After two false starts, 23 sailboats jockey for position northwest of Prudence Island at 2:50 pm Sunday, waiting for the last race of the J/30 North American Championship to begin. Orders echo over the water as crews scramble with lines and skippers maneuver to avoid collisions. To impose discipline, the principal race officer announces boats will now be disqualified if they jump the gun.

“This is a situation where every one of them is going to get religion,” says George Crocker, a race judge who lives in Portsmouth.

With a minute left to start, the boats approach the line cautiously to avoid disqualification. Mike Campbell of Bristol edges his J/30 Grits ahead of a few boats and leads the pack out of the gate along with Evelyn, skippered by Luke Buxton of Salem, Mass. Their gambles pay off, for the principal race officer declares a clear start.

The competitors spread out across the Bay in search of wind lines. With Poppasquash Point on their left, Portsmouth looming ahead and a current working in their favor, the tacticians plot their course, avoiding wind shadows from other boats. The fleet approaches the first mark around 3:15 pm.

Twenty-five years earlier, on Sept. 26, 1983, just after 5 pm, the United States lost the America’s Cup to the Australia II off Newport, bringing New York Yacht Club’s 132-year winning streak to an end. After recovering from the initial shock, some Rhode Islanders wondered how the loss would affect sailing and business in their state.

According to Executive Director of Sail Newport Brad Read, three local businessmen got together that fall and asked themselves, “What’s next? We just lost. Sailing as we know it in Newport and Narragansett Bay could be over. What do we do?”

The trio—Bart Dunbar, Dr. Robin Wallace and Paul Buttrose—established Sail Newport to attract sailing events to fill the void left by the Cup loss. Sail Newport has grown into Southern New England’s largest public sailing center, serving thousands of children and adults each year in regattas and learn-to-sail programs. And sailboat traffic on the bay has increased.

“Now, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, and over the weekends there are endless numbers of regattas and racing series, so competitive sailboat racing has flourished since we lost the Cup,” says Read. He says J boat designer Rod Johnstone deserves much of the credit for this trend.

Johnstone built the first J/24—the most popular keelboat ever produced—in his garage in 1975 after taking a correspondence course in boat design in the 1960s. He designed Ragtime with speed and comfort in mind, as he wanted a boat the entire family could enjoy. He tested his creation in races off eastern Connecticut during the summer of 1976.

“We went out with a family crew—a bunch of young teenagers and my wife and various other relatives—and we always won every race,” recalls Johnstone. “And we were racing against guys who took their racing pretty seriously.”

With J/24 sales booming, Johnstone decided to design a slightly larger boat—the J/30, which also proved popular among sailors who enjoy racing and cruising. J/30 class rules require skippers to be owners, which prevents competitors from using paid professionals to steer their boats. Mark and Kathy Rotsky of Somerset acquired their J/30 in 1996 with family time in mind. They hoped to race the boat with their children Brad and Susan, who had been sailing since they were young.

“Our first boat was a Lightning, and the kids would crawl up into the bow and fall asleep in the sail bags,” says Kathy Rotsky.

The family moors Nemesis at Bristol Yacht Club, which organizes a Wednesday night series for performance handicap racing that combines several classes of boats each summer. Nemesis won Class B this year, and Mark Rotsky says the races (affectionately dubbed “beer can” races) provided his crew with terrific training for the 2008 J/30 North American Championship (though Kathy and Susan Rotsky did not participate in this particular regatta), hosted by their own yacht club.

The Championship attracts boats from outside New England, and the competition is fierce. With the sixth and final race coming to a close, Grits has lost its early lead. Several boats have already crossed the finish line.

Nemesis approaches on a port tack (i.e., the wind is coming over the left side of the boat), vying with two competitors on starboard tacks for a ninth place finish. Boats on a starboard tack have the right of way, and it looks like Nemesis will be squeezed out, but Rotsky finds room to tack and slip inside the mark, crossing the finish line just behind Mallorca (skippered by David Bows of Marblehead, Mass.) and Smiles (skippered by John McArthur of Stratford, Conn.). Although another skipper protests his move, Rotsky prevails at a hearing, and the results hold.

After three days of racing, Nemesis places fourth overall. A first place finish in the fifth race helped the crew lock this position. Under Mike Campbell’s guidance, Grits also faired well, ranking eighth overall, with a first place finish in Race 3. The 26-year-old credits his family with introducing him to the sport when he was young. Campbell—the youngest skipper in the competition—will likely prove a major force in future championships.

Fuzzy Wuzzy (skippered by Bengt Johannson of Watchung, NJ) placed first overall, followed by Evelyn (skippered by Luke Buxton of Salem, Mass.) in second and Blue Meanie (skippered by Stephen Buzbee of Highland Park, NJ) in third. Blue Meanie did well overall, despite losing a man overboard on Friday. Crew member Brad Carl went for a swim during a sail change, but he managed to catch a line and hang on, saving recovery time.

In addition to Grits and Nemesis, several other local boats participated in the regatta. Rhapsody (out of Newport, skippered by Wayne Iurillo) placed 10^th, Falcon (skippered by Charlie Stoddard of Barrington) placed 11^th, Keltyk Knot (skippered by Pat Kelty of Barrington) placed 16^th, Good News (skippered by John Howell of Warwick) placed 21^st, and Karinosa (skippered by Steve Adkins of Warren) placed 22^nd.

Alyssa Kneller is the daughter of Bill Kneller, who was chair of the J/30 2008 North American Championship and the tactician aboard Rhapsody.

And so, it all comes down to last race.  David McConaughy’s White Boat and Bob Putnam and Mary Grealy’s Better Mousetrap are tied for the lead with three other teams, Insatiable, Big Kahuna and Fuzzy Wuzzy within two points.  Any of five different boats can win the regatta on the last day.  None of the top three boats has yet to score a bullet.  No one team has dominated.  Everyone has a pocketful of “if only’s” and “what if’s” and “why did we do that’s?”  Who would put together the winning combination of speed and smarts on the last day in the last race with a national championship hanging in the balance?  Better Mousetrap wins the start, takes the lead and approaches the windward mark in first place.  Can this team of amateurs actually win this final race?  Well, it would have made for a great story, but hey, it’s Annapolis and some days you just don’t get the wind to cooperate.  As it was, the winds did cooperate for the first two days of the 2007 J 30 North Americans hosted by the Annapolis Yacht Club and provided for some great racing in varying conditions. 

Months earlier, I had been asked to sail in my first J 30 NA championship by my dear friends and longtime class stalwarts, Bob Putnam and Mary Grealy.  I had sailed with team Mousie in the 2005 NOODs and jumped at the chance to sail with them again.  Bob and Mary’s team of Eric, Kathy, Whitney and Todd were a well oiled machine.  Bob had the boat perfectly prepped and going fast.  My job was to catch a few shifts, play the main and keep us out of trouble.  And as the regatta played out, keeping out of trouble was huge.  On the first day with the breeze up and a shortish line, there were a number of things flying, including red flags and Russell Dunleavy, the bowman from Smiles.  Some of those red flags involved Bill Wallop’s Cannonball with Larry Leonard onboard who a great day on the course but not so much in the room.  The wind was consistently inconsistent and tough to figure out as evidenced by the fact that there were nine different boats that placed either first, second or third in the three races sailed.  The trick was risk management on the first day and Bengt Johansson’s  Fuzzy Wuzzy did the best job at that and took the first day lead by two points over Better Mousetrap.  Fuzzy Wuzzy also rescued the flying, swimming crewmember that I mentioned earlier.  The swimming crewmember resulted from an unfortunate port/stbd collision just before the third race that put Smiles out of commission for the day.  We scored Russell Dunleavy a 9.5 on degree of difficulty and 9.7 on style as he did a back flip off the bow pulpit and landed in the water between Smiles and Fat City.  Smiles had to withdraw before the start and motored back with a gash in the port bow, bent bow pulpit, head stay sheared off and the crew member who “jumped ship”!  AYC did a great job with their RC and the dinner and the class did an awesome job with some beautiful awards for daily first, second and thirds. 

The second day dawned with a stiff breeze and predictions for it to build.  Everyone bundled up, put on their foulies and put up their number threes for the first race.  Amazingly, Smiles showed up at the starting line ready to race looking like “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” from the red duct tape used to cover the port bow gash.  Big Kahuna took an early lead in the big breeze and got the bullet with the White Boat second.  The wind dropped substantially for the next race and Cannonball took the win with Kahuna, Ron Anderson’s Insatiable with Jonathan Barlett and the White Boat putting up some low numbers and moving up the standings and looking forward to the sixth race when the throwout would kick in.  Seeing that wind was dropping, at the next start we decided to try the America’s cup trick of sending a man up the rig to spot the wind.  Well actually we lost a halyard in the previous race but I thought the AC story worked better.  Unfortunately, he was having such a good time that he refused to come down, so we had to do the old “man up the rig, no headsail” start.  I don’t recommend it.  Deckworks found some breeze and a nice shift and cruised to victory with Circus second.  After our nonrecommended “man up the rig, no headsail” start, we had closed the fourth and had Cannonball in our sights.  Foolishly our tactician, me, called for a slam dunk not realizing that you can’t do it in a J 30 in light air.  Well, you CAN do it but it doesn’t work and is not recommended.  With the throwout now in play, we got to the dock with no idea of the actual standings but I knew it was going to be close between a bunch of teams.  I had no idea it was going to be five teams within two points!

Again AYC provided a great dinner and again the J 30 class provided some great daily awards.  With the standings so close there was some good natured ribbing and some attempts to over serve certain team members in order to gain an advantage for the next day’s racing.  If we only would have known that there would be no race the next day, we could have bought ourselves more drinks instead of our competitors!!  Nonetheless, it was an extremely close fought and well sailed contest.  Congratulations to Team White Boat on their first NA win.  Congratulations to Team Mousetrap on their second place and top amateur prize and thanks Bob and Mary for letting me sail with you.  Thanks to all the competitors and everyone at AYC.  I certainly hope to do some more J 30 events in the future.