Oversized Spinnakers & Action Required

The message below was emailed to all USA and Canada owners and sailmakers on 15 February 2016.

J/109 Owners,

This email is being sent to all North American J/109 owners with an announcement about class spinnaker measurements and a reminder that you may renew your annual J/109 class membership, or join if you have not joined the class before.

Oversized J/109 Class Spinnakers & Action Required

Recently the J/109 Class transitioned the sail tag registration system to an online process where all measurements are validated against specifications in the class rules. Previous sail tag registration had measurements stored in a spreadsheet that was populated from paper forms submitted by the sailmakers. Unfortunately, spinnaker area was not listed on the paper measurement form and there was not a rigorous process to validate calculated values for spinnaker area. Some sails with calculated area greater than the 108 square meters maximum allowed by class rules received tags. An audit of the sail tag list was conducted for all registered spinnakers resulted in the following finding:

  • 129 Spinnakers are registered with sail tags
  • 48 spinnakers had a calculated area greater than 108 square meters, which is the maximum allowed per class rule 5.6
  • 1 spinnaker had a typographical error on data entry and has been corrected

The J/109 class has notified sailmakers that sails with measurements which do not meet class rules will not be accepted for recording in the sail tag system. The new online process has automatic checks to prevent out of specification sails from being accepted. The class recognizes that many of the spinnakers measured out of specification may already be retired.

The Sail tag list has been annotated in the notes field on the class website with the calculated spinnaker area. All owners are requested to check the sail tag list by going to the class website http://j109.org then on the menu mouse over Members and click on Sail Tag List. If you have a spinnaker that is indicated as oversize in the notes, you have a number of options based on the intended use of the sail that include:

  1. The sail has been retired and no longer used – please send an email to treasurer@j109.org stating so
  2. The sail has been sold – please send an email to treasurer@j109.org stating so
  3. The sail is only used for other than J/109 One Design racing – no action required but the record will continue to be annotated as an oversized sail that may not be used for J/109 Class OD races
  4. The sail is used for J/109 One Design racing and must be remeasured and corrected if oversized. Once the sailmaker can certify the measurements, the updated measurements should be submitted by the sailmaker using the existing sail tag number

Permanent link to this article: https://j109.org/oversized-j109-class-spinnakers-action-required/