With the J/24 national champion title, and places at next year’s world championship on offer, the excitement over this year’s Barratt-sponsored national championship in Plymouth is hitting an unprecedented high.

Fourteen places are available for British helmsmen at the world championship and the battle will be immense this week (9-11 September), reflecting the quality already seen in this season’s J/24 racing class. The championship will be run by Royal Western Yacht Club (RWYC) – one of the UK’s longest established Yacht Clubs, which celebrates its 177th anniversary this year. Based at the centre of the Queen Anne’s Battery Marina, the RWYC is ideally placed to welcome all competitors and visitors to the four-day championship in the Plymouth Sound.

Neil Trathen, Plymouth’s J/24 class fleet captain is one of the many working hard to organise the championship. Commenting on the event Trathen said:: “It’s been seven years since we last held the national or European championships. We have worked very hard over the last eight and a half months to ensure this event is the best national championship the Plymouth fleet has ever held.

“There are approximately 40 boats taking part in this week’s championship races and 25 of those will be battling it out for world championship places. The four days of racing in the Plymouth Sound will start to separate the class leaders from those who won’t be making the trip to Weymouth next year.

A maximum of eight races are planned for the four-day championship, with one or two races planned for day one (Thursday 9 September), two or more races on Friday and Saturday and one or two races scheduled for the final day on Sunday.