The 2013 Great Lakes & District 7 Championship Regatta was hosted this year by the Oswego Yacht Club and chaired by Oswego J/24 Fleet Captain, John Enwright. The winner of this year’s Great Lakes Championship receives a qualifying berth for the 2014 J/24 World Championship in Newport, RI. The weather for this event offered top-notch race conditions. We had boats from Oneida, Rochester, Ithaca, and Oswego Yacht Clubs. The conditions over the weekend of August 10, particularly on Saturday, were challenging to say the least. Saturday brought high-end Genoa conditions to power through the 5-6 foot swells and 15-20 knot breeze. PRO Mike Mincher did an excellent job setting 1.5-mile W4 courses with 20-30 oscillations in the WNW winds. The first race was won by team Rakehell after climbing back from an OCS followed by Travis Odenbach and Honeybadger crew in second, and Kirk Reynolds and No Crybabies crew in third. The challenging conditions kept these three teams in the top three positions over the next three races with Travis and Team Honeybadger leading by a point after day one, Rakehell in second and No Crybabies in third; all teams were separated by one point, with Tom Doran and Team Oz in fourth, and Skylar Munger and Team PT Blister in fifth. Back at the club, the racers enjoyed an all included steak dinner followed by a Goslings Dark and Stormy Rum party, a raffle with giveaways from Haarstick Sailmakers and Goslings, and live music from Brian Sturges. Sunday morning, the breeze laid down a bit to 8-10 knots, but the WNW gradient kept the swells to a level that would be considered “frustrating.” If you didn’t keep the bow down, you could easily get stopped in your tracks by the confused chop. Team Honeybadger and Rakehell started at the boat with greater pressure in view out to the right. Kirk Reynolds and Team No Crybabies hit the left side and came out with a strong lead with a considerable left shift, which secured a bullet in race 5 with Honeybadger in second and Dan Peck of Plan B in third. Going into the final race added the drop, which had Honeybadger leading, Rakehell in second and No Crybabies in third. These top three boats started at the pin with Travis and Kirk linked up right at the pin, and Rakehell coming over the top with speed to have a clear lane to the left side. A moderate left shift filled and Travis stepped away to stay in touch with Kirk and stay in phase to climb ahead. Rakehell continued seeing better pressure ahead and hoping that the shift would persist to swing to the left. It turned out to be the right call and the 25-30 degree shift compounded by significant leverage put Rakehell out of reach for the win, followed by PT Blister in second, No Crybabies in third, and Plan B in fourth. This final race determined the outcome of the regatta with Oswego’s own skipper John Enwright and Team Rakehell—whose crew included Stu Grulke, Meghan Anderson, Matt Brink, and OH Rogers—winning the tiebreaker with the most firsts to clinch the overall win. A big “Thank You” goes out to all of the regatta sponsors, which includes: Eagle Beverage of Oswego, Modular Comfort Systems, Charlie and Inta Krylo and Didi Paux in memory of the Krylo’s son, J/24 skipper Charlie Krylo III, and Haarstick Sailmakers. T-shirts for this event were a hit and designed by Oswego design shop, Zink. See the regatta photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/100177710@N04/. View the race results at https://oswegoyachtclub.org/oyc/regattas/j24-great-lakes-championship.