Handicapping the J/70 Mixed Plus US National Championships
Light southerly on the first day of the POD, could be like this tomorrow.
The big day is tomorrow. Our big one design event of the summer is here. The following is my back of the napkin guide about who to watch in this three day event.
First, the schedule:
Friday: First warning 1300
Saturday: First warning 1100
Sunday: First warning 1100
The Racing / Course:
Will be north of Meadow Point, so if you have good binoculars, you could maybe see something from Carkeek Park
You can see a list of the competitors here.
And after each day of racing you can see the scores here.
There will be a throw out after 5 races (drop the worst score).
I will be writing a daily wrap up each night and posting a link on our regatta page here.
We may be trying out a live tracker from Vakaros, if so, the link will also be posted on the regatta page.
Teams to Watch
We do have some teams in from out of town. But since I don't know anything about them, I will be leaving them out of this list. This means it is highly likely I will most likely be revising this list tomorrow night!
RIFF: Sail Number USA 496
Boris Luchterhand and Ron Rosenberg: Team 'Riff' won the POD in a hard fought battle against 'Mossy' on this very course, making them a serious contender in this event. I don't know who is sailing with them, hopefully I will be able to update that tomorrow.
MOSSY: Sail Number USA 486
Dalton Bergan, Lindsey Bergan, Ben Glass, and Regan Edwards: Team 'Mossy' is extremely fast, just barely lost to 'Riff' in the POD Regatta, have been in the top group for the Lake Wednesday nights, and have many championships to their credit, making it easy to see them in the hunt for the title.
RC: Sail Number USA 1324
Keith Whittemore and Brian Thomas and I don't know who else: Whoever joins them will be good, and Keith and Brian have won the J24 Worlds together twice along with many other victories. They have boats on more than one continent and are one of our teams going to Lake Garda for the Mixed Plus Worlds right after this regatta, and they have been cleaning up on Lake Washington in recent weeks.
WarCanoe: Sail Number USA 18
Mike Goldfarb, Alyosha Strum-Palerm, Julia Mamen, Jennifer Glass, and Farzana Mohamedali: Mike may have more experience racing J70s than anyone in our fleet with an extremely well put together program, aggressive travel schedule, multiple boats around the world, and the ability to recruit the very best team. Also going to Garda, the 'WarCanoe' team is very likely to be in the hunt.
Dime: Sail Number USA 85
Andrew Loe, Mallory Loe, Giancarlo Nucci, Leigh Wager, and Erin Schmidt: Yet another two boat program and team traveling to Garda. All good sailors with big event experience, and the best finish of Seattle boats at the Corinthian Europeans in Cascais in April.
Lift Ticket: Sail Number FRA 1089
Mathieu Laffitte: Not sure who else is sailing, but this team often puts together a team of good sailors, many with the same last name! They have been super fast on the lake, are also going to Garda, and also went to Cascais.
BammBamm: Sail Number USA 1032
Libby Johnson McKee: Also not sure who is sailing, but if their team is similar to recent Wednesday nights, they will be a podium contender.
The weather models are showing a very light southerly turning to a very light northerly about the time of the start tomorrow. We can only hope reality will outperform the model!
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