(New Orleans, LA)- No question, Team JALAPENO delivered the heat on
their fellow J/30 compatriots over the long weekend sailing down in New
Orleans. Congratulations to Billy Ross and Ken Buhler's JALAPENO who
won the J/30 North American Championships last weekend in New Orleans!
The team raced an excellent regatta to claim the 2012 title with three
bullets and 15 points in seven races over a tough eleven boat fleet that
came from across the country to vie for "Top Dog" in the J/30 class.
For many, the regatta started a long, long time before the final gun
sounded on the last race on Sunday at the famous Allstate Sugar Bowl
Regatta that played host to the J/30 North Americans.At 6:00am on Monday morning, Dan Mather and his crew on CRUSADER departed from Oswego, NY and started a 1,300 mile journey to New Orleans. On the same day, Russ Atkinson and his beloved WILDCAT set his GPS to guide him to New Orleans from Rockwood, MI – another 1,041 mile trip. So what is the occasion? Both trailered their J/30s to race in the 2012 Allstate Sugar Bowl J/30 National Championship hosted by New Orleans Yacht Club on October 19-21.
According to Barton Jahncke, Olympic Gold Medal winner and multiple Sugar Bowl Trophy winner, “The Sugar Bowl Regatta Series is recognized as one of the premier national yachting events in the United States. It gives sailors or all ages, from the Optimist class through high school and intercollegiate levels and beyond, the opportunity to learn how to compete at a very high level.”
This
year’s J/30 National Championship was the 32nd in the history of the
sailing class. Two teams, ZEPHYR (New Orleans) and BEPOP (Annapolis)
share the record of number of wins at 5 each. US Olympic boat-wright
Donnie Brennan with son Andrew sailed with the ZEPHYR crew this year.
And, two J/30s were skippered by women, Debbie Grimm aboard HOT
CHOCOLATE and Laura Webb sailing BLACK MAGIC. Cool, eh? Girl power to
the max! Plus, the J/30 is a family-friendly sloop, which can be raced
or cruised by women, kids and men offshore in even the roughest
conditions. Remember the disastrous 1979 Fastnet Race- a.k.a Fastnet
Force 10? Two J/30s sailed through it unscathed (one singlehanded!)
while many other sailors were much less fortunate.
Many
think of New Orleans as a French Quarter venue with a lot of historic
value. However, there is another jewel in town- it's called Lake
Pontchartrain. “Sailing is more than a sport”, according to the event’s
key note speaker, Nicholas Hayes, author of award winning book “Saving
Sailing”. It is a life choice. Today, there are about 2,000 New
Orleanians participating in sailing on the lake today – enough to
attract National and International sailing events to the city. “With
shifty winds and obstruction clear waters, our sailing venue is one of
the best in the nation,” according to David Erwin, Allstate Sugar Bowl
Regatta Chairman. Indeed, it was.This year's J/30 NA's proved to fun, gorgeous, sunny, somewhat windy with lots of challenging races. Rolled into the mix between sailing time were many crews enjoying the great entertainment and food in the infamous French Quarter and Bourbon Street on-shore.
On
the first day of sailing, Team JALAPENO established the pecking order
early by winning the first race of the regatta. It was not until the 6th
race of the regatta where JALAPENO pulled ahead of their closest rival
ZEPHYR 2.0 sailed by Dale Steinkamp from local host New Orleans YC;
while JALAPENO scored 5th, the ZEPHYR gang were hit with a DSQ/ 12 pts
to dash their chances at an overall win. In the end, the Ross/Buhler
team on JALAPENO amassed a 1-3-2-1-1-5-2 for 15 pts for a well-deserved
victory. Second was another Pontchartrain YC member, David Bolyard Jr
sailing LAND SHARK to two 1sts in the last two races to cement their
position with finishes of 2-2-4-7-3-1-1 for 25 pts. The ZEPHYR 2.0 crew
settled for 3rd overall with a 3-1-1-3-2-dsq/12-3 tally for 25 pts.
Fourth was Carl Sherter's FAT CITY from Connecticut's Cedar Point YC
with 28 pts and fifth was Rob Doolittle/ Jeff Walter's GRTIZ with 37
pts. For a J/30 NA's sailing video by Leighton O'Connor Sailing Photos by Leighton O'Connor For more J/30 North Americans sailing information
