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SCUTTLEBUTT 2629 - Tuesday, July 1, 2008Scuttlebutt is a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions,features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors. CHINESE USING NEW WIND MEASUREMENT TOOLS AT OLYMPICS A team of researchers at the Ocean University in Qingdao, China has developed and tested a mobile lidar (light detection and ranging) station that can accurately measure wind speed and direction over large areas in real time -- an application useful for aviation safety, weather forecasting and sports. The mobile lidar station can measure wind fields more accurately, and this technique is being tested in conjunction with the sailing competitions of the XXIX Olympic Games and the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, In the Qingdao sailing area, where this summer's competitions will take place, only four buoys, one boat and one tower are available to measure sea surface winds within a competition area of approximately 10 square kilometers. Professor Zhi-Shen Liu and his lidar group, composed of research scientists and graduate students, have been working with an optical remote sensing technology called Doppler lidar, which they are applying for weather and environmental research. Lidar works by scattering laser beams off atmospheric aerosols or molecules. Doppler lidar takes advantage of the fact that when these aerosols or molecules are moving in the wind, the scattered laser light changes frequency -- the same way an approaching car has a higher pitched sound than a car driving away. The advantage of Doppler lidar, says Liu, is that it can quickly sample a large area, providing a much finer map of winds than buoys alone. He and his group have developed a lidar bus, which can move equipment to the experiment field conveniently. Last year, they successfully tested their new bus at the 2007 Qingdao International Regatta sailing event. They moved the bus to the seashore near the sailing field, and made a horizontal scan over the sea surface, making the measurement in real time and then uploading the data to the local meteorological station every 10 minutes. They envision a similar effort in the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic games. -- Science Daily, complete story: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080630104637.htm FROM FUTBALL, TO FOOTBALL, TO THE OLYMPICS In High School, a Jersey Girl named Sarah Mergenthaler lettered in five varsity sports, none of which were sailing. Sarah has been working toward her goal of becoming a world class sailor for most of her life, but that didn't get in the way of all the other sports at which she excelled. These include soccer, track, basketball, cross-country, and (American) football, where this first-string record-setter was the only girl on the varsity team. Clearly Sarah is a true athlete, and her great love is sailing - in just over a month, she'll be putting that love to the test in the 2008 Olympic Games when she and teammate Amanda Clark will be racing the 470 class. On playing other sports, Sarah comments, “When I was in High School, I was actually really focusing on soccer. Somewhere around 8th grade, my coach talked to me and said ‘have you ever thought about playing in college?’ And I said ‘no, actually I hadn't thought of that, you know I'm only 14 years old.’ So in in High School I focused mainly on soccer, and that also meant that sailing fell a little by the wayside. I just did local regattas, and I was coaching some kids in the Summer to make some money, but really I was just playing lots and lots of soccer. All the other sports I did in high school almost happened by default, because I wanted to make sure I stayed in shape and stayed good on the soccer field. Really, though, I'll play any sport I can get my hands on. I love competing, I actually love practice as much as the game. It's all so much fun for me, and it's carried over into sailing also.” -- Yacht Pals, read on: http://yachtpals.com/sarah-mergenthaler-1984 SPEEDBOAT SUFFERS BREAKDOWN IN RECORD ATTEMPT (June 30, 2008) At 21:19 (EDT) on Sunday, June 29th, Mike Sanderson and 20 crew members on board the 100-foot maxi yacht 'SPEEDBOAT' departed from Ambrose Lighthouse, New York in the direction of Lizard Point off the South West coast of England in an attempt to break the transatlantic record. The record they are vying for was set by Sanderson when he skippered the 140-foot twin masted Mari Cha IV for a time of 6 days, 17 hours, 52 minutes and 39 seconds. Unfortunately at approx 3:30 am Monday morning while roaring along at 25 knots, Speedboat broke their port daggerboard, forcing their retirement. At the time they had decided to bear away and raise the board due to the speeds starting to get to the point where the boat didn't need them, and the board broke just as they were half way to downwind. The team has returned to Newport where they have a spare board, and seek to determine the cause as they wait for a suitable weather window to re-attempt their record assault. -- http://www.mike-sanderson.com/da/9973 CONGRATS ETCHELLS WORLD CHAMPIONS! There is no question that when performance counts, the top Etchells teams in the world choose North Sails. Congratulations to 2008 World Champions Bill Hardesty, Erik Shampain, Steve Hunt & Jennifer Wilson! Six of the top ten boats flew North sails including 1st and 2nd overall! For more details on Etchells sails or any one of North's 100+ one design classes, visit: http://www.onedesign.com ANGULAR BOATS ARE ALL THE RAGE FOR VOLVO OCEAN RACE by Tim Jeffery, Telegraph To Stockholm to see the second of the Ericsson boats for this winter's Volvo Ocean Race. In novel fashion she was built by Killian Bushe in Kista, a Scandinavian Silicon Valley suburb of the Swedish capital and bang next door to Ericsson's world HQ. Not only have 7,000 visitors looked in to see the boat under construction but so too have 10,000 employees. Nice idea for a race that starts in Spain in October and won't been seen again in Europe until early next summer. This is a company that works its sponsorship hard. In the last race Ericsson had client meetings around the world and the revised course through India, Singapore and China means three billion new consumers to try and make a connection with. Back to the boat. The striking thing about Ericsson 4, as the team call her, is her flat bottom. There's nothing new in this in terms of race boat design but, boy, does it put a premium on how the helmsman ‘lands' the boat when driving at speed. -- Read on: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/Tim_Jeffery * The Valencia Sailing website has some images of the Farr-designed “Telefonica Blue" VOR70 boat as it left the boatyard in Valencia on its way to the team's base in Alicante, Spain. If you want to see angular, and some seriously pronounced powerboat style bow strakes intended to produce dynamic lift for high speed reaching and running, visit here: http://xrl.us/ivrt5 SAILING SHORTS * Alexandria, VA (June 30, 2008) - Underscoring that volunteer race managers are the backbone of competitive sailing, Patricia Harvey Seidenspinner of St. Petersburg, FL, was honored with the annual Leadership in Women's Sailing Award at ceremonies capping the day-long Women's Sailing Conference held earlier this month at Corinthian Yacht Club in Marblehead, MA. Both the award and the conference are sponsored by BoatU.S. and the National Women's Sailing Association (NWSA). The award honors a male or female who has a record of achievement in giving something back to the sport of sailing as well as inspiring and educating women. -- For comments and full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=6009#6009 * Patrick Whitmarsh, Kevin Richards and Joe Penrod won the inaugural American Sailing League Championship off Pier 39, and with it a check for $10,000. The trio sailed Team Harken to a convincing win that saw them take the last five qualifying races leading up to the one championship race sailed for all the marbles Sunday afternoon in strengthening breeze into the low 20s. The event featured the 18-footers, as well as an exhibition event for junior sailors in 29ers picking their way through all the traffic in that busy part of the Bay. -- Latitude 38, read on: http://xrl.us/ivr22 * (June 30, 2008) The pain is past and life is beautiful in the Transpacific Yacht Club’s 13th Tahiti Race---at least for Doug Baker and his crew on Magnitude 80. The race leaders from Long Beach, Calif. broke out of the Doldrums Sunday and by the ninth day on Monday, with 1,233 miles to go, Mag 80 was on schedule to break the record of 14 days 21 hours 15 minutes 26 seconds set by Fred Kirschner’s Kathmandu in the last Tahiti Race in 1994 by about two days. -- http://www.transpacificyc.org * (June 30, 2008) It is the ninth day of the Victoria to Maui International Yacht Race, and the fleet was reduced to eight boats when Kevin Reath’s Beneteau First 40.7 Something Wicked representing Royal Vancouver Yacht Club was forced to retire due to a steering gear failure and was heading to San Francisco, CA. Currently leading on corrected time is Seeker, a Pretorian 35/Wauquiez owned by Kenneth Greff of Mukilteo, WA. -- http://www.vicmaui.org/index.php?page=Interface.Home * San Francisco, CA (June 30, 2008) The second day of racing at the US SAILING Youth Championships brought out classic Bay area summer conditions for the 13 to 19 years old entrants, with a building seabreeze reaching 18-20 knots with higher gusts. Racing concludes on Tuesday, and the current results finds Judge Ryan/Hans Henken with a six point lead over Max Fraser/David Liebenberg in the 29er, Tyler Sinks/Briana Provancha holding a one point lead over Joseph Morris/Justin Doane in the Club 420, Chris Barnard with a five point lead over Colin Smith and Philip Crain in the Laser Radial, and Luke Lawrence with a one point lead over Cam Cullman in the Laser. Event site: http://www.ussailing.org/championships/youth/youthchamp Shoreside photos: http://www.rockskipper.com/Sailing/545800 * The MedCup Circuit returns to Italy for the 2008 Audi MedCup Circuit’s third event, the Region of Sardinia Trophy that begins Tuesday. After the strong Mistral winds at the last event in early June in Marseille, France, this event is expecting steady light to moderate winds and smooth seas. Thirteen entrants are expected, and of the four boats damaged in Marseille’s coastal race, Mutua Madrieña (CHI) and Matador (ARG) have returned fully repaired. CXG Caixa Galicia will sail Tau-Ceramica Andalucia (ex 2006 Mean Machine), while Rusal Synergy has purchased USA-17, which the BMW Oracle team sold following their win in France. -- Full story: http://2008.medcup.org/news/index.php?id=247 * Twelve of the world’s best match race skippers are confirmed to do battle in Match Cup Sweden, the fourth stage of the World Match Racing Tour. Included among these are the first seven currently topping the Tour leaderboard, with racing scheduled to commence for the Open division on July 1 and end on Sunday, July 6 in Marstrand. At stake are valuable points towards the World Championship, not to mention a piece of the US$200,000 prize money purse. -- http://www.worldmatchracingtour.com * The International Optimist Dinghy Association has both their European and North American championships this week with around 440 sailors from 57 countries to be competing in these continental events. The Europeans in Riva del Garda, Italy has 239 sailors from 39 countries entered while around 200 sailors from 25 countries will participate in the North American in Curaçao. Only seven countries have entered teams for the two events. -- http://www.optiworld.org/ioda-news.html * Franck Proffit, well-known 45 year-old Frenchman with over 100,000nm of multi-hull racing to his name, joins Alinghi, the Defender of the 33rd America’s Cup, to assist towards a possible multi-hull Deed of Gift Match. The Swiss team, while drawing from its current team members, is also applying the knowledge of several multi-hull specialists consulting to both the design and sailing team in preparation for the next Cup. Nigel Irens and Benoit Cabaret are involved with the former while Alain Gautier sails regularly with Alinghi crew on the ORMA60 Foncia in Lorient. -- Full report: http://www.alinghi.com/en/news/news/index.php?idIndex=200&idContent=16308 MELGES 32 RACING IS STRONG The Melges 32 National Championship is coming up in July and the turnout at the Newport, RI based event looks to be big! The boat is equally hyped over in Europe right now as the Melges 32 Audi Series is active and growing with some very high profile teams getting involved. Here in the USA, people are buying boats already for the Melges 32 Winter Series. Time to get geared up - get a Melges 32 and join the growing excitement! Race to http://www.melges32.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Reader commentary is encouraged, with letters to be submitted to the Scuttlebutt editor, aka, ‘The Curmudgeon’. Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name, and may be edited for clarity or simplicity (letters shall be no longer than 250 words). You only get one letter per subject, and save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. As an alternative, a more open environment for discussion is available on the Scuttlebutt Forum. -- Scuttlebutt Letters: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com -- Scuttlebutt Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Iain Smith: Total agreement with Owen Muyt's letter (Issue 2628) in regard to the Newport Bermuda website and yacht tracker. The Rolex Sydney to Hobart web site and yacht tracker is amazing. So fast and accurate and heaps of information. Newport Bermuda tracker was a joke. Inaccurate, delayed, and the whole site was pedestrian. Urgent fix required or you risk driving interested people away in droves. Do as Owen says and call the CYCA fast. * From Frank Lenox, Vice Commodore, Saunderstown Yacht Club (Saunderstown, RI): The Point Judith YC situation (cancellation of their Jr. Sailing program) is unfortunate for all of the sailing programs on Narragansett Bay since it diminishes both the competition in NBYA (Narr. Bay Yachting Assoc.) regattas, and makes it that much more difficult for children in our area to learn to sail and do so competitively. To help mitigate this situation, Saunderstown YC has increased the size of their program and increased their sailing staff to accommodate many of the displaced students. We are hopeful that PJYC is able to resolve their situation, but the new students are improving the quality of instruction and the competitiveness of our program, as well as our club races. Most importantly, we are educating students who will become, in later stages of life, protectors of the natural resources of our bay. * From Dennis Palmer: (re, story in #2628) While it was quite an achievement for Earthrace, the bio-diesel powered, wave-piercing trimaran to set a new record for powerboat circumnavigation in 60 days, it is noteworthy that sailboats do it faster and non-stop! In 2005, Bruno Peyron set the fully-crewed sailboat circumnavigation record of 50 days at an average speed of 17.89 knots, and in 2008, Francis Joyon aboard IDEC set the single-handed sailboat circumnavigation record of 57 days at an average of 15.84 knots. Sail on! * From Eric A Sorensen: The developer and captain of Earthrace has the soul of a sailor! His way cool boat was a shoestring operation and this was his 'last' effort and he pulled it off in spite of all kinds of issues in the voyage. I hope his efforts have some effect on boat design, the captain's pocket book, and the greening of the world. It was an incredible effort and I salute him! * From Brian Raney: Regarding the announcement by ISAF for the Sailing World Cup, this is a great idea, but how does this relate to the efforts of the non-European nations to level the playing field of ISAF-graded events, which is biased towards European nations? This doesn't seem like much of a "World Cup" when 5 of 7 events are in Europe, none are in South America, Asia, or Africa. Looks like the Europeans have simply found a way to trump up events that had been downgraded from Grade 1 status by previous efforts to make certain the Grade 1 events were spread geographically. Something smells rotten in this, and the US SAILING and CYA ISAF contingents should've been on top of this. In particular, CORK should be in the World Cup. * From Mary Longpre: A quick and good fix to the algae problem in China is…FOOD COLORING. It would take a lot for that large area, but it works fast and keeps algae away for a long time. Colored water blocks the sun from the algae buds and keeps them from growing. We use this method in our lake in Sedona, AZ. * From Matthew Lindblad, Head Coach, MIT Varsity Sailing: On the subject of volunteerism driving the sport, MIT Sailing would like very publically to thank the loyal and longstanding group of volunteers who once again dedicated their weekend to making the 12th annual Charles River Open team race a huge success. This year our crack volunteer squad was joined by last year’s winners of the CRO (and Rolex nominees) Silver Panda as well as the MIT Sailing Pavilion staff to run 363 races for 33 teams this past weekend with MIT’s fleet and boats borrowed from Harvard and Boston University. In addition, every one of the 198 competitors is either a student/coach or has volunteered for 2 days of RC or judging at college or high school events in the last year. The few that hadn’t volunteered have already committed to an upcoming fall event and will join everyone else who wants to sail in next year’s CRO in giving back to the sport in the upcoming year. Our volunteers this year were John and Ellen Pratt, Alvar Saenz-Otero, Eric Gibber, Sue Ostrowski, Carl Zimba, Peter Johns, Charley Cook, Reid Van Gorder, Susan Dellenbaugh, JT Lendon, Jeff Dusek, Sondi Springmann, Pete Levesque, Clay Bichoff, Lisa Keith, and Amanda Callahan and the MIT Sailing staff consisted of Wally Corwin, Greg Dolan, Conan Hom, Eddie Grinnel, Patrick Joyce, Jillian Reddy, Mark Amara, and Samantha Lewenberg. The regatta winners were team Larchbone who defeated IC-BDCCC in a best of 3 finals. Panda, who got an automatic bye into the semis, defeated the Snapdragons for 3rd and 4th, respectively. Larchbone is already excited to help with next year’s event. Complete regatta results can be found at http://xrl.us/ft2vr $10 OFF SAILFAST APPAREL FOR SCUTTLEBUTT! Through Tuesday, SailFast is giving $10 off any purchase on http://www.isailfast.com. SailFast also donates 10% of every purchase to The Leukemia Society. Check out our new tech T’s, hats, graphic T’s and more. Enter ‘Scuttlebutt’ at checkout. Offer ends July 1st, does not include charity wristbands and clearance items. => Curmudgeon’s Comment: The SailFast ad in the Monday issue had the wrong website address, but it is correct now, so here is another chance to help out a wonderful cause. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION Worry is nothing but interest paid on trouble never had. Special thanks to North Sails, Melges Performance Sailboats, and SailFast. A complete list of preferred suppliers is at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
