Fleet Meeting May 8th
The next Fleet meeting is Thursday the 8th of May. North Lake Tavern on Northlake Way 6:00PM for pizza and beer or wine. Purpose of meeting is to meet the Fleet and to discuss the up coming NOOD regatta, J-Fest and race week.

Currently we have six boats signed up to do NOOD's. Pierre Martin's new boat MOJO will be arriving next week and may not be in the water in time for NOOD's but will be in time to do both J-fest and Race week if he wants to and has the time. Tom, Jim, Adam and Peter have not committed yet, but we are hopeful they will make a showing at all or some of these events. We currently anticipate 7 boats a J-Fest with Pierre, Jim, Adam and Peter - we could have 11 on the starting line - Which would be alot of fun!

Crew for the Thursday Meeting are welcome to come, so let them know!

| 01 May 2008 | 

PNW Champs notes from the Fleet Captain
This spring & summer we have lots of big events - NOOD in May - J-Fest in June and WIRW in July. We will have 6 Seattle/Tacoma boats at the NOOD and 7 at J-fest. Tom Niccoli (Pathfinder) can only do one of the two spring events. Seattle is looking forward to Astral Plane, Tippy and Diva joining use this May and June. We will either roll out the red carpet or roll you up in it - You choose!

Remember for One-Design races - NOOD & J-fest, the class will go with the Fleet 1 one-design configuration, Class Jib, 121m kite, and Class main. Jib will have to be furled, table in. V-berth door and cushions can be removed. The rest has to stay on board for racing. Each boat will be able to carry 2 Jibs and 2 spinnakers. We race with the same set of sails during a race. You can change to the other spinnaker for the next race or jib. If the jib or spinnaker is damaged during a race it can be replaced with the spare during the race. We hope to have all of the J/109s in the PNW racing these events - getting all for at least one event will be a major milestone. If you are from out of town and are planning to come this way let us know so we can work on housing.

| 03 March 2008 | 

PNW Season Opener: Blakely Rock Race Recap
Race report from Fleet 1 Captain Stuart Burnell (Tantivy):
The first race of the Center Sound Series is over! Tom Reinerston put to rest the use of the Genoa vs. the Jib. Surfer Girl (who would later drop out of the race) sailed a great race against J-Tripper, Tantivy and Shada during the 21 mile Blakely rock Race - Adam should remember this race as the last race at Grand Prix in November.

Only this year we had a light southernly. So we headed to the south first, rounding the mark to Starboard. Surfer Girl started closest to the committee boat (leaving it to Port) and lead the fleet to the beach. The fleet tacked off the beach - Shada tacked first she had started closest to the pin. J-Tripper tacked second followed by Tantivy and Surfer Girl. At that point Surfer Girl was about even with J-Tripper and at least two to three boat lengths ahead of Tantivy. She was using her Genoa and moving well, but in the 6 to 8 knots of breeze at the start she was only pulling away slowly from the fleet.

After exchanging tacks up the beach Surfer Girl and J-Tripper pulled away from Tantivy and Shada. As the wind changed up and down Surfer Girl continued to pull away from J-Tripper who was sailing very well. Surfer Girl rounded the Rock in first place by several boat lengths and on the run would be passed by J-Tripper. The wind died a long and slow death around 3:20 and would fill in from the North again around 4 in the afternoon. By then Surfer Girl and J-Tripper, who lead at the leeward mark, had again changed positions. J-tripper said that as the wind dropped below 6 knots the genoa allowed Surfer Girl to just pull way. Both J-Tripper and Surfer Girl finished before the wind died. In the end Tom withdrew as he was unaware that we were sailing as a one design class and were not permitted to use the genoa's. But it was a great test for the Genoa vs. Jib.

| 03 March 2008 | Results | 

Fleet meeting minutes, Feb 28th
A few orders of business were discussed relating to the PNW Championship event:

1) Moving the PNW Championship event from J/Fest to the NOOD regatta in May was discussed. The group decided to keep with the original plan of holding it coincident with J/Fest.

2) The Thursday "practice race" may include a dash over to Port Madison for a BBQ or pizza feed. Rick will look into the availability of the SYC outstation there for hosting. Since we will not be able to dock at the outstation, we will anchor/raft up in the harbor, and Bob Ross will dinghy us ashore.

3) Friday's race will be a middle distance race. The course will be set such that all competitors will be finished by 7pm.

We will have 4 boats participating this Saturday in the first Center Sound race, and 6 for each of the remaining two Center Sound races.

Jerry suggested we write up a piece for the national site about 3 of our 109's appearing in the 48 North Top 25. I'm happy to publish, but I don't have the details. Could someone give me some text to post?

Most of our time was spent eating pizza, drinking beer and swapping stories.

Good times - the sailing season is here!

| 03 March 2008 | 

Gaia world tour adventures continue
Phyllis has been updating the Gaia World Tour website with lots of entertaining stories. It sounds like they are having a phenomenal experience. It is well worth checking out what they've been up to!

| 27 February 2008 | Gaia World Tour website | 

Doc Holiday sold
At the fleet holiday party, Bob Ross announced that Doc Holiday (hull #43) has been sold. Bob anticipates that Doc Holiday will be raced, with the involvement of Bob Arney.

| 07 December 2007 | 

Fleet schedule updated
FYI - The fleet schedule for 2008 has been updated - select the "Schedule" link above to check it out.

| 06 December 2007 | 

J/109 Fleet 1 Holiday Party
All J/109 owners, crew and families are invited to Sail Northwest on Wednesday Dec 5th to celebrate another outstanding year of fleet #1! Sail Northwest will provide the food and drinks (and of course we will accept donations!). The fleet championship trophy will be presented to Stuart Burnell and the crew of Tantivy. The festivities will begin at 6pm. Please let Carol know if you will be able to attend and how many crew/family will be joining you!

| 13 November 2007 | Sail Northwest | 

Grand Prix provides mix of breeze, tight competition
In Seattle Yacht Club's traditional season-ending regatta, Adam Korbin's Astral Plane came back from a slow start to school the Seattle homeboys on their home turf.

Friday featured light breeze and a big spread in finish times - indicating there were some big wind holes on the course. Jeopardy overtook J-Tripper in the shadow of the finish line to win, but Astral Plane found themselves looking up the results list from last place.

But with the weekend the breeze arrived, and the fleet enjoyed mid-distance and bouy racing in 15-20 kts the rest of the way. Just as J-Tripper was hitting their stride, winning the first race Saturday, they bobbled in the second race, sending Rick Nordquist over the side in a downwind round-up. Happily, Rick was safely recovered and J-Tripper was able to finish the day. But they had to eat a last place finish as a result of the incident. In a great show of seamanship, the two closest 109's, Tantivy and Shada, stopped racing to assist, and were awarded redress based on their positions at the time of the MOB.

The points were tight to the end, but Astral Plane kept the hammer down and finished with 3 straight bullets to secure the regatta victory. J-Tripper, despite their downwind wobble held on for 2nd...probably leaving them thinking about what might have been. From all accounts, Saturday and Sunday made for spectacular sailing on the Sound, and a good time was had by all. The win by Astral Plane certainly sets them up as the odds-on favorite for next year's J/109 Pacific Northwest Championships.

| 06 November 2007 | Results | 

Fleet 1 Meeting Minutes - 10/25/2007
Attendees:
Bob Ross - SNW
Carol Reid - SNW
Bob Pistay - SNW
Dave Dack
Rick Nordquist
Stuart Burnell
Tom Niccoli
Jerry Woodfield
Craig Schulz

Meeting Minutes:
Fleet co-captain Dave Dack called the meeting to order at 6:34pm on 10/25/2007.

Fleet Champion 2007!
Stuart was roundly congratulated for winning.

Fleet holiday party & awards
The fleet holiday & awards party was planned as follows:
Date: Wednesday, December 5th, 6pm
Venue: Sail Northwest office @ Shilshole

New Fleet Captain
Stuart Burnell was unanimously voted Fleet Captain for 2008. Some discussion regarding Fleet Champion being automatically instated as Fleet Captain was tabled.

Grand Prix
If the J/109's get a class start, the preference was to use a #3 (class jib). The class will wait to see the class breaks before any decisions are made.

Pacific Northwest Championships
The event and logistics were discussed. It was noted that the promotional bit was included in the J/109 electronic newsletter sent out earlier in the month. Some decisions:

* SNW will produce all racing documents including the NOR & SI's, along with the J/Fest documents.
* Dave will gauge intererest and look into a Mariners game as a social event for Thursday evening.
* Alternative Thursday event will be a pizza party & chalk talk at SNW's Shilshole office.
* Thursday practice race is planned for a 5pm start. Bob Ross will evaluate and recommend RC possibilities.
* Friday racing will be bouy racing, with a 1pm first warning and a goal of getting two races in. Ideally racing will be concluded by ~6pm.
* Stuart is in charge of arranging a trophy.
* Billeting options are available with Stuart, Dave, Jerry & Tom (at least).

2008 Fleet Championship Schedule
Bob Ross indicated that the traditional SOCKS regatta in May will be replaced by a NOOD event. The fleet agreed to add the NOOD event to the Fleet Championship schedule, and keep all other events intact. There was discussion of changing the fleet championship scoring, allowing for some regattas to be weighted more than others. But the scoring changes discussion was tabled, and the Fleet Championship scoring will remain the same.

Misc
There was much follow on discussion about regattas and boat items over beer.

| 26 October 2007 | 

Tantivy wins 2007 Fleet #1 Championship!
With just a two point lead over J-Tripper and Shada going into the last event of the series, Tantivy finished strong to secure the 2007 Fleet #1 Championship. Unlike previous years, CYC Seattle's PSSC regatta went off with a whimper, featuring fog and light to non-existent breeze. The race committee only got one race completed for the J/109 class, with Tantivy picking up the win, the PSSC title, and the Fleet Championship in that one race. Sources report that Tantivy passed two boats on the final beat to grab the victory. Congratulations to Stuart and crew on Tantivy!

The points spreadsheet is available under the "Fleet Documents" link above.

| 15 October 2007 | 2007 Fleet 1 Season Championship Standings (Final) | 

Fleet 1 Meeting Minutes - 9/13/2007
Attendees:
Dave Dack
Rick Nordquist
Stuart Burnell
Tom Niccoli
Jerry Woodfield
Tom Reinertson
Eric Fitzgerald
Craig Schulz

Meeting Minutes:
Fleet co-captain Dave Dack called the meeting to order at 7:20pm on 9/13/2007.

Fleet championship events:
Remaining fleet championship events were discussed: Star & Bar, NW Harvest, PSSC. Dave reminded everyone about the class rule about only extending the sprit after the bow passes the weather mark. There was some discussion about how to score multi-day events in the fleet championship, but no changes were made. Further changes will be discussed at the annual meeting in January.

Tantivy will not be doing NW Harvest, as it conflicts with the event around Bainbridge Island.

PNW Championship:
We will be holding the Pacific Northwest Championship coincident with J/Fest in Seattle. Stuart Burnell is regatta chairman. Dave will look into class sanctioning of the event with Rick Lyall. Tom N. will submit an announcement to the J/109 class newsletter (done). Stuart will contact potential racers from Canada. A further meeting will be arranged in October to plan and assign tasks (NB – this has been arranged for October 25th, 6pm @ Northlake Tavern). Entertainment will leverage the J/Fest program, but we will need to arrange for Thursday evening festivities. Class rule exceptions will include spinnaker size. Billetting arrangements will be made on an as-needed basis. We will need to procure a perpetual trophy, and figure out if this is an every other year event, and also how we can better involve our Canadian friends.

Fleet Articles update:
Tom raised the issue that our Fleet Articles of Association need to be updated to reflect changes that were made to the Class rules in 2006. Stuart Burnell volunteered to review proposed updates. The updates will be presented to the fleet for approval at the next Fleet meeting. The updates will be posted to the class website prior to the fleet meeting.

Much pizza and beer was consumed, and lots of sailing-related discussion ensued.

| 21 September 2007 | 

J/109 Pacific Northwest Championship -- June 11-15, 2008
Fleet #1 is pleased to announce the first J/109 Pacific Northwest Championship Regatta. The event will include 3 days of buoy racing, and even more nights of parties. The event will be held in Seattle, WA on Shilshole Bay. The rough schedule includes registration and the opportunity to race against the local fleet Wednesday June 11th, registration and a practice race on June 12th, followed by 3 days of racing June 13th through June 15th. This regatta will be run in conjunction with Sail Northwest’s legendary J/Fest regatta (June 14th & 15th), so there will be no shortage of fun festivities, and you can expect expert race management. For further information and logistics questions contact regatta chairman Stuart Burnell. The NOR and other regatta documents will be posted on the fleet website (http://www.j109.org/fleet1) in the next few months.

| 18 September 2007 | 

Gaia world tour!
Bob Riggle is heading out soon on his world tour in Gaia, J/109 hull #56. You can follow the action and adventures at www.gaiaworldtour.net.

We all wish Bob and Phyllis fair winds and following seas!

| 10 September 2007 | Bob's world tour site | 

J/109 PNWC 2008 Discussions
The fleet is currently discussing hosting J/109 Pacific Northwest Champs in 2008. Options presented are to piggy-back on either J-Fest (mid-June) in Seattle or Whidbey Island Race Week (mid-July). If J-Fest is used, then the racing days would be extended to Fri-Sun or possibly Thurs-Sun. Stuart Burnell (Tantivy) & Dave Dack (J-Tripper) are facilitating the discussion. Contact either of them if you have interest or input (contact info is in the fleet roster on this site).

| 09 August 2007 | 

View from the Winner's Circle with Adam Korbin

Adam was kind enough to do an email interview about his success at WIRW. Here it is:

Editor (ED)> Congratulations Adam on a big win!

Adam (AK)> Thanks for the congratulations. We didn’t know what to expect at Whidbey, being our first time there. We are obviously very happy with the result.

ED> What sails did you use (brand, sail loft)? Genoa specs? From pictures it looked like you didn’t use roller-furling for the genoa – was that an advantage?

AK> Astral Plane has Quantum sails from the Vancouver loft. We were running two genoas at Whidbey; a light carbon/kevlar #1 and slightly smaller heavy Kevlar #1. The heavier sail is stiffer and flatter so we could carry a #1 into the 14 knot puffs. We do not furl our headsail so that we can peel sails easily using an alternative forestay track and halyard..

ED> Did you get new sails for the event?

AK> The light #1 was a brand new sail for Whidbey.

ED> Rig tune: did you go by your sailmaker’s tuning guide, or something else?

AK> I haven’t touched the rig since it was originally set up. We used local knowledge to set the boat up for light Vancouver breeze. We did suffer a bit with this rig set-up at Swiftsure, but overall it does the job in the PNW.

Ed> Tell us a bit about your team (how long you’ve sailed together, experience, key players)?

AK> Much of our success at Whidbey was due to excellent crew work. Most of the crew has been on the boat for at least 6 months. It was helpful to have our sailmaker, Dave Cross from Quantum onboard. For many on the crew the incentive to race fast was so that they could get into the rum tent early.

ED> What were your keys to victory?

AK> We just followed the fundamentals: good crew work, good sails, clean bottom and eyes on the race course looking for wind shifts. We tried to get good starts but that didn’t quite pan out. I believe we were over early in three races and had to re-cross the line.

ED> How did you accomplish them?

AK> We are running a fairly busy racing program in Vancouver with Wednesday, Thursday and weekend races. The boat is gets a dived every week and I try to maintain the running rigging.

ED> Any memorable boat-on-boat action that made a difference for you?

AK> The competition at Whidbey was really challenging. We had to sail through the fleet after a few bad starts and a lot of our gains were made at the mark roundings. There are some really good pictures of Astral Plane and Shada approaching the windward mark. We had a really fun downwind drag race with Tantivy. One area I need to improve on is learning how to pass boats downwind.

ED> Any observations about the rest of the fleet (especially the other 109’s)?

AK> In my experience having a very good main sail trimmer makes a huge difference; especially at the top of the wind range of the genoa. The boat loves to point, but the main has to be set just right to optimize point and speed while playing the puffs. A good main trimmer can keep the helm happy and boat moving fast.

ED> What are the prospects for the 109 fleet in BC?

AK> We have four J109s in BC. Unfortunately we don’t see them on the race course very often. We race with Tippy on Wednesday nights at Royal Vancouver Yacht Club.

ED> What is your schedule for the rest of the season? Any interest in any of the Seattle events (particularly Puget Sound Sailing Championships - PSSC)?

AK> We will be racing on the August long weekend at Cow Bay regatta on Vancouver Island, then the boat will be back in Vancouver for Wednesday, Thursday and Vancouver Area Racing Council races on weekends until October. Astral Plane won the 2006 winter Hot Rum series last year and we plan on defending our title in 2007. I would really like to participate in more class racing, but Seattle is a long delivery for us. Hopefully we’ll be down for J-Fest and Whidbey next year.

ED> Any other comments about the event, conditions, the RC, fleet?

AK> I have to say the Seattle organizers and RC did an amazing job. This was one of the best run regattas I have ever attended. The committee placed excellent courses and laid very square starting lines. Also the members of the Oak Harbour yacht club were very hospitable to our crew. I really look forward to spending my summer holidays at Whidbey next year.

Regards,
Adam Korbin

| 01 August 2007 | 

WIRW Final: Astral Plane takes first!
Congratulations to Adam Korbin & team on Astral Plane, who closed the deal at Whidbey Island Race Week, handily beating some of Seattle's best 35' keelboats in the process.

J/109 Fleet 1 results:
1st - Astral Plane
5th - Tantivy
6th - Shada
9th - Jeopardy
11th - Surfer Girl

| 30 July 2007 | Results | 

Astral Plane leading the way at WIRW
Adam Korbin and crew are leading the very good "P2" PHRF fleet at Whidbey Island Race Week. The results show very tight racing between 5 J/109's, 3 J/35's, 3 Express 37's, and one C&C 115. Astral Plane is going into the final day of racing with a 4 point lead over Brian Watkins' Express 37 "Declaration of Independence". Brian is one of the best sailors in the Seattle fleet (a former SYC sailor of the year), and it is impressive to see him in Astral Plane's rear view mirror. Other J/109 standings: Tantivy is in 4th, Shada in 6th, Jeopardy in 9th and Surfer Girl in 11th.

| 27 July 2007 | Current standings | 

Fleet documents now available
We have new functionality on the site to post fleet documents. So I've posted both our "Articles of Association", as well as a spreadsheet calculating our Fleet Championship standings. You can access the documents via the "Fleet Documents" link at the top of this page. Note that the Articles of Association should probably be updated to reflect class rule changes that have taken effect over the last year.

| 28 June 2007 | 

Tantivy wins J/Fest with straight bullets!
In light to moderate conditions, Stuart Burnell and Tantivy set a torrid pace with a perfect 1-1-1-1-1 score line. Shada put in a solid performance for second, and J-Tripper chimed in with a third, despite basically missing a race while having lunch. Shada's white spinnaker sporting a large pelican graphic was a beautiful sight. Judging by the smiles in the bar, a good time was had by all.

Tantivy's dominating performance earned them the FRANCIS L. LESOURD CUP ("Best Performance Overall") presented to the regatta's top performing boat across all classes.

Two other J/109's took part in the J/Cruising class, with Gaia taking a 3rd place in very testing Puget Sound convergence zone conditions.

Congratulations to Stuart Burnell and crew for an outstanding performance, and congratulations to the J/109 fleet for a tight, competitive show.

| 18 June 2007 | 

Fleet Championship Scoring Notes
To clarify the scoring for the 2007 Fleet #1 Season Championship, here are the notes from the meeting at which the topic was discussed:

"Each event will be scored as a single score; individual races within an event will not used to calculate fleet championship scores. Center Sound Series will count as 3 events, with the worst score of the 3 being discarded. An additional discard will also be used."

| 12 June 2007 | 

Fleet Meeting and Winetasting this Friday
We will be getting together on the Friday prior to J/Fest to swap stories (Stuart can share Swiftsure stories) and sample some wine provided by Sail Northwest.

Date/Time: June 15th @ 7pm
Location: CYC Shilshole Clubhouse

See you there!

| 12 June 2007 |