(Marina del Rey, CA)- The Pacific Singlehanded Sailing Association held their annual 27.0nm "David Wall Race" from Marina del Rey to Malibu sea buoy and return this past weekend. The PSSA was sympathetic to the numerous requests for "doublehanders" to participate in their offshore season. The response was nothing short of dramatic, with the Doublehanded class garnering 13 entries versus the 11-boat Singlehanded class.
Here is the report from Dan Murphy on the J/105 CUCHULAINN:
"On Saturday, Rob Dekker and I did the 27-mile PSSA race to Malibu and back. The wind was predicted to be 6 kts, peaking at 10 kts, by mid-afternoon. So, I tuned the rig for that wind expecting we would not do very well at the outset and might be in OK shape for a longer race.
Indeed, the wind from the start until we had Malibu in sight was the predicted 6-8 knots. And, we had a hard time keeping up with the smaller J/Boats with their big genoas. But, then the wind started building, and once we turned around at Malibu Pier, it built rapidly until we had a 16-18 knot winds that powered up the spinnaker and had us surfing at 8-10 knots for the short 10-mile trip back to Marina Del Rey. We made up a lot of ground on those smaller boats and ended up fifth in our doublehanded class and third out of the boats competing for the series. The entire race took us just 4 hours 45 minutes. We love sailing the J/105, particularly in moderate to big breeze!"
Winning the Doublehanded Class was Curt Johnson & Paul Burnett's J/80 AVET. Taking the silver was Brian Kerr & Grant Bartee's J/92 DOUBLE DOWN and rounding out the podium with the bronze medal was Caesar Berger & Ron Agustsson's J/29 ZULU. The balance of the top five was Lenny Gordon & John Thomas' J/92 SUNSHINE and fifth was the J/105 CHUCHULAINN. Also participating were two bigger J's; Jack Rose & Ken Robinson sailed the J/120 PRIVATEER to 8th place and Bruce Keller & Neil Fletcher sailed their J/130 BEAUTY to 9th place! A great show of force by all doublehanded J/Sailors, taking 7 of the top 10 is real proof of the ease-of-handling and boat speed of J/Designs in a wide variety of conditions. Add to Flipboard Magazine.
|
