J/88 JUNIPER Wins New Zealand Offshore Series

(Auckland, New Zealand)- From New Zealand's stunning Waitemata Harbour in Auckland comes some great news, the new J/88 JUNIPER takes the 1st prize in the Club Marine Wednesday night offshore series in the C Light Division on General Handicap! The series is organized by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (RNZYS), home of the America’s Cup. The series started in October and ran two weeks on Wednesday night until ending in March. This was the first racing season for the new J/88 JUNIPER that was launched in July of 2018.

“The news is more impressive than first meets the eye,” said Ray Entwistle of Yachtspot (J/Boats Australia and NZ). “The owner- Lode Missiaen- is new to the area only having moved to New Zealand just 18 months ago.  For him, it’s a new area to learn, a new boat to master, putting a new crew together, and compete against some very well established competitive crews and boats that are well-versed in the harbour’s local conditions.”

The sailing conditions in the Hauraki gulf are challenging; with winds going from light to very strong (up to 30 knots), sometimes in a single race, tidal streams with local currents (local knowledge!), large and frequent wind shifts during the race, and mostly flat water, but choppy at times.

The J/88 took the varied conditions in her stride. JUNIPER is equipped with the five standard J/88 class sails: one main and two jibs (3Di Raw North Sails), an A2 Runner and A3 Reacher. The courses of the races are random-leg harbour courses, not windward-leeward courses, which is a challenge on close reaching legs where they cannot use the gennaker.  Nevertheless, with good trim, JUNIPER performed exceptionally well; often sailing as fast as some of the larger and lighter boats in the fleet with bigger sail wardrobes. They tuned the rig over the season to meet local conditions, especially on the windier days.

“We are having a great time here sailing in the beautiful Hauraki Gulf,” says skipper Lode Missiaen. “I wish to thank the RNZYS for organizing the club series, our competitors for pushing us, and, of course, my crew for the great dedication and teamwork.  Newcomer JUNIPER has certainly gotten some attention in Auckland, and we can only hope that more J/88 boats will join us soon in this beautiful part of the world.”  For more J/88 offshore speedster sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.

J/111 Flying in Auckland-Fiji Race

Doublehanded 1,400nm to Paradise!
(Auckland, NZ)-  The sailing adventures of the J/111 DJANGO continue “down under” in Auckland, NZ.  Sailed by her owner Andrew Reid and with Doyle Sails NZ sailmaker Andrew Pilcher aboard, they continue to push the envelope of success in the New Zealand offshore world against top custom boats purpose-built for certain types of racing.

Andy Pilcher recently provided yet another riveting report from the front-lines about their experience, a great story from an excellent sailing duo.

“Who remembers the 1995 Rugby World Cup Semi-Final between the All Blacks and England?  The one where Jonah Lomu ran rampant right through the whole team and scored four tries, including that most memorable one where he bowled right over the top of Mike Catt?

Keith Quinn, the veteran broadcaster with decades of experience, was so lost for words that all he could say – live on air – was “Jonah. JONAH. Oh!!! Oh!!!!!”

Well, try saying this in your best Keith Quinn voice: “Django. Squealer. Oh!!!! Oh!!!!!!”

That’s what we were looking at during the Auckland Fiji Race after almost 1,400nm and nearly a week of racing.  Two middleweights standing toe to toe, slugging it out, neither giving an inch.   In the White corner we have Django Racing, the younger, better looking of the two, dancing and jabbing, sticking and moving, trying to wear their opponent down.  In the (toxic) Lime Green corner, the clever old veteran, gnarled by age and years of fighting, and looking, searching for the knockout blow.

The bout started off in a typically brutal manner, with both fighters taking a beating during the first four rounds (days). Eventually things calmed down a bit, and a searching, tactical battle was underway.  Django scored the first major points with a swift left hook, right across Squealer’s nose, early in the fifth.  They thought this could give them a decent advantage, but you don’t get to be older and wiser without learning a few dirty tricks, and sure enough, the pugilists from Tauranga Bridge Marina eventually wore them down and scored a few back themselves.

Deep into the sixth round, the fighters got up close and personal after fighting blind for most of the bout; after that, it was all on!

The teams stood right in each others faces, neither one wanting to let the other slip away and gain an advantage.  No one let up, with stamina and endurance being pushed to the absolute limit. Both teams pushing harder than they ever thought possible, somehow finding reserves of energy they didn’t realize they had.

Squealer used all their collective years of cunning to gain an advantage late in the seventh, and it looked like this would carry them to a famous victory.  But Django wasn’t giving up that easily, and with barely a minute to the final bell pulled their last move of the fight, launching a straight right across the face of Squealer, seemingly dropping them on their arse for the final time.  Surely there was nothing left to give, but Squealer had other ideas.

They picked themselves up off the canvas and launched one final assault on the young pretenders. Django tried holding them off with a series of jabs, but Squealer countered with a brutal right hook just on the final bell.

So who won? Well, it took a while for the ref’s decision to come in and it was eventually announced over the public address system (also known as the VHF Radio) that Squealer had taken out the narrowest of points victories – beating Django by 10 seconds!! (note- after 1,400nm of sailing over 6.5 days!)

Both fighters fell to the floor, exhausted, before picking themselves up one final time for an embrace that lasted well into the night.

After a race that lasted just a few hours shy of a full weak and some 1370 NM, Squealer really did beat us over the line by 10 seconds. This photo was taken from the finish boat, showing their nose crossing the line, with us barely a boat-length behind.

It was hard to comprehend at the time what we were involved in, but for all of us, this was the race of a lifetime, and it was only more poignant because of the battle raging between two boats full of good friends.  I have known some of these guys for the best part of 20 years, and can genuinely say that we could not have hoped to be beaten by a better team.

For those that don’t know, the DDF Syndicate that owns Squealer is a team of seven mates, most of whom are old school friends from Tauranga. This is the third boat they’ve owned, over a period of around 15 years, with their ultimate goal of competing in an offshore race.

That dream was cruelly cut down just 120 miles from the finish of last years race to Fiji, when the mast fell down as they were pushing hard for an overall win.

So to see the joy on their faces at the finish line really did make everything worthwhile, and (almost) made us forget our awful first half of the race!

Well done guys, it was an absolute pleasure trying to knock the crap out of you, and we cannot wait to do it again.  Django Racing out.”  Thanks for the contribution from SailingAnarchy.com.
Sailing photo credits- Brad Davies/ LiveSailDie Media.

J/111 New Zealand- Sailing Report

(Auckland, New Zealand)- The J/111 DJANGO has been sailing for over the past year “down under” in Auckland, NZ.  Sailed by her new owner Andrew Reid and often sailed with Doyle Sails NZ sailmaker Andrew Pilcher aboard, they’ve had some great experiences and successes in the offshore world.  Here is some of their commentary from the J/111 thread on Sailing Anarchy (amusing reading!):

“The SSANZ B&G SIMRAD two handed series is hugely popular here in Auckland - with around 150 entries. Race 1 (60 nms around the Hauraki Gulf) was sailed in variable conditions, 0-17 kts TWS from a bunch of different directions. After a nice start, Team Django kept it all together to take the Division 1 handicap win.”

You can experience what it’s like to sail their J/111 here- YouTube sailing video.

Later in November, J/111 #1 Django completed the New Zealand Round North Island race double-handed. Four legs, approximately 1,000 nautical miles total (you can see the results here- http://www.ssanz.co.nz). Congratulations to the two Andrews!

Here’s their report- “It was an amazing race, with a bit too much upwind for our liking (!) but we managed the 7th fastest total elapsed time, 5th overall on handicap, 2nd in Division and a Division win on Leg 2. This leg was the fun one, from Mangonui in Northland, around NZ's two northern Capes (well, 3 actually), then a fast ride down the West Coast, high speeds at night, oil rigs, seismic ships towing 4.5km arrays, heaps of dolphin action, almost becalmed in NZ's notoriously stormy Cook Strait, 5 kts tides across to Wellington (in our favour, luckily), and a match race to the finish! The same 5 boats we diced with at North Cape were in a bunch that finished within 10 minutes of each other 500 miles later in Wellington. Unbelievable. This race is a true adventure, and uber competitive. Everyone is relentless - short-handed sailing is highly addictive and heaps of fun. Apart from the lack of sleep, the degree of difficulty of every maneuver being tripled and the lack of sleep. Hats off to all the crews! Our next distance race will be from Auckland to Fiji in June 2014. Fully crewed, this one, so should feel quite luxurious being able to sleep for up to three hours at a stretch! A couple of photos attached, one three sailing at the start in Auckland, and the second two sailing with the mini Zero off Cape Egmont on the way to Wellington.”

And, regards the NZ SSANZ Round North Island Two-Handed race, here is a summary from Andy Pilcher of Doyle sails- AP makes up one-half of the unbreakable J/111 Django crew!  Said Andy:

"Finished! Well, that was epic, in every sense of the word. The final leg was, well, pretty crappy for the most part. If I said that Leg 3 was the longest 200 miles I'd ever done, then Leg 4 was the longest 340 miles I've ever done. I honestly think that you could not have designed a race to be more upwind, especially given the number of corners we turned, only to find the wind had bent around the corner just before we arrived there!

To summarize, we left Napier heading E/NE to get out of the Hawkes Bay. Then veered left to head N/E towards East Cape.

From there, another left turn to head across the Bay of Plenty towards Cape Colville, bearing N/W, before the final left turn heading S/W into a 35- 40kt wind against tide maelstrom, for the "dash" back into Auckland.

Sure enough, there to greet us at every turn was a windshift with our name on it, saying "Hey lads, welcome to the corner, your next leg will be upwind".

It was not entirely unexpected, however. The weather people had been predicting this type of Leg well in advance, just as they'd predicted Leg 3 would be entirely upwind. Why is it that the crap weather forecast's are always the most accurate??

Anyway, as with the previous leg, we surprised ourselves with a better than expected performance, and were delighted with our finish in the morning.

I need a bit of time to get my head around it, but am rapt to have been able to do this race, which was a real adventure, and just worth it to have simply completed a circumnavigation of the North Island and see this incredible country of ours from a unique angle.

Hats off to Andrew Reid for his impeccable preparation of the boat, where we sailed over 1,200nm and didn't break so much as a shackle.  It's been a pleasure and a privilege. For the final time - on this journey anyway - "Django Out”.

J/70 Expands to Asia/ Pacific Rim

(Newport, Rhode Island) - J/Boats announced today that McConaghy Boats has been named the J/70 builder for the Asian and Pacific Rim markets.  This is following the recent news of the J/70 receiving International Class status from the International Sailing Federation (ISAF).  Nearly 500 boats are already sailing in 20+ countries within 20 months of launch.  McConaghy Boats joins J/Composites (France) and CCF Composites (USA) as part of the J/70 world building team.

“McConaghy Boats and the J/70 are a perfect fit,” said Jeff Johnstone, President of J/Boats.  “McConaghy is world renowned for building high performance custom racing yachts (such as the famous 7-time Rolex Sydney-Hobart winner WILD OATS XI), and they’re also highly regarded for producing one-designs to exacting tolerances.  We look forward to working with Mark Evans, Stephen Oliver and their team in Zhuhai to build on the momentum the J/70 is already generating in the Pacific Rim.”

“The rapid growth of the J/70 has been nothing short of phenomenal and we’re proud to become a building partner with J/Boats,” commented Mark Evans, Director of McConaghy Boats.  “The J/70 represents the next-generation of fun, easy-to-sail sportboats— a perfect match for the Asia/ Pacific Rim markets we’re supporting.”

New tooling arrives at McConaghy in late January and production is expected to begin this spring. The J/70 will be distributed in the Pacific Rim region by J/Boats Asia.  For more information, please contact Jim Johnstone of J/Boats Asia at jimjboats@gmail.com or J/Boats USA headquarters at info@jboats.com.
For more International J/70 sailboat information

J/111 Smokes Kiwi Offshore Double!

(Auckland, New Zealand)- While J/111's have been sailing successfully in Hong Kong and on Lake Michigan this past week, another J/111 in New Zealand has advanced their sailing program significantly.  Sailed by her new owner Andrew Reid, the J/111 DJANGO (ex-Stella) has been turning heads in Auckland and has had some great racing recently.  Here's the latest report from Andrew regards the Simrad Offshore double-handed series:

"With over 100 boats entered, the SSANZ B&G SIMRAD 60 series, sailed in NZ's awesome Hauraki Gulf, is hugely popular - and challenging. Ours was the first start of the day, with 18 boats entered. Conditions were light, so we unfurled the brand new Doyle Stratis Code Zero for the first time 15 seconds before the gun, and nailed the line at speed, in clear air. Wired, a 52 foot canter, soon sailed over us, along with Venture 2, an Open 50.

The course took us to the Eastern end of Waiheke Island, then up to Tiritiri Matangi, around Haystack, then past Rangitoto to the finish off Orakei wharf. We managed to pass Venture 2 soon after the start, when they dropped their kite into the water - and then, after a few sail changes (A1 to A2 and back again a number of times), passed Wired (pretty rare for our 36 footer) somewhere north of Waiheke. This was temporary, and they soon overhauled us.

Sailing into a hole was costly, with Overload, a well-sailed Elliot 9SS, passing inside us in good breeze. A choppy upwind leg kept us in the hunt, and we got past them again when both of us sailed into another hole - and we (with some luck, it must be said) picked up the new SW breeze first. This was champagne sailing under Code Zero - 70-90 degrees TWA, boat speed consistently higher than windspeed, hot coffee, and sunshine. We could see Omega, a Bakewell White 42, below us and going well, with only Wired and Venture 2 ahead.

The last part of the leg to Tiri was on the wind, with the light no1 looking good - we rounded the mark and once again unfurled the Code Zero - good speeds in 12-16 kts of breeze, a quick headsail change in anticipation of a building Souwester, a close encounter with both some dolphins and the Haystack (unlit and nicely obscured behind the Zero!), then on the wind again to Rangi light.

Most of the nav lights we could see were behind us, so the last cup of coffee was tasting pretty good. The anticipated and forecast breeze failed to materialise, so it was up with the Zero again, to finish in moonlit flat water, just 2 minutes ahead of Omega, doing 6.5 kts in 5.5 kts of wind.

So after 60 nms and 12 hours of racing, we had made more good calls than bad, and took out the Division 1 handicap victory, finishing 3rd on line. The boat performed beautifully, and is certainly quite easy to sail short-handed. And fast!"  For some more entertaining perspective on their sail, please see DJANGO's YouTube video here.

J/Boats @ Australian Boat Shows

For those in the lands Down Under, the current boatshow calendar indicates the J/70 and the J/111 will be on display at the Pittwater Sail Expo and the J/70 will be shown at the Melbourne Show.

For you J enthusiasts hoping to catch a glimpse of the latest, fastest, most fun boats to come out of the J/Design Studio in some time, please be sure to contact Ray Entwistle at YachtSpot at info@yachtspot.com.au for more information.

• Feb 3-5- Melbourne Boat Show- Melbourne, Victoria
• Mar 16-17- Pittwater Sail Expo- Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club

J/24 Sailing Ace Terry Hutchinson Racing AC34 Cats

Past J/24 sailing ace Terry Hutchinson is now sailing for the AC34 on Team ARTEMIS. This past week he was caught on tape sailing one of the new AC45 cats for practice.

While fellow J/24 cats like Ed Baird and Chris Larson were kicking it back and sailing in the Rolex Cup regatta down in St Thomas, Terry was pushing the limits of disaster-- in cats those who live closest to the edge most consistently win, simple math.

Just ask Kenny Read about sailing Formula 40s in the Pro Circuit back in the 80s, remember that famous picture of them with bows stuck in the water on San Francisco Bay and the whole crew hanging on for dear life?  Should be fun and interesting to watch, just don't want to be a body hurtling through the hyperspace after a "double-poke" with a 72 foot cat cart-wheeling over my head, too.  Good on ya mates for pushing the envelope of performance!  Sure is fun to watch!    Watch this YouTube video of how they do sailing these machines here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_lDXQVcRaE   

J/111 STELLA Shines in BMW Auckland Regatta

(Auckland, NZ)- Light air sailing skills were at a premium as the fleet of yachts competing in the 2011 BMW Auckland Regatta seldom saw the breeze move into double figures throughout the three day event.

Under normal circumstances, a three-day regatta in Auckland tests a wide range of skills as the city lives up to its four-seasons-in-a-day reputation. However, 2011 saw just summer heat and gentle breezes combine with unusually high tides to turn the regatta into a tactical chess game.

For the final day of racing, the yachts were sent on a scenic course around some of the islands of the inner Hauraki Gulf. Many yachts chose to hug the shorelines to either cut the corners or escape adverse tidal flows – and an unfortunate few paid the price by hitting the bottom. Embarrassment apart, none suffered any serious damage.

The competition was fierce amongst the cognoscenti in Class B.  A turbo'd Mumm 36, a monster'd Elliot 1050 and the super monster-garaged Big Sled Red were up against the one-design spec'd J/111 hull #1 STELLA. Many saw STELLA during sea-trials off of Newport, RI last August and then later in Chesapeake bay at the Annapolis Boat Show.  Down in the Hauraki Gulf in New Zealand, the J/111 showed her tail-feathers enough times (first across the line in 5 of 8 races) to win the Line Honors trophy and to finish 2nd on PHRF-NZ handicap. Congratulations to Pat Kabris and the Stella crew for a successful debut!

The BMW Auckland Regatta is jointly run by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Bucklands Beach Yacht Club. Sixty one yachts in seven divisions competed in the regatta.  For more BMW Auckland Regatta and J/111 sailing information.