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  Big Week For One Design Racing - Sailing in North America and beyond
 | | Fleet Action on Day two of the Qualifying Series - J/70 World Championship 2014 Paul Todd/Outside Images © |
While the spring and summer of 2016 have flashed by in what felt like a single downwind leg on a planing-friendly sportboat-and while autumn is already starting to deliver crisper temperatures and shorter days in some parts of North America-the great news for fans of One Design racing is that this next week will see two new world championship crowned in two of the most competitive fleets afloat. Here in San Francisco, the 2016 Alcatel J/70 World Championships, hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club, will unfurl from September 27 to October 1, while Sail Newport and the Newport Shipyard will be hosting the 2016 Melges 32 Worlds from September 28 to October 2 in historic Newport, Rhode Island.
Collectively, these two events will involve many of the world's best One Design sailors, including former America's Cup, Volvo Ocean Race and Olympic winners and veterans, not to mention former National and World Champion sailors.
 | | Rick DeVos and his Delta crew aboard their namesake Melges 32 © 2016 JOY | IM32CA |
Some backstory. The Melges 32 was designed by Reichel/Pugh and was introduced in 2005 as a take-no-prisoners sportboat that rewards teams that can bring world-class driving skills and precise crew work to bear against their competition. While the design is now more than ten years old, it continues to attract world-class Corinthian sailors, as well as top-shelf professional sailors, with its blistering speed and talent-rife class of owners and sailors.
A glance at this year's 13-boat entry list at the Melges 32 Worlds includes owner/drivers such as former Melges 32 world champions Jason Carroll (Argo), Alessandro Rombelli (STIG) and Pieter Taselaar (Bliksem), while the list of world-class tacticians includes Cameron Appleton (Argo), Tom Slingsby (Bliksem), Taylor Canfield (Dark N' Stormy), Jonathon Mckee (Delta), Vasco Vascotto (Inga), Terry Hutchinson (STIG), and Mark Mendelblatt (Volpe).
 | | 2014 Melges 32 Gold Cup - Jason Carroll, Argo. © JOY / IM32CA |
Racing begins on Wednesday at the Melges 32 Worlds, and-weather depending-the race committee will have the choice of setting up the racecourse inside or outside of Narragansett Bay. While longer-term weather forecasts can change, NOAA is currently calling for cloudy, possibly rainy skies, especially later in the week. Thursday and Friday could see the heaviest airs (15-20 knots, with gusts to 25), but the forecast for the weekend calls for 5-10 knot airs and 3- to 5-foot seas.
Meanwhile, here on the West Coast, the 2016 Alcatel J/70 World Championships start on Tuesday and run through Saturday. As of this writing, the entry list includes 75 teams from 15 countries, making this one of the biggest and most competitive One Design regattas of the year-not bad for a class that only started sailing in 2012.
 | | 2014 J/70 World Championship, Day 2 Chris Howell |
As with the Melges 32 Worlds, the J/70 Worlds will see some of the planet's best owner/drivers, including 2014 J/70 World Champion Tim Healy (USA 2), 2015 J/70 World Champion Julian Fernandez Neckelmann (Flojito Y Cooperando;), current and former North American J/70 champions Jud Smith (Africa) and Joe Bardenheier (Muse), as well as former J/70 European Champions Carlo Alberini (Calvi Network) and Claudia Rossi (Petite Terrible).
Calling tactics on San Francisco Bay's Berkeley Circle is no easy feat given its reputation for intricate current streams, and top-flight tacticians at the J/70 Worlds include America's Cup, Olympics and Volvo Ocean Racing greats Paul Cayard (Calvi Network) and John Kostecki (Catapault), as well as Etchells and J/70 World Champion Bill Hardesty (Flojito y Cooperando).
While the last two days have seen temperatures at or above 88 degrees Fahrenheit (read: no sea breeze), things are expected to start cooling off on Tuesday, with forecasted temps in the low 70s and high 60s for the rest of the regatta. With some luck, this will deliver San Francisco's (in)famous sea breeze to the Berkeley Circle, where the first warning signal for this world-championship event will sound (weather and wind permitting) at 1100 hours, local time, on Tuesday.
 | | Brian Keane's Savasana on Day three - J/70 World Championship 2014 Paul Todd/Outside Images © |
For sailors and fans who are geographically challenged but want to follow the action at the J/70 Worlds, tittle sponsor Alcatel (a mobile-device manufacturer) is supplying phones, which will serve as real-time tracking devices, to each boat. Fans can (virtually) watch the racing unfurl online on the J/70 Worlds' webpage, and Sail-World.com will have photo galleries from the event.
Stay tuned for more news from both of these world-class events, as it becomes known.
May the four winds blow you safely home,
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor
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