* J/80 Gotland Runt Report- back in July, a J/80 crushed the fleet in the huge (800+ boat) Gotland Runt Race in Sweden. It's a popular race, in fact, the most popular offshore race all summer in Sweden. Our J/80 friends produced an amusing report of their escapades on the J/80 Sweden site- here's the translation: "After an amazing second place in the MP Race, we had to ask ourselves if we'd do the Gotland Runt. Well, when we mess with the port security guards, we always get a good place at Lokholmen. Since this was our fifth round Gotland with the J/80, and we had a proven track record, we did nothing about the boat in Mandan, so went and bathed in the sauna instead as preparation for the race!! On Tuesday, Pete scrubbed the boat inside so that it would be livable for the race. Roffe came with the raft and rockets and with Thomas to replace Lucas in Gotland Runt. Floating objects were taped with MK-tape products, our home-built kitchen was mounted on the mast and the radio was tested. It did not work. Hah! Some channels worked, but not others. But after successfully going out and trying the radio on open water, we were ready for inspection. The inspectors were zealous. But we had an eye on the rules and came through with a clean protocol.Now it was time to provision the boat with water, food and clothing. Someone ran around an island, someone drank a beer or two and someone else cooked. All drank rose wine. Skippers meeting did not mean much but we met many new acquaintances. Quickly back to the Onions for SM champagne, grill and rodtjut. Then, sauna (again) and early to bed.
Full speed on with wind and sun. We decided to leave as late as possible to reduce the stress of the sun. We started 12:15 in the second start, SRS Alpha 2 class. We started almost at the top of the windward jib-top. I went there to keep the height so we had to quickly switch to the jib. The start was decent but not great. We were a bit ahead of the second J/80, Bjorn Nabben. Small boat and light winds. In order to sail undisturbed, we chose the right edge. The wind would turn against the West as it seemed clear as a bell. I turned the other way as 200 boats safely drove us on the road to Alma. After Alma was the first single reach, but then opened it up and we sat down and then jib-top gennaker. We again chose the right edge. In the dark at Gotska Sandon it blew fresh. We topped the 13.8 knots on flat water, beautiful. Now we cooking against many boats. When it brightened we saw Bear Nabben behind us with jibtop. They quickly switched to gennaker. Good speed down to Faro. The distance to the Bear Nabben increased. After Faro it would promise to be a hard leg. We sailed well against a lot of big expensive boats. No one could go down and rest. Nuts and candy on the edge. We were near shore so we could download status and saw that we were 9th at Faro. Fantastic!In the afternoon, after Gotland southeast coast, we continued at first to sail on boats before but Faluden turned it against and it faded out briefly. First jibtop and then jib. Some of the larger boats we sailed against were now caught up. But we did a nice, tight rounding of Hoburgen and sat again. We know now that we have been 4th at Ostergarn. We walked along the Charles Islands, including 39 footer who started 15 minutes before us. We gave ourselves room far out on the route to Visby, jibe quickly and cut out to sea again. We aimed to go up to 5nm west of rumbline to avoid expected Bleken north breeze off Gotland. It turned, however, so we ended up on the east side of rumbline instead. We switched to jibtop and fought to get onto rumbline again. We could now see 3-4 boats in front of us and two behind. Given that this was a J/80 weather, we knew we sailed fast. We put the "pedal to the metal."
At the finish, we could see a nearly empty harbor! We picked a case of beer and clean clothes from the motor boat on Lokholmen. After we submitted our finish papers, it was soon clear that we would win our class at the estimated time. We are led by more than 4 hours at Gotska Sandon. Sauna, beer, dykarbar, swagger and bragging on Almagrundet. We fried them! Sandhamn Fried them! We won our class, we had also won the second Lysklassen on the short course!
At the winners banquet for our class, they described us with these words- "The Winner-in-class SRS alpha2 Is a J/80, a small boat with a tremendous speed." After the ceremony we went full speed for Viggbyholm Batlyft. What a fantastic week!! For more Swedish sailing sea stories and Swedish J/80 News- http://www.j80.nu
