A Sweet Win

Photo courtesy SDYC

The Lipton Cup here in So Cal is a fleet race among yacht clubs that wish to field teams in the event. It is usually a pretty Big Deal, and most clubs put a substantial effort towards winning the thing. The team from Southwestern YC shocked everybody by winning the regatta, sailed in J 105’s. It is a good story and we thought you would enjoy hearing from the skipper, Geoff Longenecker, on how the West Was Won. - Ed

You did what no one thought you could do, win the Lipton Cup. Describe the emotion of winning such a prestigious event.

GL
Well, to start let me say that I don’t think that anyone on our team has ever experienced the range of emotions we were put through leading up to and during the Lipton Cup weekend. I’m a week out from the event as I write this and I can honestly say I’m still feeling the effects from last Saturday and Sunday. I think I can safely speak for my team by saying that we were completely overwhelmed and amazed by the level of intensity it took to win the event and then the extreme waves of emotions following it.

Coming down that final run to the finish, we knew we had to come in 6th or better to win. I was so nervous my legs were twitching; my hands were shaking on the wheel. It was agony. Once we crossed the finish line in 5th, we knew we had won it and just went nuts. None of us had eaten a thing all day because of our nerves. Horns started blaring from all of the spectator boats, people started screaming and the champagne started pouring in from chase boats. The rest is a blur of screaming, cheering and handshaking.

Being the first time Southwestern Yacht Club has won the event in their 78 years of being a club, on the way back in we buzzed close to the docks at the club. Everyone was cheering for us at the docks, from the bar and from their boats.

Saturday night at SDYC, even though we were in the lead, I could not even look at the Cup. Sunday, as we pulled into the dock, with it sitting on the back deck, it was a sight I’ll never forget. I got off the boat, hugged everyone around and promptly got chunked in the drink. About an hour later we loaded the Lipton Cup onto one of our club’s boats and motored it to SWYC. The party is still going on and will continue for about a year I’d bet.

It’s always refreshing when a “weekend warrior” beats the big boys. Tell us about your sailing background.

GL
I started sailing Flying Scots and Optis in New Orleans as a kid in the early 80s, but then took a long hiatus from the sport (nearly 10 years) during high school and college. Other interests took me away from the sport.

I briefly got back into some One Design racing in New Orleans and then got married to my beautiful wife and moved to San Diego in 1996. In 1997 I bought Dennis Conner’s CF-27, renamed it Nemesis and raced that boat hard for two years. It was an incredible boat – one that I miss to this day.

When I sold the CF, I purchased an Antrim 27. The Antrim was a great boat, incredibly fast downwind. We did a some class racing in San Francisco where did pretty well in most of the events we attended, took it to Key West where we finished second in class and did a ton of local racing. Fun boat in +15 knots, not too fun in under 10.

I sold the Antrim a few years ago and bought a Melges 24 to do Nationals and the Key West Worlds. We posted decent results in the Melges, but nothing to write home about, save one really sweet day at Nationals with a 2-1. We raced that for a season before selling it to concentrate on the 105 program.

Stuart and Merrill Cannon own the J105 I sail, but I chartered it from them for two years while Stuart worked overseas. When I got involved in the boat two years ago, we only had 6 boats (tops) for One Design weekends. We did pretty well, but redirected our efforts to the Lipton Cup when the 105 was named the new boat for that event. From that time on, we used every J105 regatta as tune-up races for the Lipton Cup.

You’ve been sailing the 105 for a while with mixed results, yet by all accounts, your speed at the LC was superb. Tell us what you have done in terms of sails, set up and people to affect such performance improvements:

Rich Roberts photo

GL
Let’s start with the boat prep… Two weeks before the event we hauled the boat and went to work wet sanding the bottom. Our whole team was out there sanding like madmen every night for five straight nights. We had a number of cracks that needed to be filled and a ton of areas that needed addressing. Fortunately, the SDYC boat Beowulf was directly across from our place in the yard. I think walking by that boat and seeing its incredible bottom was at once intimidating and inspiring. But to make a long story short, we wet sanded the bottom for about 100 man-hours, took it from 240 to 1500 and splashed it with a finish we will never see again on a boat with bottom paint.

For our sails, Dave (West Wind Sails) and I spoke at length about the conditions we expected. Last year we designed a suit for South Bay (9-13 knots & flat water). We felt we had very good boat speed, so building on that basis we only had minor changes. For this year’s suit, we kept the super flat main (much flatter than the other brands and the only J105 tri-radial on the West Coast) and made a fuller jib to power us through the swell and chop. We stayed with the same kite as last year, with a super high clew and designed a new light-air reaching kite that never came out of the bag. The sails were designed for 7-10 knots with swell and chop. We felt like we had a definite speed edge as long as the wind was below 10. On our boat, we had a scale when we measured how we were doing with other boats… even/even, higher/same, higher/faster and Ragin’!

As for our people, this is what the program really was all about. We replaced one person from our team last year for logistical purposes. For our effort last year we tuned up for the Lipton by doing every J105 One Design event we could. It gave us invaluable time on the water; we learned every trick in the book on how to turn corners on this boat and basically became so proficient at it that we could do anything we wanted on the boat. The compromise was that we could not have Dave on the boat (Group 2-3 are not allowed by J105 class rule).

This year we took a page out of SDYC’s program and just concentrated on the SDYC One Design weekends where we could have Dave out. My wife and I had our first child (Devin) this December and I had back surgery in January, so our early season schedule was altered in a big way. We had to skip MidWinters and some local stuff. We did some of the other 105 events, but either sailed with 5 or brought in a 6th as a junior (Go Harold!). By the time we hit the Lipton, we felt real strong with every member of our team, especially with the very calm and cool mood that we all seemed to have.

Throughout the course of the event, and I cannot underestimate this enough, the true nature of each and every member of this team came out. After our 6th in the first race, after the bad start I put us in; I was really down on myself. The guys got all fired up, told me it was never over and to get my head back in the game. We then railed off a 1-2-2 and sat in first Saturday night. On Sunday, when we were hammered at starts, and with the lead and eventually the Lipton Cup on the line to be lost, our team never gave up. When the wind got light, two people would ask to go down below, almost without hesitation. In my estimation, these are strengths that can never be taught, and can only be appreciated and marveled at from my end of the boat.

So everyone knows… here is our team. Terry Gleeson (Mainsail), Dave Bolyard (Jib Trim/Tactics), Mike Ford (Spinnaker Trim), Mary Coogan (Pit), Ian Trotter (Bow/McGuyver).

Your crew included David Bolyard (A New Orleans sailmaker who is considered to be a superb sailor. We're doing a short feature on him as well - Ed). What did he bring to the table?

GL
Dave has been racing with our team and building my sails for nearly 7 years. When the J105 was chosen as the boat for Lipton Cup about a year and a half ago, Dave joined SWYC to be part of our attempt at this trophy.

Dave is the ultimate speed merchant and one design sailor. He is an incredible talent on the boat if for no other reason than his only focus to make your boat go faster than anyone else. He has built the sails on all of my boats and every time he has come through for me.

We call Dave our secret weapon. While people in New Orleans know of him, few on the west coast have heard of him. He has won 4 or five Mallory Cups, been to the finals of the Prince of Wales a few times and has attended and placed well at all but one Key West Race Week. He has designed sails for the J Sprit boats since the very first J80s came out of the molds. His sails have always been fast, so choosing (or I should say staying) with him was a no-brainer.

Dave on the boat is one part coach, one part motivational speaker and one part smart-ass Cajun. All together, there is not another person in the world I would rather have on my team.

The word is that your boat speed, especially in the light, is what won you the regatta. Still you had a couple of scary moments and had to come from behind to secure the win. Tell us about that.

Rich Roberts photo

GL
Jack Franco was quoted as saying how bad the boat felt all day, and how he felt really bad for the guys who had wheels. Well, I had a wheel and it felt just terrible all weekend long. Our boat has no feeling in the wheel at all until the wind hits 8-9 knots. I don’t think we saw those conditions at all on Saturday and only for maybe a race and a half on Sunday.

I still shudder to think of some of our starts during the series. Our team mantra at the starts was “It does not matter where we are on the line as long as we are going fast and have a lane to tack in within the first three minutes.” Well… the best laid plans I guess. We probably had four decent starts and three terrible ones. The last two races in particular were real bad.

Going into race 6, we had a nice, but not insurmountable lead on Bold Forbes. We had an incident with another boat at the starting line, they threw a flag and rather than argue it, we spun a circle and started in dead last. We were so confident in our boat speed at that point we felt we could scratch our way back close to Forbes. Once we got close to them, we just followed them around the course.

For Race 7, I saved my worst start for last. We saw a clear spot at the boat end, but managed to catch a huge piece of kelp that stopped us dead. It took an eternity to get it off (keel then rudder) all while Forbes sped off leading the pack. True to our guys’ nature, we raged upwind and sailed as hard as we could downwind. Going into the final beat, we were in 11th, with Forbes winning.

On that last upwind leg, and I think speak for everyone on the team, I do not believe any of us have ever sailed a better upwind leg in any race. We passed six boats on that leg alone, rounded in 5th and finished in that position with Forbes taking 2nd. That finish was good enough to give us the Lipton Cup by 2 points.

You’ve gone from a CF 27 to an Antrim 27 to a Melges 24. Give us your assessment of the J 105, as a performer and as an owner.

GL
I love the J105 for a ton of reasons, but not necessarily for the “thrill of burning speed” factor. As a performer, if you want to go planing down San Francisco Bay at 23 knots, try the Antrim because nothing is as fun in huge wind and planing as that boat. There are fun times to be had in the Melges downwind, especially in big fleets, but nothing is as fun as that Antrim.

The J, on the other hand, is a blast to race because everyone is so even in terms of boat speed that it makes for real tight racing. Over the past two years, as more and more great Schock 35 teams have entered the fray, the racing has become harder and closer every time we go out. It seems every regatta we attend has at least one new boat on the line, and that new boat then goes out and wins!

From the boat owner’s perspective, I do not think you can find a better boat out there. The 105 is beautifully built, easy to maintain and fun to cruise. Add that to Karen Hall and J-Concierge who make your entire hotel, docking and diver arrangements at every race we go to and you have one amazing package. All in all, I plan on buying a J-Boat within the next few years.

So now that you are the King of the 105’s, you will be expected to maintain your place near the top of the class for the future big regattas. Do you think that your game has elevated that much, and do you think there is now added pressure to perform?

GL
King of the 105s? I think Bold Forbes, Mischief, Zuni Bear and especially Wings would have something to say about that one. I think our team elevated our game to the highest level any of us could achieve on that given weekend in those set of conditions. We managed to time our program to peak at just the right time.

My time in the 105 is up for now. Stuart Cannon is coming back into San Diego this summer and, I assume, will start sailing his boat again. All of the members of my team have their own programs to return to, so the full team will not be racing together again until we think about defending this thing. Personally, I have an Etchells that I have not touched since the Hot Rums. I cannot wait to get back into that boat and that fleet again. Nothing humbles you more than racing Etchells in San Diego.

As for the pressure, going in to the Lipton Cup, we all were under no pressure other than to do the best we could and try and represent our club well. Since SWYC had never really been in the hunt before, we just wanted to make a strong showing, sail clean and hope to finish in the top 5. I’m sure there will be some pressure to make a strong showing to defend the cup, but to be honest, we will not change a thing. I’ve seen what happens to great teams who let the pressure overwhelm them in this sport and I do not like it.

What J 105 performance improvements can you share with other 105 owners?

Rich Roberts photo

GL
What… and give away all of our secrets? Are you nuts?!? In truth, everything we do, we learned from someone, so I’m happy to share some things we learned.

Crew placement and angle of heel were extremely important. One of the most critical things we did on the boat, earlier and more often than anyone, was get people below in the light air and chop. We felt it was crucial to get and keep weight low, even if the breeze picked up so that we might ordinarily need people on the rail. By keeping the weight low in the boat, I think it gave us a huge advantage in punching the boat through the chop.

Another thing we learned early on in this year’s program was that we could not sail this boat flat enough. I hated the feel of the boat from the helm with the boat sailing as flat as we did (sometimes even edging it to windward), but every time we were in that position, the guys were happy. On one upwind in particular, I made the comment that we need to sail flatter because it was starting to be too comfortable at the helm. They made the switch and we were instantly higher and faster and the boat below us.

Lastly, one thing we did, which just about everyone is doing now in the class, is use in-haulers for the jib attached to the cabin-top rails and run back to cleats on the sides of the cockpit. If you want to point in a J105, you have to use them, all the time, in every condition.

Thanks Geoff. You are now the man to beat in the Wet Wednesday series here in San Diego!

GL
Thanks Scot. We will be out on Ian Trotter’s Thunderbox this summer, so watch yer back in that speedster you sail!