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  OD Champs Crowned on Both Coasts—Sailing from North America & beyond
 | | Racing action at the 2016 Alcatel J/70 World Championships, hosted by St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, California Gerard Sheridan |
The past week has been a blur of activity for fans of One Design (OD) racing, as two of the most important classes-the now-10-year-old Melges 32 and the wildly popular J/70-both enjoyed their 2016 world championship regattas in fine early fall conditions on either side of the USA. Both regattas featured world-class racing, and, ultimately, both regattas saw new world champions crowned after days of intense racecourse battle.
On the East Coast, the Melges 32 Worlds, hosted by Sail Newport and the Newport Shipyard, were held from September 29 to October 2 and featured 13 of the world's fastest Melges 32 teams. The race committee managed to get in a full ten races, which is impressive given that the second day of the event featured stormy skies and a “Newport Nor'Easter” that tested each crew's ability to maintain control once the kites were hoisted.
 | | Ryan DeVos' Volpe lands fourth overall after an iconic first day of racing at Melges 32 Worlds International Melges 32 Class Association |
Throughout the series, skipper Ryan DeVos, sailing aboard Volpe along with tactician Mark Mendelblatt and their crew of Mike Hill, Peter Kinney, Scott Nixon, Erika Reineke, Sam Rogers and Drew Wierda, proved fast and consistent, earning four bullets and no score lower than a ninth-place finish for a total of 31 points. This was enough to edge-out former Melges 32 World Champions Alessandro Rombelli and his crew aboard STIG and Jason Carroll and his Argo teammates, who finished with 37 and 38 points, respectively, giving DeVos the heady title of 2016 Melges 32 World Champion.
“We have competed in four World Championships and it feels so good to finally pull one off,” said an elated DeVos. “Going into today we had a nice cushion, but we knew, especially in this fleet, it's never over until it's over. We knew we needed to go out and sail our very best. When I think about the fact that we are racing against some of the best sailing teams in the world, it makes today's victory even more rewarding.”
 | | Ryan DeVos - 2016 Melges 32 World Championship Stephen Cloutier |
While there's no question that the Melges 32 has long produced some of the most competitive One Design racing afloat, there's also no question that the top professional sailors often go where the opportunities are the best, and right now that is the J/70 class.
“We couldn't be happier with how widespread J/70 sailing has become in just four years,” said Jeff Johnstone, President of J/Boats. “Hull numbers 1103 – 1111 are the latest to be built and [they competed] at the [2016] Worlds right alongside hull number two.”
 | | 2016 Alcatel J/70 Worlds - Day 4 Chris Ray |
These same big numbers saw 68 boats from 15 different countries at the 2016 Alcatel J/70 World Championships, which was hosted by St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, California. I had the pleasure of working as the event's press officer, and I had a front-row seat for some of the best OD racing that I have witnessed in years.
San Francisco's breeze classically switches on around noon and can often blow dogs off of chains for the afternoon hours before abating to more reasonable evening velocities. Things get interesting when an ebb-tide cycle opposes this westerly afternoon air, piling up the Bay into square waves that arecompounded by the relatively shallow depths of the Berkeley Circle, where the racing was conducted, and where the afternoon waters turned into a liquid washboard.
 | | 2016 Alcatel J/70 Worlds - Day 1 © St. Francis Yacht Club |
While these boisterous San Francisco Bay conditions made for some outrageous racing conditions, the twelve-race regatta also featured some light-air action that tested different skillsets and rewarded different kinds of preparation. Moreover, the afternoon ebb-tide cycle made for some interesting starts (read: OCS) and some general recalls, and also “inspired” the race committee to start several races under either the dreaded U-Flag or Black Flag rules (read: instant disqualification for being found OCS prior to the starting gun). Of the Top Five boats, three (including the eventual winner) suffered U Flag disqualifications, creating big points holes that teams had to climb out of on the leaderboard.
After twelve races, Joel Ronning and his Catapult crew, which included San Francisco local John Kostecki, the only sailor to have won the America's Cup, an Olympic medal and the Volvo Ocean Race, took first place (49 points), followed by Julian Fernandez Neckelmann's Flojiti y Cooperando team (66 points), which included tactician Bill Hardesty, and Jud Smith's Africa team (76 points), which largely hails from the Marblehead, Massachusetts area.
 | | GSheridan Awards – Alcatel J/70 Worlds at St. Francis Yacht Club Alcatel J/70 Worlds |
While these two parallel regattas made for an exciting week of spectator sailing, fans can expect great local sailing in many parts of the country over the coming weeks as different clubs and class associations aim to capture the last of the season's reliably good weather in North America.
May the four winds blow you safely home,
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor
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