In 1977, young boatbuilders Rodney and Bob Johnstone built Ragtime in their garage in Connecticut. It was a 24-foot-long racing sailboat, painstakingly designed around the fact that it was largest boat that could fit in the building. Fast forward nearly fifty years, and the J/24 is one of the most successful and popular racing keelboats in the world, with almost 6,000 boats all built to the exact specifications and design of that garage-built original. While many fleets and designs have come and gone, the challenge and stability of this tightly controlled class have attracted tens of thousands of sailors and provided unparalleled competition without the typical arms race and high expenses that many other boat classes require.
For decades, the Seattle J/24 fleet, Fleet 26 to be precise, has been the pinnacle of competitive one-design racing in the Pacific Northwest. Having hosted two North American Championships and a National Championship in the past, the Seattle fleet was presented with an unprecedented opportunity to take on hosting the World Championship in 2024. Partnering with the Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle and supported by an unimaginably dedicated group of volunteers, years of work culminated on the week of September 28through October 5—and to be frank, they knocked it out of the park.
The J/24 World Championship 2024 was a global event, with 56 teams from eleven countries converging in the Pacific Northwest for five days of racing. The packed boat basin was a sight to behold, with every boat being expertly prepared and tuned to the nth degree by dialed-in and practiced race crews. While everyone raced together overall, the fleet included three sub-scoring groups: the Corinthian class, limited to boats without professional sailors; an Under-25 division, with six youth teams taking part; and, an all-female division, with four teams racing. The event was limited to the 56 teams to maintain competitively tight racing. To secure a spot here, teams had to post top results in the lead-up events such as regionals and nationals over the past year. This qualification process has the added benefit of making local boats available for traveling teams to charter, thus saving them expense of shipping and transporting their boats to the regatta, and allowing teams from far afield the opportunity to compete.
The shoreside activities were headed up by the event chair and Corinthian Yacht Club Racing Fleet Captain Jon Anderson, who coordinated and led a fantastic team of volunteers who worked around the clock for months leading up to the event to make it such a success. Jon was also a key member onboard the fifth place overall and first-place Corinthian team on Hair of the Dog. As expected, thousands of pieces needed to be assembled and coordinated for the championship. The event’s title sponsor was Pacific Northwest cornerstone Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. The company has long supported the sailboat racing community since its founder, Kurt Dammeier, began racing in the Seattle J/24 fleet nearly a decade ago.
As head race officer, Mark Foster directed activities on the water for the week. Mark is a longtime veteran of significant championships and brought unparalleled experience and knowledge to the event. He was supported by the Corinthian Yacht Club race committee and marked set team, who have years of experience setting and running races in the deep current-driven waters of Puget Sound. Being in the center of the tech world, the race organizers were looking to push the limit and use the latest race management technology to ensure a fair and competitive event.
Over the past few years, Corinthian Yacht Club has invested in a growing fleet of Mark Set Bots, remote-controlled robotic racing marks. The system utilizes small floating platforms positioned and driven by an onboard electric motor and a GPS receiver. The race officers then control and align the entire racecourse with the wind from a tablet computer, accurately and quickly shifting the course when the wind changes direction. The marks are instrumental in setting highly accurate racecourses in the 600-foot-deep waters of the racing area.
Pairing and integrating perfectly with the “Bots,” racers used a new style of interconnected devices that each boat carries to communicate with the race committee. The Vakaros RaceSense system utilizes GPS to track the position and timing of each boat through the starting sequence and can determine any boats that are over the line before the starting sequence is finished. The system can notify racers and the race officer that they are On Course Side at the start and will automatically clear the notification once they have cleared themselves below the line. The system was unimaginably valuable and worked flawlessly throughout the week. Thanks to the Vakaros RaceSense system, there were no general recalls, and no boat scored OCS in the entire regatta. This is unheard of at an event with this large of a fleet, and no one had the soul-crushing realization after sailing their hearts out that they were, in fact, disqualified after finishing the race because they were over the line early.
Racing got underway on the first day after a postponement while the wind filled and stabilized, and then we saw the high competition level right out of the gate. The wind filled in and built rapidly into the high teens, causing a significant gear shift from the light air-drifting conditions of the morning. The top teams rose to the occasion and could dial in on the correct speed settings for the conditions and rip around the course. The rest of the week was slightly less dramatic but presented plenty of challenging and competitive racing conditions on the water, and most importantly, there was wind to race every day of the event, which is not always guaranteed. There were nine races over the week with shifting winds and a dynamic racecourse that continually forced tacticians and crews to shift their strategy leg to leg on each race. The conditions of Puget Sound were ideal and allowed racers to show their consistency and range throughout the changing conditions. The race committee did a fantastic job keeping the regatta flowing, with appropriately placed postponements, and getting racing underway as quickly as the wind would allow.
The Japanese team onboard Gekko Diana, skippered by Kohei Ichikawa, took third place, with Mike Ingham and his New York-based team just ahead in second place. The podium’s top step went to Honeybadger from the Great Lakes and sailed by Travis Odenbach, Monica Morgan, Dave Hughes, Jay Miles, and Jeff Sullivan. This is the team’s first World Championship win after eleven years of competing at the top of the J/24 fleet, and their clinical performance was nothing short of spectacular, posting a 23-point lead over second place and putting down an impressive first place in the final race to finish out the event.
Of course, the racing was the main focus, but the shoreside activities and entertainment were also world-class. The event’s home base was the recently renovated Corinthian Yacht Club Shilshole Clubhouse, and the Port of Seattle was instrumental in supporting the logistics for launching, storing, and moving the racing fleet before, during, and after the event. The spectator experience was out of this world, with many CYC members posting open invitations to come out on their boats to watch the racing, as well as local company Waterways Cruises providing one of their sightseeing ships for a cruise complete with lunch. The week blew away the locals and left the visiting teams speechless, with beautiful mountains, humpback whales, and pods of iconic orcas on the racecourse, and fantastic competitive racing. The opening and closing ceremonies were hosted at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard, and the winners’ trophies were created by Salish tribal artists.
It was indeed a labor of love by everyone involved, and it showed as every detail of the week was dialed in and executed flawlessly. The 2024 J/24 World Championship will stand as one of the best examples of what sailboat racing in the Pacific Northwest has to offer, and those who took part will certainly not forget it any time soon.
