Nearly 50 J/24s from 12 countries (Argentina, Australia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, USA and the UK) descended upon Plymouth, UK for their five-day World Championship. After yesterday’s champagne sailing conditions for the practice race south of Plymouth breakwater, day 1 of racing proper found a stark difference in weather, forcing the management team to postpone ashore in the hope to find a moderating weather window. The conditions were bleak with 4m waves, gusts in excess of 30 knots, rain and to complicate the management team further, they had to contend with a number of shipping movements. The wind clocked further East and a weather window opened finally, with a start line set and located at the Western entrance to Plymouth sound in the vicinity of Cawsand Bay and a windward leg South of the breakwater. There was still lots of wind, rain and big waves, but Race Officer Sean Semmens and his team did a great job of setting a course.
Starting one single race on a black flag, the fleet sensibly took a conservative approach to the start to avoid a general recall. First round the windward mark was Bow 40 from Argentina Tata Patagonia helmed by Ramir Clemente Diaz, closely followed by Michael Goldfarb’s War Canoe from the USA who also has reigning J/24 World Champion Travis Odenbach on board. The race went to form with the top eight finishing boats all pre-event favorites.
War Canoe and Tata Patagonia fought hard right across the track, but it was War Canoe who took the win after a tight downwind battle. Very close behind in third place was local boat Majic who are the UK National Champions and helmed by James Torr, who held off the hard-charging Italian boat La Superba helmed by Ignazio Bonanno.
Event results can found at https://www.sailwave.com/results/J24WorldChampionship2025.htm
