KYC Regatta Reports

2026 CORK J80 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

From July 18-25, CORK hosted a magnificent and memorable J/80 World Championships out of Portsmouth Olympic Harbor.  

There were four KYC boats entered at this 35 boat fleet competition, namely:

• Breakaway J (Hugh McGugan, Rachel Harris, Jeremy Waugh, Brandon Tattersall)
• H-Bomb (Russell Hopper, Ellie Clarke, Skylar Van Rossem, Josh Wilby)
• Joyride (Matt Emerson, Madalin Emerson, Shirley Wildenbeest, Liam Wilson
• J-Walking (Andrew Jirat-Wasiutynski, Thomas Elias, Sam Skinner, Erika Vines)

After two days of measurement over the July 18-19 weekend, sailors completed their final pre-event warm up on the Monday with a practice race followed by a grand opening ceremony held at the “Isabelle” (Queen’s University’s Bader Centre)  overlooking the Kingston harbour sailing venue.  KYC’s very own Rosemary Wilson was regatta chair and also emceed the ceremony with words of welcome from a number of  organizations including Sail Canada (Ryan Kelly), the City of Kingston (deputy mayor Wendy Stephen, and alderman Don Amos), the J/80 Class Association (Hugh McGugan) and KYC (Paul Davis).  To top off the speeches, Kingston’s Town Crier (Chris Whyman) officially declared the event a go!

Racing was supposed to start on Tuesday July 21, but due to ongoing storm cells that kept rolling through the region, sailing was not possible and the day ended with a light snack and beverages from Daft Brewing on-site in the (temporarily licenced) CORK sail room.  

On Wednesday, the wind was up and everyone was ready to hit the water with the breeze hovering well above 20 knots out of the SW “ish.  This led to incredibly fast upwinds and exciting downwinds with downwind boat speeds in the 15 knot range!  As the wind continued to build throughout the day to the high 20’s with gusts approaching 30 knots, the Race Committee opted to abandon racing after just two races.

KYC’s Joyride showed remarkable seamanship getting back into the harbour when unfortunately their rudder snapped going downwind forcing them to retire for the day.  Amazingly, one of the US boats (past president Ramzi) had a spare rudder on-site so Matt & crew were back on the water the very next day! 
  
On Thursday, the breeze ended up being much heavier than many models suggested with winds gusting close to 30 knots in the four races and top downwind boat speeds around 16 knots …woohoo!  There were many broaches, lots of swimming, wrapped spinnakers, and even a few man overboards, as well as numerous equipment and body breakdowns.   Well done to KYC’s Breakaway J who finished in the top 15 of all these windy races!  

The sea “became calmer” as the competition continued as four races were held in light shifty winds on Friday and another  three were completed on Saturday.  In the end, a remarkable 13 races were completed in only 4 days after missing a day of racing on day-one of the planned 5 day event.

The top three J/80 Worlds finishing places were claimed by the crews of 1) Le Tigre (USA), 2) Paint it Black (Germany) and 3)Turbo Sloth (USA).    KYC’s H-Bomb won the bronze medal in the mixed (2 male/2 female) crew category and Breakaway J was the 2nd place Canadian Corinthian finisher!   Final overall results for KYC’s crews were Breakaway J (16th), H-Bomb (24th), J-Walking (29th) and Joyride (31st).  Full results Sailwave results for 2026 J/80 Worlds at CORK/Sail Kingston 2026 

The racing, daily post-race debriefs led by North U’s Kristen Berry, Vakaros RaceSense prizes (closest to OCS, fastest speed, longest & shortest race tracks for the day), other fun prizes, and to cap things off on the Friday night, a harbour cruise to Howe Island (near Andrew JW’s home) and back aboard the “Island Belle” which made the event more than just another regatta for everyone involved and hopefully the start of many more high performance one-design keelboat and dinghy championship events (I-14 Worlds in early August) in the years to come!

A huge shout out and very special thank you to CORK GM Rae-Marie and all of the CORK  volunteers (many are KYC members of course) who worked tirelessly to make this regatta an amazing experience fun both on and off the water.