(Palm Beach, Florida)- A sweet report from Marblehead native Fred de Napoli (owner of the J/105 ALLEGRO SEMPLICITA)
came rolling across the social media coconut telegraph. Fred spends
parts of his winter leisure time in Palm Beach, Florida sailing out of
the Palm Beach Sailing Club. Here’s what he had to say about a recent
sailing experience on his J/92 BRONSKI BEAT:“Another fantastic day out on the water yesterday! Palm Beach Sailing Club sponsored the Fred Thomas Memorial. As usual it was a slug fest between an uber-J/30 called PAPARAZZI that is fitted with a full inventory of brand new 3Di's and our J/92, both exactly 30 feet, but we owe them 39 seconds a mile. We had 17 miles of racing and we saved our time on them by 40 seconds. Only to later find out that the Gulf Stream (that little current outside our front door that rolls along at about 5.5 kts sometimes) had moved one of the marks about 1 km NORTH which made it a 19 mile race, reversing the finish order. Damn, so we fell to 2nd place by 40 seconds! That was a buzz kill! But, what an amazing day (12 to 15 knots of breeze, sunny, 88 degrees). Huge shout out to the team of Richard Richardson, David Oswald, Owen M. Kaufman, Bryan Costello, et al!
Here’s
some interesting anecdotes for you. Our Ft Lauderdale Porsche dealer
commissioned the Palm Beach SC sailing coach to build the ultimate J/30
with virtually no budget. He bought a 500 series boat, stripped it to
the glass, re-gelcoated inside and out, new bottom job and keel to
templates, custom designed and fabricated carbon fibre balanced rudder
(which eliminates the J/30's weakest design feature), new carbon 3Di
North inventory (main + 3 headsails), three spinnakers including two
asymmetricals and one symmetrical (yes, they use both
interchangeably....who knew you could do that?), and to their credit
they sail the boat very well. It's driven by the club's coach who has
been sailing in this area for 30 years. We're good friends with them and
have had a lot of fun trying to crack their 3-year winning streak!” We
wish you luck, Fred! Sounds like you have a guerrilla by the ears- not
a safe place to be!
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