Thursday, November 12, 2015

TENACIOUS King of Chesapeake J/105s

J/105 sailing Chesapeake Bay champs (Annapolis, MD)- Over the Halloween weekend, the Annapolis YC hosted the J/105 Chesapeake Bay Championship.  Like their smaller one-design colleagues on the J/22s and J/24s, the fleet of 35-foot J’s enjoyed somewhat benign weather conditions on the upper Chesapeake Bay with close, thrilling racing for all.

The J/105s had a great turnout with seventeen boats participating.  The top three teams all sailed extremely well and posted mostly all top 5 finishes in their scorelines.  Improving every single race was Scott Gitchell’s crew on TENACIOUS, starting out with a 5th place, then posting a 3-2-1 tally to win bragging rights as Chesapeake Bay Champion.  Just behind him, the duel became a tie-breaker scenario, with Andrew Kennedy’s BAT IV winning that fight over Lewis’ MIRAGE, both sitting on 15 pts.

For the balance of the top five, it’s hard to imagine how close the racing was on the water.  The next four boats in the standings all finished within 6 pts of each other, the last race being the determining factor in the final outcome.  By virtue of a 3rd in the last race, Cherner’s CRASH took 4th place with 22 pts while Konigsberg’s INIGO took 5th in the finale, dropping them into 5th overall with 24 pts.  In fact, INIGO also had to win a tie-breaker over Robbins’ ALLEGIANCE.  Sailing photo credits- Dan Phelps/ Spinsheet.com.   For more J/105 Chesapeake Bay sailing information