After a positive experience at the J24 East of Ireland Championships at the beginning of May, the crew of Jumbo, sailing under the banner of LSYC and SeaFest 2012, face an unlikely rival in Division 3 of the IRC Nationals this weekend.
Renamed Alliance II, the former bane of the Swilly will be looking for similar joy on its new home turf of Howth.
A change in sail plan has seen the Laser 28’s IRC drop to .896. With Jumbo’s IRC for the year confirmed at 0.888, racing should be very tight.
But will reducing the Laser’s foresail area cut her legs just that too much. As Leda, the Laser 28 enjoyed being fully powered up with plenty of meat on the rail.
It is a contest the Jumbo crew are eagerly anticipating but it seems keeping in clean wind more than anything else will be the deciding factor, not just in individual battles but also for the overall class prizes.
With 19 boats registered for Division 3 and 123 in all, there will be significant churn and dirty winds on the race course.
Members can keep up to date on Jumbo’s progress over the weekend via the following link:
http://www.hyc.ie/openevents12/bmwCruiserNats/bmwNatsHome.asp