J/Fest Southwest

J/Fest Southwest Committee Chairman Al Goethe and the team at Lakewood Yacht Club (LYC) welcomed teams to the 5th Annual J/Fest Southwest Regatta, sailed November 1-2 on Galveston Bay. Over the weekend, most fleets were treated to 6+ races in classic Galveston Bay sailing conditions–breeze, chop and plenty of wind shifts. The well-traveled and very experienced team on Mark and Jolene Masur’s Two Feathers won the J/105 class in a closely fought affair. Not surprisingly, just 2 points behind them was Uzi Ozeri’s Infinity. However, the biggest fight in the entire regatta may have been for the bronze in the J/105s, with five teams all scrapping for any advantage over one another to claw their way onto the podium. When the smoke cleared, all five teams finished just four points apart! Winning this dustup by just one point was John Barnett’s Vici with 32 points to take the bronze. Fourth was Bill Lakenmacher’s Radiance with 33 points after suffering an SCP (scoring penalty) in the last race. Then fifth, yet one more point back was Alan Bates’ Zippity with 34 points. John Bell’s Kinderspiel 2 and Mark Young’s Killer Rabbit each won one of the final two races and had a mathematical possibility of finishing third, but instead ended up tied with one another (with Kinderspiel 2 getting the nod on countback for sixth place).