{"id":81403,"date":"2025-04-28T13:02:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T17:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=81403"},"modified":"2025-04-28T13:52:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T17:52:51","slug":"j-29-class-devotees-together-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/racing\/j-29-class-devotees-together-again\/","title":{"rendered":"J\/29 class Devotees, Together Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"The <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Liz Principe, at the helm of her J\/29, The Doghouse<\/i>, is leading the charge to reunite her fellow owners and restart J\/29 one-design class racing in the US.<\/span>\n Wilbur Keyworth<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

Air. Fuel. Spark. Whoosh.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And just like that, J\/29 <\/a>class racing has been reignited on the Chesapeake Bay. It\u2019s been ages since these late-1980s vintage one-designs have met en masse, but at this year\u2019s Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in Annapolis, seven J\/29 owners were cajoled and herded from their slips by Liz Principe, the class\u2019s new motivator-in-chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a new energy among the owners,\u201d Principe says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s really motivating me. It\u2019s been at least 12 years, so we\u2019re pretty stoked about what\u2019s going on here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Principe, who hails from Cambridge, Maryland, and races on the shallow reaches of the Eastern Shore\u2019s Choptank River, sailed as a teenager with her father, but it was passive. Only when she accepted an offer from her boss and was exposed to racing on a Tartan 10 did she realize what she\u2019d been missing all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey taught me the foredeck because I was light and athletic,\u201d she says, \u201cand everything about it was wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over eight immersive years in a sport that befits her energetic and results-driven personality, Principe relocated herself from the foredeck to the tiller when she was gifted a Catalina Capri 30. \u201cWe had some amazing wins with that boat,\u201d she says, but last July, she purchased a masthead\/outboard-model J\/29, called it The Doghouse, and launched her \u201cfirst real racing boat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This particular J\/29 was discovered on the hard across the bay in Solomons, Maryland. The longer Principe longed for it, the lower the price kept dropping, until it finally hit her price point. It was in good shape, needing only the TLC common to balsa-cored boats of the late 1980s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cComing out of the Capri, the boat was seriously fast and fun,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Principe and her teammates promptly became a force in the Eastern Shore PHRF scene and, \u201cWhen we started winning,\u201d she says, \u201cmore people wanted to come and crew.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having too many crewmembers on call was a good problem to have, she says, but soon came her epiphany: \u201cI said, \u2018We have this great boat, so let\u2019s go do something bigger with it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bigger being one-design racing, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As commodore of the Eastern Shore Sailing Association, Principe tapped connections at sailing organizations up and down the Chesapeake, and social media outreach and emails allowed her to quickly connect with other J\/29 owners to propose a simple goal of restarting one-design class racing in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responses from owners were universal: \u201cThey were all like, \u2018Yeah! Let\u2019s do it,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Liz <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n J\/29 Class sparkplug Liz Principe has a reputation of getting things done, and when she set her mind to gathering other J\/29 owners for the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in Annapolis there was no quit.<\/span>\n Liz Principe\/Facebook<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

Hands went up not only in the Chesapeake, but from surprising locations afar as well\u2014from owners in Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, New England and elsewhere. \u201cThey all wanted to restart this J\/29 class, so it\u2019s gone from being a Chesapeake thing to a national one,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s baby steps, but we\u2019re getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to J\/Boats, Rod Johnstone introduced the J\/29 in 1982 as a versatile, lightweight and upwind-\u00adcapable race boat that possessed the best traits of the J\/24 and the J\/30. Before production ended in 1987, the final hull popped from the molds was No. 298. Principe admits she has no idea how many are still sailing and where.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With three boats traveling in from New Jersey\u2019s Riverton YC for the Annapolis Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta, Principe has been hustling to make the experience a positive one for the fleet, sourcing free housing and organizing informal low-cost gatherings, including an evening with Annapolis\u2019 beloved sailmaker and storyteller Wilbur \u201cPapa\u201d Keyworth, a J\/29 champion from the class\u2019s formative years, whose primary advice to Principe is to \u201cmake it fun.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBack in the day, we had a lot of parties,\u201d Keyworth says. The adventures he had with his J\/29 Moonbeam is stuff of legends. \u201cIn the early days of the class everyone saw how much fun we were having racing in MORC. Eventually, we got a couple of one-design starts just like Liz is doing, and the class started growing from there. At one point, we had about 20 of them around here\u2014and hosted the first North Americans in Annapolis in 1985.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With fleets in Hampton, Virginia, and Cape May, New Jersey, Keyworth says, there was quite a bit of travel between the two locations as owners committed to sailing the big regattas of the mid-Atlantic, including Atlantic City Race Week. \u201cAt the peak of the class, we had about 15 boats in Cape May for the NAs,\u201d Keyworth says. \u201cOne of the things that really kept the class going was the get-togethers\u2014the cookouts and the socials\u2014and Liz is grasping that and injecting it into the teams that will show up for this event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen or even 20 boats would be a pipe dream for Principe, so, for now, she\u2019s plenty content with simply getting one-design J\/29 racing off the ground again. \u201cWe will have seven on the line, and for the J\/29 fleet and the first time, that\u2019s pretty good,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series<\/a> may be the first one-design start in a long time, Principe says, there\u2019s still much work to be done in reestablishing the semblance of an organized class. It\u2019s a monumental task, but she\u2019s not alone; her new friends from the Texas, Ohio and New England fleets are stepping up as well to advance Principe\u2019s efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think what happened to the class was that the skippers got older, and the boats did too. It requires a lot of dedicated crew, which I can relate to,\u201d Principe says. \u201cFinding six or seven crew can be a real challenge for some owners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The immediate goal is getting the formal class structure back up and running again, reaching out to owners and contacts to uncover idle boats and owners and re-engaging them. \u201cI know there are some J\/29s in Essex (Connecticut) on the hard,\u201d she says, \u201cso eventually, I\u2019m going to go and find those and see if we can get them back out on the water and racing. Sometimes it\u2019s just a matter of talking to the owners and showing them that there\u2019s something happening. That\u2019s the sales lady in me\u2014it just takes getting feet on the ground, finding these people, and generating excitement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The J\/29 is considered to be an excellent PHRF boat, and that\u2019s where many of them have landed over the past few decades, which may complicate a pure one-design resurgence, but that\u2019s a low-priority concern for Principe. They\u2019re willing to overlook strict class-rules compliance for now. \u201cIn this first go-around, we won\u2019t be picky. We\u2019re just happy to have everyone out sailing together. It\u2019s going to be a really cool event. The other owners are so happy to have this re-engagement happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legacy one-design classes come and go every year as boats migrate and owners move on, but often one fleets loss is another’s gain, and that’s how the J\/29s of the Chesapeake are adding to their ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":81432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Dave Reed","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"","arc_website_url":"","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":true,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","ad_targeting":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true,"sponsored_url":"","social_share":true,"alternate_title_newsletter":"","alternate_content_newsletter":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[309,232],"class_list":["post-81403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series-annapolis","tag-one-design"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}