The J24 was designed in 1977 and was soon established as the world's most popular keelboat, which it has remained ever since. The class is established in nearly 40 countries with well over 100 active fleets. This 24' keelboat is normally sailed with 5 crew but can be sailed with 4 or 6 as long as the total crew weight is under the class 400kg limit.

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

Jolly Roger, GBR 4270, at Spi Ouest 2012


We decided to head out to France over the Easter weekend with the J24 to sail in the Spi Quest regatta. The venue was Trinite-Sur-Mer, which is just east of Carnac in the North West corner of France. Spi Quest is probably best described as the French version of Cowes week, with 450 boats entered, predominantly split into one design class racing. The event attracts a fantastically diverse international presence, with teams from New Zealand, Oman, and the USA just on our race course. Unfortunately we didn’t get the entry of J24’s that we were hoping for, and we were therefore put in the IRC4b class with the five other J24’s for four days of handicap racing. As always seems to be the case, we had one of the slowest ratings on our start line, so the bigger and faster boat added a sometimes challenging dimension to our racing.

The format of racing was three windward-leeward races, plus a 14 mile costal race each day. Unfortunately we were a little less prepared than we normally choose to be because all the Sailing Instructions, the Notice of Race, and VHF communication were posted in French. In the absence of Mark, our French speaking expert, we were left a little in the dark as to the exact format. Inevitably this was always going to catch us out, and it did! Between race three and four the Race Committee radioed details about the costal race in French, which clearly we were completely ignorant too! The result was starting four minutes late, and following the fleet around, completely confused as to where they were going! Despite that, we ended the day as top J24 and 5th in our fleet, but most importantly slightly clearer on tomorrow’s format! The rest of the week went really well. We sailed in a real variety of conditions, from flat water and 5 knots, to big swell and 25 knots. We managed to win a few of the races, including one of the costal races once we had a grasp on the course. We ended the regatta in 4th overall and second J24. The whole team is now planning hard for the rest of the season.....

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