The Silver Anniversary J/22 Jamin’ Jamaica(Montego Bay, Jamaica)- You bet mon! Since 1983, J/22s have been part of the sailing landscape in Jamaica; a beautiful, rugged, jungle festooned island in the middle of the Caribbean, renowned for “Bob Marley and the Wailers” and their unique form of reggae music. While Marley and friends like Peter Tosh continued to attract a worldwide audience for their metaphorical “chill”, relaxing rhythms and stories of life in ‘da hood in Jamaica, the J/22 also expanded as a fleet at Montego Bay Yacht Club.
Not soon after the arrival of the first J/22s, many local sailors fell in love with their little boats and continued to champion their use to the local school kids and local population, encouraging one and all to enjoy sailing off the spectacular coastline along the north shore of the island. For over a quarter century, the “Jamaica, No Problem Mon” family of J/22 sailors have hosted their Jamin’ Jamaica Invitational since 1989, a wildly popular event for those “in the know”.
The
format was simple. The local fleet of around a dozen boats would have
their Jamaican J/22 Nationals 2-3 weeks prior to the Jamin’ Regatta,
with the top two teams from each fleet “qualifying” to sail their own
boats in the Jamin’ event to represent the homeland of Jamaica (MoBay
and Kingston). The rest of the boats would be offered to
“international” teams from around the Americas, Europe and South Africa—
just about anywhere there were J/22 teams. Boats would be “drawn” out
of a hat and teams of 3-4 crew could show up, use their own sails if
they wished, and even enjoy local host accommodations in some of the
coolest places you could ever dream about. In the early days, the first long-time J/22 Class President, Galen Freeman from Tennessee, sailed in that first event and fell in love with the club, the parties, the sailing and, most of all, the people. It’s not hard to imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to go. To say that the membership of Montego Bay YC throws down the red carpet for visiting crews and welcomes everyone in one big warm hug as “family mon!” is a bit of an understatement. After four days or more of sailing and experiencing the island, you’d swear you just picked up several new “brothers & sisters” along the way.
No question, the Jamaica J/22 sailors love to have fun and love sharing it even more with their friends. A highlight of the regatta is the Saturday evening “Jamaica Stylee” Party hosted by the most amazingly sweet couple, Bryan and Lyn Langford.
Dressed in 70s “stylee style”, the sailors enjoy what has to be one of
the nicest potluck dinner parties you’d ever attend. With a superb “DJ
playlist” of awesome reggae tunes, the sailors often leave with bellies
full of the best “jerk chicken”, “pepper fish (snapper)”, “pepper
shrimp” and other local delicacies while being plied with gallons of the
favorite local rum--- Appleton’s! Many happy faces (sometimes goofy)
are seen leaving in the wee hours of the morning. That Sunday’s racing
ever gets going by 11am in the morning for the last three races is often
a miracle.Leading the charge on the entertainment front has to be one of Kingston’s greatest characters, Rugie Misir. Having owned a J/22 for only four years and sailed for just about as long, Rugie is one of the latest members of the local J/22 tribe. Telling tall tales goes with the territory and Rugie has had more than his fair share in such a short period of time. Chief amongst them was a recent outing in Kingston Harbor. Rugie and the boys decided to head out one afternoon in a 25-30 kt easterly breeze in the flat waters of the harbor. Using their “chicken chute”, they wanted to see how fast they could go (or how scared they might get). “After a few
broaches,
we got her goin’ good, spray flying everywhere mon’ and de crew goin’
crazy!” said Rugie. “We hit 18.7 kts average for nearly 2km! Simply
amazin’! Check out our video!”Here’s proof, watch their “Jamaica crazy J/22” YouTube sailing video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thc4S-pR5XI
As a natural self-promoter in business, Rugie also recognized the need to get more kids and adults involved in the sport he all of a sudden fell completely in love with. With the help of the J/22 Jamaica class President, Richard Hamilton, they have collaborated to spearhead efforts to get more people
involved,
women, kids, young and old alike. They created a J/22 “promotion”
video for Jamaica that is somewhat amusing and heart-warming. You can see that J/22 Jamaica sailing promotional video on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deOj7umqQdk
In their efforts to cast a wider net around the world, Jamaica’s J/22 fleet first invited American teams and later invited others from Germany, The Netherlands, South Africa, and, ultimately, the sailing teams from a nearby neighbor- the Cayman Islands.
While
Jamaica was the first J/22 fleet in the Caribbean, the Cayman fleet
grew quickly in recent years. With nearly the same number of boats,
their 13 teams have fielded strong one-design sailors, including Mike
Farrington who recently placed third in the J/22 Worlds in South
Africa. One of those teams sailing in Jamin’ this year was Team YAHOO!
and included a cast of characters like Mark Edmunds (helm), Pete Bridge
(trimmer), Jo Richards (foredeck) and Eduardo Bernal (rail meat,
tactician, traveller, backstay, bar duty, pre-start timing, clothing
coordinator, travel planner, accommodation chef de mission and anything
else the team needed). Their mission statement: “Start at the front,
stay at the front!” Fallback mission statement: “drink plenty, enjoy the
sailing and hospitality of MoBay YC!” That just about characterizes
another one of their fun-loving, marauding teams from Cayman- the brave
women’s team hailing from northern Cayman- the “Vikings”. All four
girls were blonds, were beautiful and were led by their skipper 
Suvi
Hayden- her crew included Jo Richards, Kristine Verner, and Karin
McGrath (a sailing instructor at the Cayman Islands Sailing Club). Here’s the J/22 Cayman Island Sailing kids promo Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/38963995
Besides the local “homies” and the Cayman trio of boats, the Silver Anniversary Regatta that sailed over the 6th and 7th December also saw teams from Canada and America.
The regatta was blessed by idyllic sailing conditions both days. As promised by the local Chamber of Commerce cheerleader (Evelyn Harrington), “the winds are light in the morning, build from 10 to 11am, then diminish in the evening to a light cool breeze. Plus, it will be sunny all day with cottony clouds scudding across the horizon, perhaps we may get a light drizzle from a stray cloud, and the sunsets will be perfect.” She was just about 95% right. The PRO Peter Harper, with help from Commodore Nigel, support from Bryan and Lyn Langford and others all pitched in to conduct seven races in all. Saturday’s racing was quite blustery, with 15-25 kts puffs whistling over the mountainous peninsula near the windward mark with 40-60 degree shifts from the ENE wrecking havoc on every windward leg and run. The fourth and last race of the day was the standard windward-leeward 1 1/2 legs followed by a long run into the MoBay YC finish dock!
The
next day dawned with much lighter winds from the NNE. Thank goodness,
as many teams were a bit groggy after the Saturday night festivities at
the Langford’s house. Starting again at the red sea-buoy, the RC sent
the fleet off on an “ocean tour” up the beaches to colorful mark names
like “Doctor’s Cave” and “Hospital”. In the end, Team USA comprised of
Mike Morse, Noel, Stuart Johnstone and Julia Langford took fleet honors
sailing DEFENDER. In the battle for second, Richard Hamilton from MoBay
took second on RENEGADE followed by Team ZIPPER from the Cayman Islands
(skipper Bruce, Dave, Rob and Jenny Smith). The final leg of the last
race determined the final outcome for 2nd and 3rd; ZIPPER dropped to 6th
on the final run to the finish while RENEGADE took the “ocean option”
downwind to snag 2nd in the race and second overall by one point. For any J sailors wishing to learn more about the event in December 2015, please don’t hesitate to contact Jamaica J/22 fleet captain Richard Hamilton @ rhamiltonsri@yahoo.com. Learn more on the Jamin Facebook page. For more J/22 Jamin’ Jamaica Regatta sailing information
|
