A Canadian trimmer at the J109 NAs
Oct 25, 2018
Larry Huibers of NOLSC (3 from l) flanks skipper David Rosow
Loki won its third consecutive North American Championship last week. It also marks 12 consecutive J109 one design regatta victory and in fact Loki hasn’t lost a regatta in 3 years. This all sounds boastful, it isn’t meant to be. As the only Canadian on the boat I legitimately get to say ”Sorry, we were just out there working hard on the basics” David Rosow is owner and a great helmsman, with a soft touch upwind and able to find that special soak mode needed on an Asym kite.
The boat uses Quantum sails exclusively and has had Kerry Klingler on board for most (but not all) of the wins. Kerry was kind enough to invite me along to trim kite at the start of the 2017 season and it seems to work well. The boat won the 2017 American YC Spring Series, Fall Series, best one design result and overall for the Spring and Fall combined in all fleets. The boat also won 2017 Block Island Race Week, which doubled as the North American’s and went on to win Cedar Point One Design regatta.
For 2018 the target was to 3-peat in the NAs held at Larchmont YC October 11 to 14. The boat used Cedar Point One Design (straight bullets, dropping a 1st) and American Fall Series as warm ups.
The J109 fleet is pretty big in Long Island Sound and for the NAs it included some travelers that have won the NAs before. Nineteen boats came from New York, Texas, Annapolis, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland.
Fall sailing on the Sound can give you anything but the hope was for breeze. We got good to great breeze, ranging from 5 knots to 30-knot puffs. This tested all the boats and gratefully no one got hurt but a number of kites were offered up to Poseidon as well as numerous battens and blocks. The racing was very close with fairly short legs limited by shoreline and shipping lanes. Butch Ulmer was PRO and his crew was on top of shifts and changing conditions. In fact, every change to a weather mark included an offset, which is rare, but super helpful with tight roundings. After the first day all the races started with the I flag, keeping most people honest. We did get caught OCS once, and through some luck and planning worked our way back into 2nd, it was just one of those weeks.
The crew chemistry was fantastic and the first time for this iteration together, although everyone has been on board for at least one of the lead up events. From front to back it was Alex, Ryan, me, Brian, Adam, Kerry and David. We weighed in 55 lbs. light not counting skipper. And our skipper is likely the second lightest out there. Kerry had the rigged tuned to a fine balance and we could sail flat and as high as anyone. Kerry designs all the J Boat sails for Quantum and they are exceptional. Rob Butler had them on the various Touch2Play’s; J70, J88 and now the Reflex 38, they are fast and rewarding to sail. Off the wind we felt we could always make up 3-8 boat lengths, which we needed to do numerous times.
This regatta had a no throw out scoring. And after nine races we had 19, the next closest boat had 54. With a 10 race limit we took the Sunday off, accepting the 21 points finishing off with 40, second and third were tied with 62, Growth Spurt, a previous NA champ winning the tie breaker. Partnership 3 was 3rd. Hamburg out of Texas was 4th with 69, followed by Rush, another previous NA winner with 70 points. After that the points were 72, 72, 74, 84 and so on. It was tight close racing all around with five different race winners over ten races.
Many thanks to Larchmont YC for hosting a fine event, congratulations to all the competitors, it was a clean, well-sailed regatta with many displays of sportsmanship. Next year, the NAs are in New Bedford, so another new place I get to sail, lucky me.
Larry Huibers
Member of Niagara on the Lake Sailing Club
Loki USA 125
