J/70 Grand Slam 4 at the Royal Yacht Squadron

by William Edwards / J/70 UK Class 17 Jul 06:01 BST 12-13 July 2025

J/70 Grand Slam 4 was run by the Royal Yacht Squadron over the weekend of 12th & 13th July - the sun shone, shorts and t shirts, and 8 to 15 knots, - champagne sailing.

The excellent RYS race team, led by Peter Saxton, produced seven outstanding races of about 50 minutes each. The fleet numbered 26 including most of the RTYC, RYS & RSrnYC charter boats. It really is an excellent initiative that between these three senior yacht clubs we run 15 J/70's for our members providing access to the excellent J/70 racing circuit on a pay and sail basis.

On the Saturday, we had 4 races with a short break for lunch. Normally a 3-race day is optimal, of course that is a personal opinion, but, with no recalls and quick turnarounds, 4 races was just 'parfait'.

The first two races were won by Martin Dent and the very slick team Jelvis and races 3 and 4 were won by team Sardonyx who ended the day as overnight leaders with 4 points in hand but with no discard yet applied.

The 2025 season has, so far, been dominated by Ali Hall and team Calypso and Martin Dent and team Jelvis. Sardonyx have been the outlier knocking hard on the door but not yet quite finding the way through it. So being overnight leaders was exciting and inspiring. Nick Griffiths with team Spencer Rigging, Simon Perry with team Giraffe, Ian Poynton with team Powder Monkey, and Max Clapp with team Jeepster were all strong contenders.

After racing on Saturday, the Royal Yacht Squadron hosted stylish cocktails, in their traditional manner on the lawn, which was attended by the Cowes based competitors and some Hamble based competitors who returned by RIB. It was a champagne and fitting end to a champagne sailing day.

Sunday brought a little more wind, at times we were 3 sail planning but generally the fleet was in displacement mode. Really what more can one ask for? Tactical one design racing on a sparkling and tidally tricky Solent framed by the verdant island jewel and the beautiful South Downs, with the sun on your back. On days such as Saturday and Sunday the Solent is up there as one of the finest places in the world to race sail boats.

And yet... with no general recalls on Saturday and the regatta coming to its conclusion the fleet were getting a bit punchy and edging forwards on the line resulting in the first start of race 5 being a general recall. PRO Peter Saxton hoisted the black flag. With all to play for some of the fleet pushed a little too hard, there was another 'general' and 6 boats, including Jelvis and Calypso, were excluded from the restart. This gave Sardonyx a great chance to capitalise but we mis-called a few shifts and finished 5th with Max Clapp and team Jeepster claiming the bullet and Nick Griffiths and team Spencer Rigging in 2nd.

Race 6 was a sensational race for Griffiths and team Spencer Rigging. They claimed the start, tacked up the shore, worked the shifts and tide the best, and rounded the windward mark with a safe lead which they extended all race. Jelvis were 2nd, Calypso mid fleet and Sardonyx posted another 5th.

With the 7th race being the final race, the calculators came out and aboard Sardonyx we realised that, due to Jelvis and Calypso both carrying a black flag DNC result, we could discard race 7 and were still guaranteed 2nd place. We really wanted to win overall but for that to happen Jelvis had to finish in 8th place or worse. In 3 seasons I don't think I have seen Jelvis finish outside the top 5 so expecting them to finish 8thor worse was about as likely as hosting the next America's Cup. After a very brief discussion we made a 4-way joint crew call to do all we possibly could to win.

From Sardonyx's point of view we were guaranteed 2nd overall and had nothing to lose. Some of the fleet will remember those two classic Ainslie / Scheidt duels to seal or steal the Lazer gold medal in the Sydney 2000 and Tokyo 2004 Olympics. The younger sailors may well have watched the footage and read the biographies. Ainslie lost in 2000 and had to settle for silver and his revenge was sweet in 2004 when he turned the tables on Scheidt in a brutal match race. The first time it resulted in a protest and there was bad feeling, but the jury concluded it was fair game if it was the only way to win.

Last winter in Cascais we raced J/70's in mountainous seas against none other than the legendary Scheidt himself. Better still we had après race beers with him and his crew (ever and still the athlete - Scheidt drinks halves).

After briefly considering the option of a near certain gentlemanly second place or a gloves off, no quarter given, duel to the death, we sharpened the boat knife and prepared for that rare and exciting event - a match race within a fleet race to win the series and become South Coast Champions. Coincidentally at the same time Sinner and Alcaraz were about to step onto Centre Court to decide who would be the 2025 Wimbledon Men's Champion. Sport can be brutal and today it was going to be determinedly so both on Hill Head and on Centre Court.

Ian Dobson, our talented helm is an exceptional match and team racer, James Peters was calling the shots with all of his cunning and guile, Will Heathcote and I were working the sheets and pushing for every extra bit of boatspeed.

Sardonyx stayed near the committee boat and waited for Jelvis to come to the line which they did with about two minutes to go. We immediately locked into them and circled round behind them. A couple of unsuspecting J/70s got caught up in the middle and found a themselves being circled too - apologies to them for the confusion. We tried to hold Jelvis away from the line, but with 24 other boats around it was difficult and Martin got a good start. We were slightly to windward but not in a position to dominate and halfway up the beat they slipped through us, but with tactical skill from James Peters we got back through again about 3/4 of the way up the beat. Again the very quick and slippery Jelvis got through us at the windward mark and we had to work incredibly hard downhill to get back ahead of them just before the leeward mark. Going into the second beat Jelvis tried everything they could to escape us using dummy tacks, double tacks, one quadruple tack, pinching and easing off and all the time we covered them like glue. We must have done 40 or 50 tacks and finally when we had them pinned under us and on the lay line we flapped the jib to disturb their air for over a minute on them dragging us both back down the fleet and rounded the final mark in about 20th place.

On the final run it is hard to cover in asymmetric boats but we lose covered and we did both climb back through the fleet finishing 14th and 15th. It was enough to knock Jelvis off the podium and it meant we had won the South Coast Championship. Nick Griffiths and spencer Rigging won the last race which sealed 2nd place overall and congratulations to them too.

It was a brilliant regatta and a very exciting way to end it. Martin Dent and the excellent team Jelvis were very sporting about it and joined us in the marina for drinks afterwards congratulating us and we had a good old chat about the dastardly shenanigans!

It is rare to win a regatta like that and I have only ever done it once before and even James Peters said he had only ever done it three times before so it was unusual and the very height of the game.

Sardonyx are extremely proud to have won the South Coast Championships against such strong and worthy competition and we are now looking forward to the always wonderful Cowes Week.

We look forward to seeing you on the start line and, of course, in the bar!

Huge thanks to our clothing sponsor Rooster for the fantastic prizes, and to Ocean Rope for their continued support.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail No	Cat	Boat Name	Helm	Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Pts
1	GBR 1203		Sardonyx	William Edwards	BHYC	2	5	1	1	4	5	‑14	18
2	GBR 108		Spencer	Nick Griffith	CCYC	‑16	8	6	2	1	4	1	22
3	GBR 1452	C	Calypso	Ali Hall	RYS	3	7	2	3	(BFD)	2	5	22
4	GBR 1572		Jirraffe	Simon Perry	RYS	5	‑9	3	9	2	3	2	24
5	GBR 1247		Jelvis	Martin Dent	RSrnYC	1	1	4	4	(BFD)	1	15	26
6	GBR 1384	C	Cosmic	Patrick Liardet	RSrnYC	6	3	‑13	11	6	6	6	38
7	GBR 1591		Dads N Lads	Tim Simpson	RSrnYC	‑10	6	7	5	7	9	7	41
8	GBR 937	C	Powder Monkey	Ian Poynton	RSrnYC	7	4	9	‑15	3	7	13	43
9	GBR 1248	C	DSP	Marshall King	RTYC	‑11	11	5	8	8	8	4	44
10	GBR 1867		Genius	Arthur Farley	BHYC	12	2	11	7	10	‑18	8	50
11	744	C	Elizabeth	Jemima Dawson	RTYC	9	10	10	10	5	‑13	9	53
12	GBR 1169	C	Jeepster	Graham Clapp	RSrhYC	4	13	12	13	(BFD)	10	3	55
13	GBR 881		XV Manta	Isabelle Hung	RSrnYC	8	12	8	6	(BFD)	14.5	12	60.5
14	742	C	RTYC 1	Oliver Dix	RTYC	13	14	15	12	9	11	‑16	74
15	GBR 1206	C	Offbeat	David McLeman	RSrhYC	14	15	17	18	12	12	‑19	88
16	GBR 1327	C	Wendy Deluxe	Andrew Wishart	RSrnYC	18	‑19	19	14	13	14.5	10	88.5
17	GBR 290	C	Jenga 8	Andrew Barraclough	RLmYC	17	17	‑18	17	11	17	18	97
18	GBR 1123	C	Excess	Laurie Callaghan	RSrnYC	‑19	16	16	16	16	16	17	97
19	GBR 974	C	EV Experts	Tim Collins	RORC	15	18	14	‑20	15	20	20	102
20	GBR 828		Lightfoot	Morgan Reynolds	RSrnYC	‑20	20	20	19	14	19	11	103
21=	745		RTYC 4	James Farha	RTYC	(DNC)	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	138
21=	GBR 746		Bonbonbonbons	Alex Smallwood	RTYC	(RET)	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	138

2025 Grand Slam calendar here.