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SCUTTLEBUTT 3089 - Tuesday, May 11, 2010Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors,providing a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Scuttlebutt on Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Scuttlebutt on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sailingscuttlebutt Today’s sponsors: O’Pen BIC, North Sails, and J/Boats. WE CAN DO IT! Before women’s Olympic match racing, before Ellen MacArthur, before the Yngling Girls - there was the Women’s Team. The brainchild of 1992 America’s Cup winner and business maverick Bill Koch, the 1995 America3 women’s team brought together top female athletes from across the country, with an unprecedented goal; to race at the same level as the top male sailors in the most prestigious yacht race in the world - the America’s Cup. The setting would be San Diego, CA and the goal to be the defender in the 29th Match. The women of America3 onboard Mighty Mary (named for Koch’s indomitable mother) more than held their own through the grueling defender trials before losing to Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes. Along the way, they captured the imagination of women (and men!) all over the world, showing everyone just what women can do with their skills, drive and determination. “We didn’t win the Cup, but we won so many other things,” says Gardner. “We defeated Stars & Stripes in the semis but were informed after the crossing the finish line that a three-way deal had been made that morning (which allowed Stars and Stripes to stay in the competition with Pact 95 and Mighty Mary). It was a heartbreaking moment, but in the end, the cool thing was we proved we could do it. And it really was the time of our lives.” On May 29, the team will reunite in San Diego, celebrating the 15th anniversary of their remarkable achievement. The weekend’s activities include a Friday sail with local junior sailors and a dinner Saturday night at the San Diego Yacht Club, honoring team founder Koch. In addition to the dinner celebration, the main focus of the reunion is the chance to tell their story to a generation that was not yet born when the women’s team took the sailing world by storm. On Friday, May 28th, the women of A3 will head to the water in USA11 (Stars & Stripes built for the 1992 Cup and donated for the day by Sail USA) joined by high school sailors participating in the PCISA Women’s Invitational. It’s an amazing opportunity - for the juniors to sail with women who have competed in the America’s Cup, and for the A3 girls to pass along the ‘We Can Do It’ attitude that embodied the campaign. -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9820 TIME IS THE MOST PRECIOUS RESOURCE By Chris Rast, 3-time Olympian In our preparation for the forecasted light air conditions in China (at the 2008 Olympic Games), Tim Wadlow and I decided to hold two training camps in San Diego and Long Beach. We invited the Canadian and the Ukrainian Olympic representatives to join us. Well, one of the great attributes about San Diego (apart from pretty consistent light air conditions) is the high concentration of truly remarkable sailors. I was looking for some advice for our upcoming partnerships and I found myself talking to Vince Brun and David Hughes at North Sails in Point Loma. In regards to how we should handle information sharing with our sparring partners (which would eventually be our competition at the Olympic Games), Vince's advice was simple. In his usual Brazilian accent he said: "You hide, you lose." The most precious resource you have while campaigning is time. It's not money or energy, it's time and thus we must use it as efficiently as possible. It doesn't matter if you're in it for an Olympic Medal or preparing for a National Championship, if you need to fast track your learning curve then one of the best ways doing this is by working together with other teams. The benefits of working with sparring partners are manifold. Apart from having a speed benchmark, you get to share laughs and hard times, channel your competitive spirit on them (instead of yourself or your team mates) and sometimes it's just about sharing a beer with someone else than your skipper. So how do you get the most out of a sparring partnership? Who do you partner with? -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/2dzjucz NEW AGE SAILING Sailing Programs & parents world-wide are discovering something modern & cool to keep the You Tube Generation excited about sailing. Find the kids’ choice at NewAgeVideo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMqtkjALQVg) and see why fleets and events are happening all over. The O’Pen BIC uses new-age design and recyclable materials in a rocket-ship hull and contemporary rig. Just two minutes to rig, completely self-bailing, no maintenance, and less expensive. Capsizing is part of the fun! The bottom line? Kids can’t wait to sail O’pen BICs. Check out http://www.OpenBIC.com and contact info@bicsportna.com for junior program packages. BETTER RESULTS THROUGH PROPER NUTRITION Sports Dietician Bob Seebohar works with the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics and US Sailing Development Team to design unique plans for team members, based on their nutritional and fitness goals, their positions on the boat and their “peak performance” events. During a fitness camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., Seebohar, an elite athlete himself, gave detailed guidance to athletes about how to maximize their nutritional fitness. * How much water should a sailor drink while training and during an event? SEEBOHAR: Hydration is important because even a slight loss of fluid from the body will result in a decrease in performance. The amount of water consumed during training or an event is highly dependent on a sailor's sweat rate and environmental conditions but current research states that ideally, 3-8 ounces be consumed every 15-20 minutes. Pre-hydrating before getting on the water is extremely important, especially for sailors who have competitions lasting longer than 60 minutes and drinking fluids is a challenge while competing. * What are the biggest nutrition myths for athletes? SEEBOHAR: A popular one is that supplements are a necessity for all athletes, all of the time. Supplements should do exactly that: supplement an already well-balance nutrition plan. Additionally, supplements should be periodized throughout the year to support an athlete's training load. Many athletes also think that the same nutrition plan will work throughout the year. The concept of nutrition periodization should be implemented which basically states that nutrition should support the training cycle and different loads that athletes follow throughout the year. There will be times when carbohydrate, protein, fat and water along with micronutrients will need to be higher or lower to support the various training cycles and travel plans. Complete interview: http://sailingteams.ussailing.org/Releases/Sports_Nutrition.htm RECORD ATTENDANCE FOR YOUTH WORLDS There will be a record attendance at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in Istanbul in July. A total of 344 sailors, 251 boats from 63 countries are registered to compete in the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships 2010 which will be held July 8-17, 2010. The event has been held in 23 countries over the past 40 years, but it is the first time Istanbul has hosted the championships. Racing will be held on three different race courses for the eight events, which use four classes of dinghy and one windsurfer. World Champions will be identified for each event for both Boy’s and Girl’s. It will be the first time that the 29er will be used as the Open High Performance Dinghy. Event Categories (Equipment - Category - Attendance total) Laser Radial - One person boy- 56 Laser Radial - One person girl - 51 420 - Two person boy - 35 420 - Two person girl - 28 RS:X - Windsurf boy - 31 RS:X - Windsurf girl - 20 Sirena SL16 - Catamaran (mixed team) - 13 29er - High performance boat (mixed team) - 17 Full report: http://www.sailing.org/32696.php ON THE OLYMPIC TRAIL Following the conclusion of the Semaine Olympique Française on April 30th, the boats have been packed in Hyeres and the Olympic fleet is slowly moving to the Netherlands for its fifth World Cup of this season. The next destination is Medemblik along the Ijsselmeer. A record number of 703 boats have pre-entered the 26th Delta Lloyd Regatta, to be sailed from May 26 until May 30 2010. The biggest class so far is the Laser Standard with 114 competitors, followed by the 470 Men and RSX Men (both 100 entries). In eight out of ten classes, the leaders of the latest ISAF World Ranking are present. In the remaining two, we see Marit Bouwmeester (NED, Laser Radial) and Edward Wright (GBR, Finn) lining up as second best ranked top sailors. The Paralympic 2.4mR class shows up with a record number so far in 2010 (21). Paralympic champion Paul Tingley (CAN) and silver medalist Damien Seguin (FRA) grab their chance to try the venue of the coming IFDS Worlds 2010 in Medemblik. They will have to battle title defender Thierry Schmitter from the Netherlands. -- Event website: http://www.deltalloydregatta.org/ ‘ELAN’ SCORES NINE BULLETS AT AYC SPRING SERIES John Hammel and crew on his Beneteau 36.7 ‘Elan’ won the American Yacht Club Spring Series and brought home the 1888 Trophy for best level performance after scoring nine bullets in the eleven-race series last weekend in Rye, NY. Team ‘Elan’ races with a full North Sails CSD inventory and Hammel credited good crew work and boat speed for their outstanding performance. “I am fortunate to have an excellent crew who have been together for several seasons... Our North Sails inventory was also instrumental for us.” Congratulations also to ‘Arethusa’ and ‘Power Play’ for winning their respective classes. http://na.northsails.com PHOTO GALLERIES * It can be argued that the center of the universe for team racing is West Kirby Sailing Club in the UK, which annually hosts the British Open Team Racing Championship for the Wilson Trophy. Thirty-two teams from across the UK, Ireland and America use the thirty-six equally matched and color-coded Firefly dinghies, have on the water judging from a team of twenty-five international umpires who had collectively travelled more than seventy-thousand miles to attend, live expert commentary on the action and lakeside grandstand seating to cater for the spectators. Photos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/10/0510/ * Demonstrating that chine boats are forever, the Fort Lauderdale Snipe fleet was on the water Saturday with some highly decorated Opti sailors. The regatta was won by 2008 Opti World Champion Raul Rios of Puerto Rico, beating two time Snipe world champion Augie Diaz who sailed with former Opti skipper Scott Ewing. In third was past national champion Ernesto Rodriguez with 2009 Opti North American champ Christopher Williford as his crew. And from the look of the photos, South Florida dished up some sweet weather: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/10/0510a/ OLYMPIC STRATEGY, AMERICA'S CUP AND TRACKING SYSTEMS The Council of the International Sailing Federation has been come together this past weekend for its annual Mid-Year meeting (in Budapest, Hungary), which precedes the Annual Meeting in November and traditionally deals with matters deferred from the previous Annual Meeting on which further information and consideration are required. The key topics under consideration at this Mid-Year Meeting include future Olympic strategy, America's Cup and Tracking systems. Olympic Commission Chairman, Phil Jones (AUS) has made a presentation to the Council on the changes the new Commission believe should be made to the Sailing Olympics. This report is believed to be quite wide ranging and is an attempt to thwart the frantic lobbying process by various interest groups and classes to maintain their place at the Olympic table. That lobbying led to the non-selection of the Multihull event, last November, for the 2012 Olympics - a move which outraged many in the sport, and saw the Sailing Olympics step back from one of the most exciting aspects of the sport which reached its zenith in the 2010 America's Cup, plus round the world speed records. On the agenda for the Events Committee were various submissions from multihull classes, plus the French and USA sailing authorities calling for Multihull Sailing to be set as one of the five disciplines to be contested at an Olympic regatta. It is not yet known if the Events Committee considered these submissions separately or if they were covered off in the Olympic Commission report. Sail-World understands that the full Olympic Commission Report will be published early this week. It is believed to be the real overview of all aspects of the Olympics, Qualifying, and Classes, and will apply for the 2016 Olympics. -- Full report: http://tinyurl.com/24lrfjo SAILING SHORTS * The largest ever Finn Europeans begins this week in Split, Croatia with 110 pre-entries from 28 nations. The high entry is evidence of the growing numbers worldwide. Each nation has set quota for places based on its membership levels, so the high entry is the result of growing membership in many of the member nations. Attending from North America are Lawrence Luke, Bryan Boyd, and Caleb Paine from the USA. Racing begins Tuesday. -- http://jklabud.hr/finn-europeans-2010 * The debut issue of the New Sailboat Review, a new annual publication brought to you by SAIL's award-winning editorial team and published by SAIL, is now available on newsstands. A compilation of boat tests featuring sailboats produced for the 2010 model year, the New Sailboat Review features 31 new production sailboats currently available in the North American market. "This collection of reviews is the only one of its kind, and we think it will be beneficial both for prospective boat-buyers and for those who enjoy reading about the latest sailboats," said SAIL Editor Peter Nielsen. Details: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9791 * The World Sailing Speed Record Council announced the establishment of a benchmark time for a new route from New York to Barcelona. Established by Alex Pella, Pepe Ribes and Stan Schreyer sailing the 60 foot monohull ‘Estrella Damm’ on April 8-21, 2010, the performance certificate for the 3,678 nm distance will be 12 days 6 hours 3 minutes and 48 seconds, an average of 12.51 knots. -- http://tinyurl.com/2djncwb 2010 J/80 WORLDS - SPECIAL FLEET PROGRAM Twelve of the top international J/80 teams, including several J/80 World Champions, will be racing newly built 2011 model J/80s in the J/80 World Championship in Newport, RI October 3-8. Take advantage of this special package program and reserve one now through your local J Dealer. For more information: http://www.jboats.com/j80 LETTERS AND FORUM Please email your comments to the Scuttlebutt editor (aka, ‘The Curmudgeon’). Published letters must include writer's name and be no longer than 250 words (letter might be edited for clarity or simplicity). 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. -- To submit a Letter: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com -- To post on the Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Andrew McIrvine, RORC commodore: In response to Don Finkle's interesting piece on handicapping (Scuttlebutt 3088), as far as I know the PHRF system which handicaps crew performance as well as equipment is pretty unique to North America. Clearly it works but I was surprised when I brought a boat to Fort Lauderdale planning to go on to Key West Race Week that I needed two PHRF certificates. It does seem too parochial but without local knowledge how will you rate the crew as opposed to the boat? The other worry must be that changes in crew will make radical changes in performance with no change in handicap. Over here (in the UK) we only rate boats. Some of the most vitriolic complaints we get about IRC are when a 'famous' owner gets the idea that his rating calculation is personal rather than for the boat. Ultimately all systems are unfair and you cannot please all the people all of the time in all conditions - and if you start from that premise it makes it slightly easier! * From Bill Porter: The ‘P’ in PHRF is for performance of the people as much as the boat. * From John Eilers: Only in golf do they handicap the people; in horse racing they add weight to the horse. We have a cement Pig for a trophy; possibly the winner should be required to sail with it in the boat the next year. * From Chris Welsh, Ragtime: (re, story in Scuttlebutt 3088) I'd like to see how many people throwing criticism at Jessica have covered 5,000 miles, much less 20,000. I've done 20,000+, and I respect anyone doing 20,000+ miles and would be loath to question their accomplishment. * From Ian Duff: (re, story in Scuttlebutt 3088) While Bob Fisher has it all over me in journalistic acumen, he might want to look at the facts, and not be beholden to some artificial sanctioning body, one that doesn't even apply to this superb feat of seamanship. The WSSRC (World Sailing Speed Record Council) no longer awards records for oldest or youngest sailor to achieve one of their courses, so why should Miss Watson bother with their rules? She has circumnavigated our planet, singlehanded, without stops. She has crossed the equator, and every line of longitude. She even did it in a "green" manner, doing so very efficiently, in fewer miles than the WSSRC deems necessary. Her age (or lack) merely makes the feat all the more remarkable. Her story, reported frequently by her online, makes for reading every bit as good as the reporting offered by Mr Fisher. I will be so bold as to suggest to Mr Fisher, please keep up your journalistic excellence, but pay attention to the facts, and not those with perhaps undue influence. => Curmudgeon’s Comment: While the accomplishment of 16 year old Jessica Watson is being universally applauded, her PR team seems to be mudding up the waters. According to a story on the Sail World website, the problem has to do with how her team said they would follow the rules of the World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC) but then haven't (her initial fundraising was based on this premise). Then the PR team later said that they did not care about the WSSRC rules, since the council no longer administers ‘youngest and oldest’ records. However, the PR team still has inflated her distance sailed, and this is the only sticking point. They want to claim that Jessica is beating Jesse Martin’s record of being the youngest to sail non-stop solo around the world, but Jesse was governed by the route and distance requirements of the WSSRC. Jessica is sailing a shorter route than what the WSSRC prescribes, which makes the comparison ‘awkward.’ Arguments like this are probably why the WSSRC was founded. Will the Guinness Book of World Records care about any of these details? Probably not as they will welcome the chance to be the new record authority. Here is the Sail World story: http://tinyurl.com/2g4p4o5 CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION My keyboard needs a removable crumb tray like my toaster. Special thanks to O’Pen BIC, North Sails, and J/Boats. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
