J/111 Wins North Sea Regatta

(Scheveningen, Netherlands)- The Delta Lloyd North Sea Regatta in Scheveningen had a brilliant start on Friday, May 25 under a clear blue sky with more than 250 yachts ready to go racing. The sailing conditions were perfect, although the strong, gusty northeasterly played many tricks on the sailors. With gusts up to 27 knots, there was a lot of damage to several boats-- sails torn, genakers and spinnakers blown out, big shots broke booms and blocks ripped off decks!  Yes, a lot of carnage on day one, but a lot of fun sailing for those who could handle the spectacular, sunny conditions.  However, the perfect conditions persisted for just one more day, with the last day being "fogged out" with little wind for any of the fleets.  In the end, John Van der Starre's J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER dominated IRC 2/3 Class.  In the J/22s, it was Kolleman Wouter's team that ran away with top honors.  And, in the J/24 class it was Erik Jeuring's team that also ran away with the gold.

For the first day on the IRC 2/3 course, the gang on the J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER made it known they were going to be a factor in their twenty-one boat class, by far the largest and most competitive offshore class at the North Sea Regatta.  XCENTRIC's skipper John Van der Starre immediately led the team to two bullets today. Co-captain Robin Verhoef said, "We had some dangerous situations at times.  We hit 13-15 kts at times as we simply flew away from the rest of our fleet.  We practiced a lot in April at the SPI Ouest Regatta in La Trinite-sur-Mer and learned a lot. There we sailed one-design class and we learned how to be more competitive and much faster sailing against other J/111s.  We discovered the very subtle differences, e.g. in the settings of the mast and the boat and sails to extract maximum performance.  It helped us a lot!"

For the J/22 class, it was a day with more and less wind pressure across the course. In a field of eleven J/22's, Kolleman Wouter's team ran the table, getting two first places.  It was difficult sailing, especially because sometimes the waves came from all sides. "It was a sloshing wave," says Kolleman. "This increased the difficulty. We do like a lot of wind, so we had no problems. But because he always had massive changes in wind strength, you had a lot of pressure and then suddenly no pressure. Usually we sail on inland lakes, but we are quite used to power sailing."

After the first day of sailing, it was quite the festive closing.  Entertaining musical performances by the bands "Kissing the Girl" and the "Crazy Pianos" with great spinning of disks by "DJ Ruben" later in the evening.  The sailors played late into the night enjoying the beautiful weather and a festive atmosphere.

The second day of inshore races were characterized by nearly perfect sailing conditions.  There was less wind than the day before, so there was less damages too! During the day the wind averaged 5-15 kts and was very shifty.  For the offshore classes, the second day was traditionally an offshore course around the buoys.  But, with lighter wind conditions that could die-off, the RC decided to hold only inshore races around the buoys.

For IRC 2/3, the J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER continued to dominate their class.  And in the one-designs, the J/22s saw Wouter's J/22 team rattle off a few more firsts to also consolidate their lead.  And, in the J/24 class, Erik Jeuring also posted some more firsts to extend their lead in their fleet.

One of the highlights of the second day was the J-Class RAINBOW visiting Delta Lloyd North Sea Regatta.  This forty-meter classic sloop went sailing Sunday, May 27th with guests from the Delta Lloyd North Sea Regatta.

On the final day of sailing, the shores were dense with fog hanging over the Hague without a breath of wind, forcing the RC to cancel sailing for the day.  As a result, the regata results for the first two days that included seven races counted for the final results.  Congratulations go out to the J/22 team of Wouter and the J/24 team of Jeuring for near perfect scores, winning their classes by significant margins.  Congratulations also go out to a phenomenal performance by the J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER team led by John Van de Starre and Robin Verhoef, winning the most competitive IRC division by a whopping 10.5 points, counting five 1sts in their scoreline.  Kudos also to the J/109 CAPTAIN JACK sailed by Bert Visser.  For more North Sea Regatta sailing information

J/22 Team Race- Sailing Report

St Francis YC J/22 Team Race Invitational "insider's view"- we received a great report from Nicole Breault, one of the winning skippers from StFYC from their escapades the past weekend team-racing against some of California's best sailors from San Francisco down to San Diego.  Nicole said,

"Last weekend the St. Francis Yacht Club hosted a team racing regatta for some incredibly talented teams from west coast clubs including San Diego YC, Seattle YC, and Newport Harbor YC. Racing was held in J/22s on the famed waters of the Golden Gate, right in front of the clubhouse, and we experienced the notorious winds and current of the Bay.

Of the two StFYC teams in the event, ours was pieced together only a week before by Scott Sellers. He had lost his other two crackerjack skippers to scheduling conflicts, and replaced them with me and Shawn Bennett. Shawn and I are pretty fast sailors, and have match racing backgrounds, but the amount of team racing we each had done in the past 20 years was minimal. Nevertheless armed with a positive attitude and a bunch of very capable people crewing for us, we headed into battle together.

Spectators on both Saturday and Sunday were treated to exciting action. There were dozens of tactical mark traps and hi-low plays that kept the racing close for the most part. In addition, much to the dismay of Diego (StFYC’s J/22 bosun), we had several spinnaker-clad broaches, including a full-on death roll capsize by Shawn!

After three round-robins, the top four teams moved into semifinal, first-to-two-wins series. Racing was amazingly tight in both brackets with San Diego prevailing over Seattle and our StFYC team (Red) edging out the other StFYC team (Blue). We were having a hard time believing at this point that we had sailed into the finals. There were so many All American caliber sailors on the race course… no doubt any of these teams could have won the event!

Ultimately, we split wins against San Diego in the finals and the regatta win came down to the last race between us and San Diego. I will remember that last race for a long time! We were mixing it up around the top of the course, and one of their guys fouled and had to spin. We looked good down the run, but Brian Hayes had plans for us at the leeward mark! He was in the one and pulled of a mark-trap that left us in four, five, and six, chasing with just the last beat to go! Luckily, we had a strong, flooding current to extend the sailing time of the leg… and the wind was both puffy and shifty. Shawn and crew tacked around the leeward mark and scooted left up the beat, heading into a lefty on the shore. Scott and I, and our crews, headed right and hitched into solid right pressure at the top of the beat. Their guys were stuck in the middle trying to cover. In the end, all boats converged across the finish line within seconds of one another. My boat got the one, Shawn’s boat tacked at the pin and spectacularly shot the line for the two, and Scott’s boat photo-finished with the others! Incredible!

Our hats go off to all the teams we raced last weekend. The tough, friendly competition was fantastic! Looking forward to the next chance to play!"   For more J/22 StFYC Team Race sailing information