UK J/70 Class works with yacht clubs to boost 2024 Grand Slam Series
by J/70 UK Class 13 Dec 2023 07:28 PST
J70 Brutus © Paul Wyeth /
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The UK J/70 Class has launched the 2024 Grand Slam Series. The Grand Slam Series consists of 6 premier J/70 events in the Solent. It includes Cowes Week Short Series, the J/70 Nationals and four weekend events across the season from April to October.
The best 4 events including the Nationals count towards the overall prizes. New categories this year include the top Youth Team and the top Mixed gender team. The top Open boat and top Corinthian boats in the series will qualify to represent GBR at the 2025 World Championships in Argentina.
This year in addition to the 30-strong fleet of privately owned boats, the J/70 Class has worked with the Royal Thames Yacht Club, the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Royal Southern Yacht Club who collectively own fifteen J/70s. Each club has agreed to reserve its boats to charterers for the entire series.
The result is a practical and cost-effective package to enable youth teams, mixed teams and more mature teams to charter a J/70 for the whole series of 6 events.
Jack Fenwick, Sailing Development Manager at Royal Thames Yacht Club commented: "We've been working together with the J/70 UK Class to put a really attractive package together for our members and the interest so far has been considerable"
Marshall King from the UK J/70 Class Committee added "The J/70 is probably the premier one-design racing keelboat in the world and working with the clubs in this way we hope some strong teams will emerge, possibly with international ambitions in the years to come. With a great circuit in the UK and Europe, and the 2026 Worlds in Cascais, it's a great time to join the class".
More details can be found at this page of the J/70 UK Class website.