The Famous & Great Sydney Harbour Regatta
J/24, J/70, and J/99 one-design classes participating!
(Sydney Harbour, Australia)- J/Boats Australia is excited to announce that J/24s, J/70s, and J/99s will compete in three of the thirteen divisions in the Nautilus Marine Insurance Sydney Harbour Regatta, hosted by Middle Harbour Yacht Club, to be held from March 4th to 5th, 2023.
This is a true testament to J/Boats’ DNA of designing and building boats that bring sailors of all ages and skills to compete together for fun performance sailing with friends and family.
Australian J/99 Nationals
First up, we have the inaugural Australian J/99 National Championship. With a strong and growing fleet, the Australian J/99s is the first in the world to hold a National Championship! The owners have all agreed to a simple box rule on sail, equipment, and crew numbers to make the event fair, simple and economical, where good sailing and not dollars will determine placegetters.
Six W/L races will decide the winner. 2021 Sydney Hobart winner Jules Hall on DISKO TROOPER and Shane Connelly’s RUM REBELLION are favorites. But, these two top boats will be hotly chased by recent additions to the fleet, including the consistently improving Ian Smith’s JUPITER (who has been pivotal in co-ordinating the J/99 event), Chris O’Neill’s BLUE PLANET, Gerry Morecombe’s ECHO, and the Sienna Syndicate. Three more local J/99’s just miss out as they arrive just after the event, so watch this space for a larger fleet next year! J/99 global sales now exceed 140 boats in 3 years on this proven and versatile 32-footer!
J/70 Class
Fresh from competing in the J/70 States and Nationals in Sandringham Victoria, the Sydney-based J/70 fleet is getting together again for more exciting one-design racing.
Sam Haynes CELESTIAL is tipped as a favorite after his incredible results campaigning J/70’s in Europe and Australia last year. Also watch out for Karyn Gojnich JABIRU and class president Andrew Thompson’s JABBERWOCKY, Marco Poli’s NUVOLA, Stephen Brady’s Y-KNOT, and Michael Nash’s MAYBE-J.
J/24 Class
The evergreen and somewhat indestructible J/24s will also be sailing one-design with six boats already entered at the time of writing. The J/24 class is now 43+ years old and still going strong with fun and competitive racing between their five fleets here in Australia (mostly all in the southeast).
Our J/Boat family of sailors “thank” the team at Middle Harbour Yacht Club for putting together one of the largest competitive keelboat regattas in Australia, now its 18th anniversary. Also, “thanks” to Nautilus Marine Insurance for their sponsorship of the event.
J/99 Australian Championship (from Jupiter Globe) posted some videos of preparation for the J/99 Nationals as well as some insights of the first two days here: