J80
World Championships - The Last Day
Sponsors
of today's racing were J Boat and J Boat Southwest,
Dickies Workwear, Sailing World Magazine, Hydro
Hoist and Speed Smarts. The winds clocked back
around to the northwest during the night, but
continued to come in at 10-15 knots. Sunny skies
prevailed and the Race Committee was on the lake
shortly after 0800 hours. After the third general
recall with adjustments to the starting line each
time, the Z flag was flown. Three boats were identified
as over the line within the last one minute and
were assessed a 20% penalty before another general
recall was required. The Z flag went up this time,
with the course heading changed to 355. A clear
start was called at 0946. A good square course
saw lots of tacking and jibing for the entire
5 legs. Kerry Klingler (USA 352) established a
commanding lead on the second downwind leg, with
Jim Keesling (USA 367) and Christer Faith-Ell
(243) in hot pursuit. At the finish line, Klingler
crossed first, John Kolius (USA585) was second,
Keesling third followed by Faith-Ell and Jesper
Nordstrom. The RC signal boat docked at 1207.
Jay
Lutz (USA 531) never missed a beat during the
week and had four 1st place finishes and a final
score of 32. Sailing with the 2003 J/80 World
Champion were Joe Taylor, Derek Gauger, and Alex
Crowell. Lutz said, â??We were fortunate
to have had great wind all week and able to get
in all 10 races. There must have been lots of
prayers to the wind gods. For us, we were lucky
when we were well in the back to be able to work
our way back up and have good finishes and we
were back there plenty of times. Our competitors
struggled when they were back in the cheap seats.
Iâ??d say thatâ??s probably the biggest
factor. Congratulations to Fort Worth Boat Club
for pulling off an outstanding regatta. We look
forward to traveling to Sweden for the 2004 event.â?
John
Kolius (USA 585) finished in second place. His
crew was Caleb Borchers, Roberta Steele, Mallory
Fontenot and Megan Mulhern. John told his crew
this morning that it would be a cat fight for
2nd place and that he had the only crew qualified
for this work. Yeow, it worked! In third was Christer
Faith-Ell (243) sailing with Hans Renman, Thomas
Lundberg and Ann-Charlotte Kornblad. Fourth place
went to Kerry Klingler (USA352) with his crew
of Mike and Chris Quaglia and Jay Luree and in
fifth place was Scott Spurlin (USA334) with Scott
Young at the helm and crew members John Morran
and Trip Westbrook.
Regatta
Co-Chairs Craig and Martha White commented that
the regatta had the largest fleet of J/80s ever
assembled. They said, â??The weather was
perfect and we had great racing and a true champion
(a Texan) showed everybody how to sail around
the marks.â? Betsy Schaffer added,
â??This has been a great week and we would
like to thank all of our sponsors, the Fort Worth
Boat Club staff, and all the members who volunteered
to work on race committee and came out with spectators.
We couldnâ??t have done it without them.â?
The
awards dinner and trophy presentations will be
made at 1800 hours this evening to conclude the
event.
Karen
Smith
For
more information and regatta results, see www.j80.org.
