 To say that 2009 has been a great year for North Sails in the J/105 class would be an understatement... North's new sail designs, beginning with the VForce spin and CM-1 Mainsail in 2008, and the new CJ-1 jib, VMGForce spinnaker in 2009, along with our proven HA (heavy air) designs for San Francisco, have dominated the top J/105 events around the country in all types of conditions.
The season ended with a great win for North Sails at this year’s North American Championship held Oct 29th through Nov. 1st at American Yacht Club in Rye, NY. Bruce Stone and his team on Power Play started the regatta a bit slowly but on day three, turned up the heat with a string of three bullets leading each race that day wire to wire! Bruce continued to light the burner with another 1st followed by a 5th and a 4th to close-out a nine-point victory.
The Power Play team used an inventory of the 2009 CM-1, 2009 CJ-1 jib and a 2009 V-Force spin to secure this win and were ecstatic with their sails and their speed. (See the North Sails web page for the full story on this event, http://na.northsails.com).
 Other significant victories this season took place on both the west and east coasts. Chuck Driscoll and Tom Hurlburt on Triple Play won the always-hotly-contested Southern Cal Championship by five points over the next boat turning up the heat in the California sun. Thanks to hard work on the West Coast by Chris Snow, Vince Brun and the crew at NS in San Diego, North-powered boats are seeing great results in the California J/105 fleets. The same theme is playing out on the Chesapeake Bay. North clients are seeing the podium on a regular basis. The season ended with the Chesapeake Bay Championship held over Halloween weekend on a variety of conditions ranging from 6 to 20 knots. Pete McChesney and the crew on The Mystery Machine squeaked out a one point win over Marty Hublitz on Veloce. Last year's champions, Carl and Scott Gitchell, finished in a respectable fifth place.
This is Marty Hublitz's first season with North Sails and is thrilled with all aspects of his new sail inventory. After a strong finish at the J/105 Chesapeake Bay Championship (one point out of 1st place) he said, "We were easily the fastest boat upwind and would have won the day (Saturday) but a near collision put us in 11th in the first race. We had amazing speed, sailed above and below anyone in our way and won the last race by three-quarters of a leg."
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