Why J/80?

A question I get often asked is about the boat choice. Why take J/80 for the Translemanique, if other YCC members in the past have all sailed a Surprise? Club Surprises (Mamma Mia and Mic Mac) are already equipped for single-handed sailing, and there is quite some experience in the club on solo sailing a Surprise. In addition, any regatta on Lake Geneva will feature a large number of Surprises, and it's always more interesting to race among other boats in the same competitive class.

All this is true. I’m aware that so far only YCC Surprises were used by YCC members in this regatta. I have also considered taking a Surprise, as I am a great fun of this class and of a symmetric spinnaker. 

From jboats.com

However, J/80 has many advantages, too. It's a modern design, fast boat with a very big cockpit, comfortable to sail. J/80 boats are very seaworthy - class B: offshore, for winds up to 40 knots / 8 Beaufort scale and waves up to 4 meters - certainly enough for Lake Geneva :-). (As a comparison, Surprise is class C: up to 6 Bft wind and 2 meter waves). J/80s are very stable, having nearly half of its weight (1315 kg) in the ballast (635 kg) - which means that the boat absorbs gusts and stronger winds better without the whole crew on the rail, and keeps its course ignoring (minor) weight moves from one side of the boat to the other. A relatively small jib is very easy to handle, and doesn't obstruct the view. Asymmetric spinnaker makes it so much easier to hoist, gybe, and douce (though means I cannot sail too much downwind). See J/80 technical specifications here: https://jboats.com/j80-tech-specs

As Andrin has suggested to me, it's also interesting to have a look at SRS ratings, which are used to calculate the compensated time (and therefore, race result) based on the real time of completing the race:

• Surprise (TCF3 class): SRS standard 1.000, solo: 1.030 (ratings for YCC's Mamma Mia, SRS number 982)
• J/80 (TCF3 class): SRS standard 1.003, solo: 1.029 (ratings for YCC's Jedi, SUI 1523, SRS number 1788)
• as a comparison, J/70 (TCF4 class): SRS standard 0.987, solo: 1.026 (ratings for YCC's Padawan, SRS number 2314)

So interestingly, while a Surprise is normally considered slightly slower than J/80, for solo sailing it's considered faster than J/80. I don't know why - but it's actually good news for me 🙂

(For the record, I also considered taking J/70 - but I'm happy I have decided otherwise. Compared to J/80, J/70 is less seaworthy, much less stable, harder to handle in gusts and heavy wind - more heeling and no reef on the mainsail - and just plain slower, which means a longer race.)