(Key West, FL)- A large contingent of J sailors certainly had a wonderful time sailing in this year's Key West Race Week. With great turnouts in the two strong J one-design classes, the J/80s and the J/105s, everyone was sure to have a wonderful time in nearly perfect Key West conditions. The six J/24s that showed up in PHRF 3 were wondering where the rest of their buddies were from points north, east and west were hiding! Next time, come on down all!
The sailing was simply wonderful, hard to believe it's possible for the Caribbean trade winds and weather patterns to serve up five straight days of nearly postcard, chamber of commerce conditions when the rest of the world is getting blasted by massive snow storms and extreme cold. Competitors may have wished for some days of more epic winds, bashing and crashing into ginormous waves, but one can hardly argue with benign 5-18 knot breezes from the ESE to SSW quadrants with plenty of sun! We even had FOG one morning down in the Keys-- how weird is that?
For Division 1 course, IRC 2 Class saw an enormous fight for who would get the podium honors for third place. At the end, Peter Cunningham from Cayman Islands Sailing Club seemed to finish on a happy, strong note, getting a 2-4 on the last day to finish 6th sailing the chartered J/122 GAMBLER/ POWERPLAY to a 2-5-7-4-6-5-8-4-2-4 for 47 points, just 5 devilish points from third (other than the overall winner, the J/122 had the best record over the last 3 races amongst their whole fleet).
