Neff Takes 2011 Great Lakes Championship

We had a great showing of out of town boats for the 2011 J/24 Great Lakes Championship, held in conjunction with the annual J/24 U-Gotta Regatta at the Wayzata Yacht Club on October 7-9. Boats came from Duluth, Chicago, and other parts of the Midwest. One skipper came from Florida, another from Chicago and there was even one crew member from Spain! We even have our very own Olympic Medalist racing out there, Billy Allen. This is the place to be. While Scows are known here, there is also a great keelboat scene.

The J/24 qualifier had 20 competitors and excellent race management from our inspiring PRO Blake Middleton – a true racers’ PRO. Blake had been on a whirlwind tour of the globe just before the event, and we were lucky to have him back on Lake Minnetonka.

Our Race Committee and competitors raced 5 races on Saturday in winds from 7kts to 17kts. Sunday was very light in the morning. The call was made to wait. The wind came in with 10 minutes to spare on the limit. The race was won by Terry Neff and his crew aboard “Bubbles”. Job well done Terry! It was in the 80’s both days.

This race was also a true tiebreaker between Bubbles and Zoom. Zoom had some issues with the pin due to an unforeseen additional left shift. It was awful to see them get tangled with the mark in such an important race. Terry was above him. Terry bought the left side big, followed closely by John Heaton on USA 592 Mijah. Motorhome went right, or really just on port because the left was really big for a long time. Bubbles rounded in first, Motorhome in 2nd, Mijah in 3rd. Zoom was really deep, but blasting thru the fleet, always a contender. Motorhome was passed by Mijah at the first leeward gate. Bubbles had launched, at one point I couldn’t see them. Then we saw them on the 2nd downwind leg, 250 yards ahead of us. We started to open a delicious Surly Furious, when a puff nearly knocked us over. The wind had gone very hard to the right, 25 – 30 degrees. Bubbles rounded the right gate in first, Mijah followed in second, and Motorhome went to the left gate. It was a thrilling race. At the final cross Bubbles crossed Motorhome by only 2 boat lengths. Motorhome cheered for them when the gun went off, continued to hike for a 2nd place in the race. Mijah was 3rd.

Taylor Neff with crew of Sean Delaney, Paula Neff, Mark Oppen and Paul “Jake” Jacobs aboard Bubbles won the regatta by 2 points.

 

PL Sail# Name R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 TOT
1 4520 Bubbles 1 3 5 2 1 1 8
2 4047 Zoom 3 2 1 1 3 4 10
3 513 Asylum 2 9 2 4 2 6 16
4 4738 Kattack 10 1 7 8 4 7 27
5 1006 Danger 5 4 8 5 5 8 27
6 3577 Oz 6 13 11 3 6 9 35
7 4242 Motorhome 12 RAF 3 6 14 2 37
8 2614 Gotcha 9 7 14 9 8 5 38
9 592 Mijah 11 6 15 13 11 3 44
10 5136 Voodoo 16 5 6 14 12 16 53
11 2237 Sleeper 14 10 4 12 17 15 55
12 4739 Chaos 15 8 17 7 9 19 56
13 2909 Hellfire 20 11 12 16 7 10 56
14 819 xx 4 16 13 15 18 13 61
15 1361 Strange Crew 17 12 10 10 16 20 65
16 511 Ullala 8 14 18 DSQ 10 16 66
17 3240 xx 13 19 16 11 15 11 66
18 4044 Context 18 17 9 17 13 17 73
19 2 Two 7 15 19 18 19 18 77
20 15 The Situation 19 18 20 19 20 14 90

 

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