"It's only Rock n Roll" wins 1st annual PNW Championship
Bob Arney & crew on "It's only Rock n Roll" won the J/109 Pacific Northwest Championship regatta, held in conjunction with J/Fest in Seattle. They overtook Jim Prentice's "Diva" in the standings in the last race, to win by 2 points. Stuart Burnell's "Tantivy" placed third. It was a tight regatta all around, with only 16 points separating 1st through 8th after 5 races. After dealing with fickle wind all weekend, the breeze filled in to a steady 10 knots Sunday afternoon, allowing the RC to get 4 races off. Those that were able to get to the favored side were generously rewarded, and flyers were punished severely. The racing was pretty exciting, as any boathandling mistakes meant losing places and the pack was always tight. And for a pleasant Seattle surprise, there was sunshine all weekend, so all the crews were looking pretty tanned and happy at the awards presentation.
| 16 June 2008 | Results |
Tantivy gets NOOD
In very competitive racing in the first ever Seattle Sperry Topsider NOOD Regatta, Stuart Burnell and crew aboard Tantivy pulled off a 1 point win over J-Tripper (Dave Dack & Rick Nordquist) and Astral Plane (Adam Korbin). J-Tripper and Astral Plane tied on points (11), with tiebreakers giving J-Tripper second. Shada (Jerry Woodfield) was in the mix all weekend and ended up fourth with 13 points. The racers were treated to “champagne sailing” for the first two days of the regatta – steady breeze in the 12-15 knot range, and lots of sunshine with temperatures in the 80’s. For Seattle, this was very unusual weather – typically stronger breeze in Seattle is driven by passing weather fronts, and accompanied by rain. One veteran Seattle sailor commented that in 30+ years of sailing on Puget Sound, he had never encountered such perfect sailing conditions on consecutive days.
The racing was very competitive, as evidenced by first place finishes spread across the top 4 boats of the 7 boat fleet. New sails were flashing out all over the place, a healthy indication of how seriously the fleet was taking this regatta. J-Tripper started strong and finished Friday with a slim lead over Shada, Astral Plane & Tantivy. But with a throwout coming, everyone was still in the mix. The second day provided perfect conditions for the race committee to get off 3 more races, with the primary difference being that the wind was now coming from the south instead of the north. Even with relatively stable breeze, the fleet had to deal with the well known but not well understood “rivers” of current that Puget Sound offers up. Tantivy made a big move on Saturday with a 2-2-1 scoreline to take the lead going into the last day. Astral Plane checked in with a bullet and continued their consistently strong performance, and J-Tripper came back to the field a bit with some spinnaker hoist & navigational “issues”. Shada stayed in the mix, but couldn’t quite break through for the really low scores that the top 3 were collecting. Most of the roundings were crowded but orderly and some of the finishes were so tight that the finishers were unsure of the actual finishing order across 3 boats! Sunday broke with more sunshine but less wind, setting up some tense times for those battling for the silver. The race committee on the north circle got one race started, but abandoned midway through as they recognized that the breeze had turned extremely fickle. It was generally recognized that it would not have been a fair test, and it would have been a shame to decide such a brilliant regatta with “lottery” conditions. In the end, the north circle RC was unable to get another start in on Sunday, leaving the Saturday results intact.
There are some great photos on the Sailing World site, especially of those handsome grey-beards on J-Tripper! Look for them in the July/August Sailing World issue. They are also featured in the on-line regatta write-up.
A special thanks goes to Astral Plane for travelling down from Vancouver, Canada, and also to Jeopardy for making the trip up from Tacoma.
Full results can be found here.
| 21 May 2008 | Results |
Fleet meeting minutes: May 8, 2008
Owners attending: Stuart Burnell, Tom Niccoli, Dave MacLean, Jerry Woodfield, Ed Pinkham
Meeting Minutes:
Fleet 1 Articles of Association
Hard-copies of the proposed changes to the Fleet Articles of Association were distributed to owners. There was some discussion around the “owner-driver” rule, with the conclusion that the existing Class Rule is acceptable as-is. No vote was taken on the proposed changes, as this will be taken up at our next Fleet meeting. Members were encouraged to review the changes.
It was pointed out that our current Fleet Articles modify the Class Rules to allow owners to remove ALL cushions from the boat for racing. Not everyone knew this. There is no plan to modify this with the proposed updates to the Fleet Articles either.
NOOD Measurement
Discussion was raised regarding “measurement” for the NOOD regatta. Tom Niccoli was appointed as Measurer for the event, since he is not participating in the event. Measurement will take place Thursday evening, May 15th. All class participants will be spot-checked for conformance. Sails will not be measured, since it is impractical. Sails that don’t have class tags from the sail maker will need to conform based on the “honor system”.
The goal of the measurement is to ensure the yachts are as closely matched as reasonably possible for one-design competition. Items that will be reviewed will include (but are not limited to):
• Table installed
• Aft doors installed
• Stove installed
• Propane tank on board (can be empty)
• Batteries in place
• Roller furling gear in place
• In-haulers are not allowed
• Sail tags will be noted
Tom will arrange inspection with the owner or an owner’s representative, as access to the yacht will be required. Inspection should take approximately 5-10 minutes.
Class Sails
Stuart raised the question about allowing genoas for class racing. Concern was expressed regarding “what size”, as everyone has a different sized genoa. Roller furling the genoa would also impact the sail design, so a decision would have to be made regarding whether to require roller furling or not. The issue was tabled with no action taken.
Misc.
Beer and pizza were excellent as usual, and Bob Pistay provided good insights on sail design issues.
| 09 May 2008 |
Proposed Updates to Fleet Articles Posted
You can find the proposed updates to the Fleet Articles of Association posted in the Documents section. The primary goal of the updates is to conform the Fleet Articles to the National Class rules. The updates are proposed by the Fleet Secretary (Tom Niccoli) and have been preliminarily reviewed by Fleet Captain Stuart Burnell. These updates will be distributed in hard copy at tonight's fleet meeting. Please review the changes and provide feedback. We will take up the matter of adopting the updates at the next fleet meeting, pending feedback collected during the review period. I don't think the updates will be controversial (they are primarily clerical in nature), but please do review the updates.
| 08 May 2008 |
UPDATE: Membership dues issue
Please note that paying your dues on-lilne via the PayPal link may not work properly. Apparently the payment link directs renewing members to a PayPal account set up by the previous class Treasurer Barry Gold. I am in the process of figuring out what to do about my own on-line payment. I'll update you with the outcome when I have one.
Note: The form for printing and mailing (along with a check) is here: http://www.j109.org/j109memb.php.
| 05 May 2008 |
Annual Dues Reminder for 2008
Normally you don’t have to log in to the national class site to access the content there. But I recently did (to access the technical advisory documents available only to members), and was “reminded” that my dues were not up to date.
So I went ahead and paid on-line (via PayPal). I then checked and noticed that only a minority of our fleet is up-to-date on their national association dues, which are $50 per year. For those who are wondering how to get up-to-date, you can pay on-line via PayPal here as follows:
• Renewing members: http://www.j109.org/oldregister.php
• New members: http://www.j109.org/newregister.php
Once your contact info is confirmed, you’ll be taken to a payment page. On that page, your options include a PayPal link, or printing out a form for sending in a check.
Note that even if you’ve paid via PayPal, your registration information will take some time to be reflected on the web site. I renewed several days ago, and it still shows me as only having paid through 2007. Membership status for our fleet can be viewed here: Fleet Roster
| 02 May 2008 |
