2010 J 80 North American's Re-Cap

What an amazing regatta! 13 races over three days on beautiful Buzzards Bay. The regatta was hosted by the Beverly Yacht Club in Marion, MA. The host yacht club ran an absolutely flawless regatta.  

There were 45 boats competing with several former World and North American champions in attendance.  The accomplishments of the crew on several of the boats rivaled the helmsman.  Most teams were using this event as the final tune-up for the J 80 World Championships which will be held the first week of October in Newport, RI.

I was very fortunate to have been able to team up with Terry Flynn, John Morran and Philip Williamson to sail Terry's boat in both the NA's and the Worlds in a few weeks.  I have sailed with John Morran for years and have raced with Terry a few times before and have only sailed with Philip on his NY 42.  This regatta was the first time for the 4 of us to sail together and I was pleased with the way our team jelled over the 13 races.

The last time I really raced a J 80 was at the Worlds in Corpus Christi in 2006.  Fortunately, Terry has been very active in the class and as helmsman, won the Annapolis NOOD early in the year.  He basically drug me around the race course the whole regatta and got our team up to speed on all of the basic maneuvers and rig tuning.

We started the regatta off with me trying to tack in at the first weather mark and fouling a boat and having to do a 720.  After several of these maneuvers, Terry very politely reminded me that "this isn't a &*#* Laser"!

As the regatta progressed, our starts gradually got better and our crew work definitely improved.  I thought our upwind speed was actually pretty good considering our lack of time in the boat.  Our downwind speed was decent but I did not do a very good job of positioning us coming into the leeward gate.  I tended to put us in the middle of the gate and we were the outside boat at way too many leeward mark roundings.  I think this is an area that we can greatly improve for the Worlds.

Even with our lack of time in the boat, we managed to win one race and led 2 other races around the last mark.  Our last 5 race finishes were 3-9-5-3-3 so it felt like we were starting to show some consistency and managed to finish 4th over-all.  

The Stork family won the regatta followed closely by Glenn Darden and Jeff Johnstone in 2nd and 3rd.

Here are the final results:  http://www.j80buzzardsbay.com/2010/results.pdf

The J 80 class is awesome!  Great sailors...friendly both on and off of the water.  The boat is very comfortable to sail and the boat speed differences are pretty negligible.  

The Beverly Yacht Club ran about the best regatta that I have every attended.  Great races, hospitality and incredible organization.  

Looking forward to the Worlds in Newport!