Heritage Cup - Houston Yacht Club
November 12-13,

The fleet had a great weekend of racing for the 7th and final circuit stop of the year at HYC. 13 J/22's from all over the state made the trek for this event and it was well worth the effort!

The comradery saturday afternoon in the parking lot after the racing and then around the keg on the pool patio was over the top. This fleet is working hard to make J/22 OD class racing a great time for all!

Eric Faust/Bonner Cordelle turned the "NOB" for 4 2nds and a 3rd for an overall point total of 11 and first place! Keith Zars on "Shredder" scored 2 1st's, a 2nd, a 3rd, and 5th tying for second place with 12 points, but won the tie breaker with a 1st in the last race! Chad Wilson on "Green Flash" scored 2 1st's, 2 3rd's, and a 4th! Talk about close racing! Great racing that had to be a lot of fun!

Link to regatta Network results HERE

Photos courtesy of Dmitriy Yegorov. Find all the great shots HERE

J/22 2011Southwest District Results

The fleet sailed 7 regatta's starting with Lake Canyon YC, Rush Creek on Lake Ray Hubbard, Dallas Corinthian YC on Lake Lewisville, Eagle Mountain-Fort Worth Boat club, Oklahoma City Boat Club, and the last two events on Galveston Bay out of Houston YC. What a great tour of the best clubs to travel to and race!

Even better is that the fleet had 40 different J/22's participate in one or more events! It was only fitting that the 2011 J/22 World Champion from the Allstate Sugar Bowl J/22 World Championship held in New Orleans this year would also win the Southwest District! Congratulations to Rob Johnston and team "Dieselsnack" from Heath, Texas! To encourage participation the circuit scores utilize 4 regatta results from the 7 events giving Rob and team a total of 9 points. 2nd place went to Brant Koepke on "Rich Skank", 3rd went to Keith Zars on "Shredder", 4th to Casey Lambert on "Out of Sight" and 5th to Kenny Bagget on "Ayedontneaux".

Find Full Results HERE

J/24 2011 Texas Circuit Winner-Mr. Happy! written by Tonja Sanchez

Congratulations to Bob Harden and team mr. happy for winning the 2011 Texas Circuit!
It was an exciting year with lots of boats moving up the ranks. We have a couple of new J/24 boat owners that have expressed interest in racing in the circuit, and we hope that we can get some folks that "rested" this year back in the 2012 circuit racing. If you know someone who has a J/24, encourage them to get out there and participate in some of the best competition in Texas.
A big congratulations and recognition also goes to those that rounded out the top five Texas Circuit winners:

Second - Bryan and Vicki Dyer and team aboard RumLine
Third - Kelly Holmes-Moon and team aboard Bad Moon
Fourth - Corey Harding and team aboard Happy Dance
Fifth - David Broadway and team aboard Superman

A complete list of the 2011 results can be found HERE
J/24 Texas news. Catch all of the important news for J/24 sailors HERE

The 2012 Texas Circuit schedule will be out soon. Rest for a few months and then gear up to get going again in March 2012!! See you on the water!

The J/80 fleet had a resurgence this year and sailed 4 events at Austin YC, Fort Worth Boat Club, Houston YC and finishing up at J/Fest. 30 different teams participated, with 6 teams participating in all 4 events! Way to go!

Claude Welles and his team "Jack Rabbit" have now been participating on this circuit for over ten years and are consistently near the top, or at the top in every event they race and this year they won the tie breaker to claim first place for the circuit. Forbes Durdin and "Mojito" ended up in second place and Bob Leonard/Greg Buck in 3rd.

Link to results HERE

The really big news for the J/80's in 2012 is that there are 6 total circuit stops planned, culminating in the North Americans at Fort Worth Boat Club in November of 2012.

The J/105's do not have a formal circuit but the resurgence that this fleet is seeing is worth writing about. There is a fleet at Fort Worth Boat Club that races with up to 7 J/105's on the line every Sunday! Every year a new owner or group of owners will charter or buy a J/105 and keep the Fort Worth fleet going. On Galveston Bay there are now 10 J/105's with several new acquisitions during the course of 2011! The national J/105 class has recognized this resurgence and awarded Fleet 17 the opportunity the host the J/105 Mid-Winters this coming March! More on this event below. All great news and is leading up to an fun filled 2012 for this great design and their respective fleets!

The J/70 is currently the king of all of the performance sailing rumor mills on the internet forums! I do have a mailing list of interested parties, and as the rumors give way to facts I put out an e-mail. There is a LOT happening behind the scenes. When the announcements come out in the next several weeks followed by the real deal in late spring of next year - it's going to be a lot of fun!

Let me know if your interested in this new model. They will be hard to get initially. A few dealers are well into the double digits on deposits for this boat and a few Clubs have committed to fleet deals. All good stuff leading up to a great launch of this new one design!

The J/111 was launched in 2010 with the bulk of the deliveries coming in 2011. Once this new design was on the water, the trophies soon followed - and not just the local variety. A small sample: Cowes Week-IRC Class 2 1st, 3rd, 5th; Fastnet Race IRC double handed-3rd; Chicago-Mackinac ORR Class 3 1st and 3rd; Bayview-Mackinac IRC Class C-1st, 2nd, 3rd. The list goes on and on! Check it out HERE

Achieving results like this on a global basis is absolutely phenomenal and bodes well for things to come for this design as more and more people tweak the boats to go faster and faster. Good times!

Thanks to Peter Gustafson, J/109 owner "Blur" that test sailed the J/111 "Piranha". Peter's blog HERE

The J/105 Class Has announced that Fleet 17 will be holding the 2012 J/105 Mid-Winters at LYC March 8-11, 2012!! Find information on the event web site HERE

J/80 Winter Tour. Many of you may have seen the add in other publications-but here it is again:
2012 J/80 Winter Tour - USA
Join the J/80 Class for its 2012 Winter Tour featuring the Midwinters in
Key West, three weekends in Miami (including Bacardi Race Week) and the
finale at Charleston. The top guns in the class are coming and a few new
boats are still available for a fun winter of southern sailing!
-Stu Johnstone

Find more information HERE

The various fleets, Yacht Clubs, class officers are all in the process of putting together their 2012 schedules!

The J/22's and J/24's are about locked down. The 80's are still working on their schedule, but are close. Most of the major events that we are used to are on the schedule. J/Fest will again be at Lakewood YC October 13th and 14th. This years J/Fest committee has a lot of new faces and look to further refine this event! The one item that will remain the same is the wonderful saturday evening dinner! and the competitive racing of course!

We do still plan to publish our calendar and distribute in January. If you have events that you would like us to include-e-mail us as soon as you have them locked down in the schedule. If you would like a calendar-send us your mailing address! There are limited quantities. Contact us HERE

J/World Annapolis is coming to Texas!

2 classes being held at Houston YC!

Find the link to JWorld Annapolis HERE

J World Annapolis is offering two unique racing opportunities in HOUSTON, TEXAS to sharpen your skills and improve performance on your boat!

- A two-day course will focus on spinnaker and sail trim, advanced sail controls and boat handling. Open to sailors of all levels of experience. March 12-13, 2012. $400 per person.

- A two-day course will cover crew organization, and spinnaker handling, as well as tactics, strategy, starting and short course boat against boat racing. March 14-15, 2012. $400 per person
The courses will be held at the Houston Yacht Club located on Galveston Bay near Clear Lake
To register please click on the form(s) below:

- Spinnaker and Sail Trim HERE
- Racing Strategy and Tactics HERE

For more informaiton on the Houston Yacht Club please click on the HoustonYacht Club link HERE or call 800-966-2038 for more information. HYC does have on-site rooms available.

As an added benefit Gary Jobson is scheduled to present Friday evening March 16th! There is no charge for this event-but HYC does appreciate your patronage in the dinging room and in the bar! Gary Jobson site HERE

Fleet Builder Ideas!

On Saturday, November 12th after working on the J/111 at HYC, I noticed a gathering of J sailors in the HYC parking lot. Hmmm! I bet they have Rum! With the expectation of getting a rum drink or two-I noticed something else going on. This group of Ladies and Gentlemen really enjoy each others company, and newcomers were as welcome as the old salts that have sailed the J/22 circuit for years. This was the last stop of their southwest district circuit, and year end business had to be tended to. This was getting interesting! The group moved over to the Pool patio to share the post race keg, and was I glad I stuck around! Here's what the fleet did:

1.) The skippers/crew from the top three boats from Saturday's racing host a chalk talk. There is structure to this talk as topics covered are boat/rig set up, upwind trim, downwind trim, and tactics. It was an excellent and lively talk designed to help the rest of the fleet to come up to speed!

2.) The March Fleet Builder event was planned and agreed upon. This is getting better and better! In March 2012 at the Canyon Lake circuit stop the fleet will use the scores from saturdays racing for the overall circuit scores. Saturday, after the races, they are going to do their traditional chalk talk as described above. For Sunday they are going to change things up! The top skipper will go to the last place boat, last place skipper goes to the first place boat, etc. They go out and race Sunday with the crews changed up to help the fleet out from top to bottom. Wow!

3.) If that's not enough the J/22 Fleet also has a season long mentoring program! In Brant Koepke's own words: "It's a Season long effort.  Take circuit racers and non-circuit racers that want coaching and have them team up with a top performing boat with the same sailmaker's sails as the coached boat (this is for tune & trim purposes).  Get them together on Friday night if possible for talk of tune & weather (have a beer), on Sat they team up for speed/point work prior to 1st race, then between races, coaching boat will talk them thru adjustments and do more speed/point work.  End of first day have a de-brief, then off to chalk talk and more beer.  Sunday repeat."

4.) And if all the above wasn't enough they will help any sailor not used to packing a boat up, and preparing to travel with it by having a traveling sailor step up and help with that effort!

This is impressive stuff! Good job J/22 owners! With this level of effort the fun factor goes way up for everyone! The J/24's on the east coast are also doing a lot of good work to build those fleets back up to 40 boats! I know the east coasters are also having winter fleet meetings at the local bowling alley, pub, etc. All good fun ideas to get organized for 2012 and get the owners motivated to go join the fun! And bring new owners into the fold! Let us know what your fleet is doing to promote participation and we will share your ideas in this newsletter.

The J/24 Texas Circuit 2012 Schedule is Released!

March 31-April 1, 2012 Elissa Regatta: Fleet 5 and Houston YC

April 14-15, 2012 Cowtown Stampede: Fleet 54 and Fort Worth BC

May 5-6, 2012 USJCA Southwest Regional Championships & Leukemia Cup Regatta: Fleet 163 and Dallas Corinthian YC

June 9-10, 2012 Surfin’ Safari: Fleet 3 and Corpus Christi YC
September 22-23, 2012 HYC One-Design Regatta: Fleet 5 and Houston YC
October 13-14, 2012 J/Fest: Fleet 5 and Lakewood YC
November 17-18, 2012 Texas Circus: Fleet 9 and Lakewood yacht club 

Grease those wheel bearings! Re-shoe those brakes! Buy those new sails during the winter sales the sailmakers are offering! 100 days until the first stop!

If fleet racing around the buoys isn't your thing, Here's a web site that chronicles crossing the Atlantic-in your J/80! Something for everyone! HERE

Several years ago Nick Hayes wrote the book "Saving Sailing" which was really about family values. In the Hayes family their time together centered around sailing as a family. Well the Hayes girls have grown up, and you will recognize their names in this story. Not your typical J/30 crew. Take a look HERE

For your entertainment: America's Cup site HERE

Dave Christiensen, His wife Denise, daughter Lauren, and son Ryan are AVID sailors! As a family they have been sailing all of their lives together, primarily on an Erickson, and then a short time on a C&C115. In between boats Dave joined the B-Sailing club to get his sailing fix. It was while a member of this club he had a sailing epiphany on Alan Bate's J/105 heading out to the course, popping the chute and hitting over 11! All the while the crew is talking, drinking their beverages like "no big deal". This experience along with re-igniting the passion for racing prompted the Christiensen's to pull the trigger on a J/109 and join the local fleet. I predict they will be spark plugs for this fleet for both sailing and cruising/family oriented events! Congrats! and when you see "Airborne" on the bay give them a wave and a welcome!

Mark Dixon has purchased "Sea Trial" and moved her to Connecticut. Mark's daytime job is as an "Uninspected Safety Vessel Co-ordinator" for the USCG and therefore one of the more knowledgeable customers I have ever worked with. A real pleasure, and a lot of fun, to discuss boats, design, and PHRF ratings with him! (He's also active with PHRF in his local area).

Congrats Mark on your purchase of Sea Trial-we just wish you could have moved down here to the boat instead of the boat moving to you! Jim Powers, Sea Trial's seller is looking forward to his next boat-and we all look forward to having Jim back in the sailing family!

We still need 'Em! We actually need about a dozen more boats! We sold three last month and took in 0! We do have a couple of listings pending so check HERE often!

Contact us HERE: or call 512-423-2179