J70s at the Doyle Sails Hamble One Design Championships
by Gemma Dunn 20 Oct 2014 15:24 BST
18-19 October 2014
This weekend saw the second and final of the J/70 One Design Championships as part of the Hamble Winter Series. Going into the weekend, David Atkinson's Jawbreaker held a comfortable lead ahead of Paul Molesworth's JustNow, both new owners to the fleet in 2014.
The best scoreline for the weekend went to Simon Ling's Spitfire, with a crew which featured two-time SB20 World Champion Craig Burlton. Interestingly Ian Wilson's Joyride also featured an SB20 victor; three-time World Champion Geoff Carveth. Despite four top-three results over the course of the weekend, Spitfire could not counter Jawbreaker's consistent performance over the two weekends, and so David Atkinson's team were eventually crowned champions.
This second weekend was also a qualifying event for the J/70 2015 World Championships, which will take place in La Rochelle in July. Spitfire's terrific set of results mean they win this weekend's Worlds Qualifier.
J/70 Class Chairman and owner of Just4Play Simon Cavey said, "Once again the racing in the J/70 fleet was superb, with incredible winds and even some sunshine, the Solent was the place to be this weekend. Congratulations to David Atkinson for winning the Hamble One Design Championship over the two weekends."
"With five different winners in ten races telling the story of how close this fleet is, and with everyone in the bar after racing already getting excited for next year, with an amazing number of new boats to be delivered before the 2015 season, 20+ boats on the start will be commonplace. It was fantastic to get great feedback from the two newest owners in the fleet Nick Munday and David Mitchell, both of whom loved their first outing in the 70, although Nick did mention he went for a quick swim during a gybe in one race!"
"I must finish this short report with a big congrats to Nigel Evans and Tim Howard who had an amazing day on the water with a second and first with incredible upwind and downwind speed, they were the team to catch."
The next qualifying event for the J/70 World Championships will take place as part of the Warsash Spring Championships in April.