Two yacht races and boat sinks in Seattle
J24 going down in Seattle. News: Interview with owner coming (see comments below for details).
That is a bad day...
The 62nd annual Swiftsure race was held over Memorial day weekend in Victoria, B.C.. The race was conducted under heavy conditions and 60 yachts retired from the race. I saw a few damaged boats in Victoria Harbor including one with a broken mast. Read about the race and results on the Swiftsure Website.
The J24 nationals were held the weekend before off Shilshole marina in Seattle. The first few days had light air, but on Sunday conditions picked up considerably with estimated gusts up to 50 knots. This wreaked havoc on the fleet and one boat sank. Rhumbline photography has the entire sequence at http://www.rhumblinephoto.com/product/MagicHat/index.htm
This is the second J24 sunk in the Puget sound in the last year. Last October another J24 sank under similar conditions during a local race. I was out sailing that day and the wind was gusting in the upper 20's. I did not see the boat in question sink, but the fleet was getting bounced around nicely. The story of that sinking is at
http://www.boats.com/content/default_detail.jsp?contentid=17880 .
Pictures from the J24 that
Pictures from the J24 that sank Oct, 2004 in the same spot - off Shilshole marina in Seattle.
http://www.roadfever.com/pix/2004-10-09_Sinking_of_Quicksilver/index.html
Interview with owner
I contacted the owner of the ill-fated J24 above and he agreed to an interview for our site. You can see the questions I sent him below. If you have any additional questions, you'd like to ask, add them here (quickly) and I'll see if I can get them to him. I will post the final interview here when it's ready.
/paul
The interview with the owner
The interview with the owner of the sunken J24 is here.
Here is an account of
Here is an account of another J24 Sinking. There is also a picture of the sinking boat in front of the NY skyline. The World Trade Center in the background is spooky. Sounds like the same circumstances as the Seattle sinkings. High winds - Spinnaker drags boat over, water goes into cabin.
This one looks less serious
Except for the owner that is.....Check out the article at this link.
The title is "A J/24 Turning Up-Side Down"
http://www.sailing.gr/j24/j24downup/j24storie.html
corrected link
oops. fixed the html. Try this link
http://www.sailing.gr/j24/j24downup/j24storie.html