The J Class Barcelona Regatta - World Championship 2024

2 October 2024 - Barcelona, Spain - The J Class yachts, which will compete at the upcoming J Class Barcelona Regatta and their crews will assemble over the next few days in the heart of the Catalan capital, the host city for the 37th America’s Cup, as final preparations are made before racing starts on Monday, October 7.

Three boats are expected to race, Velsheda, Rainbow and Svea. Shamrock V will no longer join the line up, due to ongoing commissioning work. The showcase Barcelona event, hosted by the Real Club Náutico de Barcelona, brings the historic, graceful J Class yachts back into the America’s Cup arena at a time when the competing futuristic foiling craft have never appeared more like the CGI science fiction flying machines. It has been nearly two years since the J Class owners and the class association decided to bring the yachts to the city, and so excitement and anticipation are building up fast.

The regatta will be the first and only J-class event of 2024 and will be raced under the J Class Association’s new ORC J VPP handicap rule, which has been seen to more accurately rate the J-class yachts, which have such diverse design and performance characteristics.

Svea and Velsheda arrive in Barcelona fresh from competing in the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in Sardinia, and both have been regular, successful competitors at J Class events and major Maxi and Superyacht events in Europe and the Caribbean over recent years. Rainbow has been in new ownership for a couple of years but was only relaunched in newly updated racing form earlier this season, so this will be her first fleet racing since 2014.

Murray Jones, six times America’s Cup winner, will be Rainbow’s tactician working with Barcelona-based Ocean Race-winning navigator Simon Fisher and crew boss Justin Slattery. Jones notes, “We have not done much sailing so we are a bit of an unknown. Hopefully we can sail well without too much practice. The other teams have obviously done a lot, lot more than us. We did the Superyacht Cup Palma where we had a few little issues but we learned quite a bit. We could have done with three times as much sailing as we really have had, there is so much still to learn about the boat and the modes of the boat. We will get a couple of days training this week. But for us it will be nice to line up against the other boats. Rainbow definitely has a bit of potential and we have a really, really good crew.”

On paper, the Swedish-flagged Svea might be a favourite. Since the Swedish co-owners took on the boat early in 2022, they have done the most racing and training, including—for example—the early-season PalmaVela regatta to launch their season. Earlier this month, they won the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup for the third time in a row. Their afterguard is led by Bouwe Bekking, along with British navigator Steve Hayles.

Project manager and mainsheet trimmer Tim Powell reports, “We will get to Barcelona two or three days ahead of the start of the regatta and do a little training probably but all in all we really are in pretty good shape after the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup. We have a couple of new sails but otherwise are racing as per we were in Porto Cervo. We are all really looking forward to the event, most of all to be lining up against the other J Class yachts. The expectation has always been for quite light winds but when we see what has been going on with the Louis Vuitton Cup these last few days with 20kts and lumpy seas that would be interesting but really we will take whatever comes and be happy.”

Velsheda have a strong, settled, regular crew and would prefer more breeze. Kiwi mainsheet trimmer Don Cowie is looking forward to returning to Barcelona again – where he won an Olympic silver medal in 1992 – but most of all being back at an America’s Cup. Cowie smiles, “It is going to be so very cool to be at an America’s Cup with these J Class yachts. For me personally it is a shame it did not happen in New Zealand last time because COVID came along. But we are all very much looking forwards to it. Hopefully we will get some stronger breeze as Svea and Rainbow are a little better in the light. It will be a show. It will be a great show and we are so lucky to be part of it.”

The J Class Barcelona Regatta takes place 5 - 11 October, racing is from Monday 7 - Friday 11 October.

Who's lining up in Barcelona

Velsheda //

Velsheda is an original J Class yacht launched in 1933 in Gosport, built by Camper & Nicholson and designed by Charles E Nicholson. She never raced in the America’s Cup but was dominant in England in her early years. Velsheda has been the passion of her Dutch owner since he bought her in 1996 and has been kept in perfect condition ever since. She has been cruised extensively as well as following a regular racing programme in Europe and the Caribbean ever since, at one stage or another lifting most of the honours open to the J Class including the Superyacht Cup Palma, Saint Barth’s Bucket, Les Voiles de Saint Tropez and the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup.
The core team has been the same for very many years led by Kiwi tactician Tom Dodson sailing in Barcelona with British Olympian and America’s Cup sailor Andy Beadsworth as strategist and young Australian Andy Green as navigator. As an original design and structure Velsheda cannot achieve the same rig loads as her modern replica rivals and sometimes has a small disadvantage but nonetheless is often at her best in stronger winds and flat water. All that being said Velsheda comes to Barcelona fresh from very close boat for boat racing against Svea at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, with Velsheda looking very fast downwind in the breeze.

Svea //

Swedish flagged Svea was launched just in time for the 2017 America’s Cup Regatta in Bermuda when under her original American ownership, going on to compete at the inaugural J Class World Championships in Newport RI that same year. Built to an original design by Swede ToreHolm, better known as a Metre boat designer as well as being Olympic sailor in his own right, Svea is the longest J Class yacht to be built so far but is about the same length on the waterline as Velsheda. After passing into new Swedish ownership in 2022 some remedial changes to the rig set up – moving the forestay back and fitting a longer boom and bigger mainsail, significantly improved Svea’s helm balance and improved all round speed. The new Swedish owners brought in Bouwe Bekking, an eight times round the world racer, who was very much the driving force behind the dominance of the Dutch Lionheart, winner of the 2017 J Class World Championship. The Svea team is a mix of experienced offshore racers and younger sailors who were new to J Class racing. They have made a virtue of maximising their time on the water training and racing as often as possible and increasingly their polish has reaped dividends, not least now winning the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup three times in succession. The co-owners share the driving. Navigator is Steve Hayles whilst project manager Tim Powell is mainsail trimmer. Svea is a powerful allrounder which has no significant weaknesses and follows a regular optimisation programme.

Rainbow //

In Barcelona, as the smallest and lightest boat, Rainbow’s strengths are expected to be speed and manoeuvrability, but the boat was only relaunched this season after a major refit and the crew have really only sailed together at this summer’s Superyacht Cup Palma plus a few odd training days. She has had a new rig, a new sail inventory, a new hydraulics package and deck layout to bring her up to modern racing spec. She is widely expected to excel in the light winds which have been expected to prevail in Barcelona in these Autumn weeks, even if recent weeks have seen rather more. Led by Erle Williams, a legendary Kiwi round-the-world race winner and America’s Cup bowman who previously ran the J Class Ranger, Rainbow’s crew is a mix of former Ranger sailors complemented by key sailors from the Wally cento Galateia such as Barcelona-based Brit Simon ‘SiFi Fisher as navigator and six times America’s Cup winner Murray Jones who is a Ranger veteran too. Rainbow is now owned by a prominent Kiwi yachtsman who has won most of offshore racing’s top accolades and who is now focused on the J Class. She was last raced in Porto Cervo in 2014 at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup where she led into the final day before losing the regatta in the protest room. It is a modern replica of the Starling Burgess winner of the 1934 America’s Cup which was launched in 2012 which many observers expect to give Svea a run for her money.