J80s
To view the year's programme for the boats and see where they will be and what they will be doing for any given day, week or weekend GO HERE.
This page is intended to carry general information about the fleet of 6 matched J80s jointly owned and managed by Royal Thames Yacht Club and Royal Yacht Squadron.
The standard Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions covering the use of the J80s at Queen Mary reservoir are here.
These J80s are six of the eight boats that until 2009 formed the RYA's national match racing fleet. When in that year the RYA found that it could no longer fund either the fleet or the programme the boats were offerred for sale. They were purchased by the two clubs to enable them to develop their own keelboat team and match racing programmes. Both RTYC and RYS engage heavily in keelboat team racing both in Britain and abroad, and having their own fleet of boats gives Members of both Clubs the opportunity to do even more.
Royal Thames runs both the British RYA Open Championship of two-boat team racing in keelboats (the Royal Thames Carmela Cup, to be held March 27th/ 28th 2010) and (in conjunction with Seawanhaka CorinthianYacht Club of Oyster Bay, USA) the British-American Cup International Keelboat team Racing Challenge, to be held at Queen Mary SC in October 2010. As their titles imply, participation in both events is open to non-members. Royal Thames also runs the Royal Thames Cumberland Cup, a biennial international inter-club two-boat team racing challenge contest that brings team racers from all over the world to London.
The RYS hosts a number of international invitation team racing events (go here for the RYS Event Calendar)
In addition to their own events, the two Clubs have agreed to continue to make the J80s available to the RYA to allow the National Match Racing Championship to continue. The boats can also be made available to other clubs and organisations for team and match racing events which can be managed by Royal Thames YC if held at Queen Mary reservoir, (generally between October and April each year) or by either Club if the event is to be in The Solent (generally May to September). Contact sailing@royalthames.com for more information.
The boats are not available for charter by individuals, other than by Members of the two Clubs, nor are they available for charter by other Clubs and organisations for use in their own events.