J World Annapolis has been supporting sailing teams and Key West Race Week for nearly 20 years by bringing racing education programs and charter boats to this winter classic.  Perennial podium finishers, J World’s own Jahn Tihansky and our speedster USA 156 (Emotional Rescue) won this year’s Midwinter Championship under the banner of Team Vayu 2.  The following write up was pulled from a North Sails roundup. Report by Andrew Kerr – Tactician J/80 Team Vayu 2

This year’s Key West Race Week was also the venue for the J/80 Midwinter Championships; it is hard to think of a better venue for a championship in January! Peter Craig and his team from Premiere Racing always make the event a World class event with top level race management on the water and great shore side activities after wards.

On the Sunday evening I participated as a member of the tactician’s panel representing division three (J/80 class and PHRF 1 and 2 fleets) with Ed Baird as moderator, Ed does a great job keeping everyone engaged and the ideas and conversation flowing and as a result the interaction with the audience was highly effective with great insight and thoughts from the panel and questions from the audience.

For the fourth year I sailed with Vayu 2 as Tactician and Jib trimmer, Vayu 2 is a J/80 chartered from J World Annapolis by Ron Buzil of Chicago, helmed by Jahn Tihansky (Jahn Owns J World Annapolis and is the Offshore coach for the US Naval academy) and TJ Voght from Atlanta, TJ and Jahn go a long way back together as they owned a J24 together in Tampa back in 1979. I have coached Ron’s Benetau 40. 7 team in Chicago for the last 14 years. Read more