- Local News for Southern Sailors - May 2002 Next Story
Charleston hosts J/24 Nationals with southern charm
By Jim Kempert
"This is always a fun time. Everybody's anxious to go, and every one of them thinks they have a shot at it," said club commodore Ted Wickman. "We're really excited that this big of an event has come to Charleston. We're glad for the community. I'm really excited. But I'm sorry we ran out of beer."
Demeree Stone photo
With a very hospitable two volunteers for every boat (and plenty of beer), Charleston Yacht Club and J/24
Fleet 7 hosted the 2002 J/24 National Championships from April 11-13 on Charleston Harbor. The regatta attracted 52 boats from 17 states and Canada and coincided with the 25th anniversary of the J/24. Some of the top names in J/24 racing, including favorite Tim Healy, took on 11 local boats, strong currents, heavy air, and sporadic rain to compete for qualifying points for the next J/24 Worlds, scheduled for 2003 in the Netherlands. Along the way they enjoyed some good old-fashioned southern charm at the first Nationals hosted in Charleston.
It's a great regatta," said race judge Ernie Bain Jr. from California. "The hospitality is outstanding, and you can see that it is so well organized because of the number of boats that showed up."
Larry Flinn of New York, owner of Clearheader, agreed. "It's nicewe love it down here. We came in second at the Easter regatta and third at the NOODs, but this'll be fun," he said. "We're here basically to have fun and enjoy the hospitality."
University of Tennessee sailor Bobby Caytor, crew on Animal Hour, along with two other members of his school's team and two additional crew, had much the same perspective going into the weekend, although he seemed to be looking at the fleet from a different angle.
"We did 51st out of 52 last week, so we figure we can't do any worse," he said. "We're out here for fun."
The fun was certainly evident at meal times each night when local caterers dished out a range of treats from warmed brie en croute and other unpronounceables at Wednesday's reception, to a Low Country-themed awards dinner with frogmore stew and boiled peanuts. Oh, and there was the surprise birthday party complete with cake after Thursday's whole hog barbecue.
Much of the fleet assembled in the club's flag room Thursday night after the first day of racing to help J/Boats founder and J/24 designer Bob Johnstone sing happy birthday to everyone's favorite one-design keelboat.
Johnstone, who moved to Charleston in 1998 with his wife Mary, has been actively racing J/105s and his J/120 Gannett with the Charleston Ocean Racing Association in addition to keeping a hand on the tiller of J South, the
J Boats southeastern dealer.
Since this year marks the 25th anniversary of Bob and his brother Rod Johnstone's design of the boat that launched the company in 1977, a special J/24 cake was brought out after dinner. After Johnstone failed to blow out the gag flaming sparklers on top, he told a few stories about the birth of the boat and its early adventures.
"The scariest J/24 race I was ever in was the '79 Worlds in Newport," Johnstone said, referring to a now-famous low pressure system that hit the fleet with 45-knot winds before crossing the Atlantic and devastating the Fastnet race. "We all kept our spinnakers up, of course," he laughed. "We saw Bill Shore ahead of us try to jibe, and right when he did, he got hit with a puff and went right over. I said, 'It would be a good idea to drop the spinnaker before we try to jibe,' but Stu says, 'Bill Shore doesn't know how to jibe.' I don't think I've ever gone as fast on a J/24 as I did right before that jibe."
This year's teams didn't have to deal with anything quite so dramatic, but unseasonably cold and rainy weather did deliver winds averaging nine to 15 knots. The winds took some time building, and the race committee decided to postpone Wednesday night's scheduled tune-up race.
"There was wind enough," said Orange Crush crew Greg Siewert. "We're gonna be hurting tomorrow."
Thursday's gray skies didn't deliver much hurting for the first race when light winds and a flooding tide forced half the fleet over the line early. After a 90-degree wind shift and some apparent confusion on the part of the fleet as to the whereabouts of the committee boat's anchor line ("Pretty much anything they could hit, they did hit" said one official), the racing got underway on choppy seas with offshore winds in the low teens and gusting over 15 knots. It was very J-friendly conditions that would more or less hold steady until just before the final races on Saturday.
An offset buoy at the windward mark and a leeward gate kept the short windward/leeward courses relatively incident-free, but as the winds increased, so did the mistakes.
In race 2, Max Skelley's Fat Boyz port-tacked the fleet after a daring pin-end start and ended up several boat lengths in front of their nearest competitor after rounding the weather mark and sailing a clean downwind leg.
"Then we decided to throw the pole overboard at the leeward mark after rounding in front," said Skelley. "We went upwind, turned around, went back downwind against the current with no chute up, grabbed the pole, and were still first around our mark."
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Unfortunately for the Boyz, five or six boats rounded ahead of them on the other side of the gate during their interesting recovery maneuver.
The hurting was soon to follow as the fleet spread out, with local boats fighting especially hard to climb out of the bottom half of the early results.
"We dropped the spinnaker twice in a row on the first race and finished in the middle of the fleet," said a bruised Footloose foredeck crew Qamar Schuyler. Her crewmates' fourth-place finish in race two was the best result by a local boat, but inconsistent finishes later dropped them to 29th overall. Francisco Davila's Latte posted nine consistent finishes for 24th overall and claimed the best result by a local boat.
By Friday, the winds showed no sign of dropping, and the pain from cracked shins and elbows had spread to a few bruised egos.
"They're beautiful and fast, and they're a wonderful opportunity for crew, but they're freaking uncomfortable as hell," complained one local crew. "You see all these people walking around after the races with black and blue marks."
Johnstone, who no doubt has had his share of J/24-inflicted injuries, agreed with the hapless sailor's assessment. "It's a good fleet," he said. "If you look at the placing, you see how close they all are. I think it's great."
As the racing progressed through a hectic and tiring Friday and two anticlimactic drifters on Saturday, several other sailors took advantage of their recent experience to reflect on the proper methods for racing J/24s. Fat Boyz was riding a wave of clean starts to hold second place as of Friday night. Their tactician summed up their tuning strategy. "We had cheeks to the teak, max backstay, and max jib halyard," he said. "If you get the rig right and add a little local knowledge, you're all right."
Fat Boyz turned in two dismal light air finishes on Saturday and dropped to sixth overall. They did go home with their spinnaker pole firmly attached to the boat, however.
Tim Healey's Rhode Island-based team was rolling through the fleet with six consecutive top-six finishes, including three straight bullets, until a mistake in race seven cost them the championship.
"We were disqualified for touching the finish mark," Healey said. "The race committee protested us and had a witness. Obviously we didn't think that we did." He added, "It's a lesson learned. There's no question it was a close situation but there's no need for us to get into those situations."
Despite the 63-point DSQ (and no throwouts), Healey posted two more top-tens and finished fourth overall, ten points out of first.
Larry Flinn stumbled on some local knowledge in the form of a warning about nasty currents early in the regatta and apparently used it to pull off a first-place finish in race 8 that landed the New York-based Clearheader team in 13th overall.
"With these boats you only need one guy who knows what he's doing," Flinn said.
Bangor Packet of Washington, DC, was also able to move up on the closing day. Owner Tony Parker said his goal was to be the top amateur boat.
"There are a lot of very good professionals who sail these things all the time," he said while tired crews lowered masts all around him at the fleet raft-up docks in Charleston's Municipal Marina. "We made a couple of major mistakes and it cost us," he added. "The key to these races is getting a good start and sailing your own race. If you can get off the line cleanly, you can finish in the top ten." Bangor Packet's fourth-place finish in the last race moved them to seventh overall.
The view from the back seemed pretty much the same. "It's a very challenging fleet," said Neal Tonks, owner of local boat True Colors. "Yesterday we made one bad tack and that cost us 15 places."
Nevertheless, Tonks pulled off his best finish — a 36th — in the final race to move one spot up from last place.
Skipper Rudy Wolf and crew aboard the Canadian boat ING Direct took advantage of consistent top 10 finishes and the mistakes of others to move from third to first place overall on Saturday (despite never winning an individual race).
Their countrymen onboard Casper were disappointed with their overall results but said they'd gladly return to Charleston. That's no small praise considering the crew drove the boat 23 hours from Vancouver, Canada, to Southern California, then another 45 hours cross-country to South Carolina after finishing their last regatta days before in Ventura.
David Ford's Team Spirit from North Carolina was the only boat with an adjusted result Saturday. Ford said he asked for redress when he was scored differently by two judges in the preliminary results. A mob of about 20 boats crossed the line almost simultaneously in the last race.
"It was really not a big deal, but we wanted to go through the process to show that the process is fair," Ford said. "This is the first time I have ever asked for redress, but I felt it was important to show my 15-year-old son (foredeck Brennan Ford) that mistakes could be fixed. The judges, race committee, and all of the folks at the Charleston Yacht Club were gracious, proper and fun," he added.
Team Spirit trained for Nationals with a crew ranging in age from 12 to 58, but unfortunately had to leave the youngest, Morgan Ford, behind when the crew exceeded the 880-pound limit. "They're gaining weight so fast I can't lose it fast enough!" David Ford said.
Parker applauded the race committee as well. "They ran a good regatta in some challenging conditions," he said. "Especially in the last race with the current going out so hard. It's tough to start a fleet in those conditions, but when they went to the Z flag, everybody behaved."
J/24 Nationals Charleston Yacht Club Charleston Harbor, SC Apr. 11-13 After nine races/no throwouts top 30 of 52 boats) 1. ING Direct/Rudy Wolf 79; 2. Money Shot/Andy Horton 82; 3. Tribal Pleasures/Mark Hillma 84; 4. USA 5277/Tim Healy 89; 5. Brain Cramp/Mike Ingham 92; 6. Fat Boyz/Max Skelley 94; 7. Bangor Packet/Tony Parker 101; 8. Twins/Waldek Zaleski 114; 9. Tarheel/Paul Abdullah 122; 10. Spoilsport/Stuart Challoner 133; 11. Instant Karma/Joshua Kerst 142; 12. Yikes!/Eric Faust 160; 13. Clearheader/Larry Flinn 168; 14. Mr. Rainsinface/Bengt Johansson 168; 15. Bill Hooper 174; 16. Casper/Dave Willetts 180; 17. Pipe Dream/Scott Nixon 183; 18. Mammals Crew/Ross Griffith 188; 19. Pee Wee/Kiki Voss 189; 20. Party Reptile/Jim Farmer 191; 21. Elvis/Steven Lopez 193; 22. Slurred, not Spoken/Ken Gray 215; 23. Classic/James Howard 226; 24. Latte/Francisco Davila 237; 25. Eraserhead/Robert Matthews 243; 26. Tutakrnaut/Roger Dougal 244; 27. Camero Mullet/Fuller & Burnside 248; 28. Dimarian/Eric Gotwalt 253; 29. Footloose/Maarten Zonjee 262; 30. Turn & Burn/ Michael Foster 272 For full results, see www.charlestonyachtclub.com/j24.html |