Three J/22 World Champions joined forces at the J/22 Midwinter Championship this year, and they didn’t need much luck of the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day to take home the title. On Bad News, Mike Marshall with crew Zeke Horowitz and Todd Hiller never finished lower than fifth in the 30-boat fleet, and were able to hit the docks early to let their fellow competitors battle it out for the remaining places. Marshall won the J/22 World Championship in 2016 in Kingston, ON Canada with Hiller as crew, and Horowitz won last fall in Annapolis, MD. Bad News kept scores of 1,5,2,4,1,1,4,1 for 19 net points in the nine-race series. That was 21 points in advance of second place finisher Jeff Todd on Hot Toddy. Third place went to Casey Lambert’s Blackburn Marine Racing. Sunday’s race winners were Chris Doyle’s The Jug 4 1, Marshall and David Muller’s Call The Ball. Fort Walton Yacht Club in Fort Walton Beach, FL hosted the Championship from March 15-17. Marshall credited his team for doing “99 percent of the work.” He explained, “Zeke called stellar tactics upwind in a super shifty venue. Todd called breeze downwind and talked about how we were doing relative to other boats. So, I could change what I needed to if we were going slow or keep trying to do what I was doing if we were going fast.” Marshall said all the competitors would be happy to come back to Fort Walton Beach again, summarizing it was “great sailing, flat water, really shifty and a super inviting yacht club.”
Top five:
- Bad News, Mike Marshall, New York YC, 1-5-2-4-1-1-4-1-[32/DNC] ; 19
- Hot Toddy, Jeffrey Todd, Annapolis YC, 8-3-3-6-9-3-5-[13]-3 ; 40
- Blackburn Marine Racing, Casey Lambert, Lakewood YC, 6-1-[14]-7-6-8-9-2-4 ; 43
- The Jug 4 1, Chris Doyle, Youngstown YC, 2-9-[12]-11-2-4-1-8-10 ; 47
- Pressure Drop, Mark Foster, Corpus Christi YC, 7-14-9-2-4-5-3-[20]-9 ; 53
Photos are available on the J/22 Class Facebook page, and complete results may be found at www.j22mw.com.