This past week was an epic one for offshore racing. In just over ten days, the Chicago to Mackinac Island race finished (Chicago, IL to Mac Is, MI on Lake Michigan- 289.4nm), the Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race finished (Port Huron to Mac Is, MI on Lake Huron- 255.0nm), and the 50th Transpac Race finished- 2,225.0nm! And, in Europe, the RORC’s Cowes-Dinard-St Malo 165.0nm race finished in St Malo, France! That is a lot of offshore racing, nearly 3,000nm worth of enjoying spectacular sunrises, sunsets, and watching playful dolphins/ porpoises jumping in your bow wakes. In all of those races, J/Teams collected plenty of silverware. A J/121 and a quartet of J/125s hammered their classes in the Transpac, with J/125s going 1,2,4,5 Overall! In the Mac Races, the J/121 podiumed both times, winning the Bayview Mac in their class; so did J/105s, J/109s, a J/99, J/111s, and so forth.
Two very cool, fun, sociable “J/Fests” took place on either side of the Big Pond- the Atlantic Ocean. The largest- J/Cup U.K.- took place on the Solent off Hamble, England, hosted by the Royal Southampton YC. Sailing were J/70s, J/80s, J/88s, J/92s, J/105s, J/109s, J/111s and J/122s. Over in Canada, the Royal Canadian YC hosted the J/Fest Great Lakes off their extraordinary facility in Toronto, Ontario for a PHRF Class and one-design fleets of J/105s, J/27s and J/80s. South of them, the New York YC hosted their 175th Anniversary Regatta off Newport, RI for offshore yachts that included J/105s, J/109s, J/120s, J/111s, and J/44s. Off to the west, the Santa Barbara YC hosted their annual Fiesta Cup Regatta in the Channel Islands Channel for fleets of J/70s and J/111s. Finally, J/Teams enjoyed a rather hot and steamy Screwpile Lighthouse Challenge Regatta on the Chesapeake Bay for J/111s, J/105s, J/109, J/70 and so forth.
Over in Spain, 80-plus teams from nine nations sailed the J/80 World Championship off Getxo/ Bilbao, Spain. As usual, there was intense competition between the top French and Spanish teams for the coveted top spots on the podium.