Mollicone & Johnstone Winners in 24s, 80s(Newport, RI)- The three fleets of one-design J's racing this weekend, including fourteen J/24s, eleven J/80s and nine J/105s, were treated to what can be said as incredibly challenging weather conditions for the two days of sailing. Saturday dawned with a gorgeous northwesterly wind blowing offshore that rapidly devolved into a slugfest between the classic southwesterly trying to fill in while the northerly pressure gradient kept pushing back. For the fleets racing offshore, including all three J fleets, it made for an interesting dilemma, whether to chase the last finger of one breeze over another or stick with what you had. Sunday's racing started off with a light northerly that ultimately died and saw the fleet treated to a gorgeous, classic Newport southwest sea-breeze of 8-12 knots.
In the J/105 class, Brian Keane's SAVASANA team was on a tear, demonstrating to the rest of their 105 competitors that they were going to be a big factor to contend with in the pending J/105 North American Championship in Marblehead later in August. Keane's team won ALL four races to finish with 4 pts. Perhaps the surprise story was the strong performance by Sean Doyle on KESTREL, sailing to a 2-3-2-5 for 12 pts. However, Sean's no stranger to being a fleet leader, having successfully sailed college and one-designs for years. The easy winner at the recent Rolex Block Island Race Week, Damian Emery on ECLIPSe, had to settle for third place with a 5-2-4-2 scoreline for 13 pts. Fourth was another J/105 North American Champion, Joerg Esdorn on KINCSEM with a 4-4-3-4 for 15 pts. Finally, yet another J/105 NA Champion finished fifth, Bruce Stone's team on JOUSTER with a 3-6-6-3. Other than SAVASANA, it was very close competition for the balance of the top five.
As anticipated in the J/24s, the Newport teams were led by John Mollicone's 11th HOUR RACING, grabbing four 1sts and one 2nd to win with 8 pts. The surprise to the Newport locals was the excellent performance by Chris Jankowski's STREET LEGAL team, posting a tally of 4-1-2-2-4 for 13 pts. Third was Dave Marshall sailing PEGASUS with a 3-5-5-3-6 score for 22 pts, just one point clear of three other boats that were essentially tied going into the last race! Winning the 4th place tie-breaker was J/24 Champion and World Team Racing Champion Peter Levesque on MOOKIE with a 2-9-3-6-3 score for 23 pts. Peter beat the Zaleski Bro's TWINS from Stamford, CT that had a 5-2-7-4-5 score for 5th overall. Just missing out was another Newport local, Mike Hill on OBSTREPEROUS with a 8-3-6-5-2 record for 24 pts to capture 6th place!
The J/80s saw well-sailed teams that traveled from as far away as California and Texas to have some fun in Newport. Like their J/24 and J/105 colleagues, they too had a runaway winner in the form of Jeff Johnstone sailing LITTLE FEAT to three 1sts and one 2nd for 5 pts. However, they also had five teams that could easily have finished second, with the last race determining who beat whom for the silver and bronze on the podium. Just squeaking by was the FIRED UP team sailed by Gary Camins and Jay Lutz with a 4-5-3-6 record for 18 pts. One point back was Newporter Andrew Burton's GROMIT with a 5-8-2-4 for 19 pts for third. Fourth was Chris Bulger's GOOSE winning a tie-breaker with a 3-2-8-7 for 20 pts, fifth was Bert Carp with a 6-6-5-3 for 20 pts losing the tiebreaker. Sixth was another Texas team, Bruno Pasquinelli's TIAMO team with a 7-4-9-1 for 21 pts! The consensus was that sailing more conservatively would have kept many of the teams even closer, if you can imagine that, and in two cases kept a bullet for those teams instead of giving it up to others-- the big "fly in the ointment" often being the Swan 42s racing on the same course creating havoc amongst the J/80s playing laylines upwind or getting through huge line-ups at the gates to get around them. For more SAILNewport Regatta sailing information
