(Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada)- Somehow, the sailors that participate in
Nova Scotia’s Chester Race Week (located in a beautiful bay just south
of Halifax) make the most of whatever Mother Nature dishes out to them.
Some year’s the sailing conditions are spectacular, others grey and
rainy, yet others grey, foggy and drizzly, such is the nature of the
beast way, way “down east” off the chilly North Atlantic. This year, it
was a bit of grey mixed with breeze.Despite the less than photogenic weather, the J/Teams reveled in the challenging breezes and cleaned house in several divisions. In the bigger boat class, the J/120 DEVIATION sailed by Stu McCrea won class Alpha 2 with straight bullets! Their sistership BRILLIANCE skippered by Richard Calder sailed to 4th on a tie-breaker and in 5th place was another J/120- Ross Leighton’s BLACK PEARL.
J/Teams took four of the top five places in Alpha 3 class. Leading the way was long-time veteran, Colin Mann’s J/92 POOHSTICKS with a blistering scorelines of 2-1-1 for 4 pts. Andrew Childs’ J/35 took second with 10 pts. Taking 4th on a tie-breaker was Rory Macdonald’s J/105 McMAC sitting on 12 pts. Then, fifth was the team of Gary Bennett & designer Rod Johnstone sailing the J/35 J’AI TU.
Following the same theme as their sisterships, the massive fleet of J/29s took on the J/70s and J/80s in Bravo B1 class. It was the J/29s that eclipsed their stablemates with a sweep of the top five. First was Terry Schnare’s HEAD GAMES, followed by Don Williams’ PARADIGM SHIFT in 2nd, Jim Snair’s J(2.2) in 3rd, Scott Covey’s RUMBLEFISH in 4th and Chris MacDonald’s SCOTCH MIST IV in 5th.
The J/30s and J/27s sailed in Bravo B2 class. It was Jordan MacNeil’s J/30 FLUX taking class honors with Sam Lamey’s J/27 INCORRIGIBLE in 4th position.
In the Non-Spinnaker classes, the J/44 AKUBRA sailed by Reginald Goodday took 3rd in her class. Then, the J/24s had a good seven-boat turnout with Ian Dawson’s LIGHTNING McQUEEN taking five 1sts to easily win their class by 9 pts. Second was Chris Veinot’s HYPEWAVE with 22 pts, just one point ahead of Nick Hamblin’s JAMMING in third place. The rest of the top five was Will Nauss’ WAVERUNNER in 4th and Ross Romney’s RUSH HOUR in 5th. For more Chester Race Week sailing information
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