Block Island Race Week

After five days of hard racing at Block Island Race Week, on Friday, June 23, there were 16 ecstatic winners and an equal number of disappointed runners-up. Partnership, a J/111 campaigned by David and Maryellen Tortorello, won a good battle with Sea Biscuit in PHRF 1. Only two points separated the two boats going into Friday’s action, but a disqualification in Race 7 doomed the Farr 30 skippered by Kevin McNeil of Annapolis, Maryland. "We have done Block Island Race Week five times, and this is the first time we’ve won our class so this is phenomenal," David Tortorello said. "We had very, very good competition, and I think the key was consistency. We put up a lot of top three finishes. Our crew work was fabulous." In the J/111 Sub Class, second place for the week was Douglass Curtiss, Wicked 2.0; first place for the week David & Maryellen Tortorello, PARTNERSHIP. For complete event information, visit www.blockislandraceweek.com.

J/111 DJINN Wins RORC East Coast Race

Here is the report from Sébastien de Liedekerke, owner of the J/111 DJINNN about their recent experience sailing the RORC East Coast Race: The RORC East Coast Race 2017 was the third offshore race of the season for DJINN and her crew, starting from Burnham-on-Crouch near Harwich (Thames Estuary) and finishing in Oostende (Belgium), for a good 130 nautical miles of zig-zagging between the wind farms of the Southern North Sea. DJINN had a good downwind start, crossing the line ahead of the IRC 1-2 fleet. The first three hours of racing, extracting ourselves progressively from River Crouch in very fluky winds and strong currents, were especially challenging and, as we missed a few gusts, two of our IRC 2 competitors managed to build a nice half-mile lead on us. As wind conditions stabilized, we started catching up on them, and by midnight we were in the lead again. With light Westerlies of 5-13kt, flat water and a 100% reaching and broad-reaching course, the conditions were ideal for DJINN and her crew to build progressively a significant gap with key competitors and to finish largely ahead of the pack in Oostende after 20 hours and 26 minutes of racing and despite dying winds again... This was supposed to be "just" another Fastnet qualifier for our crew, with no one expecting anything special from it in terms of results, and yet we ended up coming back home with some silverware—a lot of silverware actually!

• Ailish Salver trophy for first yacht home (line honours)
• Blackwater Cup for first yacht in IRC 1-2 class
• Bob Stewart Trophy for first yacht in IRC overall
Congratulations to the DJINN crew (Sebastien de Liedekerke, Sylvain Duprey, Andy Hoefig, Bertrand Lefebvre and Florence Hubert)!

Chicago COLORS Regatta

The annual regatta that marks the start of the offshore sailing season in Chicago on Lake Michigan is Columbia Yacht Club’s Skyway Yacht Works Colors Regatta. Depending on weather and fleets, most boats sailed three to four races over the weekend in the challenging weather conditions. As usual, the nine-boat J/111 fleet was as tight as ever for the top of the podium. In the end, it was the Len Siegal’s LUCKY DUBIE crew for the win. After starting off with double bullets, they added a 2-6. Chasing them hard was team KASHMIR (Karl Brummel, Steve Henderson & Mike Mayer). They came up just shy of taking class honors; their 2-2-4-4 for 12 points good for the silver. Third place was John Kalanik’s PURA VIDA crew with a slow start in the first two races (8-5), but a nice comeback in the last two races (two bullets). Rounding out the top five were Rick Witzel’s ROWDY in fourth place (just one point back with 16), and Kevin Saedi’s & Raman Yousefi’s MOMENTUS in fifth place with 19 points. For more COLORS Regatta information, visit http://www.columbiayachtclub.org/.

North Sea Week

The J/111 fleet enjoyed great one-design racing for North Sea Week in Scheveningen, The Netherlands. Winning class was the Swiss team of LALLEKONIG, skippered by Joerg Sigg with crew of Wick Hillege, Nico van der Kolk, Sigrid Sigg, Joost Aaphes, Gilbert Figaroa, Wouter Kollman and Michiel van der Meulen. Their four firsts in nine races enabled them to finish with a 12 point net tally. Taking second was based on a tie-breaker—it was the crew on SWEENEY led by Paul van Driel that took the tie-break on 15 points over Sjaak Haakman’s RED HERRING. For more information, visit http://nsr.nl/.

Chicago NOOD

The Helly Hansen National Offshore One Design (NOOD) Regatta in Chicago came to a close June 11 after three days of stellar sailing weather on Lake Michigan for more than 145 teams. Seven races were completed in the 14-boat J/111 division, with Martin Roesch’s Velocity taking the win with 16 points. Bradley Faber’s Utah placed second with 24 points, and the Karl Brummel, Steve Henderson, Mike Mayer team third with 32. For complete event details, visit https://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=3008.