Planning for Key West Race Week started this past fall when my three older children said that they wanted to do Key West on our J/80, RUMOR. This presented a problem in that it meant I had to leave home my two regular crew (and family members) my nephew, Bobby Storck and brother-in-law, Kieran Glackin. Fortunately, Bobby and Kieran understood my predicament and wished us the best.
Our next problem was weight. Since John III, Erik, Kaity and I weighed about 620 lbs., we needed a fifth person to get up to max. weight of 746 lbs. Kaity signed on a classmate and fellow sailing team member from Tuft�s friend, who unfortunately dropped out at the last minute. That left us searching for crew at Key West. My son Erik found a post card on the crew board that looked promising. Chris Doe was a 19 year-old from Poole, UK, who weighed 130 lbs. As his UK cell phone was not working, we went to find him at the Key West Youth Hostel where he was staying.
You can imagine my concern when we knocked on the door of the dorm style room and the guy who appeared had a shaved head, no shirt, lots of tattoos and a vast array of rings inserted in all manner of body parts. I was afraid he would get caught in the rigging or be an attraction for a lightning strike. As he said he knew no one by the name of Chris Doe, the real Chris overheard the conversation and arose from his bed. After a brief interview, we told him he could sail if we weighed in. We all wore our foul weather gear all day while we rigged the boat to sweat off the last bit of weight. We successfully weighed in 10 lbs under weight on Saturday afternoon. Chris turned out to be a delightful young man to have on board and was a perfect fit for our crew of four �Type A� personalities.
I had spent much of the fall working on all the little details that make for racing success. All of the gear was cleaned, greased, lubricated, taped and inspected. I spent some time improving our vang set up so that it could be released faster in heavy air. I also spent a weekend speed testing some new sails with UK-Halsey New York�s Kerry Klingler. This was an invaluable session and allowed me to further develop my tuning chart.
On Sunday at Key West we went out and fortunately hooked up with Glen Darden on HOSS Racing. We knew he would be a top contender and were pleased that we could at least sail with him. I put my son Erik on the helm and he could stay with Glen as well. That made up my mind to let Erik drive and let me concentrate on boat set up and tactics. I felt it was important to be free to help with crew maneuvers as we had never sailed this boat together and I was the only one who knew the boat.
Monday went off well with a fourth in the first race � we were disappointed, however, in that we should have been third in this race and just were not aggressive enough downwind and did not effectively cover Glen at the end and slipped to fourth. We recovered nicely in the second race, which we won, giving us second for the day to Jay Lutz.
Day two started very ominously as the southerly wind was blowing so hard down the channel at Stock Island that our four-horsepower outboard could not push us upwind; we ended up sailing out under jib alone. We almost missed the start by the time we got the main up and the engine off. The racing was really exciting with winds in the low 20�s and good-sized rollers. We hit 19.2 knots on one surf. The first race ended with us finishing third behind Jay Lutz and Rick Schaffer (C�EST NASTY). Race two was not as good and we finished fourth with Jay winning another race and C�EST NASTY second and Glen in third. The same four boats had by now occupied the top four spots in all races- Jay Lutz in SYNERGY, Rick Schaffer in C�EST NASTY, Glen Darden in HOSS RACING and us.
Early in the morning of day three I awoke in our condo to the sound of a strong front blowing through. After a shore postponement, we ventured out in 25-30 knots of wind out of the NNE. At least it was downwind to the race course! The start for the J/80s was wild with a big jam up at the pin boat and two boats with their rigs hooked together. Fortunately, we saw this coming in the J/105 start and had a nice mid-line start that let us clear the line and carnage to leeward at the pin. Basically, it came down to a two-boat race � C�EST NASTY and us. C�EST NASTY won but was DSQ�ed putting us in first for the day.
A new boat broke into the top three as INFINITY placed second, with Jay in third. We were lucky to have sailed a nice clean race with zero boat handling errors. On the last run, knowing we had second locked up, I had us take the chute down before the last jibe. My offspring thought that was a neat idea when I told them that is something we do when ocean racing. There were a number of dismastings in the Melges 24�s and J/105�s along with a number of crew overboards including one J/80 helmsman who ended up racing with another boat after falling overboard.
Day four dawned with the breeze blowing 20 knots, which seemed light by comparison. We ended up with a fourth and a third, which made us third for the day with Jay Lutz in first and C�EST NASTY in second. This put us in third for the series two points behind C�EST NASTY. Jay had a commanding lead with only eight points compared to our 16. My kids were confident that we could beat C�EST NASTY. Being the senior citizen on board, I am much more cautious in my predictions.
Friday saw continued drop in the breeze with about 12-14 knots at the start of race one. We felt the breeze should continue to shift right as the high moved east so we started near the boat. We were the first boat to tack and were surprised when no leaders followed. We went right for about five minutes and came back to cross with a nice lead � we held this to win race one. C�EST NASTY was three places behind INFINITY who was sailing very well. This put us tied with C�EST NASTY going into the last race. We had a nice boat end start with C�EST NASTY to leeward. We again tacked out and INFINITY and some others followed � C�EST NASTY stayed on starboard with the majority of the fleet. When we checked back in the only boat to cross us was HYPERDRIVE, which rounded in first with us in second. There were several boats between us and C�EST NASTY including INFINITY and HOSS RACING. We made a decision to try and win the day and covered them instead of C�EST NASTY. We worked our way into first at the end of the first run and extended on the second beat. Interestingly, we went left on the second beat as some clouds had rolled in and it looked like better pressure on the top left. By the last run, we had a comfortable lead and won the day and placed second to Jay for the series. C�EST NASTY was third.
Our UK-Halsey sails were terrific � we were very fast upwind and were able to sail real deep on the runs. Kerry has provided invaluable assistance in patiently telling me how to prepare and set up the boat as well. Thanks Kerry!
Most importantly, I was able to do Key West with my sons and daughter. It was a dream come true for me; the best part is that we are still on speaking terms and they even want to do the J/80 Worlds.
John Storck, Jr.
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