Recapping on 2024 and looking ahead to the future

After the excitement and intense racing activity of 2024, this 2025 season for the J Class yachts looks set to see owners enjoying cruising their yachts or completing refit programs with a little ad hoc racing activity for some.

Without doubt the showcase event of recent years was the 2024 J Class Barcelona Regatta which was run during the 37th America’s Cup events and on the same racing waters. It was somewhat magical to take the J Class yachts and their crews back to the very heart of the Cup arena to marvel at the sheer contrast between the modern, ultra fast foiling AC75’s with their semi hidden cyclors and the majestic, powerful J Class yachts where success on the race course is so much down to choreographed crew work, trimming and controlling the huge sail areas.

And there was considerable public interest. Daily docking in and out of the Marina Port Vell was a popular spectacle in itself, but most of all the regatta exhibited some spectacular, close racing between Svea, Velsheda and Rainbow which proved very evenly matched.

But this pinnacle event was planned for several years in advance and saw each team build up in their different ways. To a greater or lesser degree Svea and Velsheda did as much racing as they could over the last couple of years with Barcelona on the horizon, whilst the freshly refitted, reinvigorated  Rainbow only really debuted at Palma Sueryacht Cup which was their build up to the Barcelona regatta. And so whilst there is no doubt the J Class Barcelona Regatta was an outstanding success it seems almost inevitable some owners are taking time out to cruise.

Earlier this year Velsheda competed in the Caribbean at the 2025 Saint Barth’s Bucket racing in an ORC Superyacht handicap division. Now Velsheda and Svea plan to cruise on the NE seaboard of the USA this summer, sometimes together. No 2025 plans have been announced yet for the Rainbow. Hanuman is in refit and is reported to be going cruising after. In the Mediterranean Topaz, the extensively refitted Shamrock V and Lionheart are all following cruising itineraries.

Svea’s boat captain Paul Kelly enthuses, “We are very much taking a year off and I think others are too, just regrouping a bit after what has for us has been quite an intense period building up to Barcelona. It was pretty punishing, really enjoyable but hard work. I think in the class we often see this cycle after the America’s Cup but I am sure we will see the resurgence of interest in 2026 when we look forwards to events in Cowes and Sweden at least.”

Looking back at 2024 //

The season started with the J Class duo Velsheda and Hanuman taking first and second places at the Saint Barth’s Bucket. Hanuman raced very much in a simple, fun mode with no spinnaker pole as they celebrated the owner’s birthday. Whilst Velsheda won all three races sailed in the Les Elegantes division Hanuman took all second places.

Swedish flagged Svea started their season build up racing at Palma Vela regatta on the Bay of Palma where they took third place in their class, tactician Bouwe Bekking saying at the time, “It was really good for us, even though it was apples and pears - they [the other maxis] are 150 tonnes lighter than us, but we can still race against them.”

After a major refit to bring her up to modern racing shape, Superyacht Cup Palma in June saw Rainbow return to the race track for the first time since2014. Looking towards Barcelona this was very much a testing and tune up event for Neville Crichton’s team which is led by J class veteran Erle Williams.

Scoring three wins and a third over the mix of windward leewards and coastal courses Svea won the regatta ahead of both Velsheda and Rainbow which tied on points. Velsheda finished first and second over the coastal courses whilst Rainbow, on their debut, scored three second places and a third to finish on even points with Velsheda.

The Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup is the annual highlight not least because it is a full week of racing on the Porto Cervo coastal and windward leeward courses but because usually there are at least one or two big days.

This time there were only the two J Class yachts racing, Svea and Velsheda. Nonetheless they had some great boat on boat competition and the breezy coastal races outside the La Maddalena islands saw both boats at full power in what form any will still be the highlight of the season. And days like these will surely see the Js return to Porto Cervo time and again to this event.

Races went down to seconds, one time Svea’s margin over Velsheda was a slender 17 seconds! But in the end Svea won the class to complete their Porto Cervo hattrick, winning three times on the bounce.

And then in early October the J Class Barcelona Regatta. And it was worth the wait. There was great excitement all the way through the whole Cup community and indeed the growing number of visitors incoming all set to watch the America’s Cup match.

The talk pre regatta, indeed pre America’s Cup was to expect only light winds, But Barcelona really did offer up a good range of breezes. And if the idle dockside chat was that Svea would run away with it, how wrong that proved. Day1 saw 20kts and honours shared evenly between the newest and the oldest of the trio, a hard won victory apiece to Svea and Velsheda.

On the second day two more races were sailed and it was actually Velsheda which led, but only on tie break. Svea won the first race but with the winds building to 25kts for the day’s second contest it was Velsheda which triumphed to keep the scores absolutely even.

And then the breezes died, but not before Rainbow put a win on the scoreboard, their first in class racing since the boat was last raced. And then they were denied a second win when the second race of the day was abandoned in a fast fading wind.

In the end it was Svea which triumphed. Most would agree they worked hard over the preceding seasons, training more and racing more, to achieve this result.

Over the whole season Velsheda won the Kohler Cup which is aggregated over the Saint Barths, Superyacht Cup Palma, Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup and Barcelona.

2024 saw the successful implementation of the ORCj rule which has been developed in collaboration with ORC. It is based on the ORCi Superyacht VPP and an agreement is in place on a protocol for the management and development of the rule which was used first at Superyacht Palma. It certainly proved successful in Barcelona where deltas were mostly slender and did very much seem to reflect performance on the race course.