J/70 Twilight racing

Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron hosted four nights of twilight sprint racing in early December as a warm up event for the J/70 NSW State Championships.  There were four races a night each approximately 20 minutes long for a total of 16 races.

Evening one, was a solid 18 to 20 knots from the NNE.  Steve Proud’s Swish won the first race by 5 seconds from Reg Lord’s new Juno on her maiden sail.  Onboard Juno as the mainsheet trimmer was Australian Sailing Squad member Finn Alexander.  22 seconds behind in third was RSYS Squadron Keelboat Program sailors Max Paul, Brooke Wilson, Campbell Paton and Zac West sailing Jabberwocky kindly provided by owner Andrew Tompson who was not able to race himself. In 4^th was Karyn Gojnich’s Jabiru 12 seconds further back followed 5 seconds later by Steve Brady’s Yknot.

Race 2 the Swish team crossed 4 seconds ahead of Jabberwocky, followed by Yknot then Jabiru.  Some teething problems with new systems onboard saw Juno retiring for the evening racing during race 2.

Race 3 Swish was the next casualty breaking their rudder and forced to retire and get a tow back to shore.  Jabberwocky took the win followed by Jabiru and YKnot.

Race 4 Jabberwocky won again, Yknot next then Jabiru.  All teams were getting a good work out and coordinated crew work was making the difference between teams.  The course was two laps, including two spinnaker sets and two drops.  Downwind boats were hitting 13 – 14 knots and the race committee was rolling straight into the next race with a 3 minute start sequence.

Evening two, was equally as challenging as thunder and lightning rolled in from the north west at the same time boats were leaving the dock. Swish was back with boat repairs handled earlier in the day by Woulfe and Woulfe and a borrowed rudder thanks to Juno.  The fleet was also joined by Sandringham Yacht Club’s Brendan Lee onboard Madness with Adam Keyes-Tilley, Daniel Abbas and Murray McDonald.

Jabiru and Madness opted to wait the storm out and missed race 5 as bolts of lightning appeared to be striking Cremorne and Mosman but were probably further north around Terry Hills.  By the start of race 6 the breeze was back in from the northeast again between 15 and 20 knots providing some more spectacular downwind rides.  Juno took the first race of the day, the next was won by Swish, third race of the day was won by Jabberwocky and the final race by Swish.  The racing was close with less than 30 seconds separating the front of the fleet from the back.

Evening three was sailed in shifty southeast breezes around 10 to 12 knots. Evening four was lighter again from the northwest.  Both nights saw big gains and big losses through out each race with positions changing regularly.  Each boat in the fleet managed a race win as well as a finish at the back end of the fleet.

Overall the event was a great warm up for all crews for the NSW State Championships.  Congratulations to Max Paul (AUS1129) and his crew on Jabberwocky for winning the series.

Results HERE