08/24/2022
J/24 Florida State Championship, Miami sailing strong as ever.
Thirty years ago, tonight we were hunkering down for the biggest Hurricane that South Florida had seen in over 30 years. Hurricane Andrew was churning its way through the Bahamas heading to its ultimate landfall in South Florida that would devastate the sailing community. I was just a teenager in high school when Andrew hit, but I do remember the house shaking, the prep we did to save our family sailboat and the 30-foot phrf racer that that I had grown up on. Andrew was headed to Fort Lauderdale, and we were all wondering if our house would survive. My parent had just finished a complete renovation of a 1958 house just a year before and this was before hurricane proof windows and all the innovations that followed Hurricane Andrew. As we left the house and the boats behind and headed to shelter the idea that all that I had know in my still young sailing career was about to be over. Would LYC (Lauderdale Yacht Club) the club that I had grown up at and learned to sail was directly in the path of the eye. As my family retreated west to the shelter, we kept hearing that there was a wobble, and the eye moved south. As we hunkered down for a long night of the storm, to emerge after the storm had passed to hear via FM and AM radio that the storm had gone south and over Homestead. We still had a ton of debris but nothing like we would see in a few hours when the power started to come back on.
The storm surge had annihilated the Coconut Grove’s waterfront. I have attached a few photos of the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club and Coral Reef Yacht Club now know for the Etchells Biscayne Bay Series and the Junior Orange Bowl Regatta. This is just a little idea of what had happened to the local fleets. I was not a J/24 Sailor at the time but knew that the fleet was one of the largest at the time. The J/24 Fleet I have been told then numbered almost 30 boats at the time, well this past weekend the J/24 Fleet 10 hosted the Florida State Championship (Sunshine State Regatta) with a 12 boat fleet showing up to race.
In South Florida we really don’t take the summer for granted at all when it comes to sailing and the beautiful Chamber of Commerce conditions that J/24 Fleet 10 provided to the travel teams was nothing other than spectacular, especially with the threat of hurricanes from June to November.
Saturday opened with an Easterly at about 5 knots gusting 8 while boats were being launched at the three different sites. If you know Coconut Grove, you know that there are three clubs on the waterfront as well as the US Sailing Center and Shake-A-Leg Community Sailing Center out of the old US Coast Guard Sea Plane Hanger, so with locals launching from the US Sailing Center and Coral Reef and the travel teams launching from Shake-A-Leg, with Coconut Grove graciously hosting the regatta, most of our fleet saw their engines for the first time in many months as we motored to CGSC for the skippers meeting. Being this was the first time in my 17 years of J/24 ownership that CGSC was going to run a race for the Florida J/24 series I wanted to make sure that I got over to CGSC and met with the PRO so that we could discuss expectations his and our classes.
Ian our PRO met with me, and we sat and discussed that the class would like no more that 35–40 minute races. We discussed safety in the event of serious thunderstorms, which were not in the forecast, but my feeling is that lets go over everything so that we understand how the class and the club want to run an event since I had not met Ian before. We both agreed on safety and fun quick races. By the time the skippers meeting started Biscayne Bay was producing a nice Easterly at about 8-10knots. We set the bar high in Miami that we have serious sailing, but the camaraderie is the most important thing, and Ian agreed with that as he told us during the skippers meeting to behave on the starting line. Amazingly we went until the last race without having a general recall.
With a scheduled first warning at 11:30 CGSC race committee got things rolling with a perfectly timed start with 8-10knots out of the East the fleet couldn’t ask for better conditions. With 11 teams heading to the 1st mark and all having played nice on the starting line the power of one design showed as the top 5 boats all would round in a matter of just seconds. This would be a trend that would continue for the entire weekend.
CGSC did a great job of getting 4 races off on Saturday and our Fleet Captain who had broken his Main Halyard in the first race even reappeared just in time to sail the last race of the day. The leader had a commanding lead with six points, but second and third were not to be counted out as they both had decent throw outs if we get to that elusive sixth race on Sunday. Team Exit Strategy, on Saturday had a total of six points with a 1,1,3,1, second was Main Squeeze with a 2,5,1,5 and third was Zia, with a 3,2,2,7 so after looking at the points Team Exit Strategy knew the worst they could do on Sunday was to get a 5th in the first race but they also had to keep track of how Main Squeeze and Zia were performing.
On Sunday morning the lovely clear blue waters of Biscayne Bay we not going to disappoint anyone. At the 11:00 warning signal the breeze was a steady 8-12 knots out of the east. With two races scheduled for Sunday Team Exit Strategy was feeling pretty good but they knew that they needed a top five finish to win the regatta. Main Squeeze which is a local favorite and a road warrior in Florida came out swinging and took the bullet with 4 boats overlapped crossing the finish line with Team Exit Strategy in 4th and now having to sail the last race to make sure that they would win the regatta. The last race went off with a general recall as the fleet decided it was finally time to get aggressive and push the envelope with the top three decided 4th, 5th and 6th were battling and pushing the line. With a general recall flag down and the final race of the regatta in now 10-12 solid easterly breeze the fleet got going and did not disappoint with battles for posturing across the board.
With the final race in the books Team Exit Strategy took the regatta with race 6 being their throw out with a conservative finish of 6th. Second place was Zia 1 point behind Team Exit Strategy with 11 point and third place was Main Squeeze with 14 points.
The winning team – Team Exit Strategy consisted of the following crew: Brian Schultz, Pit – Boca Raton, FL CGSC Member, Val Shestopalov, Bow – Miami FL, Kurban Ali, Trimmer – St. Petersburg, FL, Cate Gundlach, Tactician – Lauderdale Yacht Club/CGSC Opti Alumni, Rick Jarchow, Jr. Driver – Lauderdale Yacht/CGSC Club Opti Alumni.
A big shout out to the race committee at Coconut Grove Sailing Club, the Regatta Chair – Andi Hoffman, Regatta Organizers – Rick Jarchow, Jr. and Mark Pincus, and finally our PRO Ian McCelland.
For Results: https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=24874
