Svea finished with something of a flourish, triumphing in both of today’s light wind races and the Swedish flagged team are winners of the J Class Barcelona Regatta by a margin of five points. The team which has virtually dominated J Class racing since they joined the fleet early in 2022 had originally made winning this prestigious regatta – which has been sailed at the heart of the 37th America’s Cup arena – as one of their primary goals from the outset. Today they delivered on that quest after being pushed especially hard through the first half of a spectacular event which showcased the beautiful J Class Yachts at their most beautiful and most competitive.
Small lead
Svea started this final day with a lead of just one point ahead of Velsheda, but their closest rivals were immediately squeezed out at the committee boat by Rainbow and so nullifying any final battle. And then at the start of the second race both Rainbow and Velsheda were over the start line early and had to recross, leaving Svea to earn their biggest victory of the week, after having already won the J Class Barcelona title with a race to spare.
Victory is a great reward for Svea’s two Swedish co-owners and their crew which includes sailors of 11 different nationalities, that has together trained up and promoted young female sailors and brought together a bunch of young small boat sailors, anchored by older, experienced big boat and J Class sailors which is led by tactician Bouwe Bekking, who previously guided Lionheart to the 2017 J Class World Championship. Their rigour and drive has raised the game in the fleet, lifting the standard for all J Class crews for which this pinnacle regatta has been a long term target.
Velsheda, the 1933-launched only original boat in the fleet, take second overall after sharing the regatta lead at the end of both of the first two days of racing, not least after ‘Big Wednesday’ which saw winds off Barcelona peaking at nearly 30 knots, accompanied by big waves producing some of the most exciting and demanding racing of recent years for the class.
Rainbow rising fast but Svea supreme
Newcomers to the class Rainbow, under new ownership for the last two years, finished strong at their first full J Class regatta event, winning yesterday in the light going and then taking second place twice today to prove they will surely be title contenders in the future.
“It is fantastic to win.” Svea’s navigator Steve Hayles grinned, “This has been a three year project that our two owners put together a while ago, and this is the culmination of that. It has been a nerve racking week with all sorts of conditions and so great to come out ahead of great competition. But these are such amazing boats. I think everyone who has been involved has been blown away and everyone who have been watching have been saying lovely things about the boats. We are delighted to win. Today being light was not our conditions and so we were a little nervous, we prefer the medium to upper airs stuff.”
He revealed, “We had a bit of a sit down last night and a talk this morning. The first race was the key for us and then the other two were over the line in the second race, then it was not so important to us to win that one, but it is nice to finish strong like we did.
Spotlit class
Being in the spotlight in the middle of the 37th America’s Cup has been an unforgettable experience, the interest from sailing fans in Barcelona and around the world has been a great boost for the class as Hayles highlights, “It is absolutely fantastic to have been out there this week with the AC40s sailing around today, I think a lot of them came to buzz us, and with everything happening here with the youth sailing and the women’s sailing it is all amazing. It feels we are a little part of that. And now as a Brit we are excited about next week.”
All three boats proved to be very close in terms of performance this week, all winning at least one race. Velsheda finish second overall after two race victories but finishing 3,3,3 had to be content with second. They win the Kohler Cup for the best performance over the whole season aggregating results from the Saint Barth’s Bucket, Superyacht Cup Palma, Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup and the J Class Barcelona Regatta.
Tactician Tom Dodson commented, “It was all Svea today and us on Velsheda and Rainbow were left scrapping it out for second and third. But congratulations to Svea. On Velsheda we were over the line at the second start and we were pushed out at the committee boat on the first start and so we seemed to spend the day in recovery mode. But we have second place overall which are happy with. It is unfortunate the first day was too light and the last two days were a bit marginal but the two windy days we had were great sailing.”
He adds, “But we win the season. We are very proud of that. It means a lot to us as it is a memorial to Terry Kohler who was the owner of North Sails. He was a very special man and so we are very proud to win the Kohler Cup for 2024. And here we have loved watching all the foiling Cup boats, all of them, and we are happy to have been part of the whole America’s Cup festival here.”
Every day is a school day….
Rainbow proved their potential for the future and visibly improved over the week, their British navigator Simon Fisher reports, “Every day we go on the water we have been learning with the boat and it is good we have had a positive trajectory this week. It is a new boat and quite a new team. So we have been improving every time we have been out. It is good to finish strong. It was another difficult, shifty, light day out there and so it was good to get a couple of good races in and finished. It was interesting with some big shifts and changes in wind pressure. Tacks are so expensive on these boats but when you can take a few shifts up the beat it is good fun. With a race missed and an OCS today we could have been a bit better, but you have to push hard in this class.
“I have enjoyed it immensely as these are interesting boats to sail, they are difficult boats to sail, it takes a while to get everything right. It has been a good week. It is exciting racing here where the J’s are such an important part of America’s Cup history and I think they make such a spectacle wherever we go.”
Final standings after seven races, no discards
1 Svea J/S1 1,2,1,2,2,1,1 10pts
2 Velsheda K7 2,1,2,1,3,3,3 15pts
3 Rainbow J-KZ 13,4(DNC), 3,3,1,2,2, 18pts
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