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SCUTTLEBUTT 1672- September 21, 2004Powered by SAIC (www.saic.com), an employee-owned company. Scuttlebutt is adigest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing, whining and personal attacks for elsewhere. PARALYMPIC GAMES Athens, Greece- Just as it did last month for sailors competing in the Olympic Games, the unpredictable winds of the Saronic Gulf have once again baffled sailors and shuffled the standings, although this time it is the sailors competing in the 2004 Paralympic Regatta who are battling the conditions. The USA's entry in the Sonar class - skipper John Ross-Duggan (Newport Beach, CA), with crew Brad Johnson (Milwaukee, WI/ Hollywood, FL) and J.P. Creignou (St. Petersburg, FL) - slipped to fourth place overall after finishing sixth in each of today's two races. The series standings, with six races scored, now allows each team to discard their worst finish from the total points. After dropping the 16 points they earned on being disqualified from race two, Israel has returned to the lead position in the 15-boat fleet on 14 points. The USA is currently one point out of the medals with 19 points. With only five points separating the top four teams, the USA's Sonar team heads into the final three races of the series in contention for a medal. The Sonar fleet will have a day off tomorrow, Tuesday, September 21, with races seven and eight planned for Wednesday, September 22. Today was a layday for the 2.4 Metre sailors, with racing for that class resuming tomorrow, Tuesday, September 21. The USA's Tom Brown (Northeast Harbor, Maine) holds the lead in that class after winning races three and four on Sunday. The final race of the series is scheduled for both fleets on Thursday, September 23. - US Sailing, full story, http://www.ussailing.org/pressreleases/2004/PGdaythree.htm Sonar - 15 boats (6 of 9 races with 1 discard) 1. ISR, Dror Cohen/ Arnon Efrati/ Benni Vexler, 14 points 2. GER, Jens Kroker/ Peter Reichl/ Olaf Jacobs, 16 3. NED, Udo Hessels/ Marcel van de Veen/ Mischa Rossen, 18 4. USA, John Ross-Duggan/ JP Creignou/ Brad Johnson, 19 7. CAN, Brian Mackie/ Brian Macdonald/ Paul Tingley, 35 2.4mR - 16 boats (4 of 9 races) 1. USA, Thomas Brown, 8 points 2. FRA, Damien Seguin, 11 3. GER, Heiko Kroeger, 12 9. CAN, Bruce Millar, 35 Event details and results: http://www.sailing.org/paralympics2004 VALENCIA ARRIVAL The Dockwise ship Explorer arrived in the port of Valencia on Friday morning carrying its special cargo for the America's Cup. Seven yachts, 10 masts, and 37 RIBs were packed tightly into the hold, along with 27 shipping containers, as the America's Cup fleet moved from the Marseille Louis Vuitton Act 1, to the Host City of the 32nd America's Cup, Valencia, Spain. Unloading commenced immediately, with the teams anxious to set up and prepare for Acts 2 and 3 beginning on the 5th of October. Each of the six teams that participated in the first Louis Vuitton Act in Marseille will immediately begin building their bases along the inner basin of the port of Valencia, which will become home for the next six weeks or so. They will be joined there by two new challengers for the America's Cup that didn't participate in Marseille, the +39 team, and the Luna Rossa Challenge. - Complete report, http://tinyurl.com/68y5o DAMAGED TRIO Following the thunderstorm that extensively damaged BMW Oracle, Alinghi and Emirates Team New Zealand after Act 1 in Marseille, the teams are making their plans for Act 2 in Valencia. BMW Oracle has confirmed they will be sailing their other boat, USA-71 in Acts 2 and 3. Team Alinghi is still assessing whether to repair SUI-64, which would take about two weeks to complete, or begin readying its other race boat for Acts 2 and 3. Emirates Team New Zealand, which did not have a second boat in Europe, has taken the grand step by deciding to fly NZL-81 on an ex-British Airforce Shorts SC-5 Belfast transport plane from Auckland to Valencia. Loaded late on Monday night, the aircraft was scheduled to take off at 05:20 on Tuesday morning. The boat had been undergoing modifications, which will now be completed upon its arrival. The team will fly boatbuilders and specialists to Valencia tomorrow to meet the aircraft and ensure the yacht is race ready on schedule. NZL-81 is expected to be sailing on October 1, four days before Act 2 starts on October 5. Photographer Chris Cameron provides a complete gallery of images of NZL-81 that begin with the packing of the hull in the team's base and end with the loading onto the plane. Pretty impressive shipment: http://tinyurl.com/6dgnz BLOCKS HAVE FEELINGS TOO Losing feeling in your fingers from holding a loaded line is never fun. Introducing the smallest blocks available with feelings, Holt Allen's Compact Carbon Composite Autoratchets. Featuring an ingenious load-sensitive mechanism that triggers a ratchet only when sheet load increases, they're the most compact autoratchets available. Providing the ultimate in hands-free operation, the transition from ball race sheave to the tough holding power of the ratchet is incredibly smooth. These sensitive blocks are perfect for any application like small boat spin sheets £ 5/16" diameter. Get your blocks with feelings. Available now at APS… http://www.apsltd.com/scuttlebutt TP 52 REPORT - Ken Read The emergence of the TP 52 class both in the US and now in Europe is attracting attention. In their latest class event, the San Francisco Big Boat Series held last week, they literally stole the show, showing both close racing and amazing performance in the breezy conditions. North Sails VP Ken Read has been very involved with Makoto Uematsu's Esmeralda, so we thought we would check in with him about the TP 52 class following their win at the BBS. How are the design rules holding up so far? KR: The rule is holding up really well. The designers, owners and teams work together to find quirky, little loopholes in the box rule that we have tightened up permanently. The owners association is strong and organized. All the boats are performing very similarly around the track. On Esmeralda, we seem to have a tiny speed edge over the group right now, but it is amazing to see that all the boats have such similar performance characteristics both upwind and down. Regardless of age. The rule is solid. Compared to the Farr 40, do you think the TP 52 owners are looking for a class with some development, or just a bigger boat than a forty footer? KR: This is potentially a great class for existing offshore one design owners who want to consider a more grand prix type class, who love the close intense racing but want to add a development feature to their projects. Personally, I think it is really fun to tweak boats more than a very tight one design rule allows. To be a bit unique and work hand in hand with designers, builders, spar makers and sail makers… it is a great thing for a lot of the owners in this class. And they get to go 20 plus knots downwind! What is being done to keep a lid on costs? KR: Construction costs are kept under control by the VCG limits (vertical center of gravity), which essentially limit radical and extreme construction techniques that would be hugely expensive. A bit of common sense is necessary, but by no means is this a poor man's class. We had 8 boats at Big Boat Series that all went there to win, and all were very well prepared. Complete interview at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/04/kr-tp52 SAILOR ATHLETE COUNCIL The Sailor Athlete Council (SAC) was created due to a mandate from the U. S. Olympic Committee and the Amateur Sports Act that each of the Olympic sports must have twenty percent athlete representation on the Board of Directors and certain designated committees, which make up that sport's national governing body. While created due to this Olympic Committee mandate, the SAC's goal is to represent all of the active racing community. The recent election for the new council added the following to serve four-year terms: Bob Billingham, Dean Brenner, Sandy Grosvenor, Kim Hapgood, Tom Leweck, John Lovell, and Hannah Swett. These new members join Louise Gleason, Hal Haenel, Bob Merrick, Mark Reynolds, and Cory Sertl who all have two years remaining of their terms. Elections are held every 2 years to determine the council members. The council is comprised of sailors who meet the definition of an A Level or B Level Sailor-Athlete.- US Sailing, full story: http://www.ussailing.org/sac GET PROTECTION WHERE IT COUNTS!!! For the past few years, Camet has been developing clothing that has design, style and function. With our closed cell foam inserts available for a variety of different model shorts, we have redesigned comfort giving you the ability to hike hard without losing feeling in your legs. This will allow you to go longer and not suffer from fatigue, helping you to think clearly and perform to your expectations! To find out more details, please visit our website or contact one of our dealers. http://www.camet.com BEHIND THE SCENES If you still long for those days of Olympic coverage, we found the website of USA Women's 470 team Katie McDowell and Isabelle Kinsolving had some pretty neat 'behind the scenes' photo galleries of the USA Olympic Sailing Team getting ready for the Games, along with many other earlier galleries of McDowell/ Kinsolving in their march toward their goal. Hopefully we won't crash their server by going there. Enjoy: http://www.mcdowellkinsolving.com/photo 2008 OLYMPICS - WINDSURFING Part III of the Windsurfing Evaluation event was held from 16 - 19 September on the South of England. Attending the trials were 5 different manufacturers entering a total of six designs, all conforming to the ISAF Hybrid rules. The ISAF Council at their Mid-Year meetings in June called for the trials, where the ISAF Evaluation Panels proposals of a Hybrid development class were rejected. Instead, the Evaluation Panel were instructed to properly evaluate the potential of the Hybrid class and to recommend a one-design piece of equipment from the trials for use at the 2008 Olympics in China. ISAF had arranged for 18 different sailors to attend, some team riders nominated by the teams and others who were interested to see what equipment the next Olympics could be raced upon. The sailors represented six different nations, which were Great Britain, France, The Netherlands, Poland, Norway and Australia. The Hybrid class tries to bring together the best of the different racing disciplines within the windsurfing world. - ISAF, full story, http://www.sailing.org/Article_content.asp?ArticleID=7997 NEWS BRIEFS * (Annapolis, MD) Dave Van Cleef, sailing with crew Terry Flynn and Emma Jones, dominated the six race, one throw-out 2004 J/22 East Coast Championships that had winds ranging from 12-26 knots. Racing was held on Friday and Sunday with Saturday being blown out due to the remnants of Hurrican Ivan lashing the bay with 35+ knots plus. Class newcomer John Meiser finished second with Ray Wulff winning the tiebreaker over Peter McChesney for third and fourth respectively. Complete results: http://race.annapolisyc.com * Navigational equipment specialist Silva, has been appointed Official Supplier of compasses and navigational accessories to the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06. To support the race, Silva will be making available both to competitors and the general public a range of Volvo Ocean Race branded goods including binoculars, headlamps and handheld atmospheric data instruments. The Volvo Ocean Race will start with an in port race in Sanxenxo, Galicia, Spain on November 5, 2005. * Short-tacking the City Front, surfing past the Golden Gate Bridge, and playing the tide off of Alcatraz Island are among the images captured from the Big Boat Series in San Francisco last week: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/04/bbs GOOD AS GOLD Sperry Top-Sider, the official shoe of the US Sailing Team, helped Kevin Burnham and Paul Foerster grab gold in the Men's 470. Sperry Top-Sider provided the US Sailing team with Figawis - constructed with a Super-Tack Rubber Outsole™ and contoured fit for the heat of any race. Visit http://www.sperrytopsider.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. This is not a chat room nor a bulletin board - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.) * From Richard Jepsen, US Sailing Training Committee Chair: David Yoffie got it right in Scuttlebutt 1670 when he touted Positive Coaching Alliance as having great value for sailing. PCA founder Jim Thompson has a vision of improving lives through positive coaching and fighting the "win at all costs" mentality that is so destructive in youth sports. I have found PCA's ideals and mission to also be applicable in adult coaching environments! A PCA Trainer named Tina Syer spoke at the US Sailing National Sailing Programs Symposium in Oakland last year and wowed the audience of sailing school program directors with a great keynote speech aimed at sailing coaches and instructors. I later hired her through PCA to conduct a workshop for my sailing instructors here in Berkeley, California and she was a big hit! We loved hearing the theme of positive coaching and the emphasis on personal growth over regatta results and all learned a few great tricks for keeping the focus where it belongs in sailing and coaching. Their motto, "Honor the Game" is even more powerful for our sport of sailboat racing with its emphasis on self-enforced rules and the Corinthian Spirit. if you are a coach or trainer, teacher or instructor, consider attending one of their Double Goal Coaching Workshops. It's an uplifting experience! * Scott MacLeod, Tour Director, Swedish Match Tour: Clifford Bradford is absolutely right on the money (Issue 1671). If table tennis is on ESPN then the event organizer or sport produced the show at their own cost (25-40k per half hour depending on # of cameras) and bought all of the advertising during the show (another 50-60k per half hour), which they packaged or sold to their sponsors. It probably didn't cost ESPN a thing and they were able to sell the time slot at a profit. If sailing wants to be consistently on TV it needs to have advertisers willing to buy advertising on the shows. These advertisers are going to have to come from endemic marine companies willing to support the sport on TV. I would guess that most of the advertisers on the table tennis show were manufacturers or in some way related to the sport. If the sailing industry wants to be on TV then all they have to do is support programs and build a consistent on-air audience and schedule. It doesn't have to be overly expensive. You can produce a :30 commercial for $10-15k and commercials can range depending on the show/network from $400 - $2k. The Swedish Match Tour is currently running 20 shows (2 on each event) on the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) every Friday at noon. We're selling commercials at $500 per commercial. The shows rate .7 (100k viewer) which is low compared to Friends but is a very targeted sailing audience. We have seen some advertisers support our shows but most are non-endemic advertisers. I believe sailing could do much better on TV, grow a bigger interest in the sport if the marine advertisers were willing to venture into this area. * From George Bailey (re Jobson's comments in 'Butt 1671): Close racing, lead changes, fast boats, short races, compelling athletes, patriotic teams and emotions are the ingredients that will draw viewers to give sailing another look. Left out of the tried and true formula are crashes. You gotta have some boats bashing into one another. Maybe using the spinnaker pole to push boats out of the way at marks would add more of what the public wants too. * From Donald Shaw: Most people don't understand the subtleties of sailboat racing as the casual observer may only see a leisurely yet dignified march toward some distant goal. What little television coverage there is doesn't lend itself toward educating the viewer, as up to two days worth of racing is often covered in a single half hour show. While this may be sufficient for the educated sailor, a novice such as myself is left wondering what happened. * From Adrian Morgan: They used to say the J Class boats lost their rigs if there was enough wind to blow out a candle, and too little to sail with if it didn't. What about the IACC boats? To the Beaufort description of Force 7 can now be added "strong enough to blow an IACC boat off its cradle." * From Stuart Lochner, Seattle: No one ever seems to challenge the assertion that one-design racing is the end-all answer to all the debates over ratings, and is the purest, best racing around? I'm a PHRF racer and my problem with one-design boats is their cost. Since there is usually only one builder for the particular boat (can you say monopoly?), when they are the "hot" boat, they tend to be way over-priced. Even used ones seem to be about twice the price of a comparable non-OD boat. Looking at what goes in to the construction, there is no way to justify their typically obscene price tag. Buyers are left having to settle for a smaller or less capable one-design boat within their budget and gamble that the boat stays popular long enough to unload it to someone else. On the other hand, there are some great One-Designs out there that have been around a long time, offer fantastic racing and seem pretty affordable. But how do the folks who bought Farr 40's about 6 years ago feel? I'm just curious what others think. * From Magnus Wheatley: Thank you to Kimball Livingston (Butt 1670) for highlighting the present candidates for El Presidente of ISAF. Looking at them, no one really jumps out and grabs you, do they? Why can't we have someone young and in touch with the fleets to really drive the sport forward and make it a televisual spectacle that will have broad, mass-market appeal and secure sailing in the Games for the next Millennium? How about a Robert Scheidt, Torben Grael, Jose Doreste, Jochen Schumann, Jesper Bank or even the RYA's Rod Carr? Or will we be saddled with yet another politician who enjoys first class travel and granting favors to his select few? I fear the latter... THE CURMUDGEON'S CONUNDRUM Why do people call it an ATM machine? Don't they know they're really saying Automated Teller Machine Machine? |
