(Sydney, Australia)- The boys (and girls) down under are full-on into
their early summer Sydney Offshore Points Series with many of the top
offshore boats in the greater Sydney/ Melbourne region participating.
Many use the Sydney Offshore series as a warm-up/ tune-up program for
the boat, sails and crew for the famous Sydney-Hobart Race that starts
on Boxing Day in December. As owner Ray Entwistle describes, the "J/111 continues to prove her form even in light airs offshore! In a stark contrast JAKE's first offshore race a few weeks ago, where it was gusting to 30 knots and JAKE's boat speed was up to 18 knots, JAKE proves herself in complete opposite conditions. In the Short Ocean Pointscore race a few race weeks ago we had big winds and a fantastic kite ride heading north. This week’s 30nm race headed south to Port Hacking with the wind only averaging 8 knots, 30 degree wind shifts and a sloppy seaway. A mixture of beating and just cracked sheets really tested the boat and crew and being the smallest boat in this division in these conditions has to be the most challenging (we were up against the larger boats including Corby 49, Sydney 47 and other much larger boats in Division One). However, we are delighted with the J/111’s performance. We were looking forward to the ride back to Sydney, planning to set the A2 asymmetric, heating it up and pulling some distance back on the 50 footers when mother nature changed the plans. The wind swung from ESE, to SW, then back to ESE again! Due to the shape of the coastline we were back to beating and just cracked sheets again, it wasn’t until Maroubra 5nm south of Sydney harbour that we were able to just hang onto the code 0, then set a larger kite to get into Sydney Heads then drop it again to beat back into Rushcutters Bay for the finish line.
In summary, for the six hour long race we only had the spinnakers up for approximately 1 one hour! We were the 4th boat over the line on the water and finished 3rd on IRC, leaving a bunch of 40 to 45 footers behind us! For a 36 ft yacht this is one incredible boat."
