J/109 WHISKEY JACK Triumphs in ROLEX China Sea Race

ByStuart Johnstone

J/109 Whiskey Jack winning Rolex China Sea Race

(Hong Kong, China)- The 2023 Rolex China Sea Race, the first offshore race in Hong Kong since 2019, saw the fleet start off on a light misty day off Hong Kong’s iconic skyline. Soon, the fleet was treated to better breezes as they started moving down the  565.0nm track south across the South China Sea from Hong Kong Harbour to Subic Bay, Philippines. In the end, it was a triumphant return for the trio of J/Boats sailing the race, with all three of them racing neck-and-neck to the finish line down the west/ northwest shoreline of the Phillippines archipelago.

J/99 Juice at Rolex China Sea Race start

As many of the boats started to make their final approach to Subic Bay, they enjoyed up to 30.0kts of breeze. But, as they converged on the finish line, the classic “Subic Bay hole” appeared, and they were trapped briefly before they could cross the finish line.  Many, including the more experienced offshore sailors described the 2023 edition as the most tactical race they’ve seen.  

J/109 Whiskey Jack sailing downwind in Rolex China Sea race

Throughout the Race, there was a very interesting tussle between the J/109 WHISKEY JACK and the J/99 JUICE on the IRC leaderboard. For over three days, WHISKEY JACK was never ranked higher than second or third place for a long time. It was only on Sunday when WHISKEY JACK hit the dock in Subic Bay and found themselves as both the IRC Overall winner and IRC 1 Division winner! As a result, they took home the “China Sea Trophy” for IRC corrected time handicap overall winner!

Rolex China Sea race winners- J/109 Whiskey Jack

Owner/skipper Nick Southward was greeted with applause at the dock and said, “It feels absolutely amazing, seriously I can’t believe it. I mean we’ve won this race! We’ve been right at the back of the fleet. We had a wild last 24 hours! I mean, it was just wild; we could not have pushed it harder. But, we stayed in one piece, everyone’s here, and it just feels amazing to be on top of the world!”

J/99 silvers in Rolex China Sea Race

Andrew Pidden’s J/99 JUICE finished early Sunday evening after 103 hours of racing, earning them 3rd IRC Overall (missing 2nd by a mere 5 minutes corrected!), as well as 2nd in IRC 1 Division.  An exhausted Andrew commented after docking, “This is my first Rolex China Sea Race and it was a wild ride, from no wind at all to loads of wind. So, it was quite crazy! But, it was a lot of fun and great to do it with my two sons and my regular crew as well!”  

Andrew was sailing with sons Matt and Tom and joked about the family pressure, “I was pretty nervous because their mother was telling me we had three-fifths of her entire family on one boat and if I sank it, she was going to be very angry! But, they are great sailors, and it’s always good to be out with them!”   

J/122E JINN sailing Rolex China Sea Race off start.

Veteran Asian offshore sailor Nicolas Cohen-Addad and his team on the J/122e JINN certainly had their flashes of brilliance during the race and could easily have been on the podium as well. However, two crucial tactical and strategic decisions erased some of their hard-fought gains. A third of the way into the race, within the first 36 hours, they chose to separate from the fleet and the J/99 and J/109 trailing them. Heading west/ southwest for several hours to get back closer to the original rhumbline proved to be a bad move. Changing course, they again chased down the fleet off to their east and ground them down. Then, they positioned themselves east of the pack and closer to shore in the last 100.0nm of the race going south along the Phillippines shoreline. That final move was their costliest tactic of all, as the wind died in the wee hours of their last day in the race. Boats offshore did not experience the huge hole that others to the east of them along the shore had to contend with. Again, after leading the J/99 and J/109 quite handily with under 24 hours to go, the JINN team could only watch their colleagues sail up to them as they lay becalmed. In fact, the J/109 WHISKEY JACK passed them into the finish off Subic Bay, beating the J/122e by nearly 90 minutes elapsed. In the end, JINN took 4th in IRC 1 Division and 6th IRC Overall, missing a top 5 finish by a mere 2 minutes!  Sailing photo credits- ROLEX/ Daniel Forster/ Guy Nowell.  Follow the ROLEX China Sea Race on Facebook here  For more ROLEX China Sea Race sailing information