Great Competitors

We activated our electronic registration a few weeks ago. We’ve lately been getting inquiries from some potential entrants who want to know who they will be up against.

We are in the early days yet and our list is still short but it is strong. So far we have nine paid entrants but they are far-flung and highly competent. Leading the nine are Ian Dawson, who won last years Canadian Nationals here in Halifax. He will be joined on the line by 1996 Canadian Champion and two-time Bermuda Race Week winner Sean McDermott, who I have sailed with many times. Other locals include Greg Blunden, who has been in the top five in the last two Canadian Championship, and past Worlds competitor Nick Hamblen. Current National Class President Dale Robertson will also be out in his Slam sponsored boat with Canadian Olympian Lisa Ross at the helm.

The balance of the list is comprised of four American boats. They include Chris Jankowski from Virginia, who finished sixth at the 2010 US Nationals, and Anthony Parker of Annapolis. Mr. Parker finished ninth at the 2009 World Championship and won a J24 Bermuda Race Week event in which I was privileged to participate. About all I can say from that is he is the best sailor I ever saw in ten Bermuda Race Weeks (Sorry Sean, Stewart Jardine, Trevor Boyce, and even Rudy and Mike Wolfs. Sorry Tony, too for putting a target on your back; I’m just trying to sell tickets here).

It’s just like the races themselves, the top people get out there first. Early registration runs to July 31. You can get in the game for $325 right now but it will jump to $425 on August 1. You can save $100 and get ready to go with the best.

Measure Up

Special from Greg Blunden, who I paraphrase:

A special session has been scheduled on July 23rd at the RNSYS for boats requiring full measurement to obtain a certificate to be eligible for the 2011 North Americans. The measurement fee will be $200.00 per boat. Measurement will not be undertaken unless paid. Boats that require measurement certificates should contact Nick Hamblin. Please note boats that were measured last year in order to obtain a certificate need to be re-measured this year as the data from that clinic has been lost.

Competitors must have a valid IJCA measurement certificate to be to eligible to compete in the J24 North Americans.  It’s black and white in the Notice of Race:

6. REGISTRATION AND MEASUREMENT

6.1 At registration, each boat shall present:

(a) A valid J/24 measurement certificate issued by the IJCA Class Office including Part C: Inventory of Required and Optional Equipment. 4

(b) Proof of IJCA membership in the country they represent for the person in change and helmsperson (if different).

We have been through a few of these in the past. Make sure your boat is ready. It is never nice to have to hack, cut, add, subtract, buy, sell, beg, or borrow at the last minute. It is even more of a pain to wait behind someone who has to do any of these things.

Pick Your Poison

The Canadian J24 Class has come up with a new form that was insituted at the 2010 Worlds and will be available for this year’s North Americans. The new Scoring Penalty Acceptance Form will allow crews that have committed a no-no to acknowledge their sins and take their punishment before more terrible sanctions befall them. I’ve never seen one of these before but I haven’t been to too many Worlds events (or any, actually).

I found from a bit of Web searching that these forms are becoming a common component of Sailing Instructions for major regattas. They take many shapes from what I can see. Some only seem to document 720 penalties, while others seem to cover a wider gamut. The Canadian J24 version would be of the gamut variety. With it you can declare your willingness to take penaties of 10, 20, or 40 per cent or shot the whole thing and Retire After Finish (respectively, hitting a mark, breaking a rule, realizing later that you broke a rule, and realizing later that you are really a bad person).

It all reminds me a bit of Dante’s Inferno, which provides a fine analogy for sailing transgressions. In Dante’s version of Hell those who simply don’t know any better spend their eternity in Limbo, which is more or less heaven without the really good stuff (40 virgins?). It strikes me as a bit like going to regattas and losing all the time (I’ve already arrived). According to my authoritative source (Wikipedia), by the way, the punishment in Dante’s second ring involves being ”blown about to and fro by the terrible winds of a violent storm.” This is the place for the Lustful (note the capital), which only enhances its clear parallel to sailing events. The particularly horrible eighth and ninth rings, though, are reserved for those among us guilty of, respectively, Fraud and Treachery, the very two things that  a Scoring Penalty Acceptance Form is aimed at.

A PDF of the form is available through our Regatta Resources list on the righthand sidebar. Print out a few or just go to Hell.

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Good Experience

	We’ve done this before

This is the first post on the new Web site for the 2011 North American J24 Championship. Sailors who tracked or participated in this summer’s Canadian Nationals in Halifax will probably find it pretty familiar. We’ve changed the colour and the masthead picture from the 2010 Canadian Championship, and made a couple of other adjustments that are probably not immediately apparent but, for the most part, we’ve got much the same stuff in the same places.

That’s because it worked pretty good for the Nationals and like they say “if it ain’t broke …” That’s not to say it was perfect a perfect site or that this one will be perfect either, just that we’ve been down this road and we have a pretty good handle. I expect to make a few typos.

The same goes for the regatta. The 2010 Canadian Nationals were a success. We got the biggest entry for a J24 Nationals ever in Atlantic Canada and we had a terrifically exciting regatta that came down to a three-way tie. We were helped by the weather, which tends to be pretty spectacular in Nova Scotia in August and by the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron, which has terrific staff and wonderful facilities on the edge of one of the world’s great sailing venues. The prizes were spectacular and everyone had great time.

We also made a few mistakes. A lot of folks in our region hadn’t sailed in a national-level event for a while if ever, and we had to measure an awful lot of boats in a short period of time the night before the regatta. The three-way tie at the end also revealed a flaw in our Sailing Instructions that led to an appeal to the Canadian Yachting Association and the declaration of two champions. Having been there, we can smooth out the edges this time.

Many of the same folks who brought last year’s Canadians are at it again. We are another year older and about a decade wiser. We’re going to smooth out the measurement and we won’t make the same mistake twice in our SIs, although we can only dream about a repeat of last year’s finish. We are also looking forward to a stronger and bigger fleet fortified with some top American competitors. We are excited to be back!