Wednesday, June 6, 2007

J/120 Wins Charleston-Bermuda Race

Charleston, South Carolina — EmOcean, a J/120, recently won Overall Honors in 2007 Charleston to Bermuda Race. This 777-mile race began on May 18th with eight tall ships and hundreds of spectators looking on, and ended with a convivial evening of awards at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Saturday, May 26th. This year, overall honors were awarded to a skipper and crew who performed superbly—young Will Hanckel and his friends on board his father’s J/120 EmOcean. En route, they dealt deftly with a variety of conditions that ran the gamut from 25 to 30-knot northeasterly winds and confused, 10-foot seas, to light zephyrs and moderate swells. Hanckel is no stranger to victory, but those trophies are usually associated with around the-buoys contests, and until the last couple of years, his wins were limited to events staged in one-design dinghies. As Sutherland Madeiros, the Mayor of Hamilton, and Gregory W. Slayton U.S. Consul General stood by, along with all the dapperly attired flag officers of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, Hanckel and his crew also received a large crystal bowl as the winners of the J/Boats Trophy for the best performing J/Boat in the fleet. All in all, not bad for a crew with no C2B veterans on its roster. Complete story.