Re Toronto, ours seems to be the only J/30 sailing regularly in the immediate area. By that I mean two to three times a week out of downtown, either beer cans or family day sailing. I've seen no others out, but I saw one on the dock when visiting at Mimico about eight years ago, and another that cruised into our club from the eastern end of the lake this year. And those were unusual moments.
As for J/30s racing here in any format outside of club stuff, there are none other than us. This has been the case since we got our boat about five years ago. And we are active outside of our club only to a limited extent. It is possible that there are some J/30s racing within their clubs within 15 miles or so, but I know of none.
Re Youngstown. That would be a great place to get some of us together. I wouldn't expect our own start as there is no way we would get enough boats, but the format is level scoring within tightish PHRF bands so that's as good as it gets. You can look up the scores from previous editions. It's been 25 years since I've done that regatta, but I know it's still fun. It runs in mid July.
OD in the Toronto area in boats of 30' or more is limited to 105s and 36.7s, and sometimes the CC99s. There are also 4 or 5 109s and maybe 3 CC 115s that get together occasionally. the J/35s are pretty much done. PHRF weekend course racing is also on its last legs, but there is a growing IRC fleet (many of which are ex-PHRF boats). Club racing is healthy and the Lake Ontario shorthanded series is thriving. The LO300 distance race had record numbers this year. Racing here is in transition. We're all looking at ways of revitalizing it. Demographics, family priorities and crew are the top challenges, and that's not news.
