J Class Barcelona Regatta 2024 - Preview

Velsheda and Svea upwind © Bow Caddy Media

The J Class yachts which will compete at next week's J Class Barcelona Regatta and their crews will assemble over the next few days in the heart of the Catalan capital, host city for the 37th America's Cup as final preparations are made before racing starts on Monday.

Three boats are expected to race, Velsheda, Rainbow and Svea. Shamrock V will no longer join the line up, due to ongoing commissioning work. The showcase Barcelona event, hosted by the Real Club Náutico de Barcelona, brings the historic, graceful J Class yachts back into the America's Cup arena at a time when the competing futuristic foiling craft have never appeared more like the CGI science fiction flying machines. It has been nearly two years since the J Class owners and the class association decided to bring the yachts to the city and so excitement and anticipation is building up fast.

The regatta will be the first and only J class event of 2024 and will be raced under the J Class Association's new ORC J VPP handicap rule which has been seen to more accurately rate the J Class yachts which are of such diverse design and performance characteristics.

Svea and Velsheda arrive in Barcelona fresh from competing in the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in Sardinia and both have been regular, successful competitors at J Class events and major Maxi and Superyacht events in Europe and the Caribbean over recent years. Rainbow has been in new ownership for a couple of years but was only relaunched in newly updated racing form earlier this season and so this will be her first time fleet racing since 2014.

Murray Jones, six times America's Cup winner, will be Rainbow's tactician working with Barcelona based Ocean Race winning navigator Simon Fisher and crew boss Justin Slattery. Jones notes, "We have not done much sailing so we are a bit of an unknown. Hopefully we can sail well without too much practice. The other teams have obviously done a lot, lot more than us. We did the Superyacht Cup Palma where we had a few little issues but we learned quite a bit. We could have done with three times as much sailing as we really have had, there is so much still to learn about the boat and the modes of the boat. We will get a couple of days training this week. But for us it will be nice to line up against the other boats. Rainbow definitely has a bit of potential and we have a really, really good crew."

On paper the Swedish flagged Svea might be favourite. Since the Swedish co-owners took on the boat early in 2022 they have done the most racing and training including - for example - the early season PalmaVela regatta to launch their season, and earlier this month won the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup for the third time in a row. Their afterguard is led by Bouwe Bekking along with British navigator Steve Hayles.

Project manager and mainsheet trimmer Tim Powell reports, "We will get to Barcelona two or three days ahead of the start of the regatta and do a little training probably but all in all we really are in pretty good shape after the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup. We have a couple of new sails but otherwise are racing as per we were in Porto Cervo. We are all really looking forward to the event, most of all to be lining up against the other J Class yachts. The expectation has always been for quite light winds but when we see what has been going on with the Louis Vuitton Cup these last few days with 20kts and lumpy seas that would be interesting but really we will take whatever comes and be happy."

Velsheda have a strong, settled, regular crew and would prefer more breeze. Kiwi mainsheet trimmer Don Cowie is looking forward to returning to Barcelona again - where he won an Olympic silver medal in 1992 - but most of all being back at an America's Cup. Cowie smiles, "It is going to be so very cool to be at an America's Cup with these J Class yachts. For me personally it is a shame it did not happen in New Zealand last time because Covid came along. But we are all very much looking forwards to it. Hopefully we will get some stronger breeze as Svea and Rainbow are a little better in the light. It will be a show. It will be a great show and we are so lucky to be part of it."

Event website: regatasrcnb.sailti.com/en/default/races/race/text/j-class-barcelona-regatta-2024-en