Growing California's Team Racing/ Match Racing Talent
(San Francisco, CA)- The St. Francis Yacht Club Foundation, in partnership with St. Francis Yacht Club, has chosen the J/22 for its expanding match racing and team racing programs in California.The J/22 has become the preferred match racing boat for major events around the country. The Santa Maria Cup, Ira Ross Match Race, Richardson Cup and many others are sailed in the J/22. Sailors love them because they reward skill and technique. Good club sailors can get up to speed quickly and they can be equally as well sailed by women and men in most weather conditions. Regatta organizers and club fleet managers love the boat because it's affordable, rugged and is designed for ease-of-use and ease-of-maintenance. For example SailNewport in Newport, RI has a fleet of twelve boats that have withstood daily sailing from June to October by SailNewport and New York YC members since 2005- at an average of 700+ hours per boat per season, or 8,400+ fleet hours per year-- greater than a lifetime of sailing on-the-water for most sailors!
The J/22s will first see action this year during the US Match Racing Area Semi-finals being held at the St. Francis YC on July 17-18, 2010. In 2011, St Francis YC expects to have at least one event per month in Northern California, both at the developmental level (to enable people to build their match racing experience) and at the intermediate/upper levels with a goal towards developing more sailors that can participate in ISAF/WMRF Grade 3 events. See this video on a mark trap J/22 Team Racing at St. Francis YC this spring (seen here).The newly-formed California Dreamin' Match Race Circuit will hold its first Grade 3 event at St Francis YC during the last weekend of February 2011. The CDMRC circuit continues the following weekend at Long Beach YC in Catalina 37's and the next weekend at San Diego YC, again in J-22s-- imagine that, three consecutive weekends of Grade 3 match racing on the West Coast!
For the rest of 2011, St Francis YC expects to have match racing events in the Bay Area during April, May, June and July, two of which will be the US Match Racing Area G Quarter-finals. These events will be interspersed with team racing events both at the Regular and Masters levels to help further grow interest and participation in the exciting, spectator sport of team racing. Some regattas will be held on the City Front and others on the Berkeley Circle or Richardson Bay. For more information on St Francis YC's J/22 Match Racing/ Team Racing programs