(Newport, RI)- For the forty-nine J/Teams sailing in this year's Bacardi
SailNewport Regatta, the weather was hot and so was the competition.
With temperatures ashore hovering in the high 80s, low 90s, the sailors
were assured of the fact that no matter what the breeze was like in the
morning, it would most assuredly develop a good sea-breeze by midday and
provide the sailors but inside Narragansett Bay as well as those
outside with some good sailing.Not surprisingly, the very hot J/24 class provided some of the closet competition in the regatta. After leading the first day, the team of WATERLINE SYSTEMS sailed by Will Welles could not hold off the hard-charging current J/24 US Nationals Champion, John Mollicone, from taking the overall prize with the infamous boat EVIL DONUT. In fact, the regatta outcome hung in the balance on the last race of the ten race series. Up until a disastrous 14th in race 8, it looked like the Well's WATERLINE SYSTEMS team had the regatta "in the bag". Also in the same predicament was Mike Ingham's 11TH HOUR RACING, scoring a DNC/28 in the same race. As a result, both Will and Mike had to use those two as their "drop" races, just about handing the regatta to Mollicone's EVIL DONUT. In the end, the "donut boys" just had to stay within one place of the Welles team in the last race to win, which they did by snagging a 5th to Welles' 4th. Third for the series was Mike's 11TH HOUR RACING team, fourth was Greg Griffin's GIZ and fifth was the craftiest "old man of the sea", Tony Parker on his famously-named BANGOR PACKET.
The other three classes- J/22, J/80 and J/105s- produced quite the opposite outcomes. All three had near "runaway" winners that dominated their classes after slowly getting into the swing of things on the first day of sailing.
In the J/80s, Bruno Pasquinelli's TIAMO from Texas had four 1sts and two 3rds to win by four points over Jeff Johnstone's LITTLE FEAT from Newport with a 1-3-2-3-3-2 record for 11 pts. Third was Brian Keane's SAVASANA just 3 pts back. Fourth was Ray Wulff on USA-251 and fifth was local Newporter Andrew Burton on GROMIT.
The J/22s were swept by the Rochester sailing mafia! Chris Doyle won every race, taking 6 straight firsts and not sailing the last race! Second was the Sertl family with Nick Sertl sailing the boat, taking a 2-2-2-4-3-2-1 for 12 pts. Third was Mark Stuhlmiller with an equally consistent record of 3-3-4-2-5-3-3 for 18 pts.
Starting out slowly on the first day but finishing with a flourish in the J/105 class was past J/105 North American Champion Duncan Hennes and Joerg Esdorn on the well-campaigned KINCSEM. Second after the first day behind Harald Edegran and Jeremy Henderson's CONUNDRUM, KINCSEM managed to accumulate a 1-3-dnc-1-1-1-1-2 for a total of 9 points, easily winning by five points. Second was CONUNDRUM, sailing smart and fast to score a 2-2-1-2-3-4-4 tally for 14 pts. As has been the case with the J/105s, third place was a tightly fought affair by familiar faces. Separated by only four points, Damian Emery's ECLIPSE sailed to a 3-1-2-3-5-5-6 for 19 points to take the last spot on the podium. ECLIPSE narrowly beat out by one point Sean Doyle's KESTREL in fourth and Kevin Grainger's GUMPTION3 in fifth with 23 pts. For more Bacardi Newport Sailing information
