Consistency continues to rule the Sandberg Estates J/70 World Championship. The event, organized by the Real Club Náutico de Palma (RCNP) and the J/70 International Class Association, completed on Wednesday only one race that keeps American Yonder in the lead (Doug Newhouse/Jeremy Wilmot).
Race Committee decided to bring forward the start of the day’s races by 30 minutes. They set the first starting signal for 11h00 with the expectation that the breeze would diminish as the hours went by. The decision was correct, and with conditions between eight and 12 knots from the northeast, the third race of the program began on time.
The wind held out long enough to complete a single and complicated race in which the fleet had to do its best to take advantage of every gust and try to make as few mistakes as possible. Douglas Rastello’s Good to Go from Newport Harbor YC (USA) was the best, achieving a first place that allows him to move up to fourth place with a 2-29-1 record in his scoring board. In Rastello’s words, “We’re feeling pretty good, but in this regatta, you can get a first, a second or a 29th, and that’s the essence of sailing in big fleets—that when you think you’ve got it mastered, you get a 20th. So who knows, we’re 30% of the way through the regatta, and there’s still a long way to go. It’s going to be interesting.”
Behind, a great performance of Luis Albert’s Patakin of RCNP, who crossed the finish line in second position, climbing to sixth overall. The third place of Wednesday’s race went to another of the North American teams: Dick Kalow’s Superior 1 of Wayzata YC.
“Today has been a complicated day with a wind from the shore that was dying little by little,” said the Mallorcan Joan Cardona, crew member of Patakin. “After a good start, we have been able to sail well and get a solid result that brings us up to sixth place, so we are looking forward to continue fighting this week, which is still a long way to go.”
With these results, the overall ranking continues to be led by Newhouse and Wilmot’s Yonder at 15 points. With one first and two seventh-place results, the New York YC crew has a 13-point lead over the second placed crew, which is now Charles Thompson’s British Brutus II of the Royal Southern YC after a fourth-place finish. They are ahead of Brazilian Ralph Rosa’s Mindset of IC Rio de Janeiro, which is in third place.
From the fifth race onwards, each team will be able to discard its worst result. For complete event details, visit https://www.rcnp.es/j70worlds/.