Saturday, October 29, 2016

J/Fest Southwest Preview

JFest Southwest(Lakewood, TX)- This year’s turnout for J/Fest Southwest has been nothing short of spectacular!  According to Scott Spurlin, J/Boats Southwest dealer, “the J/24’s are leading the way with eighteen boats signed up - all of which are respecting Kelly Holmes-Moon (who recently passed away) in the best way possible.  It is an amazing group of close-knit sailors this J/24 group!  Plus, the J/22’s have thirteen boats signed up!  The J/105’s will have ten on the line with at least four from out of town! Now that is commitment, traveling with a large oversized boat!  And, the J/70’s will have nine boats, which is a nice fun fleet size- a Kansas City boat is making the trip to join us!”

Host for this year’s J/Fest Southwest is Lakewood YC, a beautiful suburb just south of Houston located on the always-challenging Galveston Bay- famous for chop and warm sea breezes.  The one-design fleets of J/22s, J/24s, J/70s, and J/105s will also be joined by PHRF handicap classes with J/130, J/122, J/109s, J/92s, J/29s and J/27s.

J/22 sailing J/Fest SouthwestThe J/22 class has some great sailors coming from across the great plains of Texas!  Locals Casey Lambert on BLACKBURN MARINE RACING will be up against some good’ole boys like Terry Flynn on TEJAS (a J/22 NA and World Champion), and Mark Foster from Corpus Christi YC on PRESSURE DROP (a J/24 NA Champion), amongst others.  Watch out for the girls from Fort Worth!  They area sailing FORGET ME NOT from Ft Worth Boat Club, with skipper Nataleigh Perez, Wendy Roach, Lynette Edenfield and “rail meat” Nick Perez (the token male, chief chef, and beer server for the gurlz!).

The J/24s are showing up in force with several notable crews from Austin, Forth Worth, Dallas, Houston and Corpus, plus Colorado!  In honor of Kelly Holmes-Moon, it will be Chris Holmes sailing TEAM BAD MOON from Dallas Corinthian YC.  Joining him on the race track will be Jason Seibert’s RODEO CLOWN, Natalie Harden’s GIGGLES, Josh Bowens-Rubin’s ZERO GRAVITY, Jorge Martin-de-Nicolas’ SRAY DOG, and Tim Johnson’s GRAY WOLF.

The J/70s have a small but very talented fleet.  Top crews include Jay Lutz’s ZOUNDS HEARING, Bruno Pasquinelli’s STAMPEDE, Forbes Durdin’s MOJITO, Alfred Poindexter’s crew from Lakewood YC, and Doug Strebel’s BLACK RIVER RACING.

The large PHRF Asym class includes Chris Waters’ J/130 SECOND WIND, JD Hill’s J/122 SECOND STAR, four J/109s (Dave Christensen’s AIRBORNE, Albrecht Goethe’s HAMBURG, Andy Wescoat’s HARM’s WAY & Tom Sutton’s LEADING EDGE) and two J/92’s (Dan Sullivan’s LITTLE JOE & George Cushing’s 77).  The PHRF Spin class includes Ray Bentele’s J/29 PRSS TO MECO and Gary Trinklein’s J/27 TOCCATA.  For more J/Fest Southwest sailing information