(San Francisco, CA)- The first J/70 Pacific Coast Championship took
place over the July 10th to 12th weekend, hosted by St Francis Yacht
Club on San Francisco Bay. With thirteen boats participating, Chris
Kostanecki’s JENNIFER team sailed a very consistent series to win the
PCCs with 38 pts in ten races. The StFYC PRO provided the crews classic San Francisco Bay “stadium-style” sailing, with starts either in front of the yacht club or just in front of Alcatraz Island. Sailing in typical Bay breezes, the J/70s enjoyed the complete range of sailing, from displacement modes in the lighter morning breezes to planing modes in the afternoons.
The racing was very close overall for the top five, not one boat winning more than two races out of the ten sailed! Just ten points, in fact, separated the top five boats! And, amazingly enough, top three scores were counted for all boats down to 8th place! That’s highly competitive and close racing!
Starting off like a rocket on the first day was David Schumann’s BOTTLE ROCKET, posting a 1-2-3-1 to easily lead the regatta. However, like a bottle rocket, they appeared to flame out later in the series and just barely held on to finish second overall for the series with 41 pts.
By contrast, initiating their series with moderate finishes on the first day was Kostanecki’s JENNIFER, recording scores of 2-3-6-6 to hang on to a top three position. However, their last four races of 2-4-1-7 enabled them to rapidly climb to the top of the leaderboard to take the overall title.
Behind the top two boats, it was nothing short of a dog fight for third on the podium. All four boats were essentially tied going into the last set of races and the outcome was less than clear to anyone even after the smoke cleared in the final race. Sailing his first major J/70 regatta was Pat Toole from Santa Barbara YC, sailing 3 BIG DOGS II with much the same crew he had on his famous J/24. After starting slowly the first day, Toole and crew figured out how to sail the J/70 in a blow and closed fast on the leaders with a 2-1-3-2-4 in his last five races to finish tied on points at 44 pts each with fellow Santa Barbarian, Scott Deardorff on CAKE. 3 BIG DOGS took the tie-breaker over CAKE, finishing 3rd and 4th, respectively.
Just behind the two Santa Barbara teams were two San Francisco Bay locals, also finishing in a virtual tie. By taking 2nd in the last race, Sean Svendsen’s crew on ONCELER secured 5th overall by one point over Peter Cameron’s PRIME NUMBER. Great racing, great fun was had by all— many of the teams will be sailing both the J/70 North Americans in San Diego in September and the J/70 World Championship on San Francisco Bay in 2016. Sailing photo credits- Pressuredrop.us. For more J/70 Pacific Coast Championship sailing information
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