Thursday, September 20, 2018

CAVITICA Wins J/80 North American Championship

J/80 sailing downwind (Marion, MA)- The Beverly YC and the local J/80 Buzzards Bay fleet hosted twenty-five teams for their 2018 J/80 North American Championship held on Buzzards Bay.  The fleet was challenged by a wide variety of wind and weather conditions over the three-day event that ran from Saturday to Sunday. In particular, Saturday and Sunday the fleet enjoyed ENE winds in the 15-25 kts range, making for fun, fast planing-mode rides downwind in most races.

In the end, thirteen races were held over the three days, making for exhausted, but happy crews dizzy from having 4+ races of double windward-leeward courses per day.  It was hometown hero Chip Johns and his crew on CAVITICA that was crowned 2018 J/80 North American Champion, winning by a convincing margin of 11 pts with five bullets.  Taking the silver was the duo of Kevin Hayes & Jeff Kirchhoff sailing MORE GOSTOSA and rounding out the podium in the bronze position was John White’s USA 1162 from Annapolis, MD.  The balance of the top five included J/80 class veteran Gary Panariello on COURAGEOUS from San Francisco Bay, California in 4th and Maine’s Ken Colburn on GHOST in 5th position. For more J/80 North American Championship sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.