The World’s Most Popular One-Design Keelboat
Simon Grain Doug’s fantastic newsletter takes a quick look at the up coming Vic States – looks like 19 boats this is going to be one hot fleet – and Hit the mark takes a hot look at it.
One point to note in the newsletter re the day pass requirement – this is not now relevant as all competitors not already SYC members will be given honorary membership for the regatta.
Read it now.
2011 Vic States
With 14 boats now on the hardstand at Sandringham Yacht Club, the home fleet is posed to enjoy the biggest State fleet in Victoria for over a decade.
Up to 5 boats are expected come from interstate for the regatta, known locally as the Balmy Regatta due to Melbourne’s often experienced long Indian summer giving warm sunny, hazy days and lighter winds.
The Sandy fleet’s newest boat, bought by Brendan Lee, a Laser and Flying Fifteen sailor, is “Hi” from Peter Stevens in Adelaide. With the fleet now at modern record numbers, space on the hardstand is becoming tight, racing is tight and with another 3-4 people currently interested in becoming J boat owners, competition is expected to be even more fierce over the next few years as the fleet grows even more.
Pacemaker (David Suda) is still the boat to beat, but they are not having it all their own way recently. Make My Jay (Simon Grain), who have come second in the last two Vic States (one on a countback, last race result) and are currently second by 1 point in the J24 Summer aggregate at Sandy are just one boat breathing down Pacemaker’s neck. Ron Thomson in Kicking Bottom who just seems to prove green is fast and getting faster, the girls in Hyperactive and Adam Evans in Get Smart are all currently capable of winning races in this fleet.
‘Mr J24’ Hugo Ottaway has become the dark horse in Melbourne with only irregular appearances this season, but make no mistake, when it comes to the states and if Hugo has even a half decent crew together he will be at the pointy end without doubt.
STOP PRESS: Hugo is truly our “dark horse” and at the last minute has sold Vice Versa and bought Bruschetta and plans to raid the trophy cabinet at the Vic States this year !!!
There is plenty of competition further down the fleet as well, with an emerging group of boats keen to shift up a gear and plenty of new guys looking to make their own name in the class too. Interest is also being shown by people outside the class looking for either a boat to beg, borrow or charter as they see the level of competition increase.
Need to know more about coming to the Vic States?
Now is the time to set up a crew slot if you want to come from interstate, we will billet any crews so don’t waste money on accommodation.
The dates are the 16 & 17 April 2011, NOR is not available yet (will be shortly) but normal program is 4 races on Saturday and 2 races on Sunday. Racing is run by SYC in conjunction with the SYC One Design Regatta and this will include other one design classes on separate starts.
Boats will be expected to have a current measurement certificate and crew weight is the normal 400kg.
Contact the Doug McGregor of the Victorian State Association on 0400 584 067.
J24 South Australia in conjunction with the Cruising Yacht Club of SA invite J24 sailors to join us in the Great Southern Regatta incorporating the 2011 J24 SA State Championship on the weekend of 2 & 3 April.
Racing will be conducted off North Haven sailing windward/leeward courses with three races scheduled each day. We’re looking forward to some fantastic racing over the two days so get organised and join us!
See the SA Events section on this site for the Notice of Race & Entry Form.
Editor Doug McGregor comes up with some beauties, but this time in addtition to his own quick wit, he has the dulcet tongue of Ron Thomson on the Thommo Cup to aid his story telling. Hugo tells it like it was at Geelong this year, J24 Victoria launches a new Facebook page and a very Sanguine Jack Crawford is about to tie a not very nautical knot. Five pages of great reading !
Once again some of the little boat guys went to do battle on big boats to Hobart – seems they like us out there. Or as Tim Bilham from Sydney points out, the Sydney-Hobart was their training ground for their subsequent Nationals victory. Coincidentally their Hobart ride was on the First 45 Victoire, another larger Tupperware version of their J24 ‘Victory’ .
Tim says, “our training for the Nationals on Death Star has been predominantly centered around Hobart preparation. On our J24 crew, we have Duncan (bow), me (pit) and Sean (helm) who all did the S2H on Victoire (Beneteau First 45).
We won our IRC and ORCi divisions and came 5th overall on IRC. Only plastic production boat in the top ten. Shane (our trimmer) sailed the Hobart on Investec Loyal. I’m sure he’s using a lot of the knowledge gained from sailing a 100 foot maxi with powered winches in his J24 sailing”.
“David (our mast guy on the J24) is the smart one and skipped the Hobart but this doesn’t seem to be holding him back at all on the J24.”
As we know the S2H fleet had some moments out there and some boats didn’t make it, although we think all the J Guys got there.
By comparison the other overwhelmingly J24 crewed boat was the Elliot 44 ‘Veloce’ out of Melbourne doing the M2H Eastcoaster. Veloce was one of the front 3 that got away from the fleet and had a dream ride to Hobart, beating the old race record and finishing in a time of 2 days 2hrs 40min to take the race and series wins and just to keep the boys happy, hitting around 24knots down the coast of Tassie in the middle of a very black night. Veloce also set an additional informal record as the smallest boat in many years to win the King of the Derwent Double with line honours and handicap wins. Making the boat go to Hobart were Melbourne J Guys; Mark Houghton, Kelvin Oldridge, Simon Grain, Noel Duffy and of course Fitzy, joining us for the race in Hobart were Stewart Geeves, Neil Wallace, Priscilla Cutter and Lisa Simonov. So you might say most of the crew !
Jane Flowers who sails on ‘Make My Jay’ went down the east coast in luxury on the 60ft Swan Dreamcatcher 3 and Rowan “Two Dogs” Pollard also out of Sandy, won 1st place in Cruising Division of the S2H in Scarlet Ribbon, a Buisen 48, (keeping himself a much tidier boy than previous ‘escapades’ offshore).
So that’s at least 13 J24 Guys that I know of doing the Hobart thing. Well done everybody. And then many of us fronted up for further training in Sydney !
The 2011 J24 Nationals are done and dusted, with ‘King of the Dusties’ only managing a 3rd this year – more bottled lube next year Sean !
In what became a shifting ballgame this year, Wallis said to me after the second day “I think we are in trouble” and that proved to be the case, not that it wasn’t hard fought, it was, but it just wasn’t to be, “he, always beats me when I come to Sydney” being the other comment of note from Sean.
‘He’ is Kirj, Kirjo, or more formally Sean Kirkjian and the arch rival of Wallis who interestingly had this to say after last year’s national’s win “And I couldn’t let this one past, congrats to Kirj for his 3rd on h/cap – trophy should look nice on your lounge room wall!!!” – stuff comes back to bite doesn’t it !
Happily the 3rd on Handicap Trophy goes on this authors wall this year.
Still here we have the best of the best of the last few years with Kirj taking out his 4th nationals win – pretty impressive effort in anyone’s books. Wallis has 3 titles and Wittey, has none.
But don’t let that result fool you. Nev Whittey is an awesome skipper and he put the recently used Laser (4th out of 72) away to split the Seans for a second that could have been a first overall bar a couple of things that didn’t go his way, like being a shade to aggressive on the start line under a black flag “that’ll be the drop” was the comment I heard as he had nothing higher than a 5th otherwise and most were 1s and 2s. Hope you get to Adelaide next year Nev !
So after Wallis on 23 points, the results table went west, with 4th place on 52 points being taken out by David West sailing Ace, back from recent medical scares, David put in a sold performance to beat John Crawford’s nephew Robert (a 470 sailor who had never sailed a J) in Innamincka. There is so much talent in the J fleet !
Notice how many local sailors at the pointy end yet. You guessed it, plenty of local talent and local knowledge. Conditions were tricky to ….. well, some of the visitor’s were heard to use other words and we’ll leave it at that, except to say 2m swells and 90deg windshifts with halyard busting bullets, otherwise just your average light and shifty day. That all changed on the last day and jibs replaced the big sails, some even going for poled out jibs downhill ! Not for the brave of course, ask Ron Thomson who decided that to show is all that his keel really was white not green !
Quite a blast really !
Actually that refers to the starters horn and the small liner required to support it. I made the decision not to be too close to the boat when the horn was going off, not only loud, but long ! Guys, turn it off please, I can feel the vibration of it in the rig “are you sure it isn’t a ferry coming!”
Many personal battles as usual, from the Seans to the backmarkers. In a now traditional rivalry Make My Jay has finally beaten Admiral Stevens by more than one place – at last, (and Pete is inviting me over to the SA States – for revenge I think). Sister has had to take humble pie from brother this time as Ron in Kicking Bottom takes out the Thommo Cup from Janette steering for Arthur on Kaotic. And a very nice Graeme Thorburn is apologising to everyone for his growing tally of little hits – at least he doesn’t leave green on your boat when he does it !
So that was the short story of the Nationals in Sydney this year. On behalf of the class I want to thanks the NSW guys for all the hard work they did in getting us organised, the MHYC for hosting the regatta and the Race Committee and all the other volunteers for making it happen. The wind gods need to be thanked for giving us mostly good breezes and Terry for organising a great layday at the Q Station. Thanks also to Nicole Scott for taking the regatta pics, you can see them on her website www.sailingimages.net
Next year the plan is to do a 3 day Nationals in March in Adelaide, but this is only the plan at this stage so stay tuned, keep looking at the website and see how it develops. Sean and his guys will be setting the next one up and will have the details ready for you in the future – but at least you know when you should be thinking about booking holidays.
Its fair to say that Editor Doug has packed another load of volatile J news into a few short pages of hot reading – aye that Scottish wit is as sharp as ever.
Another year of those who made it happen, those who watched it happen and those… well that didn’t know it happened!
So if you fall into the last category then you better get reading. Well done Doug !
Here it is Christmas Issue, Hit The Mark! December 2010
And yes we do need a press officer, the position is up for grabs and I suggest you all send your votes in to me …………would Doug make a good PR man do you think?
Merry Christmas
Simon
Following the most recent national exec hookup we have set the following timetable on the review of the national constitution.
State Associations and individual submissions to be submitted in writing for evaluation by Jan 30.
Draft presentation to be available for final review by the Vic States on April 16th
The concept behind this review is that the current document is now quite old and needs to be reviewed in the light of the changing needs of the States and National Association. This means that if you wish to have input into the review, you need to submit your thoughts in writing (email is fine) to Simon Grain by end Jan 2011
I have attached a copy of the existing document J24 Australia Rules
The nationals have been confirmed today by Terry Wise. This means the National Assn AGM will also be held during the championships. The meeting will be held at MHYC at 9am Tuesday, 11th Jan 2011. Nominations for office should be received in writing prior to this meeting.
AGM Agenda Agenda for 10 11 AGM
Geelong will be huge this year with most of the fleet expected to go and interest from interstate strong.
This year the program is full on with the big passage race to Geelong and then 3 days of windward leewards. You get to party an incredible 4 nights (if you can) with wall to wall yachties, friends, locals, drinks and bands at the club, or escape to one of Geelong’s restaurants to chill out on good food and another drink! Somewhere the J guys and girls will have a special dinner and drinks (more!) There’ll be fireworks and planes doing aerobatics – and always a racetrack the next day. Yet more parties on boats, more racing and if you make it to the end – a relaxing sail back to Sandy and if it’s a SW breeze, you get to surf home!
To enter you need to go to the website http://www.victoriaweek.com.au/index1.asp and then ‘Racing’ and ‘Enter Online’, click on the ‘J24 Class’ button and follow your nose.
Enter before 6/1/11 to avoid paying a late fee and your entry must be in by the 14th January at latest.
If you are from interstate and want a boat or a crew spot or have questions then call Simon on 0413 870 046