The sailing has simply been extraordinary. Tuesday's northeaster blowing 15-25 knots offshore with ginormous waves from the east made for some incredibly long planes/ surfs on what seemed like a long roller-coaster ride. Wednesday's WNW breeze offshore was incredibly tactical and shifty. That was followed up by yet another even shiftier and tactical day on Thursday inside Narragansett Bay.
At the moment, the current J/80 European Champion, Carlos Martinez, is winning on PERALEJA GOLF by only one point over the American team of Scott Young and Terry Flynn on QUANTUM RACING. They are ahead on a tie-breaker over Jose Maria "Pichu" Torcida sailing ECC VIVIENDAS, the 2007 Worlds winner in La Trinite, France. Fourth is Glenn Darden sailing LE TIGRE and fifth is Jeff Johnstone on LITTLE FEAT.The last day of racing promises to be a cliff-hanger for these top five teams as they all mathematically have a chance of winning, especially if at least two races are sailed offshore in Rhode Island Sound. Another gorgeous day is forecast with strong WNW winds with spectacularly clear skies. Follow all the action, photos and results for the J/80 Worlds.
The day started out slowly. At 0830 hours, in the middle of a torrential downpour, the prospects were dim for any kind of reasonable racing. Consulting with his brain trust of Brad Read of SailNewport and others, Tom Duggan elected to postpone until 1000 hours. After two more on-shore postponements, the Low that was developing SE off Cape Cod started to move, enabling the PRO and the RC team to mobilize the troops and issue a "race on" at the 1200 hours announcement. Sure enough, the predicted WNW breeze behind the front started to pipe-in at 7-12 knots. By the time the fleet got to the race course, a combination of down pours, squalls, fog, mist, and locusts (just kidding) seemed to bedevil both the fleet and the PRO/ RC. After several tries, the fourth race started around 2 pm with some degree of clearing. It was a great race. In fact, with the wind settling in around 275 to 280 the fleet was treated to a classic WNW wind with large shifts and large channels of breeze in the 10-20 knots range. Carlos Martinez's team on PERALEJA GOLF sailed a strong race, coming back from a rounding of around 10th at the first windward mark to win the race. Sailing equally as well was Rayco on HOTEL PRINCESA CANARIAS, rounding in about the same position at the first weather mark, but battled back to get a second. John Storck on RUMOR got third. Fourth was Henry Brauer and Will Welles on RASCAL, just clipping Pichu Torcida on ECC VIVIENDAS in fifth in an all-out planing finish!
The fifth race was an abject lesson in trying to do the right thing for the fleet at the right time. PRO Tom Duggan hung in there despite all kinds of protestations from the sailors. The wind was shifting dramatically at the starts, first favoring the port end, then starboard end, then port end, forcing general recalls and an eventual postponement to reset. Undaunted, Tom got the last race off late in the day, we believe around 4pm or so. It was a gorgeous race, held in the twilight of a front passing by with a shelf of clouds forming a clear edge to blue skies in the distant west, all lit by impending sunset at 6:15 pm. No one was disappointed. It was a fun fast race, cut short to three legs so everyone could get home by nightfall. Taking the gun was QUANTUM RACING, Scott Young and Terry Flynn simply sailing a very strong race against perhaps the tightest fleet yet in the top ten. Second was Carlos Martinez on PERALEJA GOLF sailing up QUANTUM's exhaust-pipe very, very fast. Third was Rayco on HOTEL PRINCESA CANARIAS. Rounding out the top five were Jay Lutz/ Gary Kamins on FIRED UP finishing 4th and Christer Faith-Ell on HASSE from Sweden. The finish for the top ten at sunset was quite spectacular, with the carbon and kevlar sails blazing in a reddish-orange glow and seemingly a dozen boats all finishing about the same time behind the top three!
With breezes on the course area in the 60-75 degree direction blowing 15-25 knots and ginormous waves with cross-chop from the east, everyone knew they were going to be in for a serious, physically demanding day. As they have in the previous three J/80 Worlds, the Spanish teams put on a text-book show of how to sail at least as fast as everyone else upwind, but simply "blow doors" off everyone else downwind. Often sailing upwards of 2-3 knots faster at times than their rivals flying downwind over and under other boats in front of them as if they were pylons in an obstacle course. It was a "schooling" like no one can imagine. Even Chuck Allen on Jeff Johnstone's boat LITTLE FEAT admitted, "we got to the weather mark in the top five in all three races today, but before we knew it, Spanish boats were flying by us like we were parked! It was like we were body-surfing and they were on surfboards!" 
Just off the pace are the other three J/80 World Champions. Glenn Darden on LE TIGRE (current runner-up at the recent J/80 North Americans) is lying sixth with a 3-8-10 score for 21 points. Rayco Tabares on HOTEL PRINCESS YAIZA started off slowly with a 17th in race 1, then finished the day strongly with a 1-5 to stay in contention in 8th place. Just behind him is Ignacio Camino Rodriguez on NEXTEL ENGINEERING that also started off slowly with a 13th in race one, but closed with a 7-3 score. Watch out for these guys as the continue to ascend the ladder in the next few days!