J/80 World Championships - Sailors for the Sea

J/80 World Championships

 September 24, 2014  | By: Oceana

On September 29th, over thirty J/80’s will be on the starting line in Annapolis, MD for the 2014 J/80 World Championships, hosted by the Eastport Yacht Club.

The road to winning a world championship is long, and so is planning for a well-run eco-friendly event. Plans for hosting the J/80 World Championships as a Clean Regatta began back in March, and informational meetings between Sailors for the Sea and with all 12 members of the Eastport Yacht Club’s appointed Green Team were conducted during the summer.

The regatta organizers set an ambitious goal to be the first yacht club in Maryland to have a regatta certified at the Gold Level – and to meet all 19 Clean Regattas Best Practices. To reach this impressive goal it took coordinating from volunteers, staff and some help from sponsors of the event.

West Marine was a huge sponsor in the regattas efforts to be green by donating water bottles, reusable bags for the skippers’ packet, along with non-toxic soap and wax from their Pure Oceans line of products. To ensure the boats were able to use these great non-toxic products, without mixing in other chemicals West Marine also supplied a new sponge and Velcro strap. This helped the regatta meet Clean Regattas Best Practice #6.

Scandia Marine Services provided the regatta with oil spill clean up kits, just in case of an emergency, for all the race committee boats and any other power boats being used for the event. While these items will hopefully never be needed, they are a crucial element in being prepared for a worst-case scenario, and help regatta organizers meet Clean Regattas Best Practice #9.

Most importantly however, Eastport Yacht Club worked closely with Annapolis Green – a local non-profit focused on making Annapolis the greenest city in Maryland. On site, they will be providing “eco-stations” at the event that are designed to encourage recycling efforts at sporting events such as the J/80 World Championships.

“A club dedicated to keeping our waters clean,” noted regatta chair, Sharon Borland on the importance of sustainability, “the Eastport Yacht Club and Eastport Yacht Club Foundation share a long standing commitment to ’clean’ and ’green’ resource management. These efforts include taking steps such as building a permeable concrete dry-sail area and parking lot to reduce run-off.”

With all of the impressive volunteer hours and dedicated sponsors, it is clear that it takes more than just one person to make a regatta function as clean and sustainably as possible!

Additional sponsors & organizations dedicated to the Clean Regattas effort at this event include:

  • Blue Bag Organics
  • Chesapeake Bay Roasting Company
  • Dream Yacht Charters
  • Hyde Concrete
  • RER Energy Group
  • Solar Energy World
  • EYC Foundation

We would also like to thank Virginia Tippie and Nathan Hesse of Eastport Yacht Club, along with all of the members of the Green Team who have dedicated many hours to ensure this event meets all 19 of the Clean Regattas Best Practices!

The 2014 J/80 World Championship comes back to the states this year from Marseille, France. The event will take place from September 28 to October 4, 2014 in Annapolis, Maryland, home of the largest J/80 fleet in the United States.