Jailbreak

Chris Furey is an ex J sailor and a great J friend from Sandy – he shot this pic and info to me this arvo, thought you might like to see it. Taken by Chris off Williamstown in the early 80’s, this is Athol Lidgett’s J24 ‘Jailbreak’ seen here on the burst in classic J style. Chris says, “It was during a JOG regatta out of RYCV when the race officials decided it was far too windy to race so several of us J sailors decided we would go for a blast anyway. The guy on the deck in the blue jacket is John Hooper, the sail maker.  The helmsman was Mark Bethwaite (from the famous Bethwaite clan) who went onto win the World J-24’s held in Sydney a few years later. He did this a week after winning the World Soling title in Perth I believe. John and Buster were active J-24 sailors sailing with Kevin Hill I recall. (Additional comment from Rob Hartnett) John and his brother, Olympic Coach Buster, both sailed on the boat.

Jailbreak met an unfortunate end when sailing back from a Mornington race into a strong  northerly that built to well over 35 knots. Athol decided they had taken enough punishment in the strong wind and seas and reached off into the lee of Rickets Point where they picked up a mooring just off the old Keefer’s Boatshed near Beaumaris Motor Yacht Squadron. The crew were picked up and taken ashore but that night the wind suddenly switched to an equally hard south westerly with enormous seas. The boat was torn from its mooring and smashed to unrecognisable pieces on the rocky Beaumaris shore just below the Beauy Pub. Somewhere on the rocks not far offshore  there is a J24 lead keel!”

Thanks Chris – keep those old pics coming !

J24 Gosford Classic Regatta 2012

The Gosford J24 Clasic Regatta was once again a great success with a fleet of 13 making the huge effort to sail and trailer to Gosford from Sydney and Lake Macquarie.  Saturday delivered very gusty westerlies with an average of 25knots all day.  We saw some fantastic broaches, whole crews hanging off life lines up to their eyes in water which thankfully wasn’t as cold as Sydney, a man overboard, a few cautious kite hoists and someone with a very squeaky voice now!  Day two gave us a virtual glass out mixed with some nice 10knots and at one point saw boats changing to a short lived jib.

Scratch Results

1st  Sailpac – Sean Kirkjian

2nd Innaminka – John Crawford

3rd  Wildcard – Brett Lewis

Handicap Results

1st  Waterborne Again – Oloff & Marc Tromp

2nd  Pacatack – John Gardiner

3rd  Katoic – David West

This year we recognised boats that are antifouled or live in boats bags, competing against hard stand boats.

1st Overall Antifouled boat:

Black Jack – Riccardo Bertozolli

1st Overall boat kept in a Boat Bag:

Innaminka – John Crawford

Thanks to Gosford Sailing Club for running good courses in touch conditions, to Terry Wise for bringing 6 Pacific Sailing School teams and introducing them to the fantastic world of J24 Racing, to  Water Hound for the huge effort to get their boat to their first regatta – they assure me they are now hooked…and we will be seeing more of them…to Waterborne Again for breaking away from club racing and joining the fleet…to all our usual loyal skippers who come back year after year for the fun…and everyone for competing.

Many thanks to Kevin Phillips for his on water photos and for full results and some great photos go to http://3gwiz.com.au/j24gosford/ If anyone wants a full sized image circa 12Mpixels and 6Mbytes email Kevin on kevinphillips@telstra.com quoting the photo number.

We hope to see you all at Balmain Regatta on 28 October, and the NSW State Championships on 3 & 4 November at RPEYC.  Remember, we will be presenting a Travellers Award at the end of the season so the more you enter, the better your chance of being the best overall NSW J24!!!

NSW J24 Association AGM

The 2012 AGM for the NSW J24 Association will be held on Friday 2 November 2012 at 8pm at Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club, Wolseley Road, Point Piper – all current members welcome.

An apology from the web guy

On some parts of the website you might notice that reference is made to an email address “admin@j24.com.au”. We (I) have just discovered that this email address has not been working for a considerable period of time. If you have attempted to contact us using that email address and had your email bounce back, We (I) apologise. It is working now, and will be checked on a regular basis.

Cheers, Luke.

Do you have a J24 you wish to charter out?

We have skippers looking for J24s to charter for the NSW State Titles on 3 & 4 November – they are boat owners and skippers who have chartered before – reliable and responsible, so if you have a J24 and wont be entering the NSW States (although we hope you will) please let us know and we can put you in contact with the relevant parties – Paula 0404 539176.

J24 sought for Cronulla fleet

Do you have an entry level J24 for sale ?- looking to pay around $10K. Please contact geoffrbatty@optusnet.com.au

J24 Gosford Classic Regatta – get your entries in!!

Later this months, is the J24 Gosford Classic Regatta which is being held on 29 & 30 September 2012 at Gosford Sailing Club.  Always a fantastic weekend, we encourage you to come along and join the fun.

Notice of Race

Gosford Classic Regatta Entry Form 2012

NSW J24 Membership Application 2012-2013

It’s a long weekend  so we encourage you to book accomodation early and Terrigal is always a great spot to stay, with the J24 Association shouting Happy Hour at the Crowe Plaza hotel on Saturday evening too.

Any queries, call Paula on 0404 539176

The Lipton Cup Regatta

The Lipton Cup Regatta is a two day event that caters to the serious racing fraternity by offering a combination of short course racing and long distance racing as well as an enjoyable weekends sailing for the cruising boats with long distance races on both days.

The weekend is concluded with entertainment and prize giving on the Club lawn.

Schedule of Races and Course Locations

The Regatta combines windward/leeward and passage course racing on Saturday November 17th followed by a longer distance race on Sunday November 18th.

Short Races – Saturday 17th November Warning Signal 1025hrs

For Divisions A, B, C, D Trailable Yachts and Sportsboats, three short course races will be conducted on Saturday, each with a target duration of 75 minutes and a minimal interval between races:-

  • Division D Yachts (Js) will race around laid marks in Hobsons Bay.

Long Race – Sunday 18th November – Warning Signal 0955hrs

  • For all divisions the longer distance race will start and finish south of St Kilda in the vicinity of R3 with separate starts for each division. The course will be around fixed marks with a range of course options to provide target race duration of between 4 and 4 ½ hours for all divisions.

The Sunday race is designed to facilitate a presentation at 1600hrs on the lawn of RYCV.

For the Js at Sandy, the Saturday racing will be scored as part of our summer Aggregate, so participation here will be a good idea, the racing on Saturday will be conducted by SYC and held somewhere off Brighton most likely. After that the aim for boats sailing in the Sunday race (and I encourage you all to do this as it is a different but interesting race) will be to sail from the finish line over to Royals where they will give is secure berthing and show us a good time with food and drink. If there are enough people they will also put on a bus to take us back to Sandy – so you can have a drink. Next morning drive back to Royals and after the race which finishes near Royals return there for the prize giving, drop off a driver, pick up a traveller and sail the boat home.

So have a think about this – it would be good to make a god show this year to Royals (they could well be a new home for Js when we finally overflow and they are keen to start a J fleet, something we should encourage as an association) I need to know some indicative numbers to pass to Royals in due course.

Download the Lipton Cup brochure Lipton DL-outside Lipton DL-inside

2012 J24 Worlds – USA

BIG, REALLY BIG
Over 100 J/24 teams are breathlessly anticipating the start of the first
“open” J/24 Worlds in decades. With racing on September 17-21, a strong
American contingent will be doing battle against a cadre of past World,
European, North American, South American, Canadian, Bermudian, Brazilian,
Argentinean, Chilean, Peruvian and Japanese Champions.

Hosted by the Rochester Yacht Club in Rochester, NY, located on the south
shore of Lake Ontario, the teams are anticipating how best to get out of
the starting blocks with over 100 boats on one huge line with multiple line
boats calling the start and keeping the aggressive teams in check.

For those interested in the 2012 Worlds in Rochester in September I have posted a report on it on a separate Worlds page – click here