering around 80 degrees, the breeze built into the 6-10 kts range to permit the DIYC PRO to run two more races.  For the top three boats, it was an “all or nothing” battle to determine the 2019 J/24 Midwinter Champion.

Recognizing the need to put some distance on their competitors, Milev’s CLEAR AIR crew managed to pull off a first race win to put lots of pressure on the other crews.  White’s crew managed a third and Mollicone’s team actually fell back on points by scoring a fifth place.  Going into the final race, Milev simply had to finish within four points of White and eight points of Mollicone to win the title.  In the last race, Mollicone’s HELLY HANSEN put their boat into high gear and won the race handily, followed by Travis Odenbach’s HONEYBADGER in second and White in third, with Milev crossing in fourth to take the Midwinter title with three points to spare.

Behind Milev’s jubilant Canadian crew, it was White’s YouREGATTA that proved to be the most consistent team, closing with a 3-3 to take the silver.  Meanwhile, after their awful 24th place on day one, the Mollicone/ Healy combination on HELLY HANSEN flew back up the leaderboard to, ultimately, take the bronze. Rounding out the top five were Parker’s BANGOR PACKET in fourth and Brown’s ANGEL OF HARLEM in fifth position.

This event was Milev’s first since winning the 2017 J/24Worlds. “It felt great to be back,” said Milev. “We didn’t have the gears, since we haven’t sailed for a while.  But, every day we got a little better.” Although Gray and Goodyear were part of the World Championship crew, Borrer and Somoza were newcomers to CLEAR AIR, yet “clicked from the get-go.”

About Davis Island, Milev summarized, “It’s one of my favorite places in North America to sail. It’s the friendliest yacht club by far. The breeze this weekend was unbelievable. I’ve sailed here a lot of times, and this is the steadiest I’ve ever seen it. On Saturday, we had 15 minutes on one tack, and we never got a shift.”  For more J/24 Midwinter Championship sailing information