J/World Racing Week Report

Racing weeks at J World are a fantastic way to advance your racing skills and get ready to be more competitive in your local fleet.  These five day programs cover a tremendous amount of information, from sail trim and boathandling to strategy and tactics.  We just finished up another great week at our Puerto Vallarta location.   While the season is wrapping up down south, we’ll be offering theses sessions into the summer at our San Diego and San Francisco locations.

Here are some shots from the week we just wrapped up…

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Thanks everyone for joining us in beautiful Puerto Vallarta.  We anticipate great things for each and every one of this group!  Unsolicited testimonials from this group:

  • “Had an awesome week.  It was nice to build confidence in the things I did know, and experience the things I didn’t in an on-water learning environment rather than during a race.”
  • “Thanks for a great week!  Your coaches did a terrific job. In Chris’ words, ‘best learning experience I’ve ever had, a coach on each boat giving instant feedback’.”

Don’t miss out on your chance to learn the ropes.  You can read all the books you want and spend years of trial-and-error sailing without nearly achieving the results of five days with J/World.  You spent a lot of money on that smooth bottom and those hi-tech sails.  For a fraction of that, we can get you smarter and faster.  J World has some of the best coaches in the world, and have coached tens of thousands of sailors over more than three decades.  Check out our what our clients have had to say about the best sailing program available here, and more info on our racing courses is here.

All the best,

Wayne Zittel and the J/World Team

 

2015 Banderas Bay Clinic & Regatta Wrap Up

Ed. Note:  Ok, it’s been entirely my fault that this post lingered for a month.  Patrick reported on the great time had by all, but yours truly has been otherwise distracted and let it slip through the cracks.  Sorry, everyone.   A huge thank you to coaches Patrick and Debby for a great week!  FYI, if this sounds fun, we still have a couple spaces in our San Diego Yachting Cup Clinic and Regatta in a couple weeks…

 

Our location in Puerto Vallarta kicked off March with a fantastic racing course tied into the Banderas Bay Regatta, hosted by the Vallarta Yacht Club. With six people in the clinic, we were able to fill two J/80s (J/World Red and J/World Blue), with an instructor on each. We had three full teaching/coaching days on the water followed by a lay-day to rest up for the three-day regatta which brought great – but challenging – conditions. We had fleet of five boats in our class (three J80s, a J/24, and an Express 27), and even though we were all within a few feet of each other length-wise, the ‘others’ had pretty unbeatable ratings.

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Day one of the regatta (Thursday) saw winds around 8 knots at the 1pm start, and with some interesting cloud formations, something weird was bound to happen. The race committee sent us off on an 11.5 nm Olympic-style triangle course. The first three legs had great breeze, complete with a tight reach out to the triangle mark, on which the bolder boats flew kites. We started to see a persistent shift to the left that started to die on the fourth leg. That became a very long beat, with a lot of mode changing. We were desperately hoping for a shortened course, which they finally succumbed to. After sitting for too long but trying to stay focused, there was a 12-15 knot breeze that came out of the northwest and shot everyone over the line. The boats on the right came out on top, and the JWorld boats took a 3 and a 4, with a last-leg lead change from Red to Blue!

Day two was much closer to a ‘normal’ day on Banderas Bay, which it 10-15 knots out of the west, sunny, and unbelievably gorgeous sailing conditions. The only downside was a little bit of leftover swell out of the northwest, which made port tack pretty bouncy and un-favored. The RC sent our class out on a 9.1 nm windward-leeward course. Our J/World Red boat led most of the fleet the whole day, with the exception being the Express 27…  man, were they fast! Unfortunately, ‘the others’ still got us in corrected time, but it was fun to have both J/World boats so close! We were both tied for third with seven points after day two.

Day three was a gorgeous day. Sunny, ideal wind, and relatively flat water—perfect. We had the same course as the previous day, and J/World Blue took the early lead off of the start line and did not give it up the whole day! With an oscillating breeze, it was fun to work on playing the shifts while keeping loose covers. Even though the other boats were having slow days, they still got us by corrected time.

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In the end, J/World Blue took the hardware home, but after so much learning went on throughout the week, really everyone was a winner! We cannot wait until next year! Big thanks to the VYC, but even more so to our clients that made this possible for us—what a great group!

Patrick and the J/World Team

 

Torn and frayed… but oh so happy!

2015 Newport to Cabo Race Wrap Up

Last week, team J World participated in the Newport to Cabo Race aboard our turboed 50 footer Hula Girl, with a crew comprised of three coaches and six clients.

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We stated off close hauled, working south and away from the coast, with breezes generally light and variable.  In the evening, as we got south of Camp Pendleton and down to San Diego, the breeze went soft.  The first night was a huge challenge for a group trying to learn how to sail a boat new to them.  The winds were from all over the place, rarely over a couple of knots, and it was dark (a sliver of a moon was mostly obscured by clouds).

In the morning at roll call, I have to say that I wasn’t terribly surprised that many of the other teams had put some miles on us.  The level of talent out there was very high, and most of these teams have sailed together (and done this race) many many times, so our work was cut out for us!  So as the westerly filled mid morning and we got moving southward again, we had some distance to make up.  But we were ready for the challenge (and Jimmy “goose eggs” really wanted to shake his new nickname).

The breeze built nicely, approaching 20 knots.  In the evening, we decided to shift down to a smaller, stronger spinnaker and changed to the 4A.  Good thing, too, as the breeze continued to build.  By around midnight or 1am, we were seeing 25 knots, with the occasional spike to 28, even 30+ a couple times.  It became a wild ride….  and we almost kept the wheels on the wagon.  Almost.  Right at daybreak, we wrapped our brand new 4A around the headstay.  In the effort to get it off, we lost the tail of the mainsheet, complicating the process.  In time, we got the mainsheet re-run, then manually unwrapped the spin from the headstay.  Unfortunately, the sail was torn, and the headstay crushed.  Argh.

So we sailed under main alone to recover, clean up, and consider options.  We set the 3A spinnaker which was less than ideal, but our only real option.  That lasted most of the day, until we blew that sail up too.  Double Argh.  So trailing our fleet with no heavy air spinnakers, we decided not to try our luck with a light air one going into Monday night (wind still 25 knots), and we could not even raise a jib due to the crushed headstay, so we limped along, main only, waiting for the breeze to lessen a bit.

By first light on Tuesday, we were down to 18-20 knots of breeze, so it was back up with the lighter 2A.  The sailing from then on was just perfect.  Everyone aboard got a ton of helm time with the detailed coaching from Jasper and Andrew.  So while yours truly was frustrated at our overall position, I have to say that looking around the cockpit and seeing all smiles was a thing of great beauty.  Thanks team for helping me keep it all in perspective!

We finished Tuesday afternoon and sailed into gorgeous Cabo San Lucas.  I have to say I am really impressed at how well every did, the levels of improvement all around, and the awesome team spirit everyone demonstrated at every turn.  It was an absolute hoot to sail with old friends again, and really gratifying to see those that were new to offshore racing really get into it.  Thanks tremendously team!

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Want to live a real world offshore racing adventure yourself?  In September we will be hosting our annual Offshore Racing Seminar, San Francisco to San Diego.  In February of 2016 there is the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race, and we still have a couple berths left in the 2016 Pacific Cup (San Francisco to Hawaii).

All the best,

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

Smokin’

Well it’s a bit overdue, but I am finally getting around to posting the 2015 Sint Maarten Heineken Regatta wrap up.  I am happy to report the J/World West Coast won our division with an undefeated record!  That’s four races, and four bullets.  We had an absolutely fantastic team who took control in the strong warm tradewinds and showed the international fleet just how it’s done.

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Seriously, what a fantastic event!  J/World boats took first and third in class…  and had an absolutely GREAT time doing it.  Many thanks to coach Barry, Dan, Randy, George, Keith, Cathy, and Stephan.  Congratulations, Team!

– Wayne Zittel and the J/World Team

Caribbean Perfection

I really can’t imagine how it could get any better at all.  It’s pretty near perfect here right now.  Here, of course, being the lovely St Martin where J/World is participating in the 2015 Heineken Regatta.  This event is world renowned for the epic Caribbean sailing conditions and serious hospitality and festivities that surround the sailing.

Heineken-RegattaSome of the best sailing and sailors in the world are right here at the
2015 St. Martin Heineken Regatta!

We are thrilled to report that we have an excellent bunch of sailors charging the event onboard our J World West Coast entry.  The round-the-island race yesterday was a hoot.  We came off the starting line into a warm 25 knot breeze.   We opted to start out with a reefed main, but within moments of clearing the starting line we noticed that the headboard sliders had broken off the head of the sail.  The loads were threatening to break all of the slides holding the mainsail to the mast.  The only thing we could do to lessen the loads was to shake the reef (which would result in the halyard pulling the head of the sail towards/against the mast, thus lessening the loads on the farther down sail slides).  So while other boats were taking in second reefs an dramatically reducing sail area, I think we intimidated EVERYONE by actually increasing our main size.  So we struggled a bit, but mad it work…  and managed to hammer our way into the lead before we got around the backside of the island, and never gave it up (even though we blew up two mainsheet blocks and had to perform another quick fix! Awesome job, team!

IMG_20150305_180949038Here’s the view from the YC.  Some absolutely stunning sailing yachts.

Today we had races 2 and three.   Each was a 10 mile course along the south western shore of the island.  Of course, the sailing conditions were perfect.  And I’m proud to report that our team managed another pair of victories.  So as of now, we are well in the lead of the Division A charterboats with three first places…  just one more race tomorrow, and I am expecting out team to bring their A-Game!

IMG_20150307_171421663A couple of our J World team members soaking in the Caribbean., holding down the, er, bar?
IMG_20150307_173954585Simpson Bay at Sunset.  That’s a lot of boats. The Lagoon is even more crowded.
IMG_20150307_174419646_HDRThe stage on the beach is set.    The party was in Phillipsburg last
night, but tonight an tomorrow night are right here!

That’s it for now…  more soon!

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

St. Martin Report

Ok, at the risk of rubbing it in, I have to report that St. Martin is quite lovely at the moment.  Team J World just rolled into the St. Martin YC after spending a couple days over that the beautiful island of St. Barths.  After a few days of soaking in the Caribbean, we are now ready to shift into racing mode and get ready for the start of the 2015 Heineken Cup tomorrow!

IMG_20150303_124738341One of our J World teams anchored in Gustivia, St. Barths.  That is some beautiful water.

IMG_20150303_135908887_HDRGustavia.  It’s rare that the 80 footers in the harbor seem small.

IMG_20150304_180438825_HDRHanging off the hook, happy hour, Colombier, St. Barths.

The trade-winds have been strutting their stuff for the past couple weeks down here, so wind will definitely not be lacking for the races that start tomorrow.  We have a fun fleet of a dozen 50-footers that we’ll be lining up against, and the level of competition across the board is impressive.  There are some of the most beautiful boats int he world convening on the island, and the eye-candy down here is pretty staggering.

More soon…

 

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

 

 

Next Week: Midwinters Clinic/Regatta in San Diego – One Space Now Available!

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Our annual Midwinter Clinic and Regatta starts next Wednesday in San Diego!  We have four J/80s participating in a three day clinic, then two days of coached racing in the SCYA San Diego Yacht Club Midwinter Regatta.  This event was sold out, but we have had one cancellation and there is now a space available!  Are you the lucky one who gets to jump on this?

 

Event details are here.

Never Gets Old….

Earlier this week, we jumped on a rare convergence of ‘gap-in-the-schedule’ with ‘perfect-weather-window’ to run Hula Girl from our SF base to San Diego in anticipation of the 2015 Newport to Cabo Race coming up in March.  We had some nice sailing at the outset, but on day 2 a high pressure down in southern California killed the breeze…  but it also smoothed out ocean and cleared up the skies.  Man, was it beautiful.  Absolutely crazy visibility coming down the coast.  At Point Conception we could see the oil platforms from over 20 miles out.  A ship passed seaward.  AIS showed her to be 12 miles away, but I kept having to do double takes:  she was so clear, I would have sworn it was a 30 foot  model boat 100 yards off (not a 800 foot ship 12 miles away!).  Absolutely surreal.

Then the dolphins came.  We see them all the time up and down the coast, but in the sunset lighting and a glassy sea, this was a great encounter…  this absolutely never gets old.

 

 

So sadly the Cabo Race is full, but we are booking berths in the 2016 San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race and the 2016 Pacific Cup!

Happy New Year!

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Happy new Year to all our friends!  We hope the holidays treated everyone well, and thanks to all of you who were able to join us for some recent sailing.  It was great to catch up with old frineds, and make some new ones!  So looking forward, we have a fantastic sailing season going on in San Diego and Puerto Vallarta (that’s a shot of one of our J/80s in Puerto Vallarta last week…  great sailing and temperatures in the 80s!) with a whole range of things on tap.  Plus, a jaunt to the Caribbean for the St Martin Heineken Regatta should go a long way in curing wintertime blues (still a couple spaces available).

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So while our Midwinters Clinic/Regatta and the Banderas Bay Clinic/Regatta have both been sold out, we are now booking the San Diego Yachting Cup Clinic/Regatta at the end of April and are working on getting another J105 clinic on the calendar for this Spring in San Diego (call us with your preferred dates!).  For you offshore racers, we have an Offshore Racing Course scheduled for September (San Francisco to San Diego), and are now accepting deposits fro the 2016 San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race, and the 2016 Pacific Cup.

Cruisers will rejoice at our steady stream of Liveaboard Cruising courses running from San Diego to Catalina Island, and of course Learn to Sail courses are running regularly everywhere!

We are also happy to announce the launch of a new website.  We hope that the increased details on all our offerings combined with up to the minute information on all our events will better serve all our sailing friends and alumni!  Check it out here:  www.sailing-jworld.com

That’s it for now!

Wayne Zittel and the J/World Team