Posts Tagged ‘J/120’

We all had a great few days of racing down in Miami for the revamped SORC event. Doyle was a dominant force, as usual. On the Biscayne course, Paul Beaudin and Judd Smith sailed an Etchells with Hank Lammens to a convincing victory. It was so tight that going into the last day they had a small lead, but had yet to win a race. Paul said, “In the second race we had a great start off the port end of the line, we extended off the pack and were looking great. Thirty seconds later a freak shift went 20 degrees right and we were last, after only two minutes of racing. It was a long crawl back to thirteenth, our toss.” Almost every boat in this class uses Doyle Sails, including Quantum loft owner Hans Fogh. Peter Grimm from the Doyle Ft. Lauderdale loft had a great showing with Scott Piper for three bullets and a third overall.

On the Miami Beach course, Gorgon Schiff’s Mumm 36 The Wall, with our very own “Big Tim” Stodola and OH Rodgers, dominated the PHRF fleet as Tac Boston took the gold in the Mumm 30 class with Champosa.

After Miami came the last stop on the southern winter circuit, Charleston Race Week (see below), with Doyle-powered boats K2 (J/120), Cash Flow (Hadley 40), and Outrageous (SR-33) in the thick of the action. Meanwhile, over in Bermuda, Paul will be taking a look at the new spinnakers for the local IOD fleet with Tony Huston during International Race Week.

J/120 K2

Green Mountain Boys Take Charleston! Our Doyle Sails “take a lickin, keep on kickin,” southern-style at the 2005 Charleston Race Week, proclaim the crew of the Vermont-based J/120 K2. Headed by Luis Gonzalez with helmsman Jeff Hill and tactician Paul Beaudin (Doyle City Island), they led their fleet on the big boat circle from start to finish. Paul’s debrief: “Our GPL Carbon #1 has been a workhorse sail since the 2004 Key West Race Week (which K2 won). The sail still looks so good it will be hard to retire it to the B-race quiver. After 40 races it still looks better than most new sails. That is saying a lot on a boat that only has a #1 and a #3. New for this season was only the D4 Carbon mainsail, which is still by far the best way to go for mainsails and non-overlapping jibs. Downwind the .5 Superlight runner , with two seasons of use, is still the fastest sail in the fleet. And the crew did a great job, of course. Thanks to Luis and Jeff along with “Big Tim” Stodola (Doyle Ploch Sailmakers) on main trim. Trimmers Dave Howard and Jonathan Couture, with Dave Churbuck and Gerry Davis at the mast, Ann Gibson in the pit (with her husband, Mark, filling in on Sunday) and a very special surprise appearance from long time bowman Jim Kurfis, back on leave from serving in Iraq. Great job, K2!

In New England, Spring Has Finally Sprung. The sailing season is here and we are ready to help with all your sailing needs. New sail designs include IRC-specific sails and X-TR club race sails, using our new exoskeletal supported membranes. We also have killer new shapes for the Beneteau Farr line 36.7, 40.7 and 44.7, and fast new designs for the J/24, J/105, and J/109 classes. For cruisers we offer super-easy roller-furling UPS spinnakers. And for everyone we have great deals on gear from Harken, Halyards, and Tacktick Micro-net wireless instruments!

- Mark Ploch at markploch@doyleplochsails.com.