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J24 2011 National Championship in Barbados
The J24 Class in Barbados has just completed its 4th Annual Championship in Barbados and once again our class has shown that being consistent is one of the major building blocks that determine a champion. Each passing year as our fleet continues to grow, and the members of our club continue to aspire to bigger and better goals the ability to win a National championship becomes tougher. Each team seeks ways to continue to learn and become better sailors, better competitors improving equipment and sailing techniques so as to be able to compete “consistently” at a higher level…after all it is not actually the final result that matters, but that we continue to get better and earn the respect of our peers! The Local fleet followed through in this endeavor by holding training sessions in March with a former top 5 World Championship finisher who put the local fleet through its paces with class room instruction as well as on the water tuning and racing sessions. Club standards continue to be raised as we improve “Measurement Standards” and enforcement of the rules as well.
2011 saw 5 different winners and 5 different 2nd place finishers out of 8 regattas. There was not a single boat that dominated the local J24 racing scene making the competition fierce. This year for the first time consistently the local racing had representation from Grenada in the form of Island Waterworld’s Die Hard owned and skippered by Robbie Yearwood and from St. Vincent The Evolution Sails “SaltFish” owned and skippered by Philip Barnard. This consistent representation shows commitment to this sport and an effort to improve within in a big fleet despite the distance between our island states. Additional mention should be made of Paolo’s Churrascarria’s Summtins Happenin owned and skippered by Paul Johnson who won the Bequia 2011 Southern Caribbean Championship as well.
In addition to our eventual National Championship winners we have seen the return to the top of the podium in various regattas for past winners such as Xpelair Fadeaway, BNB Impulse, Banks Esperanza and a relatively new boy on the scene CGI Fully Covered owned and skippered by Bruce Bailey. Unfortunately, while all of these competitors were able to score some fantastic wins in individual regattas they were unable to transfer this into the kind of consistency overall to overcome the Williams Industries Hawkeye owned and skippered by Robert Povey from becoming the 2011 National Champions of Barbados. 3 – PETE is the best way to describe Hawkeye’s performance as they have been crowned for an unprecedented 3rd time as National Champions. The team to be beat all year long has persevered with fierce competition from their rivals throughout the fleet. Congratulations to them!!! A Well deserved victory made even better by the high standard of racing of their competitors and themselves.
What’s next for this team, and the National Fleet? Eyes turn to the new season 2011-2012 and beyond…Match Racing in November where each of the teams above or some new team ask themselves can they unseat the reigning holders of the United Insurance Match Racing Cup – JADA’s ISIS??? What else is in the future for this fleet? A J24 World Championship possibly being held in Barbados? The sky is limit!!!
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