Savasana continues J/70 domination at Verve Cup Inshore Regatta

Savasana continues J/70 domination at Verve Cup Inshore Regatta © Chicago Yacht Club

Chicago Yacht Club hosted Chicagoland's most popular inshore regatta at its conveniently located Belmont Station this past weekend.

Featured one-design classes included a huge fleet of J/70s and a fun-loving group of J/24s. The fleets enjoyed five races over the two-day weekend event.

J/70 Class

As a precursor to the upcoming J/70 World Championship in St. Petersburg, Florida, many teams were using the Verve Cup as yet another opportunity to hone their skills and fine-tune the boatspeed and handling, and learn how to cope better with their competitors on tactics & strategy. As he's been doing since the midwinters J/70 events in Tampa and Miami, Brian Keane's SAVASANA team can now avoid yet one more feather in their cap by handily winning with a 2-1-7-1-2 tally for 13 pts. Brian's regular team these past few months included Thomas Barrows, Conner Harding, and Ron Weed.

The balance of the podium in J/70s included two determined Chicago-based skippers. John Heaton's well-practiced and experienced crew on EMPEIRIA (Will Felder, Zeke Horowitz, and Zach Mason) was in second place, and colleague Rich Witzel's ROWDY crew (Tomas Dietrich, Marc Gauthier, and Greiner Hobbs) in third position. The balance of the top five included Cate Muller-Terhune's CASTING COUCH in fourth and the Mexicans on BLACK MAMBA- Fernando Perez Ontiveros.

Corinthians Division

As they had recently accomplished at the J/70 Corinthian Nationals, it was Lee Sackett and Dave Kerr's USA 1516 that took division honors, followed by Bob Willis's RIP RULLAH in second and Martin Johnsson's AQUAHOLIKS in third place.

J/24 Class

The J/24s only sailed four races. Winning was Bernie Soya's MOTORHOME with three bullets. Second went to Mary Soya's THE BOAT with almost all deuces, and third went to Malachy Tobin's BANG BANG BANG with nearly all thirds.

More information at www.chicagoyachtclub.org