J's Sailing One-Design Having Fun!
(Cowes, Isle of Wight, England)- Of all 700+ sailboats participating in this year's renowned Cowes Week, surely the thirty-five boat J/109 class has to be one of the most fun and competitive classes going, if not the largest offshore one-design keelboat class going by a country mile. At this stage in this ginormous class, Rick Garret's JEROBOAM is leading, followed by Mike Smith's ZELDA, Matt Boyle's SHIVA, Adam and Helen Wright's VELVET ELVIS and Glyn Locke and Gill Ross' JAMBHALA in the top five all within eight points of each other! The "tale of the tape" will be told in the last three days in this closely fought and very competitive class.The racing conditions have been challenging with the fourth day of racing producing some "champagne sailing" conditions. A patchy early-morning westerly wind built into a 15-20 knot south-westerly by lunchtime, giving perfect racing conditions.
The inshore end of the line worked for the J/80 start. Simon Ling’s SPITFIRE expertly snaked through from behind the slower-moving boats on the line to pop out ahead of the pack. Within five minutes he’d caught up with the back markers in the Daring fleet that had started 10 minutes earlier. Ling crossed the finish first, two minutes 20 seconds ahead of Robin Fielder’s WARP FACTOR lX, in his third win of the regatta. Sebastian Ripard’s AGAINSTMALARIA.COM was third. At this stage of the racing, the J/80 Class leader is Sebastian Ripard's AGAINSTMALARIA.COM (a family crew from Malta), followed by Thor Askeland's ELLE S'APPELLE and Simon Ling's RAF SPITFIRE.
By late morning as the larger handicap classes started, the champagne sailing conditions kicked in. The wind in the central Solent rose to a solid south-westerly of 15-20 knots, giving an increased tempo and energy to the short tacking and progressively more anxious calls for water as all boats headed upwind to the first markers. In IRC 1, the J/133s are having a good time racing against both handicap boats as well as sailing in one-design configuration. So far, it's Fiona & Malcolm Thorpe's KING LOUIE, Yves Grosjean's JIVARO and Herman Bergshaven's SOLNESS III rounding out the top three in J/133 class.The J/122s are racing both handicap and class within IRC 2 Class. On handicap, Ian Matthews' JINJA is in third and Rodolphe Marchais' JOLLY JOKER is in sixth. In one-design class, JINJA, JOLLY JOKER are first and second, respectively, followed by David Richard's JOLLY in third.
A surprising top five leader in IRC 3 class is the extremely lightweight, fast (very NON-IRC design) 30 footer, JOE 90, the McDonald clan's J/90 with Duncan McDonald guiding them very fast around the track. Surely, the conditions on Wednesday were to their liking as the long, broad reaching conditions would see the J/90 rocketing downwind at speeds in excess of 20 knots.
In IRC 5, J/97s are seemingly dominating their class and dueling it out with ex-J/39 owner Adam Gosling on YES! The J/97s have taken mostly firsts, seconds and thirds. At this stage, Grant Gordon's FEVER is tied for first with YES! However, Mike and Jamie Holmes' JIKA JIKA started amongst the leaders with a 4-6 then took two DNS's for next two days. And, Jim Dick's JACKAROO has a 3-3-34-3 record. We hope both JIKA JIKA and JACKAROO round out their weeks with strong finishes and that FEVER gets hot and takes over the top of the podium.In conjunction with Cowes Week, the J/92s are running their J/92 Nationals. After four races, the leader is Steve Etheridge and Andrew Roberts' JUST IN TIME, Andrew Dallas' HULLABALOO and Mark Lloyd's JUNGLE FEVER.
Racing in IRC configuration are more J/92s. In the J/92 IRC class, the leaders are HULLABALOO, JUST IN TIME and Pip Tyler's NEILSON REDEYE. For more Cowes Week sailing information. Sailing photo credits- Rick Langford- Ocean Images
