Third time lucky

In Melbourne at the J/24 Worlds we talked to Ian Southworth and his team about their comeback to the International keelboat

If Sydney Harbour, is one of the great places in the world to sail, close behind must be Melbourne's Port Philip Bay. This 30 by 34 mile stretch of water is more inland lake than bay, with a very narrow entrance into the Bass Straight for the amount of water contained within the 'bay' to pass through. While Melbourne resides in the north, the east side is dotted with seaside towns, each with their own yacht club. It was here that the bulk of Sail Melbourne racing took place last week for the Olympic classes, while this week the Sandringham Yacht Club have been playing host to the J/24 Worlds, where Brazilian Olympic Tornado sailor, Mauricio Santa Cruz and his crew of mostly fellow Brazilian Olympic squad members including Star veteran (and Brasil 1 Volvo Ocean Race campaign head) Alan Adler were crowned the new champions following their second place in Weymouth last year.

Two teams represented the UK at this year's Worlds - Crazygoals.co.uk led by former Hunter 707 sailor Jon Powell finishing a creditable 12th overall, and Inmarsat, the revitalised team of J/24 veteran Ian Southworth, finishing third.

Southworth is a stalwart within the J/24 class, having won four national championships and the Europeans prior to his retirement from the class in 1993 following the Abersoch Worlds. Since then he has been racing a more diverse selection of small keelboats, generally with a pool of friends who between them own or have owned examples of most boats of this genre. Recent successes have included winning the Hunter 707 Nationals, the Laser SB3 class at Cowes Week, as well as successful stints in the Melges 24 and Etchells. Southworth and his team have made sporadic appearances on the match racing circuit and, for example, they are due to take part in the next round of the JPMorgan Asset Management Winter Challenge match racing.

Also known as a sailmaker, Southworth in the dark mists of time was responsible for setting up the first Ullman Sails loft in the UK. This he subsequently sold his shares in and the loft was eventually merged into another sail making conglomerate. With the Ullman name having disappeared from the UK, so around 18 months ago Southworth regained the concession for the UK. In the intervening years, he has set up, run and sold a several companies ranging from business information to marketing products. In addition to his new sail loft, based in Hamble down by the RYA, his latest venture is a company based in the UK and Hong Kong selling marketing gifts and products.

Southworth returned to the J/24 in anger around 18 months ago, once again sailing with Chris McLaughlin, originally his Olympic 470 crew and the link with the team's present sponsor, Inmarsat. Also on board for the Worlds this week was UK keelboat helm Andy McLelland of Splash Test Dummies fame, plus saillmaker Max Skelley from Maryland, USA and Mickey McCauldin from Northern Ireland, the first time the latter two have sailed with Southworth. Skelley and McCauldin were winning the Worlds in Weymouth last year until their rudder broke. Since then their teams have melded, the objective: to win the J/24 Worlds, the one major title in the class eluding Southworth. "It has to be done. The main one was doing the worlds in Weymouth," he says.of the 2005 championship. "We had only got back into it a year before Weymouth. Now it looks like we’ll be going to Acapulco as well!" The glamorous Mexican resort is to host the J/24 Worlds in 2007 and will be seeing the Southworth crew following their third place this week.

So why return to a boat that many small keelboat sailors view as having passed its sell-by date? "Because of the international mix of it," says Southworth emphatically. "It is doing things like the Worlds and Europeans where there are a lot of good people. Back in England we have a good set, but when you go international you get the best from each country and the level goes up and up. In the SB3, if you go and do the Europeans in Garda - which we did last year - then there were not many Europeans and it is not quite the same."

Chris McLaughlin gives his views in favour of the J/24: "Because it is good fun. Once you have done it, you can’t get out of it. It is great fun - they are incredibly hard boats. It is a bit like a Finn. They all go about the same speed and there are minor little differencies, but if you get them wrong it can be very lonely out there."

And J/24 sailors still rock, so we are told. Past world champions include Ken Read (X6) Vasco Vascotto, Terry Hutchinson, Ed Baird, John Kostecki and Francesco de Angelis to name but a few, all now or recently associated with the America's Cup. On a more modest scale Andy McLelland points out that two of the biggest one design fleets at Cowes last year were won by J/24 sailors - Southworth's crew in the SB3 and Stuart Jardine in the X-Boat.

Southworth says the only possible option to the J/24 in terms of a class of this sized boat, offering international competition is the Melges 24. He has tried his hand at this back in the 1990s when they were sponsored by Glenfiddich, and it seems likely that this is where he will return to again once he has bagged the J/24 World title.

And why did he get out of the J/24 in the first place? "We were just doing other things," Southworth says vaguely. "We were working. Some sailing, but a lot of work."

Getting back into the J/24 after a decade break, the results Southworth and his team racked up give the impression he finds it like riding a bike. In 2004 they won all the qualifiers picking up UK Northern, Southern and National titles. This earned himself a place to go to the Worlds in Neroton, on the east coast of the US that year. (Unlike some international classes, the J/24 has countries allocations, thus for World Championship events, the fleet size is large but not enormous, and of the highest quality).

American Max Skelley had offered them his boat, until he found that the US Class Association had awarded him an 11th hour place at the Worlds. "We didn’t have a boat and we decided we weren’t going if there wasn’t a good boat, so he went off and came third," recalls Chris McLaughlin.

Fortunately their objective was the subsequent 2005 Worlds in Weymouth. In July Southworth and his team won the Europeans in La Crouesty, having last won the Europeans 16 years previously. This result set them up as the top UK boat qualifying for the Worlds.

In terms of hardware for the Europeans they had raced a completely refitted old Rogers boat, Hedgehog. But following their success at the Europeans, for the Worlds they acquired a brand new J/24, Echinda from the European class builder, Paolo Boido. "We wanted to get a new boat that goes downwind as well as upwind," quips McLaughlin. The boat arrived the month before the Worlds and they were lying fourth going into the last race when the outer sheath of their jib halyard parted causing the Spectra inner to streak off through the cleat. They finished 21st dropping them to ninth overall.

Following this disappointing result, the objective became the Worlds this week in Melbourne. "We now have two very good boats in Hedgehog and Echinda but we didn’t have any budget to get either of them out here - they wanted nearly £12k for round trip freight and we couldn’t afford it," says McLaughlin.

For the Worlds here, Southworth and his team give the impression they have been stitched up. They had identified an Australian Association boat which was showing all the right numbers on its measurement certificate, but ultimately documentation and reality seemed to be two separate things. "Ours appears to be a bit of a club boat," says Southworth. "She is 43kg over the minimum weight, which is not what it says on the measurement certificate. On the builders certificate it says 1270kg and it weighs in at 1,313 and the scales are okay. How can that happen?"

The boat, like their new one, was built by the licenses European J/24 manufacturer - the reason they'd chosen it, to be like their own new boat - but it had never been raced or measured before. They asked for the boat to be measured before it left Sydney to come to Melbourne, but were told this wasn't possible in the time frame. Aside from the weight horror which they only discovered shortly before the event started, they had also sent out a set of templates to get the keel profiled prior to the event, and this too hadn't been carried out.

"This is just a bog standard club J/24," says McLaughlin. "It is a club boat, very good for normal sailing. But downwind we have consistently lost places this week every day which is not a normal Ian thing. Normally we are quite quick downwind, but this week we have regularly lost two to three places on the run. This boat has all the qualities of a gun platform. When you run forward the deck doesn’t flex. On our boat back home, it is a bit of trampoline and we have a lighter fitter bloke to do the running up there!"

In contrast to their heavy girl, the Brazilian team arrived with a new Bruschetta built by Paolo Boido, who was also racing on board. Unlike Southworth's new boat they had got in time for the last worlds, which came with 36kg of builders correctors in it, the new Bruschetta had none. "She hasn’t got a single announce of lead in it. She is absolutely spot on and she does seem to slide away in all conditions," says Chris McLaughlin with a degree of envy. "On two occasions we have tacked to leebow Siesta and on each occasion she has simply sailed up over our hip like we weren’t there."

Despite his decade away Southworth says little has changed with the boats and how to make them go quick. While Inmarsat was sailing at the Worlds with their own Ullman suit of sails, North took first and fourth spots with Quantum second. However most of his competitors have changed. "Some are still in it who have been in it for a long time like Stuart Jardine, in fact a few of the English and Dutch guys have been around for a while. The Italian guys are new. But the boat is the same thing."

So the plan is to head for the next World Championship in Acapulco in 2007. For this they will be sailing one of their own boats, although Max has offered them his boats if they want it. Prior to this is the European Championship in Poole this September, where they will be defending their title.

See more pics from the J/24 Worlds on the following pages...