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SCUTTLEBUTT 2904 - Monday, August 10, 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. Twitter updates: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Today's sponsors are APS, Quantum Sails, and J Boats. GEORGE SZABO AND RICK PETERS WIN STAR WORLDS Varberg, Sweden (August 8, 2009; Day 7) - It was quite a comeback for Americans George Szabo and Rick Peters, who, after finishing 54th out of 86 boats in the first race, climbed their way to the top to become the 2009 Star World Champions. “Back on the dock after that first race, we joked that we could still win the regatta,” said Szabo. “But we just wanted to finish in the top ten.” Szabo and Peters hadn’t finished in the top ten since their first World Championship together in 1994 when they finished seventh. “We just kept plugging away,” he said. When light winds forced the abandonment of the final race on Friday, better winds prevailed on Saturday for the finale, which saw Szabo/Peters tied with Flavio Marazzi/ Enrico De Maria (SUI) in second, one point behind 2006 World Champ Hamish Pepper and Craig Monk (NZL), and only two points ahead of 2-Time Worlds winner Fredrik Loof and Johan Tillander (SWE). When Szabo/Peters rounded the first weather mark in 6th position and noted that all their closest competitors were deep, they merely had to keep it together until the finish. “It’s exciting,” he said. “It’s a real treat to be on that trophy with the names of other World Champions, like [Sweden’s Fredrik] Lööf, [USA’s Mark] Reynolds and [USA’s] Magnus Liljedahl.” Reynolds and Liljedahl won the Star World Championship nine years ago in 2000, and an American has not won the title since. The last time an American medaled was in 2001 when Vince Brun and Mike Dorgan finished third. Final Results - Top 10 of 86 1. USA, George Szabo/ Rick Peters, (54)-1-3-20-3-3, 30 2. NZL, Hamish Pepper/ Craig Monk, 11-9-1-11-5-(25), 37 3. BRA, Lars Schmidt Grael/ Ronald Seifert, (30)-6-14-14-12-1, 47 4. GER, Alexander Schlonski/ Frithjof Kleen, 9-17-11-5-(32)-5, 47 5. USA, Andrew Campbell/ Magnus Liljedahl, 14-14-4-8-8-(37), 48 6. SWE, Fredrik Loof/ Johan Tillander, 2-5-15-23-7-(54), 52 7. POL, Mateusz Kusznierewicz/ Dominik Zycki, 1-12-(50)-18-6-21, 58 8. SUI, Flavio Marazzi/ Enrico De Maria, 3-3-(35)-1-20-35, 62 9. ARG, Alejo Rigoni/ Juan Pablo Percossi, 16-16-(38)-15-16-2, 65 10. GER, Johannes Polgar/ Tim Kroeger, (31)-22-7-4-2-31, 66 Results: http://www.starclass.org/search.cgi?Action=view&Event_id=1654 Photos from Oskar Kihlborg and Jürg Kaufmann: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/09/0807a KITEBOARD COURSE RACING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP By Kimball Livingston Mike Farley saw a lot of racing in the IOR generation of Maxis, then came his last big gig in sailboat racing as project manager for Alaska Eagle in the 1981 Whitbread race around the world. His gift to the next generation of sailing was way-doggies different. Sean Farley, the newly-crowned world champion of kite racing, recalls events this way: “My dad saw people kiting in the early days in Southern California, and he picked up a magazine—it was probably the second edition of a kitesailing magazine ever put out—and he brought it down to Mexico, to Colima. That’s where I was born. That’s where I live. And Dad said, “Son, I think you ought to try this.” Oookay. “We got on the internet and found some gear,” Sean Farley said, “then my best friend and I just, well, figured out how to do it. We didn’t have a clue.” Oookay again, similar to most of the sailing world when it comes to kiting. Kites became an ISAF class only last year, and if you haven’t been up close it’s impossible to imagine how it paints sillygrins on spectators. If you think sailing is going to remain in the Olympics, and it is, and if you think kites aren’t part of that future, take two Reality Pills and call me when you wake up. -- Read on: http://kimballlivingston.com/?p=109 Photos and scores: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/09/0807b/ SERVES YOU RIGHT No inventory, no problem? No expertise, no problem? With a few clicks of a mouse anyone can open a sailing store these days. But, at APS we don’t think it works that way. That’s why not only do we stock the widest selection of performance sailing clothing, line, and hardware in the world but we’ve assembled the most experienced and knowledgeable staff in the industry. Whether assembling crew gear for your team or help with last minute rigging or hardware for your boat APS, “The World Leader in Outfitting Performance Sailors”, is the place that will serve you right. -- http://www.apsltd.com MCLUBE INTERNATIONAL MOTH U.S. NATIONALS (August 7, 2009) - Competitors in the 2009 Harken International Moth US National Championship were done racing and off the water by 1:30pm today, and with the Worlds starting Monday, they were eager to either fix or prevent further breakages after a windy, shifty seven-race series sailed at Cascade Locks, Oregon (USA), over the past two days. The Australian contingent flanked the top of the fleet, with Nathan Outterridge (AUS) taking first place, with 14 points; Bora Gulari (USA), second with 17 points; Scott Babbage (AUS) third with 25 points; Arnaud Psarofaghis (SUI), fourth with 33 points; Rohan Veal (AUS), fifth with 37 points, and Rob Gough (AUS) in 6th with 40 points. Full story: http://www.mothworlds2009.org/?q=node/11 Results: http://www.mothworlds2009.org/2009_US_Nats.html Photos: http://www.pacificfog.net/photographs/09-08-07-web (August 8, 2009) - American Bora Gulari had his eyes on the cash prizes today as he won both the Velocitek Speed Challenge (25.3 knots) and the North Sails Dash for Cash slalom event. -- Details: http://www.mothworlds2009.org/?q=node/32 WILLIFORD WELL PLACED AT OPTIMIST WORLDS After 5 of the scheduled 15 races at the Optimist Worlds in Brasil, Christopher Williford (Fort Lauderdale, FL) is well placed in 5th position. Scoring 4/23/9/2/2 so far, a few good results and discarding that 23 after race 6 could see him challenging for the medals. Winds to date have been light and Malaysia has had by far the best results so far, leading the event and with four sailors in the top 12. The top North American by residence is Antoine Lefort of Guadeloupe sailing for France currently in 2nd. but otherwise the next best placed is Hector Guzman (MEX) in 20th. Christopher is the reigning North American champion but recently lost his USA National title. Perhaps surprisingly the USA has not won a medal at the Optimist Worlds since 1970, though US citizens from Puerto Rico and USVI took gold and silver last year. Otherwise the best result was later Olympian Mark Mendelblatt who twice came 4th. Just maybe Christopher can break the mould. 211 sailors from 47 countries are contesting the event. Following racing on Friday and Saturday, fleet racing will resume on Tuesday or Wednesday following the World Team Racing Championship and a possible spare day. -- Results: http://www.cncharitas.com.br/results_opt.html THIS IS DIFFERENT The ‘Around Australia Ocean Race' incorporates nine principal start/finish ports around the coastline of Australia from which entered teams may elect as their start/finish port. The first port to be used is in Fremantle, where the event will commence in late June 2011, and begin the multi-leg course to each of the principal start/finish ports. As participants in the race reach each port ahead they are joined by participants starting from that port. The fleet soon swells as it rounds Australia, and when the fleet arrives in Fremantle in late September, the boats that began there will have completed their circumnavigation and will have established the benchmark overall divisions' handicap times and line honours times for the race around Australia. As the remainder of the fleet leave Fremantle and race port-to-port, yachts reaching their home port will complete their circumnavigation and record their times. The overall winner may not be known until the last boats to join the race fleet - that may be Townsville or Darwin - have arrived at their home port in November 2011. -- Event website: http://sailaroundaustralia.com.au QUANTUM IS TURNING HEADS… OH, AND WINNING RACES! Congratulations to Jim Richardson and Barking Mad who after switching to Quantum Sails dominated the Rolex Farr 40 World Championships. Quantum Sails also dominated the J/80 Worlds as Rayco Tabares used his Quantum inventory to race past 131 other boats to the World Championship. In fact, Quantum Sails captured 5 of the top 10 places in Santander, Spain. Quantum Sails garnered multiple trophies at the Sail Newport Regatta with 1st place victories in the NYYC Swan 42 (Malcom Gefter, Celeritas); the Melges 24 (Scott Nixon, Quantum Racing); the J/24 (Tim Healy, Pop Rocks). Discover your winning ways at http://www.quantumsails.com * LATE BREAKING NEWS: Quantum Sails wins the 2009 Star Worlds too. SAILING SHORTS * The 2009 Laser Standard, Radial and 4.7 US Championship was held August 7-9 in Brant Beach, New Jersey with 271 sailors hosted by the Brant Beach Yacht Club. Dominating the 103-boat full rig division was Clay Johnson, whose top 7 scores allowed him to sit out the final race to win. Christopher Stocke had a closer contest in the 142-boat Radial fleet, but maintaining all his keeper races in the top ten proved decisive. Another dominating performance was in the 26-boat 4.7 division, where Alec Ruiz-Ramon won with only top two scores. -- Full results: http://www.bbyc.net/LaserNationals/index.htm * Sodus Point, NY (August 9, 2009) - The 2009 International Lightning Class North American Championships are being held at Sodus Bay Yacht Club, where the Junior event was won by Connor Godfrey/ Giffin Orr/ John Ring and the Masters winner was Terry Burke/ Dan Moriarty/ Tobi Moriarty. Storms allowed for only one qualifying race to be completed today for the 67-boat North Americans fleet, with skippers Marcus Eagan, Geoff Becker, and Alberto Gonzalez each winning their stages. Qualifying continues on Monday, with the final series on Tuesday through Thursday. -- Event website: http://www.sodusbayyc.org/events/2009lightningnas/ * Marina del Rey, CA (August 9, 2009) - Mike George successfully defended his Martin 242 North American Championship, but it certainly wasn’t easy. Hosted by the California YC, Yumio Dornberg led the regatta for the first two days, but an OCS in Sunday’s opening race moved him one point behind George going into the final race. Dornberg led George off the starting line in that race but George managed to find a lane to the favored left side of the course - and that was all he needed. He won that race and the championship with Dornberg in second - just a single point ahead of his father in law, Brack Duker. -- Results: http://www.calyachtclub.com/files/09M242NAC_S1-8slp.htm * (August 9, 2009) - Morning dockside rumours of delays and divisions of boats having to kedge on the start line were roundly proven wrong as the 608 mile Rolex Fastnet Race fleet, as well as spectators along the Cowes shoreline, enjoyed a magnificent, colourful spinnaker start. Thankfully the unfavourable forecast for the start - no wind followed by a south westerly filling in from the west - had not panned out, with instead a welcome 10 knots from the east propelling the 300 strong fleet westwards down the Solent. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/kvrbgk WHY THE RAK? With Alinghi planning to host the 33rd America's Cup in Ras Al Khaymah (RAK) in the United Arab Emirates, the popular question has become “Why the RAK?” Prior to winning the 32nd Match, the team had trained about 50 miles up the road in Dubai, so why did they choose the RAK, which among other things, is just 50 miles from Iran. Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth has stated that it largely had to do with the favorable February wind and weather, but this excerpt from The Daily Sail goes a bit further: Butterworth says that it was the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, who Alinghi work with in Switzerland particularly on the structural engineering side, who brought Ras Al Khaimah to their attention. EPFL are setting up a new campus there (as Harvard have in Dubai and MIT and the Sorbonne have in Abu Dhabi). “We were looking at the coastline, but we didn’t have an introduction to the Sheik there. And Patrick Aebischer [CEO of EPFL] did a great job in introducing us to him and introducing him to Ernesto and that is how we formed the alliance. He is doing this huge development down there, so it works - they are spending money on the infrastructure and part of that infrastructure is to host the teams, which is pretty nice.” Unlike the deal with Valencia over the 32nd America’s Cup, we understand that no money is changing hands between venue and organiser for the 33rd and Butterworth acknowledges that the commercial side of the Cup is in disarray due to the amount of time spent in court recently. “The business of the Cup, as we know it from last time, was destroyed when the thing went to court. Had we wanted to do this in a professional manner we would have kept the venue a secret and announced it alongside our partners in it. It is pretty hard to give them the same bang for buck that they got in the 32nd America’s Cup, because the business of the Cup has been eroded.” -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/mone9y * Here is the correspondence regarding the venue between the two clubs: From the defender to challenger: http://tinyurl.com/mpqtsr From the challenger to defender: http://tinyurl.com/ndjjzy * Alinghi 5 lifted off Lake Geneva by the giant Russian Mil Mi26 helicopter at 09:15 on August 7th for its trip to Genoa, Italy, to continue their training for the 33rd America's Cup. The mast and boat were flown the 270 kilometres down the Rhone Valley and across the Great Saint Bernard Pass into Italy; where the Mil Mi26 helicopter set Alinghi 5 down to refuel in Biella, before continuing on to Genoa where it landed at 14:30 outside the Yacht Club Italiano. -- Photos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/09/0807d/ * The latest sailing images of the BMW Oracle Racing trimaran, where the team appeared to be testing the integrity of their underwear: http://tinyurl.com/m2yoft NEW J’S FOR 2010 The designers at J Boats are keeping quite busy. Two new J’s will be making their boatshow debut this fall. The 31’ J/95 is a sporty, modern keel-centerboarder that daysails eight, sleeps four and sails in 4’ of water. The J/97 is the first J under 35 feet combining 6’ cruising headroom with a high-performance race-winning design. http://www.jboats.com POST YOUR EVENT STORIES If you attended the Buzzards Bay Regatta in South Dartmouth, MA, or the Verve Cup (inshore) Regatta in Chicago, IL, post your regatta stories in the Scuttlebutt Forum event threads for the Scuttlebutt gear raffle: BBR: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=7995 Verve: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=7996 CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Please submit 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 Clive Murphie: A correction on information in Scuttlebutt 2903 about Wisconsin DN skipper Kyle Metzloff being the first to attempt iceboating in New Zealand, as I have already sailed my home built Land/Ice yacht in July of 2001 at Lake Lyndon (in the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island). There was significant Ice Skating and Ice based activities in the 1930’s to 1970’s in New Zealand and as we are a Sailing Mad nation, I suspect that some sort of Ice Yacht has been used lots of time previously, though I have yet to see evidence of it. Hopefully Kyle will succeed in getting out on the Blokart, though we are at the tail end of our Ice Season now with most of our local Lakes (I am based in Christchurch) reverted to water due to a higher sun and the prevalence or a warm North Westerly wind which blows here. * From John Garth: Regarding the 2009 U.S. Optimis New England Championship (in Scuttlebutt 2903), Brad Read, Ken Legler, the judges, Sail Newport and all the volunteers get my vote for the top regatta organizers of the year. What an amazing job these people did in handling the huge fleets, currents, weather, beach launch logistics, car-and-trailer unloading and loading logistics, parking, etc. The fact that they got off 36 races of 80-boat fleets on the championship course with NO general recalls was just amazing and speaks volumes about the logic of the 'multi-part' starting line. Congrats and thanks to all involved, it was a great experience for my daughter (and her dad too). The bad news is that 350 kids want you to do it all again next year!! * From Ed Drury: Bill Canfield's comments (in Scuttlebutt 2903) on junior sailing were right on target. What Bill didn't say was that St. Thomas Yacht Club (STYC) is a very small club, having only a couple of hundred members and yet still produces world class sailors. Collegians Thomas Barrows, Cy Thomson and Taylor Canfield, who won numerous US high school championships, graduated from a school in St. Thomas, VI that had about 30 seniors in the graduating class. Bill has followed in the footsteps of Rudy Thompson, Dick Avery and Dick Johnson in promoting yacht racing that is fun for all participants. Bill, who is a past Commodore of STYC, has been one of the stallwarts of US Virgin Islands racing for the past two decades. STYC has sponsored the International ROLEX Regatta and Caribbean OPTI Regatta for many years which for most participants are the ultimate in fun and competition. In recent years Bill was one of the driving forces in creating the IC24 class which are modified older J24s (with Melges 24 type cockpits) that have revitalized racing in the US and British Virgin Islands. Bill's words should be taken seriously by anyone who wants to make their program better for its participants. * From Keith Logan, Hamilton Island, Australia: In Scuttlebutt 2903, the story from AvioNews regarding the moving of Alinghi said the Mil Mi-26T will have to lift the 120 ton vessel. 120 tons???? Oracle should smack Alinghi if she's 120 tons. The Mil Mi-26T's going to struggle too as her max lift in ideal 'sea level' conditions is 20 tons. Perhaps they are planning to use 6 of them??? * From Lee Griffith: The John Harwood-Bee note (in Scuttlebutt 2902) on the America’s Cup Match was right on point and quite humorous, but it was tongue in cheek. A serious question for Mr. Cory Friedman would be: What actions or scenarios by the holders of the AC would potentially lead the judge to declare that the Trustee has, in fact, violated the Trust and have them fired? Have they come anywhere close already? How far do they have to go in undermining (the requirements of the Deed of Gift for) “friendly competition between nations”? Clearly, almost every action taken by the regatta organizers (SNG) is designed to “stick it” to the challenger, make their life difficult, fake them out, spend more money, and generally rig the playing field. Judges may not be sailors, but they’re not stupid and the judge must be aware of this. To be fair, previous holders of the Cup played this same game, but at least there was some attempt at subtlety. It seems like SNG has taken it to another, in-your-face level, despite their disingenuous posturing in public. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION Sailing is like being a child again: Wide Eyes, Big Smile, Wet Bum. Special thanks to APS, Quantum Sails, and J Boats. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
