Spring 2022 has finally arrived. Here in the Mid-Atlantic region we are still experiencing sub-freezing nights in late March, but there are many reasons to be thankful as a full season of racing, cruising and general enjoyment of sailing is right around the corner. Boat yards are starting to bustle with the sound of sanders, the smell of fiberglass and new bottom paint. Sailmakers are busy and divers are cleaning their gear. Soon the warm evenings of late April will envelope Wednesday night racers as they stretch their muscles into familiar positions not available on land. Crews will be juggling the musical chairs of graduations, weddings, reunions, vacations, summer camps and regatta events. All the everyday wonderful things that bring so much meaning to our lives. Enjoy your time on the water this season. The mirror finish of an early morning anchorage, the pull of the tiller, the chaotic symphony of a crowded leeward mark rounding, and the adrenaline rush of the starting horn. Invite new people to sail, get juniors involved, above all have fun sailing.
The expected 2021 J/30 North American Championship planned for last October New Orleans, and 40th Anniversary, had to be postponed and ultimately cancelled. I know that was an extremely disappointing result for the event planners and participants. This year, the 2022 NA Championship and 40th Anniversary event will be held in Annapolis, hosted by the Eastport Yacht Club, regatta link: J/30 North American Championship – Eastport Yacht Club. Dates are September 23/24/25. We plan to make the New Orleans folks proud with a large party fitting the 40th anniversary of this great class. Please make every effort to attend this special event. The Annapolis Fleet Captain, Heidi Frist, Suzie Q, is doing tremendous work to make this a signature regatta.
The BOG has approved the next three North American Championship event locations:
2023 – Bristol (August 24-27)
2024 – Annapolis
2025 – New Orleans
Additionally, there are 5-6 never-used masts that look to be available from RigRite’s inventory, plus a used mast purchased last year. This should keep the fleet well provisioned into the future. We are also looking at a solution for Martec prop availability issue. Our Treasury balance is sound, as there have been (unfortunately) fewer regatta expenses the past two years. We are looking at updating the NA Perpetual Trophy since we have run out of room on the original plaque and the extension board, we need to make room for 40 more NA winners!
I would like to thank all the members of the Board of Governors for keeping this fleet in such good shape. Their enthusiasm and commitment the J/30 Class is truly outstanding. It is inspiring to be in the company of such accomplished and dedicated people. Your board members are:
Dave Erwin, Past Co-President
Dan Mather, Past Co-President, Treasurer
Bill Kneller, Past President
Carl Sherter, Past Treasurer
Larry Christy, Class Chief Measurer
Bob Rutsch, Governor at Large
Dennis Bartley, Governor at Large
Heidi Frist, Chesapeake Fleet
Mark Rotsky, Southern New England Fleet
Rod Johnstone, J/Boats Representative
Steve Buzbee, Long Island Sound
Randy Boyles, Carolinas
TBD, Southeast
Billy Ross, Gulf Coast
Dell Todd, Western Great Lakes
Special thanks to Dave Erwin for all his work and to Dan Mather for staying on as Treasurer.
Please reach out to me with any questions or needs relating to NA’s and don’t forget to keep your dues current, details are on the J/30 Class website: http://j30.us/renew/
Have a great year!
Respectfully,
Bruce Irvin
J/30 Class President
Shamrock j30shamrock@gmail.com
410.353.2275
I want to thank the J/30 Board of Governors for their support and vote of confidence in me to be the next Class President. It’s a huge honor to be nominated for this position given the history of our class, much less to step into the role. I look forward to working with the board and membership to keep the class vibrant into the future.
I also want to thank our outgoing President, Doug Stryker, for his leadership and excellence as a fleet member and competitor. Thank you also to Dan Mather and Dave Erwin for their dedication and outstanding support of our national class.
Many of our members are original owners or grew up sailing these exceptional boats in the 1980’s through to today. The longevity and strong legacy of the national J/30 class is testimony to it being one of the most storied classes in the US. The people drawn to the J/30 over its 40 year history range from world-class racers, to exceptional club racers, to casual beer-can racers, to family cruisers. My goal is to not get in the way of this success and to support the class to continue to prosper into this new decade.
As background, I grew up sailing on the Chesapeake Bay’s West River just south of Annapolis, MD. My parents had a sailboat that we sailed every weekend and lived on for 3 weeks each summer. My earliest memories are of sailing and cruising to the many great anchorages on the Bay. My brother and I rode our bikes to sailing school in the summers where we learned to sail Penguins and then began racing Jet-14s. I attended my first CBRYA Jr. racing event at age 12 as crew for an excellent skipper. It was there that I fell in love with racing; being on water, the adrenaline rush, the competition, the camaraderie shown at the awards event. My first chance to race on a big boat came the next year when I had the opportunity to crew on a C&C 33 named Brown Sugar for Wednesday night racing on the West River. I will never forget the great opportunity that owner gave me. For this reason, I welcome new sailors and juniors to come out with me whenever possible for Wednesday night racing in Annapolis. Over the last few years, 4 or 5 people have experienced their very first sailboat race onboard and it’s a great feeling to pay that forward. Sailing needs the next generation, and I highly recommend taking a new-to-sailing or racing crew member out with you. You may just develop a great new bowman, spinnaker trimmer, or the next J/30 owner. And, you never know who will catch the spark of a lifelong passion.
I taught beginning sailing for three summers while in college and in 1988 I restored and took our Jet-14 ##53 to the Nationals in Toms River, NJ. After moving to Annapolis in 1996, I bought a used Laser and began racing it year round, and eventually went to the 2002 Laser Masters World Championship in Hyannis, MA. During that summer of ’96, I had the great fortune to be a coach for the J/World Performance Sailing School owned by renowned sailor and racer Jahn Tihansky. From those contacts, I got chances to call tactics in two J/105 Chicago NOODs, a Mumm 30 NAs, and numerous local events. Sailing and good fortune continued for me as I met my wife during a Solomon’s Island distance race. The owner of the Evelyn 32 Accomplice called Jahn an hour before the race looking for a last minute crew member. I just happened to be in Jahn’s office when the call came in and he looked at me and said, ‘hey, Chuck needs someone, do you want to go?’ Life changes that fast. Finally, in the winter of 2014, I began looking to purchase a one-design boat to race with my family. Again, good fortune intervened and I bought J/30 hull ##488 out of Warwick, RI. When considering names, it was simple, to keep the good luck going, 488 became Shamrock. Thus began the seven year journey that has led me here.
Owning a J/30 has been as transformative as that first junior event. I had very basic goals at first, simply to get out on the line for Wednesday night racing (on the same West River) and to teach my son (14) how to do bow (where I started), then to drive,. He was a fast learner and was my bowman for 6 years in a row, he competed in two high school national championships and is now in college. I took my younger son (12) along with us for the 2016 J/30 North Americans and he took home a tray at the awards ceremony for being the youngest competitor. It’s those things that build great experiences and memories.
It has been a long and enjoyable ramp up to compete with the veterans of the Annapolis fleet. I am grateful for the friendships I have developed along the way, the great competition, and now for the opportunity to be Class President. I have enjoyed the opportunity to meet and compete against J/30 owners and crews from across the country at the 2016 and 2019 North Americans. Everyone is willing to share tips to help new owners get the most out of their boats. There is a strong sense of community and sportsmanship in the class throughout the regional fleets, and it’s great to experience that on and off the water.
I want to thank everyone for your support and for your dedication to the timeless J/30 class. It’s great to be here with you.
Respectfully,
Bruce Irvin
J/30 Class President
Shamrock j30shamrock@gmail.com
410.353.2275
I’m humbled to be writing to you as the new 2020 Class President, voted in this past fall at the 2019 North American Championship in Annapolis, MD. Ironically, as I look back at the history of the class, these great boats have been around for 41 years; maybe not quite the same number of years I have been sailing, but I do, ironically, share a birthyear with the J30, but I think my boat may be in a bit better shape than I am!
I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Dave Erwin for his many years of guiding this J30 class, as a class member and President. I only met Dave a few years ago, but in that short amount of time, it has been quite apparent that Dave has a passion for sailing, but more so, sailing his J30. In addition, Dave and the Zephyr crew are not too shabby at chartering J30s around the US, spending a day getting them into shape and then leading the class around the course! Given our beloved J30s have not been built in over 30 years, the leadership of Dave and many of the other board members that have and continue to promote the class speaks volumes as to the continued health of the class and the J30. Thank you for all of those that cruise, race, and spread the word that the J30 continues to be a great boat for so many sailors, crews, and families.
A short background on myself…I was lucky enough to have grandparents that had a small cabin on a lake in NJ where I learned to sail. I started, so I am told, in diapers on my father’s Hobie 16, then moved on to windsurfing at a young age. I competed locally as a kid and then at a national and international level in high school and college. I was fortunate enough to compete in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Trials, qualify for the US Sailing Team in the late ‘90s, and represent the US at two Youth Worlds and a World University Games. Windsurfing brought me to many amazing beaches around the world, and in doing so, allowed me to meet so many amazing sailors with a true passion for our sport.
After college I traded my board for a tiller and drove an old (and very scary downwind in a blow) IOR boat out of Raritan Yacht Club for several years, and then purchased our first boat in 2008, a Santana 30/30. We raced in NJ, Long Island Sound, and as far as Block Island Race Week, and enjoyed racing in our local fleet. However, that fleet was a PHRF fleet, and although great competition, I would always see the good sailors traveling to one-design regattas to prove how good they really were.
One of my good sailing friends in NJ and closest competitors was Steve Buzbee and crew on Blue Meanie. We sailed against each other in our PHRF fleets for nearly a decade. When it was light, we had the edge over the J30; when it was windy, the J30 had the edge. But, again, I always wanted to have the opportunity to race head to head with a one-design boat and kept seeing Blue Meanie leave Raritan Bay most falls to compete in the J30 North Americans, many times bringing home some silver, if not the perpetual.
In 2016, my wife, Amy, and I moved to Annapolis, MD, and on the trip down to MD, our boat, Project Mayhem, was totaled – a great story over a few rums. We are alive to tell about it and Progressive was good to us. But now what to do?… We live in Annapolis and we don’t have a boat!?
Looking at the one-design options in Annapolis with “smaller” budgets, you have J22s, J70s, J80s, J30s, and on the high end, J105s. We decided to jump on a local J30 named Shamrock, owned by Bruce Irvin out of Eastport Yacht Club, and very quickly realized that the local J30 fleet met our needs. 10-15 boats on the line on a Wednesday night, multiple weekends and long distance bay races, and a competitive but fun amateur fleet. We could even keep the boat in the water year-round and race frostbites in the winter! I must have looked at 15 J30s between March and July of 2016, from MD to CT. We landed, ironically, on purchasing Belle Faster, a 1986 J30 from our old club, Raritan Yacht Club, in NJ. We sailed a Wednesday night and had a good showing against Blue Meanie and the deal was done. We bought her in July, sailed her down (successfully this time, I might add) to MD, and I spent the next two months preparing her for our first J30 NAs!
It has now been three seasons with our beloved J30, TOTALed MAYHEM, and we have enjoyed racing here in the Annapolis fleet on Wednesdays, two North Americans, the NOODs and numerous bay races around the Chesapeake Bay, almost entirely as a one-design fleet. There are hundreds of years of J30 knowledge here on the bay, with the likes of boats like Bebop, Valhalla, Cannonball, Insatiable, and many more, all of them willing to help fellow class members and J30 owners. And when Annapolis hosts a North Americans, it has been awesome to meet those who may not be as lucky as those here in Annapolis to race one-design, who travel to compete. The 2019 J30 NAs had 15 boats on the line with three great days of racing on the bay and partying as a class on land. Who can’t forget the crab fest hosted by the crew of Avita on the shores of Back Creek! Check out the pics from the event here. By the way, that is more competitors than the 2019 J109 NAs, 2019 Beneteau 36.7 NAs, and in striking distance of the J105 fleet’s NAs!
My wife and I have had three great years owning, racing, and cruising (okay, maybe once) our J30 and becoming friends with so many other J30 owners, not only in MD, but across the country. I look forward to getting to know more of you in the future and continuing to keep our class strong in 2020. They haven’t made J30s in quite a few years, so your feedback is important! You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you own a J30. Please help me as I take over the reins of our class by:
Completing our 2020 J30 Class Survey. Your response will help us understand what you need from your class.
Class Association
