J/112E Jubilant crushes 2024 California Offshore Race Week Series - Spinnaker Cup

2024 California Offshore Race Week Series - Spinnaker Cup © Paul Wyeth / Key Yachting

This past weekend, the California Offshore Race Week started the first of the three-leg CORA series.

The Spinnaker Cup, an 84.0nm sprint from San Francisco to Monterey started at 10:30 AM on Saturday, May 25th. Then, boats will embark on Monday, May 27th for the 204.0nm gear-busting Big Sur Tour, a.k.a. Coastal Cup that takes the fleet to Santa Barbara YC where they will relax for a short stay. The event concludes with the 245.0nm SoCal 300 that will lead them through the Channel Islands and down to San Diego.

Since the CORW is comprised of 3 offshore legs with an evening beer-can race tossed in at Santa Barbara YC, the majority of the entrants will participate in just one or two of the legs. There are nine J/Teams all sailing in just the Spinnaker Cup Offshore race from San Francisco Bay down to Monterey Bay. In what became a very fast, windy, wavy race, there were several J/Teams that just crushed it!

PHRF 1 Division

Not too surprisingly, sweeping the eight-boat fleet were the trio of J/125s! Once turning left outside of the Golden Gate Bridge to head south to Monterey, the big asyms went up and all three boats took off in a cloud of spray blowing over the entire lengths of the boat, hitting low 20s kts boat speeds! In the end, they averaged 10.0 kts over the 84 miles! Winning was Ken Kieding & John Vincent's ARGO 4, followed by Andrew Picel's ARSENAL taking silver, and Jim Nichols's VELVET HAMMER taking the bronze.

PHRF 2 Division

This seven-boat fleet saw Ross Werner's J/112E JUBILANT hitting 19.3 kts surfing down huge waves and taking both division honors, but also winning PHRF Overall honors, too!! Second place went to Timo Bruck's J/120 TWIST, while Ron Epstein's J/133 BACCHANAL took fourth place. Sixth was Barry Lewis's J/120 CHANCE.

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