Over the course of the September 18-20th weekend, the Royal Southern YC hosted the AVEVA September Regatta for a host of classes (Hamble, England) including J/70s in the White Group one-design class fleets. Winning their first regatta in the J/70 class was Niklas Zennstrom’s RAN, sailing with his wife and friends. After the first day of racing over in the White Group, it was RAN that led the J/70 fleet having scored a 3-1-1 for the day. “We could have got a second in the first race, but we are very happy with our performance today,” commented Zennstrom, who was enjoying a celebratory drink with his wife Catherine and the racing crew in the Royal Southern Yacht Club. “The J/70 is very easy to race, we just launch the boat, pull up the sails and go racing. The Class is very competitive, and no one boat is dominating so it is a lot of fun. With a TP52 or MiniMaxi 72, things are much more complicated; racing the J/70 only requires four people and there is no time spent on working out sail development and modifications to the boat, so it really is a lot of fun, but at the same time very challenging!” Simon Cavey’s JUST4PLAY won the first race and finished the day in second place behind RAN. Ian Wilson’s GILL RACE TEAM was in third place, but only a single point ahead of two yachts: Patrick Liardet’s COSMIC and Team Juicy racing ESF Energy. After racing, hundreds of competitors and guests enjoyed the Royal Southern Pirate Party with a Caribbean BBQ and a welcome dark’n’stormy refreshment. For the second day of sailing, the weather provided a spectacular conclusion to the AVEVA September Regatta. It was simply perfect late-season Solent racing. Over on the White Group start line, it was someone well versed in high-performance racing, but successfully choosing the J/70 for the AVEVA September Regatta, who ended up winning overall: Zennstrom aboard RAN. “It is our third regatta with the boat, and I think we have now figured out how to sail them, so we had a pretty good weekend with a 3-1-1-1-2,” he said. “Downwind we have improved quite a lot, and also our boat handling and just our speed, just putting it all together really. The summer series here at the Southern has been really good, a great atmosphere with good race management, it’s been a great success!” RAN finished ahead of Patrick Liardet’s COSMIC, who won the last race, and Simon Carvey’s crew aboard JUST4PLAY that finished third. For more AVEVA September Regatta sailing information, visit http://www.royal-southern.co.uk/.