post #24
Long Beach, California
Ullman Sails co-sponsored the 2008 J/FEST at Long Beach Yacht Club this last weekend. Racers saw perfect conditions on Saturday with winds 10-18 knots. Three races were held with outside and inside courses. Sunday was postponed because of fog, but still got two races off. Unfortunately, the best wind of the day left when the fog lifted!
J/Fest Winners include:
J/105 Class= "Pholly" Bill Logan*
J/109 Class= "Electra" Tom Brott*
J/29 Class= "Homer J" Bob Lenard*
J/24 Class= "Big Dogs" Pat Toole
J/30 Class= "Friction Loss" Dan Taron/Shawn Ivie
J/80 Class= "Avent" Curt Johnson
J/120 Class= "Jim" John Snook
*sailed with Ullman Sails or Partial Ullman Sails
Ken Cooper from Ullman Sails sailed on Bob Lenard's J/29 "Homer J" taking home first place in the J/29 class and gave us the following report:
Sailing in the J/29 fleet for the first time was going to be exciting. I knew the boats were very equally matched and we would have to work hard to stay near the front of the fleet. Our boat had some fairly new sails from Ullman and some sails that were 20+ years old! When the wind picked up on Saturday, we switched from the Ullman #1 genoa to a #2 headsail that had Mylar falling off it as we hoisted it! We quickly switched to the #1 for the second beat and gained our speed back. The 3 boats around us at the leeward mark all had problems with sails and turning the mark, we took advantage of this and finished second.
With great boat speed and crew work and good sail handling we ended up in first place after the first day!
Our goal on Sunday was to focus on good speed and sound tactics and stay ahead of Rush Street and Cherry Bomb. The wind was lighter than Saturday with wind shifts and different pressure one one side or the other , so we knew using our Ullman #1 genoa was going to give us an advantage to stay in the front. The left side of the race course had more pressure, but a little more shift was on the right. We sailed for the pressure on the left middle and this proved a good tactic for two second place finishes on Sunday and was enough to hold on to the top spot for the weekend!
