Sunday, May 17, 2015

Vice Admiral's Cup Preview

J/111 sailing on Solent (Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK)- The Royal Corinthian Yacht Club’s annual Vice Admiral’s Cup regatta takes place from Friday 15th to Sunday 17th May. Since its introduction, the event has gone from strength to strength with its simple close-racing format and fun social program making it enjoyable for the competitors.

This year there will be a maximum of seven classes taking part in the event and among them will be strong fields for the J/111 Class and J/109 fleet.  Both classes have become a regular fixture of the regatta in recent years.

As always, racing will take place in the Solent with committee boat starts and up to eight races scheduled over the three days. The race format will be predominantly windward/leeward with the option for Solent "round the cans" courses too.

J/111s sailing under spinnaker on SolentThe J/111 fleet has seven teams, most of whom saw action at last year’s J/111 Worlds sailed on the Solent and hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron.  Familiar names that are racing include Tony Mack’s McFLY, Andrew Christie’s ICARUS, Cornel Riklin’s JITTERBUG (Warsash Spring Championship winner), Chris Jones & Louise Makin’s JOURNEYMAKER II, Stu Sawyer’s BLACK DOG and Martin Dent’s J-ELVIS.  Sporting the amazingly cool sail number GBR 7111, the new trio of Scholefied, MacDonald & Thomas (barristers in the City?) will be guiding the mighty MUSTIGO against some of the big guns in the class.

With strong performances in the Warsash Spring Series J/109 Class (Black Group & Championship), it remains to be seen if the quartet of JAGERBOMB (Paul Griffiths), JUKE BOX (John Smart & Chris Copeland), JOLLY JACK TAR (RNSA) and JYNNAN TONNYX (Owain Franks & Jean Lockett) can maintain that knife edge of performance, perfectly executed boat-handling and incisive decision-making to stay atop this rambunctious fleet.  With eleven boats battling it out around the cans, it would not be surprising to see others like JELLY BABY (Ian Nagle), ME JULIE (David Rolfe) or INSPARA (Tor Mclaren) throw a monkey wrench into other’s aspirations for a podium finish.  Sailing photo credits- Rick Tomlinson. For more Vice Admiral’s Cup sailing information