JJ Final

After a tough week of lite big rig days for most races in this years JJ, the final race 7 proved to be one of the most unforgettable in JJ history. With the breeze constantly changeing from East to N/E the race committee had a tough choice after cruising around all points of the Harbour wondering what to do and after 30 mins they decided to set an up and down course from Taylor Bay to Watsons Bay, by this time the Harbour was a complete washing machine with very little breeze... I felt sorry for the 5 skiffs in contention for the overall JJ trophy... so as we waited and waited the pressure mounted on the leading skiffs, we took it easy by cruising around with the video camera and waving to family and friends on the ferry... the amount of spectator boats to watch the last race was truelly amazing, and to have the last race confined to one small part of the Harbour made for a great atmosphere

So the race began in very lite conditions with the fleet splitting straight away, we started at the very biased port end, but so did many others and with not much room to move we got a little buried... Woody Jnr got a nice start and was leading for the first lap and looked to have the title won and with SX guys buried well back after another bad start the scene was set for a maiden JJ win for the appliances team... but not to be... the lite conditions threw in plenty of snakes and ladders and as the appliances team went backwards the SX team went forwards, as did most boats thru the fleet... so all 5 boats probably had the title at one stage or another during the tough 4 laps

After our average start, we battled with the lite conditons and our lack of tuning time in these conditions proved to be our handbrake... we have been doing some minor rig changes all week and had a nice fast uprange set up, but with luff rounds not matching perfectly enough and our old kite we struggled to stay in touch with the close fleet so our last race was truelly our most forgettable

Overall we finished 26th... not exaclty setting the world on fire, but Sam, Bendo and me are pretty happy with our result, we know we raced hard with the mid fleet and got unlucky in some races, but thats racing... our race 1 and race 2 effort was most pleasing and without our race 6 crash that would have been our best result. Most pleasing is how young Ben and Sam performed in their first JJ together... we had one swim all series and no major stuff ups or gear failure... some great starts and perfect gybes and tacks all week, and our mid to uprange breeze speed was matching most in the fleet apart from the super fast top 6... with a little more time with our new square top rig we mite have got downrange a bit faster... but with the fleet so close in every race with only minutes separating most of the fleet there was no room for any errors and my young crew can hold their head up high and be proud of their efforts during the week... they sailed like true seasoned pros... smart, calm and with nerves 0f steel... ive sailed with many crews over the past 10 to 15 years, some that think their gods gift to sailing and couldnt sail their way around a fish tank to guys that have won world titles, and my young guys measure up to the best, and thats the most pleasing aspect for me during this JJ week

In the end SX won from the very impressive guys on Active Air who sailed most consistantly during the series and where very unlucky not to win, 3rd was the Gotta love It team and fourth went to Woody Jnr... all of these teams could have won and those that didnt are very unlucky that the last race was sailed in such tough conditions... a real lottery... but a big congrats to all the top boats... and also fantastic to see Woody Snr get a win in the last race, even he said it was a crazy race that anyone could have won, apparently he got some tune up tips from the SX guys before race 6... obviously it worked wonders

From my point of view it was a tough week... and with no small rig days I was not too happy floating around in lite conditions, and after the tough last day I was thinking this mite be my last JJ... see what happens... for now Sam and Bendo are keen to keep racing for the rest of the season and enjoy all the hard work we have done over the last 12 months... and hopefully some small rig days for me please