Forceracing- J Sails have 16 of top 20 in 2011 Optimist Worlds

by Andrew Brown on 22 Jan 2012
Andrew Brown reports for Forceracing with the latest update and results:

J Sails did it once again at the 2011 Optimist Worlds Worlds having 16 sails in the top 20!!! This included placings first through fourth.

This included a full set for the Singapore team, the top country and Peru (2nd country) both using J’s and also the fifth country being the kiwis!

Also at the four other top events around the world J Sails won them all:
North American Champ. - first place
South American Champ. - first place
European Champs. boys - first and third place
Asian Champ. - first, second, third place

Forceracing is bringing into the country the Classic range of sails including:
The Classic Green – Good for very small sailors
The Classic Blue – This finished second at the Worlds with a 38kg sailor
The Classic Red – The winner of the Worlds in Napier and the 08, 09 and 10 Worlds
The Classic Black – This is the newest of the J Sails, for bigger kids. This was 18 months in the pipeline, and has had some stunning performances already winning the North Island champs and Sir Peter Blake regatta.

Other great news is that the WINNER TEAM boats have finally made it through customs and are ready for the TEAM Sailors. Leonard whom is already a team sailor and the new team member replacing Markus Sommerville, is Nick Egnot-Johnston, the winner of the North Island Champs. Lookout for the new Team boats shortly; they will be easy to spot!

Forceracing has plenty of rigs, foils, sails and boat packages (new boats, ex charter boats and second hand Winners) available including the 2 Team boats of 4465 and 4466 that were new in April.

Forceracing has enjoyed the time off from coaching over Christmas and New Year period recharging the batteries after a busy time towards the last half of last year.

This included coaching Martine Grael and Isabel Swan in the 470 class from Brazil; including stints in Brazil, New Zealand and at the ISAF Worlds in Perth.


I also ran the Optimist Pre Worlds Clinic for OptiWorldsNZ the organisers of the Opti Worlds in Napier. This was a great clinic with 40 sailors from many different countries with great coaches including; Carl Evans, Geoff Woolley, Dan Willcox, Chris Steele (NZ Team coach), Martin Jenkins (Dutch Antilles coach), and Hector Guzman (Mexican Team coach).

The Kohi Club coaching programme is going really well with sailors moving through the classes and divisions making it exciting times for the sailors and the coaches!

I have also been facilitating some of the coach development courses for Yachting New Zealand. These are great courses and are something all yachting coaches should do to 'upskill' their coaching.

Yachting Zealand have held a Zone Development camp at Murrays Bay and next week is the New Zealand junior 470 team camp towards the 470 Junior Worlds starting at Takapuna at the end of January.

Next week is also the NZIODA Opti Camp at Eastern Beach that Forceracing has helped in conjunction with NZIODA in putting together, and as always this promises to be another good camp.

The Forceracing 1 day Opti clinic will be back on the 17th of March, to be held on the NorthShore in Auckland, so please email Andrew if your interested attending. Some great prizes are up for grabs through HARKEN NZ!!!