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SCUTTLEBUTT 2399 - July 30, 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 the support of its sponsors. COMMENTARY Miami is one of the best sailing venues in the world. Surrounded by the warm waters of Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, Miami hosts regattas that attract many of the world’s top sailors at least once during North America’s winter months. Many great US sailors call Miami and Florida home, for at least part of the year. Why is it that there is rarely a mention of sailing in the sports pages of the Miami Herald? Miami local, Augie Diaz, is fighting it out with the leaders in the Snipe fleet of the Pan Am Games. Paige Railey of Clearwater, Nancy Rios of Cocoa Beach Ben Barger of Tampa are in the top five in the Laser Radial and RS:X fleets at the Pan Am Games. Bill Mauk of Miami has just won the Lightning Masters and is leading the World Championship in Greece. Sarah Lihan and Luke Lawrence of Fort Lauderdale and Palm City are racing in the US Singlehanded Championships. All sorts of Opti kids, moms and dads are at the USODA Nationals on Lake Minnetonka and what sailing news gets reported in the local newspaper? Nothing. No box scores. No pretty pictures. The only mention of sailing has to do with the Coconut Grove Waterfront Master Plan, which every visitor to Miami during the winter should take note of. It’s rare that sailing news makes the local, regional, national or international sports pages. All of these great national and international competitions and interesting personalities and what does the general public see? The 'Battle of the Billionaires' is what the New York Times printed this Wednesday. With all of these wonderful regattas, clinics and rendezvous taking place all over the world, why does Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli’s tiff make headlines in the back page of the sports section? Every sailor should help the sport generate better publicity. Regatta organizers should get your websites up; develop press releases leading up to regattas and post stories, regatta recaps and scores as soon as they are available. -- Lynn Fitzpatrick Sail-World USA, http://www.sail-world.com QUOTE / UNQUOTE “If justice is on your side, then argue justice. If the truth is on your side, then argue the truth. If you have neither, then argue the law. Lord knows how many time I have quoted that and now, it seems, that, unfortunately, the minutiae of legal interpretation will determine not necessarily the format of the next America’s Cup but the power struggle between two rich and stubborn men.” -- Stuart Alexander, Full story: http://stuartalexander.wordpress.com/2007/07/28/mlearned-friends-are-squ aring-up/ CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar TRANSPAC HONOLULU---A Pyewacket crew posed with its third Barn Door in the last six Transpacific Yacht Races to Hawaii, and Transpac Commodore Al Garnier handed the King Kalakaua perpetual and Governor of Hawaii take-home trophies to his brother Tom, skipper of Reinrag2, the overall winner on handicap time, but Friday night's awards affair was not the total tale of the 44th Transpac by far. Even as the hardware and native Hawaiian-carved prizes were distributed, four of the 73 starters were still racing, five others had retired and two---a very thirsty Locomotion and a battered but upbeat Traveler---had just blown in, bringing relief to friends and family that they had made it at all. Several veteran navigators agreed it was the weirdest Transpac for wind conditions in memory, not the usual pick-the-best-southern-route-under-the-Pacific High, hook-up-the-chute-and-fly drill, but a frantic search for breeze through a maze of pockets of light or little wind. John Jourdane, the ocean racing author who sailed on Bob Lane's Medicine Man from Long Beach, said, "I've done 25 Pacific crossings and this was the most unusual." In general, the various types of boats took two more days to sail the 2,225 nautical miles than they normally would. -- Rich Roberts Division winners: Division 1 - Magnitude 80 (Andrews 80), Doug Baker; Division 2 - Samba Pa Ti (Transpac 52), John Kilroy Jr.; Division 3 - Denali (Nelson/Marek 70), William McKinley; Division 4 - Reinrag2 (J/125), Tom Garnier; Division 50/52 - Kokopelli 2 (Santa Cruz 52), S.A. (Chip) Megeath; Division 5 - Rancho Deluxe (Swan 45), Mike Diepenbrock; Aloha A - Between the Sheets (Jeanneau 52), Ross Pearlman; Aloha B - 1. Cirrus (Standfast 40), William D. Myers; Multihull - LoeReal (Jeanneau 60 trimaran). Complete results: http://www.transpacificyc.org/ YOUTH EVENTS ARE NOW FREE Clubs running youth races can now benefit from a recently announced youth sponsorship from Compete-At. For any youth event, Compete-At offers its’ Regatta Manager online software free of charge and waives all additional fees. Clubs need only to cover the cost of the online credit card transactions. Regatta Manager offers a powerful web-based tool to manage races, accept entry fees, send notifications, and much more. If you’ve never managed a race online, a youth event is a great way to start. For more information, visit http://www.compete-at.com XV PAN AMERICAN GAMES Rio de Janeiro, Brazil --Saturday was final day of racing for the 2007 Pan American Games. The exciting medal race had to wait past the scheduled 12:00 start time as Rio continued to provide very little wind. When the wind eventually did fill in, it brought rain and dramatic 180 degree shifts. The cut-off time of 4:00 was quickly approaching and it looked like the medal race was just not going to happen. However, at about 3:15 the wind started to steady in a 10-14 knots west-south-west direction. All of a sudden, racing was going to happen on the two medal race courses! -- http://www.sailing.ca/news/headline.asp?numNewsID=1354 FINAL RESULTS: Laser Radial: 1. Paige Railey, USA, 25; 2. Tania Elias Calles Wolf, Mexico, 25; 3. Cecilia Carranza Saroli,Argentina, 43. Laser: 1. Andrew Campbell, USA, 18pts; 2. Robert Scheidt, Brazil, 19pts; 3. 3. Julio Alsogaray, Argentina, 27pts. Lightning: 1. Alberto Gonzalez, Diego Gonzalez, Cristian Herman, Chile, 14pts; 2. David Starck, Bill Faude, Jody Starck, USA, 19pts; 3. Claudio Biekarck, Gunnar Ficker, Silva Marcelo, Brazil, 19pts. J/24: 1. Carlos Jordao, Mauricio Oliveria, Daniel Santiago, Alexandre Silva, Brazil, 18pts; 2. Joaquin Argerich, Gustavo Gonzalez, Sebastian Brusa, Alejo Rigoni, Argentina, 21pts; 3. Mark Goodyear, Rossi Milev, Erwyn Naidoo, Mike Wolfs, Canada, 22pts. RS:X Women: 1. Dominique Vallee, Canada, 14pts; 2. Patricia Castro, Brazil, 3. Florencia Gutierrez, Argentina, 29pts. RS:X Men: 1. Ricardo Winicki, Brazil, 16pts; 2. Mariano Reutemann, Argentina, 23pts; 3. David Mier Y Teran, Mexico, 26pts. Sunfish: 1. Eduardo Cordero, Venezuela, 2. Alexander Zimmermann, Peru, 23pts; 3. Paul Foerster, USA, 25pts. Hobie Cat 16: 1. Juan Ignacio Maegli, Cristina Guirola, Guatemala, 15pts; 2. Gonzalo Cendra, Yamil Saba, Venezuela, 17pts; 3. Enrique Fifuero Suarez, Carla Malatrasi, Alegria, 20pts; 4. Bob Merrick, Eliza Cleveland, USA, 22pts. Snipe: 1. Pedro Amaral, Alexandre Paradeda, Brazil, 14pts; 2. Pablo Defazio, Eduardo Medici Uruguay, 18pts; 3. Jorge Xavier Murrieta, Andres Akle Carranza, Mexico, 26pts; 4. Augie Diaz, Tracy Nan Smith, USA, 29pts. -- Complete results: http://www.rio2007.org.br/data/pages/8CA3C78713B9BC7F0113BA4693F13C69.ht m LIFTING THE SALARY BAR Russell Coutts is reputedly on ˆ10 million (NZ$17m) over the next two years to head up BMW Oracle's America's Cup campaign. Apart from the legal manoeuvres currently embroiling plans for the 33rd America's Cup, the appointment of Coutts and Alinghi's re-appointment of another New Zealander, Brad Butterworth, seem likely to have lifted the Cup salary bar considerably. Former Oracle chief executive and skipper Chris Dickson - yet another Kiwi - was said to have been on NZ$6m a year before he departed during the last campaign. Butterworth, meanwhile, was thought to be on $5m for the last Cup campaign but his bargaining position will have been hugely improved given Alinghi's win in Valencia earlier this month, and the hiring of his old comrade, Coutts, by Oracle. -- Paul Lewis, NZ Herald, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/4/story.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10454462 WORLD TOUR - TROIA PORTUGAL MATCH CUP Troia, Portugal - The Troia Portugal Match Cup, Round 9 of the 2006/7 World Match Racing Tour, experienced an Australian master class today, in the shape of Peter Gilmour and his reunited PST team, as they blew away the young British pretender to the throne, Ian Williams of Team Pindar, 3-0. Third place in Portugal went to Gavin Brady of BMW Oracle racing, who defeated Sebastien Col of Areva Challenge, 2-1 in the Petite Final. 1. Peter Gilmour (AUS), PST, 14-3, $50,000 2. Ian Williams (GBR), 10-7, Team Pindar, $30,000 3. Gavin Brady (NZL), BMW Oracle Racing, 12-4, $20,000 4. Sebastien Col (FRA), Areva Challenge, 10-8, $15,000 5. Mathieu Richard (FRA), Saba Sailing Team, 6-5, $11,000 6. Paolo CIan (ITA), Shosholoza, 7-9, $9,000 7. Philippe Presti (FRA), Luna Rossa, 6-6, $8,000 8. Alvaro Marinho (POR), Seth.pt, $7,000 9. Staffan Lindberg (FIN), Alandia Sailing Team 10. Eugeny Neugodnikov (RUS), Lord of the Sail Team 11. Bjorn Hansen (SWE), Team Apport.net 12. Sally Barkow (USA) The World Match Racing Tour now moves to Denmark for the Danish Open, to be held August 9-12 in Copenhagen. -- http://www.worldmatchracingtour.com/default.asp?m=da&id=58150 PYEWACKET USES SAMSON TO CAPTURE ANOTHER BARN DOOR Pyewacket, the 94-foot Turbo Sled co-skippered by Roy Pat Disney and Gregg Hedrick, was first to finish capturing the "Barn Door" in the 44th Trans Pacific Yacht Race. They finished on July 22 at 11:11:56, placing 2nd overall in Division I after corrected handicap times. To harness Pyewacket's massive new sail plan, crew member and rigger Scott Easom outfitted the boat primarily with Samson's AS-78, a Dyneema (R) SK-78 braided 12-strand, along with Samson Ice chafe cover. Other Samson lines used were WarpSpeed and Validator II. Learn more about Samson's competition grade running rigging at http://www.samsonrope.com LIGHTNING WORLDS USA sailors took eight of the top ten places at the 48-boat Lightning World Championships in Piraeus, Greece -- a regatta where OCS boats were hailed by VHF radio: 1. USA, Terhune A. Jr Terhune K. Perkowski D. 6 (17) 8 3 1 3 38 - 21pts. 2. USA, Linton J. Linton A. S. Tihansky J. 5 (7) 6 6 6 1 31 - 24pts. 3. CHI, Herman P. Herman L. F. Engell C. 9 (29) 10 2 4 2 56 - 27pts. 4. USA, Davis S. Hayes B. Jeffers L. (26) 9 2 16 2 7 62 - 36pts. 5. USA, Fisher M. Doug N. Drake J. 7 5 9 (19) 7 10 57 - 38pts. Event website: http://www.lightning2007.gr SAILING SHORTS * Pennsylvania sailor Kyle Rogachenko (Collegeville, Pa. -- 25pts.) was one of few sailors who could hold a steady place on the leader board at the U.S. Singlehanded Championship, hosted July 24-28 by the Corinthian Yacht Club in Cape May (N.J.). Clayton Johnson of Tom's River (N.J. -- 27pts.) captured second place and West Coast sailor Charlie Buckingham (Newport Beach, Calif. -- 32 pts.), who won the opening race of the regatta, finished in third. Winds were light, not one skipper in the 23-boat fleet could easily log a string of bullets, and first-place finishes ran as deep as the 13th-place boat. -- http://www.ussailing.org/championships/adult/ussc * 187 boats competed in 12 classes at the 2007 Sperry Top-Sider National Offshore One Design (NOOD) Regatta at the Boston Yacht Club in Marblehead. After four days of intense sailing, an overall winner has been declared and Jonathan Cressy of Rancho Santa Margarita, CA has captured the top spot with his Rhodes 19 The Opera Ain’t Over Till The. Cressy received a trip to Sunsail in the British Virgin Islands to compete against the winners from each of the additional eight stops on the Sperry Top-Sider NOOD Regatta series. -- http://www.sailingworld.com. * Who stole summer? That’s a question many sailors cruising in British have been asking for weeks. In fact the problem had grown so severe that there was even a movement to get Al Gore to accelerate his schedule for the implementation of Global Warming. To find out what was really going on, the Curmudgeon went up to the B.C. Sunshine Coast, and Desolation Sound to cruise the area for a week and personally investigate this situation. To read the Curmudgeon’s firsthand report: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/0727/ * Only four races could be completed for the 304 entrants at the US Optimist Dinghy Association (USODA) National Championships at Minnetonka Yacht Club in Deephaven, MN. Preliminary Standings: 1. Ian Stokes, 16pts; 2. Nicolas Clemence,, 21pts; 3. Luke Muller, 25pts; 4. Reed Baldridge, 26pts; 5. Declan Whitmyer, 26pts; 6. Drake Lyon, 26pts; 7. Andrew Mollerus, 28pts; 8 Alex Jacob, 29pts; 9. Antoine Screve, 32pts; 10. Evan Read, 32pts. -- http://www.2007optinationals.com/ * In Leba, Poland, Nick Craig (GBR) won his third consecutive OK Dinghy World Championship -- besting second place Mark Perrow (NZL) by 16 points in the 121-boat championship. Karl Purdie (NZL) took third place -- tying Perrow on points but losing the tie-breaker. Craig is only the second person in the 50 year history of the class to win the title three years in a row. From 1991-1993, Bo Staffan Anderson (SWE) won three of his four world titles. Craig is now in a position to rewrite history at the world championships next year in Warnemunde, Germany. -- http://www.okdworlds2007.com MERLIN ===> BILL LEE 68, LIKE NEW, ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL Over the last 5 years, this classic racer has been completely rebuilt with no expense spared. She has a new carbon mast, new paint, new sails, new winches, new engine, and new everything. There is a canting keel with a daggerboard for extra power. Very ready to go. $295,000. http://www.fastisfun.com/listings/Merlin/index.html EIGHT BELLS Chris Law passed away at Lake Constance, Germany on Tuesday 24 July 2007 aged 55. Chris began his extraordinary sailing career at Lymington racing cadets with his brother Tim. His outstanding talent rapidly propelled him onto the International scene where he won the Finn Gold Cup, represented his country at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984 in the Soling before moving on to a new challenge in the form of match racing and the America's Cup. Chris was a much loved son, father, grandfather, friend and member of international sailing fraternity and will be deeply missed by all. Memorial service details will be released in due course. * From Tim Law, Chris Law's younger brother and the Law family: In this time of shock, grief and tremendous loss of a brother, son, father and grandfather, the Law family wishes to thank the worldwide sailing community and readers of Scuttlebutt. Your messages of condolence, your remembrances, your support and recognition have provided the entire family with a sense of positive perspective in this extremely difficult period. 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 Rodger Martin: Alan Gurney's clean, undistorted "Windward Passage," in an era of IOR and Twelve metre 'distortants' was a strong influence on the Open Class designs for me and, perhaps, others. He is a design hero in my book. * From Ted Jones (Re: Windward Passage's keel): In addition to being aboard when Passage set the Montego Bay race record, which stood for 30-some years, I was privileged to watch the design of Windward Passage take shape on Alan Gurney's drafting table during many visits to his NYC office. The original keel would stand scrutiny by modern standards and was nothing like the keel recently removed which is clearly a "cruising" keel to reduce draft. The 3-blade prop apparently is another concession to cruising. (Original auxiliary power was provided by a small diesel driving a hydraulic pump; the prop and hydraulic motor retracted into the hull into a flooded well to eliminate prop drag.) Passage's original keel weighed 33,000 pounds and was poured on the beach in the Bahamas, where the boat was being built. After melting and pouring much more than the specified 33,000 pounds of lead into the mold, owner Bob Johnson called the designer in New York to report something terribly wrong -- fearing a miscalculation of the keel volume. There was no miscalculation, the mold had split on the bottom and molten lead was leaking into the sand. The whole mess had to be dug up, a new mold made, and the lead re-melted and re-poured -- this time on target at 33,000 pounds. I find it curious that none of the subsequent owners sought Gurney's opinion regarding new keels and rudders which didn't seem to me to provide significant improvements -- the one recently removed was clearly a dis-improvement. * From Brett Phillips, Kaneohe Yacht Club, Hawaii: I keep reading about how amazing this (America’s Cup) regatta has been. Personally, I think it has been boring. I remember the 12 meter days when there would be 30+ tacks between the leeward mark and the finish, in the IACC boats were lucky if we see 5 or 6! These boats are so long and skinny, with short chord keels they can't tack too often or they end up going sideways. It is unfortunate that the America's Cup has become a drag race of money and boat speed and lost the dog fight that made it so exciting. * From Roger Watkiss: Let's not give Larry Ellison more credit than he is due in this latest AC soap opera. If the GGYC challenge had been for two years hence, and based on the existing ACC Rule rather than some 90 x 90 x 20 cat or tri, then he might have some credibility. This is simply a battle of big egos with guys who want to control the rules in their own self-interest. This has nothing to do with sportsmanship (or patriotism). Someone should have taken a leadership role and organized a subset of the Challenger teams from this edition to respond to Bertarelli's contrived "defender" and non-protocol rather than respond with an equally contrived challenge. If Americans think this is a way to get back into a Cup that has been hi-jacked by eurocrats, then they should consider that the French have a significant experience advantage in developing and racing big multi-hulls. Also, most Challengers are forced to adopt a true team approach by sponsorship constraints. Contrast that approach with the flawed organizational dynamic displayed last time by BMW Oracle Racing. Russell Coutts…think twice before aligning yourself with that "team". * From Richard Clark: (regarding comments by Brad Butterworth in Issue 2397) What a jerk, really makes me use my US rather than my NZ passport more often. I guess he is fast becoming the 'New' Ted Turner, Mouth of the South is very apt. Brad, please, do what you do best, get to the back of the boat, the blunt bit, purlease. * From Gregory Scott: In reading Butterworth's comments, it brings forward questions that would be fun to get an answer to! What was the budget advantage issue ... was it the two boats - no two boat testing? Alinghi had to know as they left Auckland, they had the best crew and the fastest boats. The advantage they had developed was a hard gap to close without two boat testing. So, as Challenger of Record, was Ellison trying to drive others away or trying to give himself the best shot at catching Alinghi? He knew what was good for him would also help the other teams. So how did he gain by a big budget? On balance, if he had lost the supposed question - no two boat testing - Alinghi in my opinion would have won in a romp. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. (Mark Twain) Special thanks to Compete-At, Samson Rope Technologies, and Wizard Yachts Ltd. |
