Gruelling sailing during J22 Commodore’s Cup 2012

(CISC): The annual J22 Commodores Cup was held over the weekend of 14th and 15th January 2012. Nine boats competed in the first major J22 sailing regatta of the year in what turned out to be one of the most gruelling Commodore’s Cup regattas for many years. The regatta was hosted by the Cayman Islands Sailing Club’s (CISC) Commodore who himself had, almost exactly a year ago, faced even more gruelling conditions in an expedition to Antarctic. The regatta was held in the North Sound in testing conditions.Five races were run on the first day and with 20+ knots of wind on the second race day, a long distance race around Booby Cay worth double points proved a fitting challenge to decide the winner.

Congratulations to Ciao! helmed by Tomeaka McTaggart and her crew for taking the honours. Ciao! beat Mike Farrington and his crew in Just Leaving by a single point, with his brother Simon Farrington taking the third place position. Meanwhile there was fierce competition in the middle of the fleet between Bruce Johnson, Jo Richards and John Carmichael with only six points separating them all.

Results:
Rank Boat SailNo HelmName R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 Total
1st Ciao! 6 Tomeaka McTaggart 3 1 2 1 1 4 12
2nd Just leaving 4 Mike Farrington 2 2 3 2 2 2 13
3rd Sunshine 3 Simon Farrington 1 3 4 3 3 6 20
4th Yahoo 9 Bruce Johnson 5 4 1 4 7 12 33
5th Mayhem 10 Jo Richards 4 6 6 5 4 10 35
6th Moonstruck 1 John Carmichael 7 5 7 6 6 8 39
7th Wreckless 14 Steve Adams 8 7 5 8 5 14 47
8th DMS 2 Raph Harvey 6 8 8 7 10 16 55
9th Onion Barj 5 Simon Dickson 10 9 9 9 10 18 65

Over the last year, the boats and crews have been competing for the honour of qualifying to participate in the Race Cayman 2012 regatta to be held 15th-18th March 2012 with competing crews from USA, Jamaica, Bahamas, UK, USA, Norway, Germany and South Africa.  Jane Moon and the Ciao! team are leading the final  qualifying event still to be completed (J22 Nationals) and the overall qualifying standings are as follows:

      
Boat Helm      Cum
1st Ciao! Jane Moon      70
2nd Just Leaving Mike Farrington      65
3rd Sunshine Simon Farrington      60
4th Yahoo Bruce Johnson      52
5th Mayhem Mark Edmunds      51
6th Moonstruck Mark Macfee      42
7th Wreckless Steve Adams      21
8th Calima Eduardo Bernal      17
9th DMS Raph Harvey      11
10th Onion Barj Peter Hayden      9
11th Scaramanga Ben Webster      8

In addition to J22 Racing, Race Cayman 2012 will include the Open and Western Caribbean Optimist Championships with young sailors visiting from Bahamas, Jamaica, BVI, USA and Russia.   The Regatta is supported by the Ministry of Health, Environment, Youth, Sports and Culture, HSBC Bank (Cayman) Ltd, Flowers Bottled Water, Cayman Islands Sailing Club and the J22 fleet owners.  Further opportunities for sponsorship are available by contacting Rick Caley admin@sailing.ky