Hugo, Hugo, Hugo….watch out for him..and his new boat!!! Mr Ottaway is the proud new ower of Bruschetta…passing ViceVersa on to a new J owner at Sandringham, John Neville. We welcome John to the class, and if he can sail Vice Versa half as well as Hugo did he will be on to a good thing – good luck both of you battling it out on the race course in the near future!!
Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta
Last weekend saw some 300 boats over 13 divisions compete in the Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta – we managed to get a J24 fleets together with 6 boats on the saturday start line! A solid 18 knots – some decent gusts – some great wind shifts and a huge tide…mmm..not the easist day!
Marc Tromp steering Waterborne again came out with a great lead in race 1, followed by a win for Kaotic and a win for Ace. Seeing Kaotics crew half under water at one point was pretty funny after a big gust and shift – …only to find ourselves on Wildfire also suddenly very wet too and fighting to stay on board….Brett claimed he couldn’t get the main sheet off quick enough but I reckon it was something to do with me being his tactician for the first time….iniaation processes and all that….even funnier was then seeing David West do the same to his crew…but didn’t settle for just once!!!..Twice – at least the water is still 23 degrees!!
Day 2 saw lighter winds…but still a bit flukey…unfortunatley Waterborne Again couldn’t race so we were down to a fleet of five…Fun and Wildfire trying hard to catch Kaotic and Ace who won race 4 and 5, and Madder and Badder who picked the right side well to win the last race of the regatta!
Great sailing everyone….tight results – Janette Syme steering Arthur Crothers Kaotic finished equal first with David West on Ace – on countback David just clinched it…Lucky guy -now gets to go car racing at Eastern Creek in the challenge for a new Audi – we’ll let you know if he wins!!!!
The Next Big Regatta !
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.
2011 SA State Championship
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.
February "Hit the Mark"
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 !
J Guys that make bigger boats go …. to Hobart
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 !
What a blast !
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.
J24 Nationals – Day 4
Day 4 was breezier than the rest of the week, with all boats carrying jibs today! Race 9 saw Sean Kirkjian come out early and take the lead, with Sean Wallis in second and Nev Wittey in third. Race 10 saw the same result, leaving no doubt that Sean Kirkjian was the first person to win 4 J24 Nationals – Death Star was hard to beat this week and out of 10 races, had 5 wins.
Congratulatins to all competitors for some great racing this week, and for the efforts of 5 interstate boats making the trek to Sydney. Thanks to MHYC for hosting a great regatta and for all those involved in making this event a huge success. Please also support Nicole at www.sailingimages.net – she did a great job catching all the action on camera this week.
Overall Results
1st – Death Star – Sean Kirkjian
2nd – Sailpac – Neville Wittey
3rd – Lunatic Asylum – Sean Wallis
Full race results are available at:
http://www.mhyc.com.au/files/results/2010/events/J24/series.htm
J24 Nationals – Day 3
Day 3 started with similar conditions to the last 2 days and race 7 saw a fine downwind tustle between Sean Wallis on Lunatic Asylum and Neville Wittey on Sailpac on the last leg – with Sean Wallis just taking the honours by centimetres. Sean Kirkjian followed with third on Death Star.
Race 8 saw a slight wind increase and some boats changing down to jibs for the first upwind leg. This time Sean Kirkjian finished first with a nice lead, after using his genoa for the whole race. Sailpac came in 2nd again, followed by Sean Wallis in third.
The top 3 boats all scored 4 points each today. It appears that the championship is between Sean Kirkjian and Neville Wittey but we will see what day 4 brings.
Innaminka, steered by Robert Crawford , first time sailing on a J24 took 2 fourth places today and are running 4th overall after a consistently good week.
Overall standings after Day 3
1st – Death Star – Sean Kirkjian
2nd – Sailpac – Neville Wittey
3rd – Lunatic Asylum – Sean Wallis
Full race results are available at:
http://www.mhyc.com.au/files/results/2010/events/J24/series.htm
J24 Nationals – Day 2
Day 2 started with similar wind conditions to Day 1 – flukey 15 knots easterlies, tending north for the third race of the day produced difficult helming conditions for skippers. Nev Wittey took out race 4 from Sean Kirkjian, with a convincing two and a half minute win. Robert Crawford sailing Innaminka came in a close third after Death Star.
Ron Thomson sailing Kicking Bottom had his best race of the series so far, with an impressive 4th, just 6th seconds behind
Innaminka.
Race 5 produced an exciting finish between Sean Kirkjian and David West with only 1 second separating first and second. Robert Crawford scored another third, only 10 seconds behind the winner. Peter Stevens on Code Violation had his best race so far, to finish fourth.
Race 6 was a black flag start after a general recall, unfortunately seeing series leader Nev Wittey over the line, as well as Madder n Badder. The two Seans, Kirkjian and Wallis battled for first and second throughout the race. Simon Grain helming Make My Jay finished third -their best race so far!
Today’s black flag has caused major change in overall placings in the regatta with yesterdays series leader, Nev Wittey dropping back to third and Sean Kirkjian moving up the placings to first.
Overall standings after Day 2
1st – Death Star – Sean Kirkjian
2nd – Lunatic Asylum – Sean Wallis
3rd – Sailpac – Neville Wittey
Full race results are available at:
http://www.mhyc.com.au/files/results/2010/events/J24/series.htm
The crew of the 3 Pacific Sailing Schools boats in this years Nationals – Sailpac, Starpac and Pacatack.