The folks at Wakayama Sailing Center pulled in 23 Japanese teams together for their 2015 J/24 Nationals, which served as a dry run for next year’s Japan Worlds, which we would urge you to enter if we could find a website for it. Japanese Nationals report from Koji Matsuomoto, the new owner of the former Clear Air, Rossi Milev’s almost-world-champ several times over.
23 boats from all over Japan gathered a week before the racing to be sure their boats would measure thanks to IJCA Technical Committee Tim Winger. We had an unusual light wind ranging from 5-12kt throughout the 3-days regatta. Gekko (Tokuma TAKESUE) that finished 4th overall for the 2015 Worlds in Germany won the very close regatta with Gekko Diana (Tomomi HATAKEYAMA) in 2nd, and last year’s champions Siesta (Nobuyuki IMAI) on the 3rd. There were several new boats helmed by past J/24 and Snipe national champions, keeping the regatta exciting. The Siesta team has been organising sailing clinics at Wakayama regularly to help bring everyone’s knowledge of local winds and currents up to the same level, setting the stage for a very exciting and unique World Championshiop next year.
