It's always a real pleasure to receive stories of great racing on our JPK yachts: this week, it's Dutch sailors Diederik and Martijn who have offered us some great victories in the North Sea on their JPK 1030, bought second-hand last November. Congratulations to them on these superb results!
Here is their story of the race:
Last November we picked up our boat in Lorient which we bought from a French owner. What a treat the first 500nm were. She sails so nice, comfortable and fast. The reason of course was to race the boat. First of all in Holland and see how we go.
At first we needed some time to get to know her. Our first test race in December saw 20 knots of wind… We almost missed a buoy, did more than 17 knots of boat speed and were flying upwind with the water ballast in heavy seas. Now we can say we are up to speed. Of course still learning and adjusting details, but overall we are in control now.
Last week we participated in 3 races.
The first was on the Grevelingen. 40 miles of double handed racing in closed waters across the lake with many islands. Challenging conditions with winds of about 17 knots, lots of buoys, narrow channels and shoals to avoid. We won! Both on Line honors and on handicap.
The second race was the Vuurschepen Race from Scheveningen to Harwich. Around 70 participants in full crew and double handed, mainly from Holland to bring their boats to England to participate in the North Sea Race on the way back. Heavy winds at first. Around 22-25 knots. We were flying at 12-14 knots with the small code zero. We made our first gains in this part of the race already, keeping up with the big boats. Later on less and less to no wind, going over the shoals to avoid the heavy currents, finally arriving in Harwich with the overall win!
The way back was the race that counted most, the North Sea Race. Many English boats joined the Dutch so there was a nice fleet of IRC and ORC boats, both fully crewed and DH. Beautiful weather conditions, mostly downwind and reaching. We didn’t even make a take for the full 170nm! The race went super nice for us, good speeds and handling. We managed second place in IRC overall! Only outperformed by Bellino from Deb Fish, the commodore of the RORC. We are super proud of this achievement. Enclosed some photos of the boat and the prize giving.
We had high expectations when we bought the JPK. Since then it has outperformed our expectations and every day we sail here we have a constant smile on our faces!
– Diederik et Martijn
