Top Three Advance at U.S. J/70 Youth Championship

Newport, RI (August 12, 2017) – The second day of the U.S. J/70 Youth Championship started out with a forecast for light to medium winds from the southeast after an early morning Low passed over the region. Instead, early morning showers gave way to light fog, overcast skies, and a virtual glass-out across Newport Harbor.

At the 0900 team meeting, it was decided to postpone, again, on half-hour intervals until the forecasted wind would settle in. By 1100 hrs, the six boats set off from the docks to attempt a race. It never happened, and after waiting around for the breeze to increase, all six teams were towed back into the docks for a harbor postponement.

For the next few hours, teams played “cornhole”, tossed footballs and frisbees, or played games over the internet. By 2:30pm, it was clear the forecasted breeze from the southeast would finally settle in and at 3:00pm the AP pennant was lowered and the teams set out from the docks again for another attempt at completing a round-robin of nine races.

PRO Kevin Dooley made the wise choice to set the course near Fort Adams, placing the weather mark just 200 yards off Fort Adams’ point. The starting line was set in the vicinity of Rose Island. The breeze initially filled in from the southeast for the first three races, then slowly veered to the south/southwest for the last six races.

Starting around 3:30pm, PRO Dooley managed to fire-off nine races to complete a full second round-robin by 6:20pm on Saturday! No question, the youth teams were stoked that another full day’s of racing was completed, no one seemed to mind pushing hard to complete the round as everyone wanted to have a chance to sail.

As they had done on the first day, the Santa Barbara YC Youth Team, skippered by Lucas Pierce, won their first two races in convincing fashion, and closed the day with a steady 2-4-3-3 run to increase their overall lead to 12 points.

Moving forward to tomorrow, the top three teams (Santa Barbara, Severn Sailing, Sail Newport) have a “bye” in the morning as the four-race “repechage” round takes place for the bottom six teams. The top three of the repechage round then sail the five-race finale with the top three teams from the round robin to determine the winner of the inaugural championship.

Notably, all scores carry over to Sunday for the finale. The top three from Repechage advance with scores reset to their qualifying total from the two round-robins.

The forecast for tomorrow is again for light to moderate breezes from the west, slowly backing into the southwest as the sun and localized heating generate, hopefully, a modest seabreeze from the south/ southwest.

Racing concludes Sunday, August 13.

Day Two Results (12 races)
1. SBYC Youth Team, Lucas Pierce – 1 -2 -3 -1 -1 -5 -1 -1 -3 -4 -3 -3 ; 28
2. Severn Sailing Association Youth Team, James Golden – 2 -5 -1 -5 -5 -2 -5 -2 -4 -6 -1 -1 ; 39
3. Sail Newport Youth Team, Andrew Sheerin – -4 -2 -3 -6 -1 -6 -2 -5 -4 -1 -2 -5 ; 41
4. CRYC Youth Team, Ivan Shestopalov – 3 -3 -0 -1 -4 -2 -4 -6 -2 -1 -3 -6 -6 ; 41
5. Annapolis Yacht Club , Porter Kavle – 4 -1 -2 -2 -5 -5 -3 -3 -5 -2 -7 -4 ; 43
6. MudRatz, MudRatz Racing – 5 -7 -4 -0 -5 -3 -3 -5 -1 -5 -2 -3 -2 ; 45
7. Eastern Yacht Club Junior Team, Clark Uhl – 6 -3 -4 -1 -4 -1 -7 -6 -5 -1 -4 -4 ; 46
8. Little Traverse Yacht Club, Ian Beckley – -4 -5 -3 -4 -6 -2 -4 -4 -2 -5 -5 -3 ; 47
9. St. Pete Youth Sailing Team, Blaire McCarthy – -6 -6 -6 -2 -3 -6 -6 -5 -1 -4 -6 -3 ; 54

Event information – Race details – Results – Facebook

Bonus: The competing teams qualified for their sailing clubs in the hopes of winning one of the most unique prizes in the world of sailing – a FREE use of a J/70 for their sailing club for an entire twelve (12) months. The boat will be free to use for the youth keelboat program, for members to race in J/70 events, to introduce women sailors to the easy-to-sail J/70, etc.

Source: Stuart Johnstone