Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Repeat Winners @ Verve Cup Offshore

J/105s sailing Chicago YC Verve Cup regatta (Chicago, IL)- Chicago Yacht Club hosted the 23rd annual Verve Cup Offshore Regatta over the August 7th to 9th weekend. The three-day event attracted over 175 yachts to the beautiful Chicago lakefront.

For the second year in a row, David Gustman’s J/109 NORTHSTAR won their section. Although there weren’t enough J/109s for a one design section this year, Gustman said that the ORR 3 Section was still very competitive. “The first day we won a race by about a foot and lost a race by about a foot,” he stated. “Friday was perfect – probably one of the best days that I’ve ever been out on a race course. The Race Committee was excellent and ran four races bang-bang-bang. They just nailed it out.”  The J/35 BOZOS CIRCUS sailed by Bruce Metcalf sailed well to secure second overall with 19 pts. The next three places were taken by J/109s, with Peter Priede’s FULL TILT in the third spot, Kevin Saedi’s MOMENTUS in 4th and Doug & Betsy Evans’ TIME OUT in 5th.

THE ASYLYM, owned by J/105 Fleet Captain Jon Weglarz, took top spot in the J/105 one-design section. “Our team won the regatta in the first two days. Today we just maintained our position.” The top three boats – THE ASYLUM, SEALARK (Clark Pellett), and VYTIS (Tom & Gyt Petkus) – have been battling each other for 15 years in their fleet. “Our section was a little light. We hope that for 2016 the J/105s will be back with more entries.”

The J/111s had a surprise winner, the long-distance traveling team of Bennett Greenwald from San Diego YC in San Diego, CA won the regatta with ease, posting five bullets and two 2nds in their nine race series to win by 12 pts.  The next four places were a closely fought affair with Brad Faber’s UTAH from Michigan taking 2nd with 28 pts.  Just two points back in third was Bill Smith’s WOOTON, also from Bay Harbor, MI with 30 pts.  Fourth was George Miz’s IMPULSE from Chicago with 34 pts, one point ahead of Karl Brummel’s KASHMIR from Chicago.   For more Verve Cup Offshore sailing information