(Wannesee, Germany)- As the northern European sailing season gets
underway, it's apparent the J/80s in Scandinavia and in Germany are
rapidly getting organized in their regional fleets with a focus on
sending a few good teams to the J/80 Worlds in Marseilles, France in
July. We recently got a nice report from the German J/80 team that took
third place in the MAIOR Regatta, the first of the season. Here is
Henning Buchman's commentary:"This year MAIOR greeted us with blue skies and moderate wind conditions. Sixteen J/80 teams were registered and fifteen ended up starting in the event. Like every year, we shared the main local hotel and the race course with the M24s, P25s and SB20s. The J/80s were, in fact, by far the strongest and largest field this year's event.
Literally with a bang, most J/80 sailors were taken out of hibernation at the first start. Friday morning shortly before eleven came the first sound signal and all was clear! Second start - "Oh great, then we can look at the start of the other boats in peace!" But the late spring had probably left some of the participants still in the "fog of winter"-- two or three boats hadn't noticed that both the start pennant "one" and pennant "two" were flying simultaneously! Something no one had experienced to date!
As a result, the first start was a common starting signal for all fleets, not a real race start. What a commotion, no fleets were happy, especially us J/80s! No one was really satisfied with the situation. Fortunately, the race committee relented and we got our own J/80 start on the second day of sailing.
There is not much to say about the other days of sailing. Sun sun sun! The wind shifted to the west and we sailed the last two days with the wind coming from the direction of the Wannesee rather than on the Baltic Sea.
In the end, it was PROCEDES DIVA that took first overall, PIKE was second and we were third on VIVACE. Fun sailing!
Despite the unusual starting order on the first day, we want to thank the race committee that made the really difficult sailing conditions on the following days easier for everyone- a truly fantastic job. A really great race! We look forward to the next event and hope to see many teams at the J/80 World Cup!" Thanks for contribution from Henning Buchman- skipper VIVACE. For more J/80 Germany sailing information
