J-80 North American Championships, Kerry Klingler's Account

Three weeks before the North American Championships I called my partner Blake Fleetwood to discuss racing the regatta. I have used USA-352 for a lot of events and felt it was Blake's turn to use the boat. Luckily, a friend from Larchmont, Barry Gold offered his boat for me to use in the regatta. I chartered MARVELOUS (sail #549) for the regatta.

I thought it wouldn't be too hard to prepare a new boat for the regatta in two weeks time. At the Worlds we just had three days. I already had all the equipment and sails from the Worlds, so getting everything organized was not a problem. The first thing we did was to take the boat out of the water and clean the bottom. The bottom was well prepared, but needed a lot of wet sanding to get race ready. We took the boat over to McMichael's Yacht Yard, where we borrowed the proper equipment and went to work on the boat. After a few days, I felt we had a boat prepared and equipped to race.

The weekend before the regatta, we finally got the boat back into the water for a practice sail. Our crew of Jay Lurie, Mike Quaglio, Chris Quaglio and myself had not sailed together since our win at Key West. We went out to work on our boat handling and see if the boat needed any additional work. As it turned out, the list was not too bad, and we were ready to go.

We arrived at Annapolis just before lunchtime, hungry and ready to weigh in. Class rules for the J-80 class require you to weigh in before the racing starts. We made weight by five pounds and then started putting the boat together. It is amazing how much work is required to put a boat together! Not only did we have to assemble everything, but Carl Deham (the class measurer) had to check safety gear, weight and royalty tags on our sails. At 4:30 p.m., we put the boat in the water, and at just that time Carl showed up and weighed the boat in.

We took a look at the competition and realized that we were in for a tough regatta. Jay Lutz was sailing with his brother Jody calling tactics for him. Geoff Pierini was sailing with help from Max Scully of Ullman Sails. Robert Miller assembled a great team with the help of Steve LeMay, with Alec Cutler steering. Kurt Muller also put together an impressive team on EMOTIONAL RESCUE. Antonio Mari chartered a boat from J-World and brought his well-traveled team from Puerto Rico to the event. The teams from STORM, FLASH, OVERACHIEVER, USA-352, rounded out the top 10 finishers with good, well-practiced crews.

We had light to medium air on the first day. The wind was shifty with numerous holes and was overall a difficult day. Once you got a little behind it was very easy to lose a lane and get pushed back by your competition. It was clear that the top boat, EMOTIONAL RESCUE, sailed better than everyone and enjoyed a well-deserved lead. The JESTER team proved their tenacity and hung tough for second, with our team on MARVELOUS in a close third 5 points behind.

The second day was the day of the regatta when crews made or lost their chance at the championship. Each race took on a personality of its own -- if you thought you learned something from the previous race, forget it. Each race presented us with a new and different wind and race challenge. Overall, the name of the game was to keep your head, and to sail tough. The first race of the day was light. Antonio Mari started well and worked his way into a large lead. We worked the middle of the course on the second beat to a third place finish. The next race was the big shift race. We worked up the middle of the first leg with the fleet to the right of us. All of a sudden the wind shifted right 30 degrees, and gave the boats on the right five knots more wind. We were in the tank by the windward mark. The rest of the race I felt like a ping-pong ball! Working the wind and fleet from behind is not easy! Fortunately for us, JESTER and EMOTIONAL RESCUE finished close to us, so we didn't lose too many points to the leaders. The next race, the wind settled down and gave us one of the best races of the day. The wind picked up to 10 to 15 knots and the shifts weren't as big. We had a first row start and put the boat in overdrive. We were in the zone -- the boat was fast and we hit the shifts for a wire-to-wire win. The next race was similar with a different boat in the zone -- EMOTIONAL RESCUE was on top of their game and dominated the race. They actually tacked and hurt us badly about 2/3 of the way up the first beat. We missed a shift that never seemed to come back and we rounded in 5th behind JESTER, BADA BING, SYNERGY and OVERACHIEVER. The next run went well and the 2nd to 5th boats condensed on the run. That made for a fun next beat. With an oscillating breeze and small holes, you needed to keep in phase with the shifts and puffs. The whole pack hung together, though we were able to edge out and use our speed to an advantage. One hundred yards from the finish we were able to pass BADA BING, just to watch them take advantage of the last shift and pass us back. I felt very good about this race because we were set back and worked our way back into the race. The points at the end of the day were, MARVELOUS 1st with EMOTIONAL RESCUE second, and BADA BING in third. We had a 7-point lead, with a day left to sail.

We had the best wind of the series on the last day. Finally we were in a depower mode up wind. With a good lead in the regatta, conservative starts were our strategy for starting. We started a 1/3 of the way down the line, about one-half boat length behind the leaders. Taking advantage of his lead at the start of the first race, Jay Lutz eased off and rolled us, forcing us to tack away. Right when we tacked we got lifted on the new tack 20 degrees. We extended on that tack until the wind shifted back, at which time we tacked into a nice lift with more pressure. The rest of the beat, we extended on the fleet working the shifts and puffs to our advantage. We went on to win the race with a big lead of two and-a-half minutes over the next boat. EMOTIONAL RESCUE and BADA BING were both over the line early during the start, and had difficult races, although BADA BING did a great job of getting back into race, coming in fifth place. Jay Lutz on SYNERGY held on for a second place.

We had the regatta won going into the last race and looked forward to a fun race. Second place was still up for grabs though. This race was a shifty, crazy, light air race. At any point in the race someone different led, and the fleet standings flip flopped. In the end Jay Lutz won the race and finished second in the event. We finished second. This made the final results Kerry Klingler, MARVELOUS 1st with 21 total points. Jay Lutz, SYNERGY 2nd with 32 total points, Geoffrey Perini 3rd with 40 total points & Bob Miller JESTER 4th with 42 total points.

Overall, the race committee did a great job of running races in difficult conditions. They worked hard to ensure fair and fun races. I have to give a special thanks to Mike Lague and Linda Ambrose for their hard work. The regatta was well run and a lot of fun. Finally I would like to thank Eastport Yacht Club, which provided the home base for the event. If you missed the regatta, you missed out on some great sailing and great competition.

The key thoughts I came away with in the regatta were the following:

In shifty conditions, you have to try to do two key things: First off you have to try to sail on the lifted tack. Second thing is you have to try to sail at or towards pressure. There were many key times where awareness was required to sail towards more wind. Wind speed was dominant in importance over angle. In light air you have to keep in pressure.

In shifty conditions, tacking on your competition is a critical decision. On the second day of the regatta we had three key times when the second place boat tacked on us. Each time the boat tacking on us tacked onto a headed tack. Each time we tacked away, we tacked onto a lifted tack. The next time we crossed with that same boat, we always had a lead. At one point, EMOTIONAL RESCUE tacked on us and onto the lifted tack. We tacked away to clear our wind, and at our next crossing they had a huge lead on us. In short, tacking on the competition is only helpful if you are going the right way.

We enjoyed a clear advantage in boat speed. This was achieved with the same sail shapes we used to win the 2001 World Championships. The key is that over time we have developed better tuning. This has lead to a faster set up where the sails achieve a better shape more consistently. Although our tuning guide looks similar to the past, the tension numbers have changed for a better setup. Also, the boats seem to be slightly different in mast location at the deck level. The result is that when the mast is tuned for a mast step location forward of the bulkhead, you will have to fine-tune that location for your boat. The first day of the North Americans we had the mast step at the same location as USA-352. I thought that the first day we could have been faster and that we developing too much lower bend in the mast and too slack of a headstay, which hurt our pointing ability. For the next day, moved the mast step a quarter of an inch forward, and the results were staggering. We went from 5 point behind in the standings to 7 points ahead. I think the next thing we have to work on is the total package of mast location -- taking into account locations of the mast step, partners and headstay length for a total speed solution. By the way, USA-352 has the partners a quarter of an inch farther aft than USA-549. With a little fine-tuning, both boats ended up very fast.