J/80 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

(Copenhagen, Denmark)- The KDY (Royal Danish Yacht Club) are hosting the 2021 J/80 World Championship in Copenhagen, Denmark. They have already postponed the event once due to covid-19 pandemic issues in Europe. it is now expected to be hosted in July.

"Hygge" (enjoying life's simple pleasures) isn’t everything, but...

As National Geographic so aptly explains it, “Denmark's capital has become the urban overlord of doing things the right way. They call it the happiest city in the world. So, what's the secret? Image-wise, everything in recent years seems to have gone the city's way. The omnipresence of the Danish concept hygge has helped paint it as a place of candlelit good times...”

It certainly has, and it is. But "hygge" isn’t everything. We’d like to add 1) a positive outlook and 2) sailing of course!


Staying positive and moving ahead in our preparations
As many events have been moved into the month of September – lately even the Kiel Week we still believe that the J/80 World Championship in July will be OK. Who knows this may even be the racing season opening event! How is that for at title? We are certainly working hard in order to have all our ducks (and docks) in a row for when you get here. We are confident the J/80 Worlds will be the start of the international racing season here.

There is very strong interest in the regatta as it's an "Open" event. The entries are coming in as well are international requests for rental boats, and in the upcoming weeks you will read more about accommodation and travel arrangements as well as boat rental opportunities and you may even find out why the Spaniards cannot win the trophy – again!

If you have questions, please contact us at email- j80worlds@kdy.dk.  For more J/80 World Championship sailing informationAdd to Flipboard Magazine.

J/88 MAI TAI Swedish Delivery- 865nm!

(Gothenburg, Sweden)- In a bit of a “Throwback Thursday”, the J/88 MAI TAI (now J88.SE) was bought by two Swedes in the Hamble, England in August 2017.  The two excited owners, Jonas Dyberg and Roger Ohlsson, decided they would do a doublehanded delivery back to Goteborg; it was an 865nm delivery in eleven days!

It was an epic adventure. Their delivery track took them from Hamble, across the English Channel to the Netherlands, then up the coast to the opening of the Elbe River in Brunsbuttel, Germany.  Then, they motored up the Nord See Kanal to Kiel, Germany, and then a straight shot north up the Baltic Sea to Gothenburg, Sweden! It was an epic journey and here are the videos to prove it! Top speed was 18.6 kts on their delivery cruise!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_PSCQnqDVo

Then, if that wasn’t an adventure enough, Jonas and Roger took their friend Peter Gustafsson from BLUR.SE fame on board to see if they could establish a “speed run” on the windy wavy Baltic Sea in October 9th, 2017!  It was a gorgeous sunny day, with a northerly breeze of 20-30 kts off Vinga, Sweden.  Here is how they went.

https://youtu.be/9nHglNNWM4Y

Europe’s SAILING Championship Series 2017 Program

(Hamburg, Germany)- The impact of the sailing league program, originally created in Germany by Oliver Schwall’s Konzeptwerft Group in Hamburg, Germany and their J/Germany partners Mittelmann’s Werft, has simply re-defined “club sailing” in Europe- for thousands of sailors across the continent.

Started in 2013 “on a wing & a prayer”, the dynamic team managed to engage 18 sailing clubs in their first season in 2014 to hatch the Deutsche Segel-Bundesliga.  Teams of four sailors from across Germany sailed “college-style” regattas, rotating in each team after sailing short 10-15 minutes races on evenly matched J/70s.  It has proved to be an extremely popular and very successful format.

Since that time, the SAILING Champions League was created to provide an overall European Champion for the fourteen countries participating from Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany (Junior and Open), Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. The 2017 qualification program for the 300+ sailing clubs across Europe includes the following schedule:

• Act 1: 11-13 August, St. Petersburg Yacht Club, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Act 2: 1-3 September, Segel-Club St. Moritz, St. Moritz, Switzerland
• Final: 22-24 September, Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, Porto Cervo, Italy

The extraordinary impact that J/70s and the sailing leagues are having on “grass roots” sailing in Europe is quite astonishing.  Here are the basic numbers (the demographics):

• 14 National Leagues
• 24 Sailing Clubs (average)
• 500 Club Spectators (average)
• 12 Sailors per club (average)
• 7 Regattas per league (average)
• 6 Boats per event
• 15 Races per weekend for each team

In short, each club sails about 105 sailing league races each season.  Each club has 12 sailors and 500 club members actively engaged for each event (virtually or onsite).  In other words, across 14 European countries, there are more than 172,000 sailing club members actively engaged in their club’s success in each event; 4,032 alone are men, women, youth sailing as crew on the boats.  A total of 1,470 races are scheduled for the 2017 season!   For more SAILING Champions League Sailing information

Furesøen Tops Denmark J/70 Sailing League- Act III

(Thisted, Denmark)- Even before the Sejlsportsligaen.dk season's last rally in the Danish Sailing League Division 2, the YC Furesøen may be able to celebrate their advancement to the Sailing League's Division 1! It is clear after their triumphant victory in Thisted that YC Furesøen is ready for “the big leagues”!

The talented YC Furesøen struck again and secured their season's second victory of three possible in Sailing League's second division. The team rallied in Thisted, the four young YCF sailors won six races in 11 races, never finishing out of the top three!  A simply incredible performance!  With such a strong record, it provided them a comfortable lead for the three races in the Gold Finale.  Ironically, their competitors grew quite excited when they bombed their first race in the finale, posting an uncharacteristic last place!  But, their hopes were soon dashed as YCF simply smoked the fleet in the last two races with a 1-2 to win with ease.

"We lead around the first windward mark in the first race, but then we got locked in by starboard boats behind us on the run who had slid inside on puff.  As a result, the entire fleet rounded inside us on the favored side of the course," explained Kasper Skiveren from YCF.

"We came back with a second place in the next race and the last we raced we got a bullet. It was super nice to come back that way," said Jacob Pjetursson, a YCF crew member.

Behind Furesøen, it was Gilleleje YC in second and Sejlklubben Sundet in third place. Sejlklubben Copenhagen, Thurø Sailing Club and Silkeborg Yacht Club also reached the FINAL 6 and finished in that order in places 4th to 6th.

As a result of their win, YC Furesøen have a 5pt lead over Sejlklubben Sundet in the season series after three events.  Lying third is Silkeborg Sailing Club with 44 points.

Only one event is left in Skovshoved, scheduled for September 10th-11th. While it is clear that YC Furesoen will emerge as the ultimate winners, it is “clear as mud” what is happening for the balance of the podium.  The balance of the top five all sits within 8pts of each other, so anything can happen in the finale at Skovshoved for Sejklubben Sundet, Silkeborg Sejlklub, Sonderborg YC and Struer Sejlklub.  For more Danish J/70 Sailing League information

J/112E- ORC Worlds Update

(Copenhagen, Denmark)- The ORC World Championship 2016 is organized by KDY and Egaa Sejlklub and taking place out of Skovshoved Habour, just a few kilometers north of Copenhagen. Sailing for the inshore races have been on Öresund, a well known racing venue, renowned for having hosted numerous Worlds, Europeans and Nordic championships. The offshore races have been off the southern part of the Kattegat north of Helsingör, or into the area where Öresund meets the Baltic Sea.

Favorable 8-15 knot conditions on the opening day enabled the PRO to hold three inshore races.  The day was characterized by very tight racing all day.  Leading after the first day in Class C with 59 teams was Bo Teichmann’s J/112E LANCE 12, posting a 2-3-1 scoreline.  The J/112E is being sailed by a mixed German and Dutch team that includes racing legend Bouwe Bekking (famous for both one-design and offshore championships in various classes as both tactician and skipper).   Racing continues until July 23rd.  You can follow their progress here.