J109 National Champion Andrew Algeo of the Royal Irish Yacht Club will have his first regatta in his new J99, Juggerknot II (IRL3990) at Spi Ouest Regatta, this Friday, and it looks like the fleet of 436 boats gathering at La Trinite Sur Mer, will be the biggest in six years.

A very interesting class IRC B line up means the Irish boat will meet stiff competition from the get-go. Afloat reported on the arrival of the new J99 into Dublin in January.

A J99 sistership will be also competing in La Trinite. Called J Lance 14 she is sailed by French pro–sailor Didier Le Moal, so there's going to be plenty of pacing opportunities for the new Irish marque that has a summer of Irish-based regattas awaiting her.  

Here is the full class line up at Spi-Ouest with boat types and TCCs also listed: 

IRC B - Spi Ouest

Didier's previous very successful boat was another J Lance, a J112e which won both the IRC Europeans and IRC Worlds last year. 

Other interesting boats in the class will be a J112e, Musik, a very well sailed Beneteau 40.7 Pen Koent, a number of A35s, a number of JPK 10.10s, Jpk 10.80s and Jeanneau sunfast 3200s.  These three last designs will perform well if the conditions turn out strong, but will not be great if conditions are light and the long range forecast looks light.

Algeo previewed his new J99 for Afloat in January here and he gave one of the reasons for downsizing to the newer but smaller J model as local crew availability. 

On board for Algeo's maiden sail in France as part of the Irish crew is North Sails Ireland's, Nigel Young.

The J99 type has been sailed recently under IRC at the Warsash Spring series and so far the IRC optimised J109s are still holding sway. Unfortunately, there won’t be many tricked up J109s at Spi Ouest to see how they go. Unlike the Warsash J99, both J99s that will be sailing in La Trinite will be using Symmetric Configurations (with spinnaker poles) as against the sprit asymmetric configuration of the Warsash J99.

From a Dublin Bay and also a national perspective, it will be interesting to see how she goes.

Symmetric v Asymmetric Spinnakers

Another J109 in Ireland, the new Outrageous of Richard Colwell and John Murphy launches this week complete with a symmetric configuration, with the ability to change to asymmetric, if she wishes. Pat Kelly's J109 Celtic Cup champion Storm changed over to symmetric in 2017 too with well-documented success in the Scottish Series. The all-conquering J112e, J Lance, mentioned above, is also a symmetric setup.  

(Above) Howth J109 Storm sailing to success in the 2017 Scottish Series with an 'experimental' symmetric kite Photo: Mark Turner and (below) Storm using an asymmetric at last year's Irish Nationals on home waters Photo: Afloat.ie

Generally, it is thought that windward leeward events, especially in medium to strong winds suit boats with poles, whereas offshore likely would suit sprit boats.