MOMENTOUS Wins J/109s
(Chicago, IL)- The 2010 Verve Cup Offshore Regatta kicked off on a beautiful sunny day in Chicago, with decent winds and all three circles getting at least three races in for the day. Racers did have some challenges with shifty wind conditions, navigating between the lake breeze and the winds from the shore."The challenge on Saturday for the sailors was an offshore southwesterly about 12 knots was battling a lake breeze of about 8-10 knots," explained Chris Bedford, meteorologist for Sailing Weather Service. "Shifts of 20-30 degrees between the two breezes were common. Depending on if you were on the correct side of the shift, you were a winner or a loser."
Circle B was dominated by the 17-boat J/105 Fleet, led by STRIKING, owned by Blane Shea. Close behind are SEALARK and VYTIS who are all within 1 point of each other. The J/105s are tuning up for their North Americans which will be held at Chicago Yacht Club in September. After two bullets and a second place, MOMENTUS leads the J109s also with a great first day.
Nevertheless, with Sunday's sailing under their belts the class leaders in the J/105s had a lot of turnover amongst the leaders. At the end it can only be best exclaimed by eventual regatta winner Clark Pellet on the J/105 SEALARK. "Holy crap", exclaimed Clark, upon realizing he'd not only won first place in the J/105 fleet, but also the prestigious honor of the Overall Verve Cup trophy. The Overall Verve Cup trophy is awarded to the winner of the most competitive fleet in the Verve Cup Offshore regatta."As we say in the J/105 fleet, there's always someone waiting to steal your lunch. And they will," Pellet of Chicago said about the great sailing during the series. "This is a great regatta, the Chicago Yacht Club and Race committee does such an outstanding job, we couldn't be happier." The crew of SEALARK also includes, bowman Shane Montgomery, tactician Russ Radke, mid bowman John Schussler and headsail trimmer Ned Sher. SEALARK scored 33 points to take first place, followed by Dorothy Mietz's LATIS with 42 and Team Weerwing/Mathis's LANE 4 with 43 points. Pre-regatta favorites like Tom Petkus's VYTIS ended up fourth, just two points from second! And Don Wilson's CONVEXITY sailed a very strong series and were easily amongst the leaders by virtue of their three firsts but a DNF and DSQ on their score-card dampened any ability to be in the top three.
The J/109s had a very competitive regatta amongst the seven participants. Kevin Saedi's team on MOMENTUS took the gold and walked off with five first and a second and third to win by six points. George Miz and team on-board VALOR sailed very well (their second regatta on a J/109 other than racing the Chicago-Mackinac Race) to finish in second, nicely bracketing their regatta with firsts in the first and last race. Third was Peter Priede's FULL TILT with 33 points, just beating out David Gustman's NORTHSTAR in fourth with 35 points. In fact, NORTHSTAR came on strong the last day with second best record of the day behind the regatta winner MOMENTUS.
In the handicap world, the J/125 JEANINE sailed by John Roeser took second in PHRF 2. In PHRF 5, the two J/35s gave everyone fits...again. The J//35 BOZO'S CIRUCS sailed by Bruce Metcalf was second and in fourth was the J/35 AFTERSHOCK skippered by William Newman. PHRF 7 was dominated by the resurgent, fun-loving J/30 giants in the greater Midwest. The J/30 AWESOME- Team CHI NOLA won; their worst race was a second! In second was the J/30 PLANXTY sailed by Kate and Dennis Bartley. Third was the always competitive J/27 TRUE NORTH sailed by Dan Arntzen. For more Verve Cup sailing information.