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SCUTTLEBUTT 2376 - June 29, 2007Scuttlebutt is a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions,features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Scuttlebutt is distributed each weekday, with support provided by UBS, main partner of Alinghi, Defender of the 32nd America's Cup (http://www.ubs.com/sailing). THE WIND GODS ARE KIWIS (June 28, 2007) For the third time in the 156-year history of the America’s Cup, the score is tied at two all. The previous years were 1920 and 1934. In 1920, light weather favored the American boat Resolute against the heavier challenger Shamrock IV. The fifth and deciding race featured light 8mph winds. Resolute won. In 1934 the third race was essentially over when skipper Mike Vanderbilt went below deck on the run to the finish. Endeavour was ahead. But tactician Sherman Hoyt, a small boat ace from Long Island, NY, outwitted the Brits to save the day. One wonders what we are going to see over the next several days. Based on the spectacle currently taking place, we are in for a great show. Emotions are running high. After the fourth race, Emirates Team New Zealand protested Alinghi for improperly lowering their mainsail. It sounded like a stretch. The international jury gave the issue a five-hour hearing Thursday, and then dismissed the protest. My view is that it was the right call. In the July issue of Sailing World I wrote about protests by urging all sailors to stay out of the jury room. NZ should have waited for an issue that had more merit. Now the jury will look sideways at any future complaint. Out on the race course New Zealand has its work cut out. Alinghi is a faster boat, particularly when the breeze builds. So far NZ has been living large because the wind has averaged only 7-13mph, well below the usual 14-17mph winds here in Valencia. It makes me wonder if the wind gods are Kiwis? -- Gary Jobson, read on: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/gj/#ld2 AMERICA’S CUP MATCH First team to win 5 races in the 9 race series Challenger: Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) 0-1-1-0-_-_-_-_-_ = 2 Defender: Alinghi (SUI) 1-0-0-1-_-_-_-_-_ = 2 * Race schedule: After Thursday’s rest day, racing resumes Friday through Sunday before the next break on Monday. -- Complete schedule: http://www.americascup.com/en/americascup/program/calendrier.php * TV schedule: VERSUS (USA) and TSN Broadband (Canada) will provide live coverage of the Finals from 8:30 a.m.–11 a.m. ET. VERSUS will also have a replay from 6-8 p.m. ET., while TSN Broadband will archive each race for later viewing. -- http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar/shows/#6 * Weather report: Conditions on Friday and Saturday call for a building southeasterly sea breeze at 15-18 knots with clear skies and air temperature in the mid-80’s F. * British update: TEAMORIGIN, the British sailing team intending to bid for the 33rd America’s Cup, have made a formal agreement with the Royal Thames Yacht Club to be their official challenging yacht club. -- http://www.teamorigin.com * German update: Karol Jablonski, who was at the helm of semi-finalist Spanish syndicate Desafio Espanol, has signed on to skipper the United Internet Team Germany boat in the next America’s Cup event. * 911 call: Peter Gilmour has been called upon as sailing consultant by the America’s Cup defender Alinghi, and is therefore forced to cancel his participation in Match Cup Sweden in the World Tour race in Marstrand, July 2-8. -- http://www.bymnews.com/news/newsDetails.php?id=11075 * Survey says: The latest Scuttlebutt poll asked the ‘buttheads to evaluate the performance thus far of those in 4 key afterguard positions on Alinghi and Emirates Team New Zealand. Putting the question to a vote, the results spell out one conclusion: Dream Team. -- http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/polls/07/0627 WEEKEND 'BUTT Because of the significance of the America's Cup regatta in Valencia, the Scuttlebutt editorial staff will not be taking this weekend off. Instead, we plan to produce and distribute fresh issues of Scuttlebutt after the AC race on Friday, on Saturday and on Sunday to insure that our readers get the entire story … along with all of the nuances that are so much a part of this premiere event. GAMESMANSHIP * If anyone actually thought that TNZ's protest was about a halyard lock then they sure are from 'planet gullible'...Of course the protest was dismissed but that's not the point. Alinghi squares the series and rides into port on a wave of momentum and high-fives only to be smacked down by Dirty Dalton roughing them up in the playground - it's classic gamesmanship and I, for one, think it's brilliant. -- Rule 69 Blog: http://www.rule69blog.com/archive/2007/june/603 * Grant Simmer was simmering, not to say seething, when he walked out of the jury room after today’s mammoth hearing over what appeared a pretty trivial matter. Alinghi had won the protest, the Kiwis lost it, but to judge by the looks on the faces of Grant S and his grinning rival Grant D, you could have been forgiven for thinking the decision had gone the other way. The Kiwis might have lost the protest, but they had tied up three of Alinghi’s sailors for more than five hours of soporific toing and froing between the two sides, while Dean Barker was sitting up at the swanky Foredeck Club just a hundred metres away, enjoying a couple of glasses of wine with his luncheon. So it was protest lost, but job done, as far as the Kiwis were concerned. -- SailJuice: http://tinyurl.com/2hnxkc WINNING AT BLOCK ISLAND RACE WEEK WITH OCKAM Ockam Instruments congratulates the great performances at the 2007 Block Island Race Week. Ockam customers won the Rolex US-IRC National Championship (Bob Towse’s Blue Yankee), top three in the NYYC 42 class (Tsunami, Arethusa & Bandit), top three in IRC 5 (Cabady, Troubador & Lora Ann), plus trophy winners Savasana (J/105, 1st); Storm (J/109, 2nd); Rima 2 (IRC Super 0, 3rd); Yellow Jacket (IRC 2, 2nd); & Shamrock Sensation (IRC 4, 3rd). All of these winning yachts rely on Ockam Instruments’ superior processing and display technology to provide a useful competitive advantage. At Ockam, we have race winning solutions for everyone. Contact mailto:sales@ockam.com ETCHELLS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP (June 28, 2007) Today's third day of racing at the 2007 Etchells World Championship was as dramatic and closely fought as you could hope for. The morning began with all the crews required to re-weigh, and although some teams had to take a run around The Green before weighing in, all made the weight and the club kitchens did a roaring trade in fried breakfasts and bacon butties afterwards! For the ladies running the race office it was a tough morning coping with all those semi naked sailors. With six races now sailed there have been five different race winners and there are just nine points separating the top four places. The forecast was for lighter winds in the mid teens but yet again the forecast was wrong. Initially the south westerly wind was around 14-17 knots but it rapidly built to 22 and continued to increase through the day averaging around 24 knots for the second race and spiking up to 27 on the final two legs. Preliminary Results (top 5 of 45 entrants) 1. GBR, Andy Beadsworth, 1-6-(7)-3-4-1, 15 pts 2. GBR, Ante Razmilovic, 5-(15)-3-1-6-3, 18 pts 3. GBR, James Howells, 3-5-9-4-2-(18), 23 pts 4. USA, Jud Smith, (10)-2-2-6-8-6, 24 pts 5. AUS, Noel Drennan, (26)-1-10-7-11-4, 33 pts Photo Gallery: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/07/0629 Daily reports and results: http://www.etchellsworlds2007.org PROMOTING HISTORY Originally built in the 1860’s, Sandbaggers were workboats used in New York Harbor to shuttle cargo, such as oysters, to market. The fastest boat to market could set the price of the day. Owners and crew then started to race them with wagers on the outcome. The racing boats had a length restriction, but none on the sail so they kept getting bigger and the masts, boom and sprits longer. In addition to this making the boats faster, it made them tip over more easily. To compensate, the crew would literally move cargo, which evolved to sandbags, from side to side to keep the boats upright. Hence the name “Sandbagger!” An article on Sandbaggers in Wooden Boat Magazine was read by stock market maker Peter Kellogg in the mid 1990’s and he saw a striking similarity in the boat’s original purpose to today’s stock market specialists: to “set the price.” Having always been a market and wooden boat enthusiast, and a charitable supporter of the Independent Seaport Museum of Philadelphia, Kellogg endowed the museum with funds to build two replicas of the boats. Museum boat builder John Brady then set out to recreate two of them in 1996 and 1997. Starting with original drawings from the Smithsonian Institute, Brady had to fill in a lot of the missing design data and interpolate new drawings from his own experience as a boat builder. With the help or Newt Kirkland, Bob, Ranson ad Sean Corson, Brady was successful. The results are the magnificent boats - Bull and Bear – which will be on display to the public in Mystic, Connecticut at the WoodenBoat Show June 28th to 30th, 2007. -- http://www.thewoodenboatshow.com HALF-WAY TO HAMBURG The Atlantic turns a cold shoulder on the yachts at the top of the fleet, and frosty temperatures await the crews sailing further north. The main fleet of the HSH Nordbank blue race from Newport, RI to Hamburg, Germany has already sailed half-way, and they have now set course for home. Whereas the leading ‘Outsider’ of Tilmar Hansen from Kiel is busy estimating their arrival time for Saturday or Sunday, the main part of the fleet is happy to have come half-way. The Irish ‘Chieftain’ has lost a bit of ground to Hansen's Elliott 52, but her crew is ready to fight. "We are watching the clouds and weather and working on getting every inch of boat speed we can out of the ‘Chieftain’. Within the boat moral is still high, although this may be due to the amount of coffee being drunk rather than internal moral! We're slightly gutted that we have lost out miles to ‘Outsider’ but the race is far from over!" writes watch captain Ed Hill from on board the Cookson 50. -- Full report: http://tinyurl.com/25wdf7 SUMMER TRAVEL FOR LONG ISLAND TEEN Once again, his summer travels could make Pearson Potts the envy of his class at the Ross School. Saturday will find the Sag Harbor (NY) eighth-grader in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. On July 20, he'll be in Sardinia, Italy. "My classmates think I'm the luckiest kid in the world to be able to go to all these places before I'm 40," he said. In Mexico, he'll compete in the International Optimist Dinghy Association's North American Championships And in Italy, the young sailor will represent the United States as one of five on the American team the International Sailing Federation's IODA World Sailing Championship. It is, by the way, the second year in which he's representing the United States on the team. He competed in the 2006 contest in Uruguay. Since he left Sag Harbor on June 8 with his parents to train and attend competitions around this country, "we've been living from regatta to regatta," said his mother, Marisa Potts. They were due back on Long Island later this month before heading overseas. If travel comes easily to Pearson Potts, it is perhaps because these triumphant journeys propelled by wind and water have their origins in more turbulent kinds of currents: Hurricane Katrina destroyed his family's beachfront Mississippi home in 2005, and life as the family knew it ended. With it came an end, too, to the dinghy sailing he was doing nearby in New Orleans - as a proud third-generation sailor in the Potts family. -- Newsday, full story: http://tinyurl.com/yp94r8 DO YOUR KIDS NEED TO COOL OFF IN THE WATER THIS SUMMER? If your kids get too hot and bothered while sitting in boats this summer, check out the O'pen BIC and its "in-the-water" experience! Capsizing (and re-righting) the boat is part of the fun! And kids in Europe are showing what boat they choose. Up to 50 sailors attended the first Italian O'pen Cup and the Dutch O'pen BIC TV event. Sail Newport is hosting the U.S. O'pen Cup on August 18th. Check out the latest news, pictures, and video on http://www.openbic.com - for more information on Fleet Pricing, Dealer Enquiries, and Industry Insider Offers, contact mailto:info@BicSportNA.com Energize your kids today! BERMUDA ONE-TWO The return doublehanded leg of the Bermuda One-Two started last Friday from the Harbour in St. George, Bermuda, in 15-20 knots downwind start. Frog Kiss, Freedom 44 which took fleet corrected finish win on the singlehanded leg, started 2 hours late due to bad fuel and started the race with no engine. However the following morning Frog Kiss, with Tristan Mouligne/ John Edenbach, lost their formast and were forced to withdraw and return to Bermuda. Joe Harris/ Dobbs Davis onboard Gryphon Solo finished Monday night. Wildeyes and Michael Millard/ James Fauci, finished Wednesday morning at 0400 with Wazimo and Barrett Holby/ Bob Manchester a few miles behind finishing at 0506. The rest of the fleet is expected to finish by Friday morning. - Event site: http://www.bermuda1-2.org - Billy Black photos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/07/b1-2 SAILING SHORTS * (June 28, 2007) After two days of postponements, the 63 entrants at the Moth Worlds in Lake Garda, Italy succeeded on Thursday in completing 3 races in winds reaching 18-20 knots. The challenge of the day proved to be in staying warm, as the water and air temperatures dropped significantly from the previous days, and most of the fleet was unprepared to contend with this variable. One thing that has remained consistent through the 5-race series is the performance of 2005 World Champ Rohan Veal, who now is carry 5 firsts on his scorecard. - Results: http://www.moth-sailing.org/worlds/2007_italy.xml#results - Rohan Veal blog: http://www.rohanveal.com * (June 27, 2007) A year after a microburst tornado storm damaged or destroyed much of the fleet at the 2006 Flying Scot North American Championship (NAC) in Marblehead, Massachusetts, local and national sailors gathered at Fishing Bay Yacht Club in Deltaville VA for the 2007 NAC, the largest in history on the 50th anniversary of the class. From Sunday through Wednesday, 119 Flying Scots competed in the Piankatank River mouth and Chesapeake Bay just off Middlesex County, Virginia. Winning the Championship Division was Jeff Linton/Amy Linton of Tampa, FL, with Michael Mittman/ Greta Mittman of Dallas TX claiming the Challenger Division. -- Complete results: http://www.fbyc.net/Events/2007/06.24.onedesign/Results.html PHOTOS OF THE WEEK Here is the start of a new feature where we post random photos from the sport at the end of each week. Included this week are images of the highly modified Pyewacket, an Open 60 blasting along on a training session while another gets their self-righting test, a seriously large hole from an entrant at the Etchells Worlds, 94 junior sailors enjoying an Optimist regatta in St. Thomas, USVI, plus a shocking photo of how a skipper delivers lunch for his crew. -- http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/07/0628 EIGHT BELLS Jan Linge has passed away on Monday June 26, 2007 at 85 years old. Jan has been of great value for the sport of sailing all over the world. Not only did he have two of his designs sailing at the Olympic Games (the Soling and Yngling), he has given so many the joy of just being on the water. Sailing itself has changed because of Jan Linge and that is an achievement only few have reached. I will remember him as a passionate sailor and designer, who has not only given me the joy of sailing the Soling, but so many others as well. The funeral is to take place on July 5th at 13:00 p.m local time at the Church of Asker, Oslo, Norway. -- Johan Offermans, President, International Soling Association LETTERS TO 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, so give it your best shot, don't whine if others disagree, 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 Ray Tostado: A thought keeps haunting me. Watching other sporting events seems effortless in terms of spatial position and field advantage. Football has lines, as does soccer, basketball, etc. I think that what has been missing in yacht coverage is such an element. This is further confused when the field of play is covered in a random unmarked water venue when the competitors are not heading directly to a goal, but rather tack and jibe their way along. My mind gets a sigh of relief when the animated grid is super imposed, showing the real time position of the yachts to one another and to the respective marks. I honestly feel that much of my confusion is that the camera angles, lens size, mislead in terms of distance and relative space between the competitors. This is the result of random angles, that while appear aesthetic, make no real contribution to the excitement of the chase. One diagramed angle shows a 88 meter lead, followed by an angle suggesting the boats are bow to bow even. It is at times like an Internet slide show. Would a super imposed floating grid over wide-angle shots contribute to this solving visual dilemma? Then also, having some editing that would prevent this jumping randomly all over the event coverage would help. A sense of getting somewhere is, a mark, I believe, what I am referring to. Maybe a small window keeping track of the entire course and the yacht’s relative positions? => Curmudgeon’s Comment: We had previously asked Stan Honey about this. Stan is not only the hotshot navigator who recently won the Volvo Ocean Race on ABN Amro One, but also conceived and supervised the development of the virtual gimmickry that makes other sports so watchable on television, such as the “glowing” hockey puck for hockey, the yellow 1st and Ten line for football, the Kzone virtual strike zone for baseball, and the RACEf/x system on NASCAR broadcasts. Here is his response to some of the challenges plus some of his ideas: “Telemetry wrinkles would explain the gaps when the ahead/ behind distances don't update. The problems with laylines being inaccurately displayed, and distances ahead/ behind being displayed but not being sensible, are almost always caused by inaccuracies in the program's calculation of the true wind direction. That is tricky particularly when the boats are in different wind directions, or are sailing different angles then normal VMG angles. “One thing that I'd like to see would be for the laylines and "even" lines to be superimposed on the actual helicopter video of the match. The virtual viewer gives us those lines, but we can't see the actual boats, and the real video lets us see the boats but not the lines. Why not superimpose the lines on the real video just like we have done with the yellow line in football?” * From Chris Boome: It's great to get Gary Jobson's e-mail comments about the America's Cup. Once again, his true marketing genius showed with the following comment regarding the trouble NZ had with their spinnaker during a gybe: "This kind of mistake is usually caused by the helmsman not turning in sync with the position of the sail." This will certainly be pointed out by many thousands of crew to their skippers for years to come! * From Robert Johnston, New York City: Regarding Bertarelli’s comments after race 3 of poor condition, it sounded like sour grapes but it could more generously be interpreted as a gambit in the ongoing psychological warfare endemic to the Cup (that is, "it wasn't skill, just luck"). CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION If a politician sees light at the end of the tunnel, he adds more tunnel. Special thanks to Ockam Instruments and O'pen BIC. Scuttlebutt is also supported by UBS, main partner of Alinghi, the Defender of the 32nd America's Cup. |
