J/Fest San Francisco Preview

(San Francisco, CA)- The latest edition of the J/Fest San Francisco is taking place from April 5th to 6th on San Francisco Bay.  The teams are looking forward to excellent sailing conditions with sunny skies, 15-25 kts winds and an amazing party hosted Saturday night by St. Francis Yacht Club.  Perhaps the best part about this regatta is that all the racing takes place right along the StFYC city-front, should be fun and games for all!

J/Fest has expanded the one-design program this year, welcoming in two new fleets that have grown significantly on the Bay- the J/70s and J/111s.  They’re joining long-time supporters of the regatta, the J/24s, J/105s and J/120s.  A good turn-out of thirty-plus boats are expected to participate in the weekend-long event.

Starting with the J/24 class, a half-dozens boats plan to be on the line with teams like EVIL OCTOPUS (Jasper Van Vliet), FLY BY NIGHT (Alex Schultink) and RAIL TO RAIL (Rich Jepsen) sailing in the fleet.

The J/70s have a very nice fleet for their inaugural participation in J/Fest, they have at least eight boats on the line with many new faces meeting for the first time.  The veterans include DFZ (Eric Kownacki & Tom Jenkins) from San Diego, COOL STORY BRO (John Brigden), JENNIFER (Chris Kostanecki), PERFECT WIFE (Chris Anderson) and SUGOI (Mark Nelson).  Joining them for the first time are 1FA (Scott Sellers & Geoff McDonald), BANDIT (Scott Mack) from Nevada City, and LOOSE LUCY (Justin Kromelow).  No question this fun-loving crowd are expecting “planing mode” conditions all weekend!  And, will Chris Kostanecki’s JENNIFER crew continue their winning ways after their first weekend of one-design racing at the Big Daddy Regatta in Richmond?

Heading up the eight boat J/105 fleet has to be previous regatta winners, Scooter Simmons and crew aboard BLACKHAWK.  For over a year, Scooter and crew have their “game on” and have been hard to beat and are never out of the running for the podium.  Chasing them will be a cast of characters that are always contenders, such as Bruce Stone’s ARBITRAGE, Jeff Litfin’s MOJO and the dynamic duo of Jason Woodley & Scott Whitney on RISK.

Like their J/70 colleagues, the inaugural participation of six J/111s in J/Fest are bringing together many teams that are racing each other for the first time.  Howard Turner’s SYMMETRY just won their division in the Double-handed Farallones Race.  Dorian McKelvy’s MADMEN have some good racing under their belts from last year (good YouTube videos, too!).  Joining them are AEOLUS (Rob Theis), BIG BLAST (Roland Vandermeer), DOUBLE DIGIT (Gorkem Ozcelebi) and TOPZY TURVY (Warren Konkel).  How this fleet plays out for top honors is anyone’s guess.  In any event, they too will be looking forward to some fun, fast “planing mode” rides if the breeze hits 17-plus kts!

The queen of the fleet are the J/120s, having had dozens of seasons sailing on the Bay in every condition imaginable.  Like the J/111s, it’s pretty hard to handicap this group since just about every boat has won something.  The latest addition to the fleet is David Halliwill’s PEREGRINE, a group from New York city.  They will be dueling with some serious veterans in the class, including Steve Madeira’s “green machine”, the mighty MR MAGOO, Barry Lewis’s CHANCE, Tom Grennans’s KOOKABURRA and Timo Bruck’s TWIST.

The weekend forecast looks like it could shape up to be “classic” San Francisco Bay weather. According to Bruce Stone, “it looks like we’ll have some nice weather this weekend, and initially a counterclockwise course (of course wind dependent), heading out for the late ebb and down the city front on the early flood – sure beats short tacking the city front!  That will probably switch for the third race on Saturday and we’ll go up the shore once the full flood is established and we want to head upwind in lessening flood inside.  The fleet will likely split on this routing during the second race as the heavy rains we’re experiencing might create an earlier than normal ebb.”  For more J/Fest San Francisco sailing information

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