An interview with Doug Morgan about the 2018 J/70 Worlds
by David Schmidt 18 Sep 2018 16:00 BST
September 22-29, 2018
Alcatel J/70 Worlds in San Francisco day 4 © Gerard Sheridan
The J/70 hit the sailing scene in 2012 and quickly changed the landscape of One Design sailing as a flurry of these red-hot speedsters began making their presence known on international racecourses. To date, the class, which now has some 1,300 boats (or more) sailing on at least five continents, has held four Wold Championship regattas, with the inaugural event taking place in 2014 on the waters off of Newport, RI, followed by 2015’s title, which was contested off of La Rochelle, France. In 2016, the J/70 Worlds migrated West to the wind- and tide-riven waters of San Francisco Bay before returning to the Continent to Porto Cervo for the 2017 Worlds. The 2018 West Marine J70 World Championship will be held from September 22-29 at the Eastern Yacht Club in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and the scratch sheet is capped (and filled) at 101 entries.
A glance through this year’s J/70 Worlds entry list reads like a who’s-who list of professional America’s Cup, Olympic and Volvo Ocean Race sailors, as well as previous J/70 World Championship winners, including (but certainly not limited to) Tim Healy, Peter Duncan, Jud Smith, Jonathan McKee, Charlie McKee, Bill Hardesty, John Kostecki, and Paul Goodison.
Earning a bullet in this talent-packed fleet will take serious skill, speed and strategy, especially given that several strong entrants hail from nearby waters (including Jud Smith, who served as Peter Duncan’s tactician in their successful 2017 J/70 Worlds win) and will be entering the starting area with decades of accumulated local knowledge.
Still, given the caliber of sailors involved at this event, it remains to be seen how big of a lever arm local knowledge will produce come September’s starting guns, especially since many top-flight teams used the recent Marblehead NOOD regatta (July 26-29, 2018) to get up to speed on their knowledge of local secrets. (That said, Smith-a local-sailed away the winner of this summer’s Marblehead NOODs, followed by Healy, who hails from nearby Newport, Rhode Island, and Joel Ronning’s Catapult team, from the Wayzata Yacht Club in Wayzata, Minnesota.)
I caught up with Doug Morgan, regatta chairman of the 2018 West Marine J70 World Championship (j70worlds2018.com), via email, to learn more about this highly competitive regatta that-at the time of this writing-had teams registered from 20-plus countries.
I see that there are currently 99 boats registered—is there a hard cap on the maximum number of entries?
Yes, for this year the class organization has decided to cap entries at 100 and require participants to qualify in their local fleets.
This has created a lot of excitement and build-up over the past year as teams were competing to qualify around the globe, and it we think it will lead to a very high-caliber event.
Do you anticipate having to use a mid-line starting boat, or how will you and the other event organizers manage such a long starting line?
Yes, the intention is have a mid-line boat. The Eastern Race Committee has run several world-championship events using this format and has the personnel and equipment to run a high-quality starting line.
Hank Stuart is our PRO for the event who also has extensive experience with large fleets.
The 2017 J/70 Worlds saw some tomfoolery take place with racers attempting to use non-class-legal equipment (or equipment that was modified outside of class specs)—do you see this being an issue this year and what steps will be in place to catch any suspect gear, hulls or sails?
The class measurers will be as thorough and detailed as always to ensure compliance with class rules.
We have planned a very detailed measurement process for the 3.5 days leading up to the racing.
Where will racing take place? Or, will this be based on conditions?
The racing will take place outside of the harbor, approximately three miles east-southeast of Marblehead Neck. We don’t expect to move from this general area during the week.
Marblehead has the advantage of quick access to the open ocean, and plenty of unobstructed room to operate.
The entry list reads like a who’s-who of One Design sailing…are you placing any pre-racing bets on the fastest teams? If so, care to name any names? And does anyone have any edge on Jud Smith when it comes to racing on Marblehead’s local waters?
There are nine local boats who have qualified and they are all loaded with great sailors including Jud Smith, Bill Lynn, Tomas Hornos, Tyler Doyle, Charlie Pendleton and many others.
This is going to be very fun to sit back and watch, but as the event chair I will stay out of the business of predicting a winner.
Can you tell us about any steps that the event is taking to reduce the regatta’s environmental footprint?
We are working to make this a [Sailors for the Sea-endorsed] clean regatta. A local Eagle Scout candidate has taken this on as his project. Our title sponsor West Marine is also supplying reusable water bottles for all competitors and filling stations.
We are committed to not using plastic straws or single-serve cups in the post-race events. All of the vinyl materials for the bow numbers have been tested and will be prepped to [en]sure they don’t end up in the ocean.
Anything else that you’d like to add, for the record?
We are honored and excited to be hosting this event. It has been years in the making are we looking forward to sharing Marblehead and the Eastern Yacht Club with competitors from around the world. We also want to give special thanks to our title sponsor West Marine for partnering with us to make this a world-class event.