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Aunt Jean 1998 Season In Review
This review was started in September of '98....With the season two thirds over Aunt Jean is doing fairly well. We won the AYC Spring Race Then went to Newport and got a third in the J35 East Coast's. We made a lot of dreadful mistakes which insured our third placed status. We then did some local Jersey races against some Henderson 30's and the like. We learned we don't have a chance in triangle courses (I know, who sails triangles any more?) and took two more thirds overall in the Manasquan Tri Sail and the Ocean City Heart Cup. We actually sailed better but... Since then we've raced the Hospice Cup in Annapolis, finishing 2nd behind a Viper 29 (PHRF again) we did Ok against the other J35's...great party!!
Block Island 1997 shots (Fun Time)
My illustrious crew helped out by the owner of dreamer* New member to my family Annie
What we do on our off time....Delivery
The crew ready for the start at Newport Hear what we think (Click here)
A comfortable lead at Newport The Downhill leg
The fall J-35 one design season has started in Annapolis. Aunt Jean had a very good weekend winning the race down to Oxford on Saturday and the race back on Sunday. The winds were typical Annapolis crap shoot, Aunt Jean just had lucky dice. Both races were the types of affairs where you build up a big lead, then slow the boat down to stay in touch with the fleet to insure they * don't get by you on a massive shift, pressure change etc. (The problem with ten mile legs). This strategy worked...barely...we were within inches of losing the lead 3 or 4 times on each race by * who have many more years of sailing on these god forsaken waters than I. (Do you know if you say the word "Annapolis" three times fast all wind will die in your immediately surrounding area) Due to Aunt Jean's unexpected fortune over the weekend, we actually have a shot at winning the CBYRA J-35 High Point Trophy. Winning High Point would be a nice cap to an otherwise mediocre season. The trouble is we will need to win all three races of the AYC Fall Series to do it...and we all know what the "A" in AYC stands for (say it three times).
* the wily Annapolis locals......See below for more if you care!
Getting ready for a start at Newport...Nice sospenders What it's all about...fun and winning for Sag
Deb & I coming into Newport after racing Chris, Deb & I After awards at Block IslandStarted the AYC Fall Series with a bang! There was breeze and we hit the line fast, enabling us to roll the boats to leeward and get to the lay line first....yes it was a one tack leg for those sailing aficionados amongst us. After that we just protected our lead from * for the rest of the race. We're probably sitting in pretty good position to win J35 CBYRA High Point albeit with a good battle from *. We'll just see how it goes. These next two weekends are boat show weekends and my happy crew sometimes isn't feeling so good after a night of boat show parties...we'll see. Well one boat show weekend is over and the crew from Aunt Jean came out fairly unscathed. Amongst hangovers and headaches we hit the water Sunday to find a dying Northwest breeze (AKA Northworst). We started with a heavy #1 and dug left only to find right was paying. We went to tack right to cross * when low and behold we found we forgot to tie the port tack jib sheet on (can you spell oops) We crash tacked back to retie the sheet and by the time we had, the lead boat to our right had us. We decided to let them go and rely on the 60 degree wind shifts that Annapolis is famous for. By the time the dust settled at the top mark only one * was ahead of us. We had felt under powered on the top half of the upwind leg and switched jibs to our medium #1. During the second upwind leg it was quite apparent that we weren't totally brain dead and had gone with the right sail. The combination of the right sail and hitting two monster shifts correctly put us comfortably ahead so we could just cover the rest of the race. 'till next weekend.....
Well we're finally finished the fall season. Aunt Jean managed to finish the season unscathed with another first....but not without being constantly harassed by *. * got off to very good starts and it was a tight battle for yours truly and *. After the first lap we found ourselves in third and rapidly falling to fourth (shades of our Newport mark rounding finesse dancing in our heads...ahh nostalgia). Luckily all concerned but yours truly liked left...we went right and got lucky, allowing us to squeak around the weather mark in first. From there we fought off repeated attempts from * until the finish. Luckily we held on and finished the season on a good note! I think we won High Point (math subject to intoxication) and are looking forward to next year and the award parties in between.* The Wily Annapolis Locals
Hear what J-Birds owner is saying to his...err...date??
Owner of J-Bird's Date Oh Baby, Oh Baby!!As you can see folks, one of * was doing perverted acts on the dock in between races.... it's a sad set of affairs when Aunt Jean and her debilitated crew must keep all of you proper racers away from the likes of *. I hope some of the more proper yachts from elsewhere in the country will help us fend off this unruly crowd in the 1999 J-35 NA's. (I don' t even think he used grease!!!)
Click here to Go back to the Aunt Jean Home page
Click here to see 1999 Results, Pictures and Nonsense
Last updated April 21, 1999
