J/122 EL OCASO “Insider’s” Heineken Report

While tight reaching along St. Martin’s eastern shore, we watched with delight as a J/122 crept up on on windward hip and watched the deft crew prepare to hoist a spinnaker on an impossible angle.  As the head rocketed towards the masthead and the tack hammered home, I exclaimed, “how did they get a Flying Jenny kite way down here?”   Kevin Ryman, my coaching partner explained “that is Flying Jenny!”  Was David Askew back in the 122? Were they speedy dopplegangers? We may never know, but the short encounter made us wish we were sailing a J 122 in these conditions.  The following is a great perspective from the spinnaker fleet from this year’s Heineken regatta.

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J World Team Building Programs

5982StrengtheningLeadershipTeam

J World Annapolis team building programs have helped dozens of corporate teams become higher functioning.  Sailing is the perfect illuminator and illustrator of what it takes for teams of any size to maximize their performance.  But don’t take our word for it.  Check out the latest post from  speaker, author, Ken Blanchard collaborator and executive consultant  S. Chris Edmonds.

How clear is your team’s “organizational constitution”? Does every team member understand and align to your team’s desired purpose, values, strategies, and goals?

If team members don’t know or don’t align to your team’s purpose, values, strategies, and goals, your team will experience inconsistent performance, team member conflict, the inability to shift to embrace a new goal, and worse.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to learn how to sail a 30-foot Shields racing sailboat. I didn’t realize then that this sailing gig would be a powerful education on the importance of team purpose, values, strategy and goals. Read more

What’s in my sea bag? Part IV

Our fourth installment of this series focuses on Jeff Jordan and his trip to the Heineken Regatta in Sint Maarten.

Jeff and his team of J World clients walked away with the gold in their bareboat division last year. The program is a unique mix of cruising and racing so we are curious what he’ll bring this year.

So Jeff… In addition to your 2013 first place flag, engraved telescope and signed Commodore’s record what’s in the bag, man?
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Annapolis Safety-At-Sea Seminar

Safety-At-Sea is an annual tradition for us at J World Annapolis.  A fantastic way to learn new concepts, test your crew’s commitment and spend a day with fellow sailors learning about recent tragedies and time honored techniques… Safety-At-Sea should be on your spring calendar.  Click below to register online.

The current Safety-At-Sea program is a one or two day program.  Do the two days. Read more

J World Annapolis’ Emotional Rescue (USA 156) Wins J/80 Midwinter Championship

downwind

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

The importance of layering.

After reading Kristen’s inspiring “What’s in my sea bag?”, long time industry partner Jerry Richards sent us this article as a follow up.  Enjoy.

What to Wear

Protecting The Power Within

Making it Your Advantage

 

How Important Is What You Wear?

As long as conditions are safe, rough weather should not keep you from going racing. Rough weather days can be the most enjoyable and certainly the most memorable. However, poor quality clothing and out of date fabrics can ruin the day for racers of all ages especially the novice. Read more

The Early Gybe

A few weeks ago we posted about the power of a quick gybe at the windward mark – especially for boats that are sailing wing on wing down the leeward leg.  Last weekend’s penultimate Annapolis Frostbite provided a picture perfect display of exactly what we talked about.  By the way – Spinsheet magazine printed a version of some of our frostbite tips.  It is on the news stand now!

Check out the following video from Sunday’s racing!  It is best viewed at 720 and large viewer (not full screen)

 

 

 

Find The Favored Side

Buddy David Coach
Buddy David
Coach

This week J World Annapolis coach Buddy David shares his insights into finding the “favored side” of the race course.  Buddy and his team are leading all J World boats this series and determining where the strategic advantage lies on the race course is something all racers must identify.  So Buddy, tell us how you do it!

Favored Side of the Course

Picture this scene: You are standing around the docks post-race discussing the day’s triumphs and follies with other crews and someone states the profound wisdom “well you just had to be on the favored side for the first upwind”.  Now everyone else is nodding in agreement “yes the (right or left) was way favored”.  Even though this apparently universal truth remains a mystery to you, you find yourself nodding your head in agreement afraid to admit your ignorance.  I will let you in on a little secret that you are in good company.  One of the many challenges of sailboat racing is deciding where to go and when.  My first bit of advice is to never be afraid to ask others; most sailors love to share his or her knowledge because they are good natured or because your admiration strokes their ego.  Either way is a win-win. Read more

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