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SCUTTLEBUTT 2998 - Wednesday, December 23, 2009Scuttlebutt 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.sailingscuttlebutt.com/facebook Today’s sponsor is Ullman Sails. BMW ORACLE QUESTIONS ALINGHI’S VALIDITY (December 22, 2009) - America’s Cup challenger BMW Oracle sent a Christmas card to Swiss defender Alinghi on Tuesday. It was not in accordance of the season of goodwill. It asked for assurances that all of the components of the monster Alinghi catamaran had been designed and built in Switzerland, and alleged that its giant sails had been made in the United States, and gave notice that it intended to question the yacht’s validity with an international jury recently nominated by the sport’s world governing body, the International Sailing Federation. The 19th century rules of the event require national purity of a competing yacht, but not of its sailors, and the BMW Oracle team, backed by the San Francisco-based computer software billionaire Larry Ellison, says it has been scrupulous in meeting the rules. The renewed threat, one in a long list of legal moves made by the Americans, comes at a time when the American yacht, a 90-foot trimaran, is due to go through the Panama Canal on its way from its training base in San Diego to the event venue, Valencia, Spain. The Alinghi yacht is due to leave its base in the United Arab Emirate of Ras al Khaimah bound for the Suez Canal Wednesday. It will go to the base from which Alinghi successfully defended the Cup against New Zealand in 2007. The American yacht will go to a base in the commercial harbour, not its base in the America’s Cup marina, as that will make much easier the management of the raising and lowering of a wing mast with a height which exceeds the total wingspan of a Boeing jumbo jet. -- Stuart Alexander, The Independent, read on: http://tinyurl.com/ylgct8j * Statement from the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) issued December 22, 2009: http://tinyurl.com/yzowdqo SANTA DELIVERS ANOTHER SLEIGH RIDE TO HOBART Sydney, Australia (December 22, 2009) - The 65th Rolex Sydney Hobart is shaping up as another uncharacteristically straightforward sleigh ride south for the big boats with the weekend’s forecast nor’easter putting Wild Oats XI on track to finish four hours ahead of its own race record, according to at least one forecast model. “It seems like a long time since we’ve seen what we think of as a typical Rolex Sydney Hobart,” CYCA Commodore and skipper of Ichi Ban, Matt Allen, admitted today. “2004 was the last long slog upwind, which we think is the norm. “RAN, ICAP Leopard and my boat Ichi Ban would like some of that upwind work, because I think we’d sort out some of the other boats on first across the line and handicap. I think it’s going to be a fast, pleasant race,” he surmised. Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Barry Hanstrum this morning delivered the long range race forecast, suggesting some inconsistency in the models with regards to the start at 1pm on Boxing Day, December 26, due to the path of ex-tropical cyclone Laurence’s inland track south east. Following morning showers on Boxing Day, the 100-strong fleet is due to start in either the remnants of the Christmas Day southerly, or they will be greeted at the two start lines north of Shark Island by the beginnings of what is expected to develop into a decent 20-30 knot sea breeze on Sunday - putting the race record of 1 day 18 hours 40 minutes 10 seconds in jeopardy. The lead boat has to cross the finish line off Hobart’s historic Battery Point by 7.40am Monday morning, December 28, to break Wild Oats’ record set in 2005 when the Sydney maxi took the treble of line honours, fastest course time and the overall handicap win. On Monday night, once the front runners are tucked up safely in Hobart, a 20-30 knot westerly change is due in eastern Bass Strait, leading skippers and organisers to speculate that this year’s chase for the coveted Tattersall’s Cup (handicap winner) will be fought amongst those in the small to mid fleet. ICAP Leopard’s skipper Mike Slade, who hinted today this might be his last Rolex Sydney Hobart as an owner, said: “I like what we are seeing now. If we get 25 knots off Gabo island, that’s going to be very quick. We’ve got a big wide surfing boat, well built for that sort of slide. You’d say that a bash, like it looked like we might get yesterday, would favour us, but in your heart of hearts you think, Jesus, that’s not going to be much fun.” -- Read on: http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/news.asp?key=4557 * (December 23, 2009) - There was plenty of unscheduled activity at Woolwich Dock, on Sydney Harbour, around midnight last night when Bob Oatley’s Rolex Sydney-Hobart race record holder, Wild Oats XI, was lifted from the water so repairs could be made to the yacht’s keel. An underwater inspection of the 30.48 metre long supermaxi’s hull yesterday revealed that the streamlined steel fin keel had been damaged when it hooked onto a buoy and line attached to a fish trap off Sydney Heads the previous day. -- Full story: http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/news.asp?key=4560 SCUTTLEBUTT TRIVIA The modern 628 nm Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race has in fact two races to be first across the line? There’s the line honours fight between the maxis for the J H Illingworth Trophy. What is the other race? (Answer below) WISHING YOU A BREEZY HOLIDAY The Ullman Sails group would like to wish you, your family and your crew a very happy and safe holiday season. Whether we’re covered in snow in Sweden or enjoying the summer season in Perth, our sail lofts worldwide continue to offer the best customer service and sails all year long. As you say goodbye to 2009 and look forward to a new year on the water, remember that Ullman Sails offers a variety of services, including inventory evaluations, repairs and the latest in sail technology for both cruisers and racers. Happy Holidays! Invest in your performance. http://www.ullmansails.com BEN AINSLIE RETURNS TO THE FINN Triple Olympic gold and silver medallist Ben Ainslie has braved a cold Weymouth winter to get back into sailing the Finn. On Friday, December 18, Ben wrote in his online blog: "It has been a very cold but very refreshing week in more ways than one as I returned to Finn sailing for the first time since Beijing 2008 at a British Finn squad training camp at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.” "This was the first time I’d even stepped back into a Finn since the Olympics and it has proved to be a really worthwhile week just sailing the boat again and being around the rest of the guys in the squad. I had two main aims going into the week having been concentrating on big boat sailing for the past 18 months. Firstly, I wanted to just reacquaint myself with the Finn and get used to sailing a dinghy again and secondly I wanted to move the technical side forward as well as checking in with where the other guys were at in terms of fitness. "The guys in the Finn squad have obviously been working really hard on their racing since I last trained with them before the Olympics. They have just come off the back of a two month break so they were also a little rusty although not as rusty as me!” -- Read on: http://www.cowes.co.uk/zonexml/story?story_id=7989;cp=0-163-29 2009 ORANGE BOWL YOUTH REGATTA STARTS DEC 27 Another impressive turnout rate is expected for this year’s USA Junior Olympic (JO) Sailing season finale in Miami, Fla. The 33rd annual Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta, hosted collaboratively by the US Sailing Center (Miami, Fla.), Coral Reef Yacht Club, Biscayne Bay Yacht Club, and Lauderdale Yacht Club, takes place on December 27-30. Over 700 junior sailors from 20 countries, as well as 28 US states and territories will convene for the Orange Bowl Regatta, the largest youth sailing regatta in the country. Registration for this event closes on Tuesday, December 15. To register now, visit the event website at http://www.coralreefyachtclub.org/index.cfm?menu=7560. Junior Olympic Sailing events are a cooperative program of US SAILING and the US Olympic Committee with the purpose of broadening the base of youth sailing in the United States. The event is the largest of 25 USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festivals. The regatta includes four days of competition on Biscayne Bay, featuring fleet racing on four courses for Club 420, International 420, Laser, Laser Radial, Laser 4.7 and Optimist classes. Over 130 generous volunteers will be on-site contributing to this event. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/y9uxqqm FROM SAILOR TO SHOOTER Dramatic photographs, taken from the edges of racing yachts in rough seas or from the outsides of helicopters, have won international acclaim for Onne van der Wal, who grew up in Cape Town’s Hout Bay. His work has been displayed in calendars, magazines and in galleries around the world. It all began with a chance encounter with a group of suit-wearing men in a rowing boat. He explains: “I had done a fitting and turning apprentice in the Epping, in Cape Town. But I wanted to make a living out of sailing. So in 1978 I travelled overseas to find work on yachts. I had the engineering qualification in my back pocket - I could fix pumps and engines and hydraulics - and that got me some lekker rides. All the boats wanted me aboard. That’s how I got into serious sailing. Photography was my hobby.” In 1981, Van der Wal made his break into the photography world. “I was working on a yacht that was anchored in Boston,” he recalls. “Suddenly this rowing boat arrived full of men in suits. They wanted to see the yacht. I said, “Who the hell are you?” “They said, We’re the publishers of Sail Magazine.” Van der Wal took the men aboard and showed them around the yacht. And seized his chance. “After their visit I said, hey, would you take a moment and look at my photographs”. I had a bunch of slides in sleeves. The men held them up to the light and said, “Wow, this is pretty cool stuff. Can we hang onto this and give it to you tomorrow?” The magazine’s publisher called back the next day and invited Van der Wal to shoot exclusively for them in the Whitbread Round the World yacht race that was to start in a few months. The yacht Van der Wal was sailing on, Flyer, went on to win the round-the-world race. By the time the race ended in 1982, Van der Wal’s photographs were in demand around the world. “The papers in the UK bought them and Sail Magazine had been running them every time we hit a port,” he says. “They were my first commercial sales.” -- Read on: http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1093409 SAILING FASTER THAN THE WIND If and when the 33rd America’s Cup occurs, and assuming there is an organized effort to capture this multihull competition on video, the phenomena of how boat speed versus wind speed will be a highlight. On the topic, the BMW Oracle Racing team’s design director Mike Drummond confirmed two things: - Yachts can't outrun the wind if it's behind them. As common sense suggests, they can go no faster than the wind can push them. - When yachts sail at a 45-degree angle into the wind, they can in fact go faster than the breeze that powers them. Drummond offers two reasons for this: "less turbulence due to a better angle to the wind; and the oncoming air is faster due to the forward speed of the yacht combining with the wind." Sound like doubletalk? It's not. A sail is an airfoil, like an airplane’s wing. Hold a slip of paper to your lips horizontally and blow over the top - it rises, like a wing. Now hold the paper vertically and blow to one side. It pulls to that side, like a sail - and the harder you blow, the more it pulls. Now think about a sailboat in the water. The relative speed of the wind past the sail is a function of two things: first, the absolute speed of the wind (that is, relative to the ground) plus the speed of the boat moving forward. In short, the airfoil combined with the boat's mobility acts as a multiplier. You can think of a boat sailing upwind as being in overdrive. Strictly as a matter of aerodynamics, there's no reason a close-hauled boat (one heading upwind with its sails trimmed tight) can't outrace the wind. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/ydv84zv HAPPY HOLIDAYS Among the holiday traditions at Scuttlebutt World Headquarters is that we turn off the lights, lock the doors, and leave the office to spend time with family and friends. Yes, that also means no Scuttlebutt for you, but we’ll be back in 2010 with some new plans on how to provide you your sailing news, and a great group of advertisers that will allow us to do it. To all the Scuttlebutt readers, contributors, and sponsors, thank you for another great year. Best wishes during the holidays from the Scuttlebutt team - look for the newsletter to return January 4, 2010. TRIVIA ANSWER For the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, there is no handicap ratings needed when it comes to line honours. The first yacht across the line will be honored, but that is not the only part of the race that is simply judged. About three days later, the one design Sydney 38s arrive with identical ratings, and they too are fighting form line honors amongst themselves. -- Full story: http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/news.asp?key=4553 SAILING SHORTS * From January 1, 2010, the new edition of the ISAF Offshore Special Regulations 2010-11 comes into effect along with amendments to The Racing Rules of Sailing for 2009-2012, and the 2010 Prohibited List of the World Anti-Doping Code. The latest and archive editions of all documents and rules relating to the International Sailing Federation and sailors worldwide can be found under the ISAF Documents and Rules microsite at http://www.sailing.org/docs * The 2010 CST Composites International 14 World Championship kicks off on Sydney Harbor in Australia January 3-11, with team racing beginning on December 28. As of December 14, there were 103 registered entries for the CST Composites International 14 Worlds: 45 from Australia, 8 from Canada, 10 from Germany, 25 from the UK, 3 from Japan and 12 from the US. The high number of entries means that for safety and race management reasons the regatta format will comprise a qualifying series then a final series sailed in Gold and Silver fleets. -- Event website: http://www.i14worlds.com * Swan 70 Stay Calm owned by Stuart Robinson, and Swan 48 Amoress 2 owned by Mats Gustafsson, have victoriously finished the 2,700 nautical mile race from Las Palmas to St Lucia and won the 2009 Swan Transatlantic Challenge in a tie. Both Stay Calm and Amoress 2 won their classes, which produced the tie between both yachts in the Swan Transatlantic Challenge. Swan 40 Marinara, raced by owner Edward Dolman claimed a proud second with Graham Deegan’s Swan 48 Akarana taking third place. -- Read on: http://www.nautorswan.com/Company/NewsMedia/News/tabid/96/Default.aspx * The local council in Saint Barthélémy, the Tourist board and the Saint Barth Yacht Club are setting up a new sailing event in the Caribbean April 6-11, 2010, which will be open to Classic and modern yachts, Super Yachts, Racing-Cruisers, as well as Racing Multihulls. Using the know-how that is recognised with such varied races as the Transat AG2R, the Route du Rosé and the St-Barth Bucket Regatta, Saint Barth is organising a week of racing in the best spirit of the sport with the finest yachts that can be found in this part of the world. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/y9s2e2q * The National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) announced the acquisition of the New England Boat Show from North America Expositions Company as part of a larger strategic repositioning of its boat show portfolio. The purchase of the New England Boat Show confirms NMMA’s belief in the long term value of boat shows and its stance that shows in large, populated boating markets are most viable and will remain a successful and important part of the boating industry. -- Full story: http://www.nmma.org/news/news.asp?id=17760&sid=3 * CORRECTION (re Scuttlebutt 2997): The design of the STP65 Rosebud/Team DYT was incorrectly attributed to Reichel/Pugh. It is a Farr design. 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 Michael B. Duffy, Shelter Bay, WA (re, Scuttlebutt 2997) It is hard to imagine anyone in the NW publishing business who has passionately promoted sailing more than Richard Hazelton. He not only devotes 48 Degrees North to sailing, but also he gets wet with the rest of us. I am not surprised that Rich has reflected with distress on his concerns about Dirk Kramers comment: "Right now if you go racing in your 37 footer you need to round up maybe eight of your buddies. If you could get that down to two or three that’s a worthy goal.” I wonder if Mr. Kramers was thinking aloud not about diminishing sailing, but addressing those skippers who unfortunately remain dockside because of the challenge, expense and logistics of recruiting a larger crew. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION You know you’re a redneck when your grandmother has "ammo" on her Christmas list. Special thanks to Ullman Sails. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
