Wednesday, July 15, 2015

J/120s Sweep Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race

J/122 sailing Marblehead Halifax race (Halifax, Nova Scotia)- This year’s Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race, co-sponsored by the Boston Yacht Club and the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron, won’t go down in the record books as the fastest race on record.  However, it certainly goes down as yet another challenging navigational race for those who love to work on tactics and strategy that is changing dramatically as the race progresses.

Not soon after the start, the racers hit a period of very light winds in the Gulf of Maine on Monday afternoon. The wind then picked up at noon today (Tuesday) and the fleet started picking up speed.

J/111 sailing Marblehead to Halifax raceIRC 2 class saw Scott Miller’s J/122 RESOLUTE sail well but fall victim to a lightish mid-section of the race to take 6th in class (full crew) and take second overall in the Doublehanded IRC Class with team mate Gregg Carville. In the ORR Class, Fred Madeira’s J/44 RESOLUTE finished 5th overall.

In the PHRF division, the two J/111s finished in 3rd and 4th in PHRF 1 class, with Marcel Cote’s SURVENANT leading the way over classmate Jonathan Green’s EAGLES DARE.  The two J/130s finished side-by-side with Kris Kristiansen’s SAGA taking 6th and Jeff Eberle’s CILISTA finishing 7th.

The big story of the race was the performance of several classic offshore racing J’s in PHRF 2 class, with a sweep of the top six places.  Topping everyone was Gardner Grant’s J/120 ALIBI taking class honors followed by Eliot Shanabrook’s J/109 HAFA ADAI in second and Stu McCrea’s J/120 DEVIATION in third.  The next three places were occupied by J/120s with James Chen’s CHAOTIC FLUX in 4th, Jim Praley’s SHINNECOCK in 5th and Ross Leighton’s BLACK PEARL in 6th.   Finally, in PHRF 3 class the J/35 HARRIER skippered by Evan Petley-Jones placed 5th in class.  Sailing photo credits  For more Marblehead to Halifax Race sailing information