J/124 MARISOL Dominates Cruisers(San Diego, CA)- The 130 nm Islands Race drew 26 teams for the ninth edition of this Southern Californian offshore contest on February 16-17, 2018. Starting in Long Beach Harbor, the course headed west of the Santa Catalina and San Clemente Islands before finishing in San Diego.
Many of the teams were competing to prepare for the 1000nm Puerto Vallarta Race in March.
While the history of the race has seen some gear-busters, this year’s race fell on the lighter side, with the wind speed never exceeding 10 knots. In addition, with just a sliver moon, sailors were missing one of their favorite features- moonlight!
“This year was a little bit light and slow, but not bad. Surprisingly, there was a little bit of glass off to the west end of Catalina at 4pm on Friday which should be the windiest part of the day, so that was frustrating. Coming in it was light from San Clemente Island to San Diego and then the wind filled in and the big boats finished on a nice breeze out of an unusual direction, a northeast wind (050-070), which is not a direction we see very often,” said Ben Mitchell, navigator on one of the 70 footers.
A number of J/Crews started Friday evening. In the end, it was Doug & Jack Jorgensens’s J/111 PICOSA that dominated their ORR 4 Division fleet of super high-performance modified custom boats that consisted of “jacked-up” 1D35s and an Andrews 40.
In the ORR 6 Division, it was Seth Hall’s gorgeous flag-blue J/124 MARISOL that took their division by several hours. For more Islands Race sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.
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