Just four days after the Paris boat show ended, J/Boats has the keel and mast mounted and the first J/99 hits the water.
The first shots are long distance, but are certainly exciting. Close ups from J/Boats came next.
J/Boats was understandably excited about their first sail on a boat they’d been working on for some time and first announced to the public in the summer of 2017. Shortly after the sail, the provided their impressions in a release posted on their website.
Within four days of its world debut at the Paris Boatshow, J/99 hull #1 was trucked, keeled, commissioned and launched at Hamble Point Marina in the UK. It was quite a feat by the J/Composites and J/UK teams and just in time to catch some late season sailing before the New Year. Conditions on the Solent were sunny, cold and breezy (16-20 kts with higher gusts) — perfect for putting the J/99 right to the test.
“The first numbers on the electronics were quite impressive and exceeded our expectations,” said Fred Bouvier of J/Composites. “We settled in upwind with main and big jib and the boat was smooth and stable going through the chop with a nice touch on the helm. The first impression of the rig was also excellent. The development done with spar builder AG+ paid off as we could easily adjust mainsail shape combined with a stiff rig to hold proper forestay tension.”
“The best impression came from the speed while reaching and sailing downwind. The boat has a serious ability to accelerate and we could feel the input of this latest hull shape design. It was easy to transfer load on the boat into speed by just small adjustments on the tiller. It was smiles all around for the team.”
Sounds fabulous. I wonder if I have enough airline miles to make it to the UK?