Kerry Klingler from UK-Halsey New York, is a past J/80 World Champion and two time North American Champion. As UK-Halsey�s sail designer for the class, Kerry spends a lot of time racing the 80. After winning the class at Key West for his third time, Kerry wrote about three of the keys to his success this year:
After sailing Key West Race Week, it�s hard to believe why any sailor would not attend this regatta. The combination of great race management, super weather, crystal clear water and fun competition makes Key West one of the premier regattas in the world. Sailing with my crew Doug Lynn (sail trimmer), Neil Bresnan (Pit and Tactics), and Jay Lurie (Bow and Tactics), we won the 17-boat J/80 division by the narrow margin of six points over RUMOR, sailed by John Storck, Jr. and John Storck, III. The Storcks pressed us to the end with finishes of 2, 3, 1, 1, in the last four races of the nine-race series. They sailed a great regatta. This year race week was sailed in mostly light air, with wind speeds from 4-8 knots.
One of the important things we worked on was sailing in the lighter conditions with slightly looser upper shrouds than in the past. By backing off the upper shrouds three turns, the rig powered up and the boat speed was great. The other thing we did was to make sure the jib lead was far enough forward so that the sail broke evenly on the luff. Finally, we pulled the traveler to windward to keep the end of the boom on centerline, and sheeted the mainsheet hard enough to stall the top batten. When the boat started to slow up, I eased the mainsheet enough to get the top batten to flow. This allowed the boat to accelerate yet maintain good pointing ability.
One of the things you have to be aware of is to change gears when you sail into a puff. If the traveler is too high when the puff comes on, the boat will not build speed. When the boat starts to heel with the crew on the rail and hiking, I eased the traveler six inches, tensioned the backstay slightly, and sheeted the main harder. This kept the boat on its feet and sailing fast. When the wind died I reversed the process � pulling the traveler to windward, easing the sheet and backstay. We never stopped working the sails to try and keep the boat pointing with good speed through the water.
The other advantage we enjoyed was great downwind speed. There were key times when we were able to reel in the competition and pass boats. I think this was due to our spinnaker, which is a great downwind sail. This design was developed over five years of hard R&D; work, testing countless designs. The thing I like about this design is its ability to rotate to windward and project maximum area to the wind while easy to trim. Along with having a fast chute, the crew knew how to sail deep, but recognized when to heat up the boat to get speed. A lot of times our competition was trying to sail too deep, only losing distance to the competition. I think one of the keys we used was to match angle of our competitors and not sail deeper. While sailing downwind, make speed your primary goal.
The final ingredient to our success was good crew work. My guys worked together as a team and had consistently good boat handling, which allowed me to attack the race and push our competitors. I could not have won the event without them � thanks guys.
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