Thursday, June 13, 2019

SOAK RACING Eclipses J/70 Southern Areas

J/70s sailing England
(Cowes, Isle of Wight, England)- Eight races were held in champagne conditions for eighteen J/70 teams in The Solent. Bright sunshine and a huge range of wind conditions provided spectacular racing with fun-filled social events all organized by the Royal Thames Yacht Club. 2017 UK National Champions, Ian Wilson & Marshall King's Soak Racing scored all podium finishes including five bullets to win the regatta and lift the Myosotis Cutter Cup.

“To be honest, the results flattered us,” commented Ian Wilson. “The J/70 UK fleet is getting faster and smarter, which is great to see. I think it is very important for the leading UK teams to race in the Solent because it does bring on the competition, and that pushes everybody on for a better performance. The Royal Thames event is a great won to win because it means you go to the their end of season prize giving, it took me two days to recover after the last one!”
J/70s sailing off England
In second place was John Greenland's J-DOG, flying the colors of the Royal Thames, the team was racing one of the J/70s owned by the RTYC, four of which are available for charter. Despite not winning a race, Greenland's team was only out of the top five in one race during the eight race series.

Graham Clapp's JEEPSTER representing the Royal Southern YC started the regatta with a bullet and went on to score two more podium finishes, and no worse than eighth in the series resulted in third for the regatta.

In addition to the top three teams, six more teams made the race podium during the regatta. Finishing fourth was Niklas Zennstrom's RAN, his first-ever major regatta in a J/70, the same team that has won the Maxi 72 and TP52 World Championships.  Fifth place went to Joshua Flack's ELIZABETH, 6th to Patrick Liardet's COSMIC, 7th to Simon Cavey's JUST-4-PLAY, 8th to Tara Gill-Taylor's RTYC Academy, and 9th to Phil Rys' BRYN.

The 2019 J/70 UK Grand Slam Series continues 18-20 July with Round 5- the J/70 UK Class Training Event, organized by the Royal Southern Yacht Club. For more information.  For more UK J/70 Class sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.