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Success at J/70 UK Nationals



The RSYS representative team of Zac West, Annabelle Connery, Lauren Tandy, Jameson Prescott and Massimo Henderson competed at the Tideway UK J/70 National championships over the weekend of the 25-28 of August at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy in Portland UK. The team is using this event as a warm-up to the Sailing Champions League youth final in Kiel from the 1 - 3 September.



Portraits by Zac Quinlan.

The regatta started on Friday with the team receiving the charter boat and preparing it for racing. Friday afternoon we also headed out for a sail to test the boat and do final preparations.

The regatta started on Saturday with a 14-16 knot westerly with sunshine. The team learnt lots on this first day as we began to adapt our processes from the Elliot 7s to the J/70.

We were excited to put our learnings from day one into practice on the second day. There was slightly more variable winds with a range of 12 - 22 knots from the west. This made for some fast downwind runs with our speed hitting 16knots in one race. The day was much more consistent and we felt our speed and boat handling improved from the first day.



The final day started with an AP as we waited for the wind to fill in and settle. It eventually came in at 6-12knots. After five attempts to get the first race of the day away due to shifts and general recalls the fleet got away under a black flag. Unfortunately we were on the wrong side of a shift that race but managed to finish off the regatta on a high with a top 10 result in the last race of the regatta.

Skipper Zac West summed the regatta up:

"It was awesome to be racing in home waters again at the 2012 Olympic venue. The team adapted fast to the complexity of the class and the long 90 minuet races. Our processes improved race on race, preparing us well for the World Finals ahead. We ended the UK Nationals becoming Youth and Mixed+ (a new division where there are no more than two males over 18 in the crew) National Champions which we are totally stoked about. We have already learned and improved so much and are so grateful for this opportunity.

The team would like to thank the RSYS foundation, Sail Racing and Bollé for their ongoing support and we are looking forward to the SCL world finals in Kiel later this week."



Photo: Sailing Champions League - Asia Pacific

See the full list of results here: https://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=15892