(Hamble, England)- Once again, the annual GARMIN Hamble Winter Series
will be taking place from October 4th to November 29th over the course
of several weekends. The host, Hamble River Sailing Club, welcomes the
support of title sponsor GARMIN- a global leader in satellite
navigation. GARMIN’s European HQ is located in Southampton ant they
enable HRSC to continue to invest in the UK's premier winter sailing
series and ensure it offers the mix of racing and warm welcome ashore
that attracts large numbers of competitors to the popular event.In 2014 more than 160 yachts took part in the GARMIN Hamble Winter Series. The 2015 series and its associated events are open to IRC classes and one-design classes for J/111s, J/109s, J/88s, J/80s and J/70s.
Chrissy Winchcombe, Marketing Executive at GARMIN, said: "We are delighted to sponsor the successful Hamble Winter Series and partner with Hamble River Sailing Club throughout the year. We use the event to test and promote Garmin marine products and Garmin has enjoyed more than 10 years of successful sponsorship of the Hamble Winter Series.”
Trevor Pountain, Commodore, HRSC, said: "We are very pleased to welcome title sponsor Garmin back for an 11th year and are looking forward to working with them throughout 2015 and the years ahead. HRSC is very proud to run the Hamble Winter Series, now in its 34th year, and we are consistently recognized for running great racing with a broad mix of courses. Competitor footage shot on the Garmin VIRB camera we loaned to the sailors helped drive online and social media engagement to new heights. Club members and our army of volunteers work hard to ensure the event continues to go from strength to strength."
In the Big Boat Championship segment of the event, we find two J/111s participating (Chris Jones & Louise Makin’s JOURNEYMAKER II and Cornel Riklin’s JITTERBUG) along with two J/122s (JUNO and R&W).
For the Hamble One-Design Championship weekends, it looks like there will be fleets of J/70s, J/80s and J/109s. Amongst the J/70s, crew like GILL RACE TEAM, JUGADOR (Jack Davies ), OFFBEAT (Dave Mcleman), COSMIC, HARLEQUIN, JENGA 8 (Andrew Barraclough), and ROYAL THAMES VI will be on the track. In the J/80s, leading teams include J OUT-OF-THE-BOX (Yannig Loyer) and AQUA-J (Patrick Liardet). The J/109 teams include known crews like DESIGNSTAR 2 (Roger Phillips), JACOBI, JOLLY JACK TAR (Adrian Wheal) and JYNNAN TONNYX (Owain Franks).
For the entire GARMIN Hamble Winter Series from beginning to end, the J/109s add the following boats to the mix, JYBE TALKIN’ (Chris Burleigh), JIRAFFE and RED ARROW (Jorg Lobbedey). The J/111s will race in IRC 1 and include the aforementioned JITTERBUG and JOURNEYMAKER II. Sailing one division above them will be the J/122 JUNO. Then, the HRSC will have a hard time figuring out what to do with the masses of J’s in the 29 to 31 foot range! Perhaps they will get one IRC class since no one else wishes to sail against them at all due to the preponderance of fun-loving talent. There are a trio of super-fast J/88s at around 1.035 IRC, including JONGLEUR (Paul Heys), MAI TAI and TIGRIS. Then, rating all about the same in the 0.974 to 0.983 range are the J/97s, J/92’s and J/92S’. The J/97s are BLACKJACK II (Andy Howe), WINDJAMMER & ALAMARA B III. The J/92S’ are UPSTART and BOJANGLES (James Bedford). The J/92 is J’RONIMO (David Greenhalgh). All familiar boats, right? And, all fast and well sailed. Finally, J/70s signed up so far for the season-long event are JUGADOR, OFFBEAT, DSP (Douglas Struth), HARLEQUIN and JENGA 8. Sailing photo credits- Paul Wyeth- PWPictures.com For more GARMIN Hamble Winter Series sailing information
|
