ABC Opening Regatta 2024

J/99

J/99 Juice continued her winning ways with victory in the IRC2 category of the Aberdeen Boat Club Opening Regatta. Comprising three races over two days, Juice faced stiff competition from Sunfast 3600 (Zesst) in a 7-boat fleet .

Day 1

Saturday dawned with light and somewhat westerly wind forcing a reverse course into Lamma island for the first windward leeward. This provided unusual and close racing, with Juice and Zesst finishing just 45secs apart after an hour and twenty minutes. Extraordinary in that both boats took very different tracks.

Then followed a thunderstorm and lightening show over HK Island, bringing a change of wind direction from the South and then from the East where the wind settled. This allowed a more familiar course given a more typical wind direction.

As the breeze had increased, Juice had chosen a smaller J2 jib, which proved costly as the wind faded in the start sequence. The 3 lap race allowed Juice to switch back to their bigger J1 on the first run. However, this resulted in a tangle and a stuck kite halyard on the drop. Zesst and Intrigue had escaped leaving Juice in 3rd, with work to do on Sunday.

Day 2

Island races are long and, in light breeze, there are plenty of restarts in the wind shadows. Good job, as Juice ran into some plastic and lost a lot of time on the first beat. Juice thereafter sailed close into Beaufort Island, finding a familiar breeze line bought them back into the race, only to lose ground again rounding Fury Rocks.

On the run Juice stayed very high and squeezed around Po Toi island to find Zesst trapped in a wind hole on the other side of the channel. Meanwhile veteran yacht Gambit was hard on Juices tail. The three boats finished 40 seconds apart after three and a half hours of racing giving Gambit the islands race win and Juice the regatta series win. An emphatic victory!

J/80

From the J/Boats stables, also taking the win in their respective division, was J/80 Jupiter, scoring a dominant 1st, 1st, 2nd in their 3 races in PHS Division B. Also representing J/Boats in this regatta was J/122e Jinn.

Full results from the 2024 ABC Opening Regatta can be found here – Provisional Results