|
SCUTTLEBUTT 1958 -- November 2, 2005Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus.AN ORGANIC FIT The titular ship Johnny Depp helmed in 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl will be setting sail as the U.S. entry in the Volvo Ocean Race, a 31,250-mile, nine-leg sea race around the globe. Disney has plunked down an estimated $15 million-$18 million in loot for the right to turn the 70-foot yacht into a floating billboard for the two upcoming Pirates sequels, which will reunite Depp with costars Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. The eight-month race is due to finish in Gothenburg, Sweden, on June 17, three weeks before the first seafaring follow-up, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, hits theaters on July 7--an occasion marked by the boat's number: 7706. The third film in the Pirates trifecta will arrive in summer 2007. Donald Evans, vice president of marketing and promotions for Buena Vista International, Disney's international distribution arm, said race officials dreamed up the idea and approached the studio, which quickly signed on. The Mouse House's creative group immediately went to work on the design and the look of the boat. "There's so much clutter out there in terms of getting the consumers' attention and we felt that this was an organic fit," Evans tells E! Online. The Black Pearl, under the command of veteran skipper Paul Cayard, had no plans to return (to the race) this year. But Disney's offer was too good to pass up, considering the PR boost it could give the pro-sailing world. "The race is a fantastic experience," Cayard tells E! Online. "I decided this whole thing about being a pirate and promoting a film is a great opportunity for our sport to branch out." Asked whether he'll be shivering his timbers and dropping "aarghs" and "avasts" like a Central Casting buccaneer, Cayard demurs. "My wife is pushing me on that, but so far we've been pretty focused on being the pro sailors we're supposed to be and we'll loosen up as we go," he says. "But it's good to be a pirate." -- Josh Grossberg, E online, full story: http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,17686,00.html?tnews CARIBBEAN BIG BOAT SERIES St Maarten's 26th annual Heineken Regatta is just about 20 weeks away - or 137 days, or 3288 hours, or 197,280 minutes - tick tock, tick tock, you get the idea; time is marching on. The Caribbean Big Boat Series (CBBS) takes in the St Maarten Heineken Regatta, the BVI Spring Regatta and concludes with Antigua Sailing Week. Making things easier for 2006 is a whole new web site, brighter, faster and altogether ideal for registering your interest, downloading the Notice of Race, looking at the entry list or just browsing the pictures and reading the superb reports on last year's racing. Head for www.heinekenregatta.com and watch the site develop as new pictures and video are added week by week. Half the entry numbers every year are made up from charter boats, with a massive contingent of sailors from Europe, the US, even from as far away as Japan and Australia booking seemingly all the bareboats in the Caribbean area. Crews from northern hemisphere countries just coming out of a chilly winter charter a bareboat to use the regatta as the perfect opportunity to get in a bit of warm water practice before the European summer sailing season, but there are top race boats signed up too, a factor which makes the regatta all the more enticing. One sailor who enjoys the St Maarten Heineken Regatta, and the Caribbean Big Boat Series (CBBS) too, is American Robbie Haines. Affable Robbie has been here before with a couple of Roy Disney's Pyewackets, but for 2006 he is coming back with Randal Pittman's Ed Dubois-designed 90-foot, canting keel hot shot, Genuine Risk. They'll be lining up against Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory and Tom Hill's Titan 12. Robert Mulderig's Starr Trail and Clay Deutsch's Chippewa will be there too to bang the drum for the well-campaigned production cruiser racers. There will be plenty more by the time the first gun goes. -- Mirian Ebbers, Carribeanracing.com, full story: http://www.caribbeanracing.com/artman/publish/printer_734.shtml Caribbean Big Boat Series: http://www.bigboatseries.com DOUBLE-HANDED TRANSATLANTIC The Transat Jacques Vabre is a 4,500 nautical mile double-handed race from Le Havre, France to Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, held every four years and sponsored by Kraft Foods France and its coffee brand Jacques Vabre. The seventh edition of the event is the only double-handed race in the international race programme for 50- and 60-foot monohulls and multihulls, with the monohulls starting this coming weekend on November 5 and the multihulls starting on November 6. Crews of two will again have to first attack the busy English Channel after leaving Le Havre, as always host city for the start, as far as Ouessant where yachtsmen "see their own blood". They will then head southwards across the fearsome Bay of Biscay which has a terrible tendency to swing in November: wicked westerly swells, repeated gusts, rain and wintry conditions… Three to five days of tough sailing before the trade winds are found, allowing crews to replace their oilskins with sunglasses and tanning lotion. Then comes the long surf towards the southern hemisphere, across the horizon and on towards the terrible Doldrums. It is here that dreams of victory can be destroyed by a sudden drop in wind, and huge leads can be whittled down to just a few miles before the final upwind stretch towards Brazil. After about a fortnight at sea the competitors will finally be greeted by delicious tropical odours that will help them forget the pains of the past two weeks. Crossing the ocean at a speed of over 17 knots for the multihulls and nearly 12 knots for the monohulls is enough to test the sturdiness of the strongest of giants. The Jacques Vabre is a full-bodied transatlantic! Over 60,000 people visited the race village of the TJV last weekend to see the boats and take in the excitement. Event website is at http://www.jacques-vabre.com FREE, FREE, FREE... Did we say free? Yes, we did! Team One Newport is offering free ground shipping to the Continental US for all orders placed by November 30, 2005. So there's no excuse to not buy all those Holiday presents early and save. Remember too, that you save sales tax if you are shipping to anywhere outside of RI. So look at that Patagonia underwear, Henri-Lloyd Axis Jacket, Musto Race Salopettes, Gill Softshell Racer jacket, Sharon Green's Ultimate Sailing Calendar, and Railriders's lined Halifax Pants at http://www.team1newport.com and shop away!! Or call us at 800-VIP-GEAR. CHANGING PLACES For those familiar with west coast boating, Rob Moore's name has been synonymous with the Northern California publication Latitude 38. Rob covered the sport as a senior editor for the Latitude as well as being a frequent participant in events. Well, nothing lasts forever, and we have just received word that Rob is moving on. A message from Rob states, "I will no longer be working at Latitude 38. I have truly enjoyed working here at Latitude for the last 18 years, and the decision to leave was a difficult one - but the world beckons! I will be traveling until March, and begin considering job opportunities again in the spring." We have created a thread in the Scuttlebutt Forums for comments to Rob: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=73#73 PROPOSED LNG TERMINAL IN BOSTON HARBOR A Virginia energy conglomerate has unveiled a plan to turn Outer Brewster Island in Boston Harbor into a $500 million liquefied natural gas terminal, the fourth LNG facility proposed along the Massachusetts coast in the past year. The project, which comes on top of two proposed offshore terminals 10 miles off Gloucester and a third LNG project in Fall River facing bitter local opposition, has one major catch: The island is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, a state and national park. The company, AES Inc. of Arlington, Va., would need a two-thirds vote by state legislators to get access to Outer Brewster even before pursuing other state and federal approvals needed. The site is 8 miles east of the downtown waterfront and a mile northeast of Boston Light, an icon of the harbor that is located on Little Brewster lsland. For four years, many local officials have warned that a terrorist attack on an LNG tanker serving the Suez-Distrigas terminal in Everett could kill thousands in Boston. Because of the possibility the Outer Brewster project could shift LNG traffic offshore, some local officials and even harbor island environmental groups said they wouldn't immediately reject it. Demand for natural gas has soared in Greater Boston in the past five years after three big electric plants powered by natural gas went into service. Homeowners and businesses have steadily continued converting from oil to gas for heat, and during a January 2004 record cold snap KeySpan Energy Delivery New England had to evacuate dozens of families from areas where it couldn't maintain adequate gas supply. -- Peter J. Howe, The Boston Globe, full story: http://tinyurl.com/buob5 NO SLEEPING ALLOWED The Irish Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources has warned that solo sailors must comply fully with the requirements of Rule 5 of the IRPCS, which states that a proper lookout is to be maintained by sight and hearing at all times. Many solo sailors rely to some extent on electronically activated radar alarms to prevent collision with other objects and vessels on the water. The Government Minister issued a notice "drawing the attention of all concerned" to the "Statutary Instruments" by which the Irish Authorities can prosecute infringements of the International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea (as amended by the Irish Parliament) in Irish waters. -- Rob Melotti, Practical Boat Owner, full story: http://www.pbo.co.uk/auto/newsdesk/20050931104131pbonews.html SUDDENLY ALONE. TACTICS, FREE GEAR As a shorthanded cruiser, are you prepared to find yourself suddenly alone? Injury, illness, or crew overboard could leave you suddenly alone. Learn how to respond at our Cruising and Seamanship Seminars. For racers, you can't play the game if you don't know the rules. Learn the rules and how the rules dictate tactics at our Rules & Tactics Seminars. Buy a North U Gift Pack and you'll get a boatload of our very best books, CDs and DVDs plus a free North Sails Backpack. Contact NorthU at 800-347-2457 or http://www.NorthU.com BACK IN THE SADDLE (The following story is from Britain's Shirley Robertson website, where the double Olympic gold medalist announces the beginning of her 2008 Olympic campaign) It's official, I'm off again on another Olympic campaign. The Yngling is once more out of the shed, the drysuit is out of the cupboard, the Gym is becoming my second home and I'm pounding the streets of London on the sponsorship trail to make sure we have funding in place for both Beijing and ideally London 2012 as well. It feels both exciting and a bit scary, a new crew and a new challenge. I'm thrilled to be sailing with Annie Lush, we trained together in the build up to Athens and over the last two years I've watched her develop into a truly World class crew. In the last month alone she has won both the World Women's Keelboat Championships and the Women's World Match Race Championships sailing with America's top Yngling sailor Sally Barkow. We are still looking to fill the bow-girl position; one of our main goals is to run crew trials over the coming months to pick the right person before Christmas. Helping Annie and I make the decision will be Andy Beadsworth, a key coach in my Athens build up and an experienced Olympic campaigner. -- http://www.shirleyrobertson.com RILEY NEEDS NEW BOAT During the final three days of racing at Trapani, squalls passed through the racecourse, spawning waterspouts and tossing about the powerful but fragile America's Cup-class yachts. FRA-60, the 6-year-old yacht sailed by the French K-Challenge syndicate, was badly damaged. First the constant pounding of the steep seas cracked the deck. The crew patched it together, but the boom broke and they withdrew to avoid injuries. After the team's promising fifth-place finish in the Act 8 match racing, FRA-60's battering during Act 9 was hard for French syndicate-head Stephane Kandler to endure. "We could have stayed home for the regatta and finished the same," he said. According to Kandler, the team has the smallest budget of all the syndicates. A new boat is in the plans, but more sponsorship is needed. Sausalito's Dawn Riley, the team's general manager, isn't daunted. "We're working on it now," she said. - Marin Independent Journal, http://www.marinij.com/sports/ci_3160277 NEWS BRIEFS * The 2005 One-Design Sailing Symposium will be on November 19-20, 2005 in Annapolis, Maryland, sponsored by Gowrie, Barden & Brett. Speakers will include Janet Baxter, John Burnham, Dave Dellenbaugh, Marlieke Eaton, Greg Fisher, Tom Hubbell, Gary Jobson, Joni Palmer, and Dave Rosekrans. The One-Design Sailing Symposium will feature forums led by industry and class experts providing the impetus to exchange ideas, foster new ones, and give one-design sailing a spot on the starting line! Complete details at http://www.ussailing.org/odcc/2005_ODSS.htm * Gill has just been signed up as the official technical clothing supplier to Team Holmatro, the first of the new generation of sport catamarans to commit to the Volvo Extreme 40 (VX40) Grand Prix Series being staged at five of the in-port stopovers during the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) 2005-06. Team Holmatro is headed up by Olympic medalist Mitch Booth as skipper, who along with French Olympic gold medal winner Yves Loday, created and designed the VX40 to fill the gap in grand prix inshore sailboat racing. * While this might not apply to everyone, it is good information just in case. Click here to listen to one man's story after his wife met his girlfriend: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/wifemeetsgirlfriend GOOD NEWS TRAVELS FAST Key West is already open for business following an unwelcome visit by Wilma -- the new Mobile Marina Operation is taking reservations -- and entries continue to stream in at record pace. Visit: www.Premiere-Racing.com for the very latest on both Acura Key West and Acura Miami Race Week. 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 neither 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. And please save your bashing, and personal attacks for elsewhere.) * From Brad Dellenbaugh: With regards to Magnus Wheatley's comments about the President's submission on the Olympics, I was at dinner at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and happened to be talking with some of the US Women's Soccer players. They had just watched Paul Forrester and Bob Merrick win the final men's 470 race of the Olympics live on TV and just could not understand why they didn't win the gold medal. Sailing is one of the few sports in the Olympics where the winner of the final event doesn't win the gold medal. (Equestrian? Gymnastics? any others?) Sailors may understand the nuances and hard work of putting together a winning regatta rather than a winning race, but Joe Public? Not a chance. I'm not saying this is the best solution or a fair solution, but all sports are under a great deal of pressure to show that they are attractive to the media in order to stay in the Olympics. Should sailing sell out and change a tried and true formula? Did you enjoy all the sailing coverage in the U.S. in the last Olympics? Sailing is at real risk for keeping its place in the Olympics. Maybe it's not worth keeping sailing in, or perhaps it's time that we make a slight paradigm shift and figure out a way to make our sport more attractive to viewers and yes, the media (how about team racing?). As for unfair, how about Apolo Ohno or Mary Decker Slaney? Talk about putting all your eggs in one random basket, remember the speed skater who won the short course gold in 2002 when all the other skaters including Ohno wiped out? If you want to keep sailing in the Olympics, it is going to have to go down that path a little bit. * From John Tormey: I like the idea of whittling the competition down to remove the lesser teams (like every other sport does), but sailboat racing has so many random variables that it does seem like you need a system of averaging to let the cream rise to the top. The winning team of one race is not necessarily the best sailors, but the low point team after 5+ races typically deserves to win. Doesn't NASCAR have a series championship that runs this way? * From Tom Anderson: (re Jerry Kirby quote that the crew on the Volvo 70 Pirates of the Caribbean clip in at 20 knots). Let me ask a question. Why do the Volvo 70's wait until 20 knots before clipping in? I've done many overnight races, including Marblehead - Halifax, and we are clipped in all the time. I know that a boat traveling at 6 knots will cover 607.6 feet every minute. At the speeds that the Volvo 70's reach, I would think that they would be clipped in 100% of the time. I can't even imagine one person trying to keep an eye on an overboard sailor at anything below 20 knots while the Volvo 70 is trying to turn around and pick them up. * From Eric Lind: I've just had the opportunity to read a chapter from USCG Senior Chief Tom Rau's upcoming book, "The Boat Smart Chronicles." The section about tethers was particularly interesting. A few years ago, he ran some tests, with him as the "dummy," at 4 and 6 knots in 3 - 4 foot waves. Here is a brief excerpt: "Right off the bat when you hit the water, body reflexes will kick in if the water is cold. Cold water will induce instant torso reflex that will cause the mouth to part. Instead of sucking in air one will be sucking in a rush of water, leading to gagging and immediate panic. I liken it to sticking a fully charged garden hose into one's mouth. I discovered that by flipping on my back, I could shield my eyes and mouth and reduce the intake of water, but the head hood of my flotation suit around my neck filled with water, pulling my head back. With water cascading over my face and into my nostrils, it felt as if someone had shaken up several soda pop bottles and shot them up my nose." This was at 4 & 6 knots. Can you imagine being dragged in the water at 10, 20, or even higher speeds? Chances of survival, even for a few seconds, seem slim. Quoting Chief Rau again, tethers are "meant to keep you on the boat, not drag you through the water." * From Adrian Morgan, UK: (Re Malcolm McKeag letter in Butt 1957 about participation) Sailing, darts, tiddlywinks and other sports will attract just so many participants as there are those wishing to participate, and nothing can be done to boost numbers artificially. I learnt this as sailing correspondent for the Daily Mail for many years. Space was allocated on the basis of reader interest. Even the brilliant example of Ellen at al will not encourage more bums (butts in your language!) on side decks than there are bums wishing to sit there. And taking up Malcolm Mckeag's point, in four years since I have been away from the Solent, the place has become exponenially more congested. Those in the industry who bemoan declining numbers are worried less for the sport, more for their cash flow. Ironically the more 'image conscious' we are urged to be (flashy oilskins, jackets, shades 'as worn by Chris Dickson', etc) the fewer appear to want to go sailing. Keep it simple, and cheap. My Mustos have lasted ten years, and who cares what I look like. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway. |
