JPK 11.80 do what JPK 11.80 do best!

Photo credit: Bow Caddy Media

With two JPK 11.80s racing on opposite sides of Australia, there is plenty of sailing results to track and get excited about. It certainly did not disappoint and it is very intriguing to see these boats with very configuration compete and go about their racing.

Australian built JPK 11.80 Bacchanal is competing in the CYCA's BlueWater Pointscore having completed the Sydney-GoldCoast and Flinders islet races in recent month. It was time for one of the longer Hobart warm-up races, namely the Tollagte Island race. This 260nm race takes us south past Jervis Bay all the way to Batemans Bay and back to finish in Sydney. A slightly delayed start till 19:00 due to incoming weather saw the fleet set off in epic conditions of 20-25kts and gusts exceeding 40kts. It made for some really fast and spectacular sailing across Sydney Harbour. Bacchanal's crew with a mix of veterans some younger & youth academy sailors were gutsy to put up their A4. They were absolutely flying across the harbour on the tail of TP52 Highly Sprung. They had opted for the A4 as they did not want to risk the lock on the fractional for the A5. They reached >24kts of boat speed before deciding to drop it. Unfortunately a big gust during the drop caused the team a bit of trouble and sadly ended A4s part of the race. Boat and crew quickly recovered though to exit the harbour closely behind the TP52s.

Breeze settled throughout the night and it became a race of simply hitting your polars and pointing it in the right direction. The weather unfortunately kept softening as the races continued for the mid-size and smaller vessel, putting overall win unfortunately out of reach. However, good sailing and simply consistent performance resulted in 1st place in Division and 3rd place overall behind URM & Moneypenny.

Bacchanal is now leading the BlueWater PointScore overall due to some very consistent performances overall and winning its class/division in most races it competes in. It will now come into familiar territory, as the boat has now been in the water for 12 months. So any upcoming races they have done before and will seek match the divisional wins in the last years Bird Island & Cabbage Tree Island ahead of the big one, the 80th Rolex Sydney to Hobart.

Although historic performances are no guarantee for future performance, the consistency of top performance by Bacchanal with mixed and varying crew is very encouraging and matches the winning performance overseas from the likes of Sunrise & Courrier Recommande in previous years.

On the other side of Australia, Western Australia in particular, Atomic Blonde is back into racing trim and was competing in the Conventry Reef Race. A race, 53nm south from Fremantle back to Rottnest Island lead marks and home to Fremantle. The owner Simon T, reported: "In a westerly of 18-20 knots, so a lot of beam reaching, the wind shifted slightly so most of the time at 70-90 degrees. Plus a deep A2 kite run in to Freo.

Our main competition is the MATS 12.45 Obsession, which is a bigger, slightly heavier boat and very hard to beat upwind. They rate slightly higher than us (about 30secs/hour).  They won the Siska championship last season.

However, we overtook them on the first reaching leg (quite a close reach under jib and GS) and then on the main legs to Coventry and back we triple-headed with BR0, J4 and GS and stretched out our lead, mostly doing 9-10 knots at about 80 degrees TWA.  A bit more towards the end.

Out of a fleet of 25, we got line honours, and IRC first.  The Div 2 fleet sailed two of the legs with a different turning mark 2nm closer, there will be a time/distance correction for the different distances sailed and an overall result in due course."

That makes it two bullets for Atomic Blonde so far overall, so can't really get any better than with still a few tweaks and optimisation benefit in the bank. Results can be follow here.

All in all it is a great and very consistent start of the season for these JPK 11.80s with both winning their division and leading their respective offshore racing pointscores (CYCA BlueWater Pointscore & Success Cup and Siska Championship). It just goes to show that getting the JPK 11.80 to perform well, consistently does not require a pro crew and is not a one-off result.

Over the past few years, the JPK 11.80 has was the Middle Sea Race (division 2x + overall), Fastnet (3x division + overall), Sydney - Hobart (2x divisions + 2nd) and many smaller races.

Production slots for delivery in spring next year have just opened up, just do not miss out, and reserve yours here. For more information and/or to discuss configuration options, please reach out via info@jpkpacific.com or +61 (0) 498 441 734.