Wouter has requested a race report from the J/24 monoslug regatta over Easter weekend in Columbia, SC. We had the same sort of wind conditions that you guys had for Spring Fever, 70 degree windshifts, 0-18 knots. All sorts of fun.



This is one of the best attended J/24 races in the SE. It drew 55 boats this year, up from 43 last year. The class nationals are over in Charleston this year and I think that the spike is due to folks racing this on the way over there. Anyway, 55 boats is a damn lot of boats on the line and always makes the first windward mark rounding very interesting. Course is two laps around a windward/leeward course with a mid-course start finish.



Friday-

Postponed for two hours past the noon warning signal since the water was a mirror. R/C finally saw some wind up the lake and off we went. We got a reasonably clean start in the light wind and were about 20th when we hit the starboard layline on the first beat. We had to overstand a good bit to stay out of the gas and ended up taking the long way around a bunch of boats at the mark and moved up into top 10. We rounded the last leeward mark in 6th, saw breeze on the right and went out wiht the rest of the guys to get it. Sailed into big hole. Breeze filled in on left wiht BIG shift, following boats rounded the mark, went left for about 10 boatlengths, then popped chute to reach to finish. Finally, got the breeze and finished 21.



Saturday.

First race, same thing as before, decent start, got to ww mark, sailed around the top of everyone and got away from the main pack. No windshifts, finished 9th.



Second race. Wind had built, so we did a sail change down to the little jib. Wind slacked near ww mark, we got hurt having the small sail, but came out ok, by following our recipe of rounding high at ww mark. Unfortunately, the wind was filling in on the other side of hte course and we had to gybe and sail below the mess. That hurt and we finished 20-something.



Sunday-

Sat around on boat for 1.5 hours waiting for wind to fill. Finally did. We had two great starts, both called back for general recall. On the third start, we stupidly allowed Tim Healy (North Sails Pro-guy) to get to windward of us. He rolled us right at the start leaving us at a dead stop. Then everybody who'd been following him around rolled us too. We finally got off the line 2nd to Last. It sucked. We picked up a few boats and finished 41st.



Overall, we finished 21. Compared to last year's 32 of 43, this was a big success for our 1 year old team.



I know, these aren't cats, but if you like to race, the J/24 class is awesome in it's parity of speed and size of fleet. I highly recommend you try to crew on a boat if you have the opportunity.



Jeff.