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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 766 - March 6, 2001Scuttlebutt is a digest of yacht racing news of major significance; commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American emphasis. Corrections, contributions, press releases and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome. THE RACE Innovation Explorer was running at an average of 22.4 knots dead before the wind with 320 miles left to sail at 0900 GMT on Monday and is scheduled to finish on Tuesday morning, over two days behind Dalton. - By Sports.com's Rob Hodgetts Full story: * Club Med's crushing 62-day victory in The Race, completed in Marseilles on Saturday night, was achieved despite the catamaran coming closer to having to stop than skipper Grant Dalton and his crew were prepared to admit. The most worrying damage occurred north of the Falkland Islands when one of the 110ft Club Med's hulls started to flex near the main cross beam. Had the damage occurred earlier, Dalton would almost certainly have been forced into port. As it was, the threat from Cam Lewis's early leader, Team Adventure, had evaporated and Innovation Explorer was 1,000 miles behind in second place. Dalton was also fortunate in having British watch leader Neal MacDonald aboard and able to make an engineering assessment of the damage. Only at Marseilles was the seriousness of the damage appreciated. The hulls' core material had collapsed, leading to serious localised weakening. MacDonald had supervised repairs which involved bolting bulkhead doors to the inside of the hulls. In all, three patches were added to the port hull and two to the starboard. Such was the dire need for bolts that boat captain Ed Danby, from Hamble, was taking bolts off the generator and out of winch bases. Elsewhere, Club Med had plenty of other damage - to the trampolines between the hulls, to eye bolts anchoring huge loads from the sail plan, and to the rigging itself, any of which could have been catastrophic for crew and yacht. - Tim Jeffery, Daily Telegraph, UK Full story: * Team Legato skipper Tony Bullimore has appealed to The Race establishment to bend the rules as his round-the-world journey comes under threat of going unrecognized. Club Med's astounding 62-day circumnavigation has not helped Bullimore's efforts to qualify as an official finisher. The Race rules state Team Legato needs to reach Marseille within 30 days of the winner to be ranked. That leaves Team Legato 27 days to cover the remaining 9,039 nautical miles (nm). At 12:00 GMT, Bullimore said: "What we suggest is the gate could be left open longer, just so we could be recognized as a finisher. It seems a bit ridiculous to go all the way round the world, fight all the obstacles, and yet not be a finisher. It doesn't alter the status quo on first, second, third or fourth. It just makes it easier for future sponsorship and means we can stay in the game." The Race allowed the gate to remain open for Bullimore to start so it would be perfect symmetry to leave it ajar for him on the way back. In simple terms, Bullimore needs to cover 330nm a day at 13.75 knots average speed. Team Legato has covered 18,368nm of the 27,407nm total distance, which translates into a daily average of 285nm per day. If one takes into account Bullimore's 60-hour penalty in Wellington and 48-hour stop in Gibraltar, the daily figure rises to a healthier 303nm per day. The next four to five days should see Team Legato build up some advantage on her daily deadlines. The Southern Ocean should allow them to average at least 400mm days until they round Cape Horn. - Martin Cross, NOW Sports website. Full story: STANDINGS - March 6 @ 0500 GMT: 2. Innovation Explorer, 131 miles from finish, 3. Team Adventure, 5387 miles from finish, 4. Warta Polpharma, 6141 miles, 5. Team Legato, 8878 miles - http://www.therace.org/ EASIER SAIL HANDLING STAR BACARDI CUP Day one results (65 boats) - 1. Mark Reynolds/Magnus Liljedahl (San Diego/Coral Gables) 2. Colin Beashel/David Giles (Australia) 3. Paul Cayard/Hal Haenel (United States) 4. Torben Grael/Marcelo Ferreina (Brazil) 5. John MacCausland/Phil Trinter (United States) 6. Rod Davis/Mark Dolan (New Zealand) 7. Carlo Loos/Christian Nehammer (Austria) 8. Andy Lovell/Prieur Leary (Miami) 9. Jimmie Lowe/Andrew Higgs (Nausau) 10. Douglas Schofield/Robert Schofield (Annapolis) - http://www.starclass.org/ QUOTE / UNQUOTE "There was no stage at any time when we felt unsafe. The nose-dives that we did were always nose-dives straight into the face of the wave in front. They were never vertical nose-dives when your rudders are out and you are going to picth-pole. We never, ever felt unsafe in the boat. I was concerned about the sideways tip - lifting a hull, sheet jammed, can't get it off and it goes over. But we never got close to that. The time we broached in the Atlantic with a full-sized gennekar up was a bit hairy - that was a mistake - that was all-on with 1,200sq metres of sail, head to wind in 30 knots. That was the only time we thought it would end in tears. So safety-wise, no problem. The boat is just so bloody big. If you want to slow it down, you can. Just pull down the canvas. As far as the credibility of The Race, well you guys are in a better position to judge than me. I think it's got by, but it would have been better if it was a bigger event with more boats. But if they'd never pushed the wagon trains out of New York, they'd have never made it to California, you know. This has hopefully proved a point and other events that are struggling at the moment should take note - simplicity is very important for the general public to understand." - Grant Dalton Full interview: http://www.madforsailing.com/ LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON leweck@earthlink.net * From: Bill Lee wizard@fastisfun.com * From: Chip Evaul clevaul@earthlink.net One interesting dynamic of online results is that mistakes are no longer allowed...transpose two finishes, or get the corrected time wrong, or misspell a name, and its a guarantee you will hear about it in no uncertain terms, because the whole world's watching... All the more reason for webmasters NOT to have a few pops before they go home to post the results at midnight. * From: George Bailey BAILEYG@MAIL.ECU.EDU To compete for viewers, we must drastically change the rules, shorten the courses and increase the sail area to displacement ratios of our racing boats. We must make bashing and otherwise interfering with other boats part of the game. For lots of fast, violent action (boats leaping entirely out of the water on a plane, sails blowing out, rigs breaking, dumping crews in the water in knock-downs, bashing into other boats, etc.), we need large rigs with large crews on hiking platforms. The distance between the marks needs to be short: 200 meters or so. For really violent action, how about an x-shaped course that forces boats to cross? More excitement might be had using teams, some boats functioning as blockers, others as runners. We need to do whatever it takes to get lots of very fast, violent action compatible with no one getting killed (more than occasionally, anyway). A race where boats regularly collide, broach, blow out sails, loose rigs or crew overboard, etc., all at planning speeds on a small course, couldn't fail to be a hit in a culture where Monday Night Football, "pro-wrestling" (not to mention the currently hot "survivor"-type shows) give the viewing public what it wants! AMERICA'S CUP The match race team is training for their first regatta later this month in Portugal. Match Race Team Manager Morten Henriksen is coaching the team and also trying out potential recruits for the America's Cup sailing program. Taking part in the match race program are Gunnar Bahr, Ingo Borkowski, Marc Pickel and Roland Gaebler. They are now training with the illbruck Challenge match race team. The team is practicing with two Beneteau 25s from a base in Laboe, Germany. With the development of the match race team, the America's Cup program is quickly taking shape. In addition, the 13 illbruck Challenge race crew competing in the Volvo Ocean Race have all signed on for the America's Cup program. In addition to illbruck Challenge skipper John Kostecki, the race crew includes Stuart Bannatyne, Stuart Bettany, Mark Christensen, Richard Clarke, Ray Davies, Dirk de Ridder, Noel Drennan, Jamie Gale, Ross Halcrow, Tony Kolb, Ian Moore, and Juan Vila. All non-German nationals on the crew have established residency in Germany and now qualify to compete for Germany in America's Cup 2003. The illbruck match race team will compete on the international circuit while the illbruck Volvo Ocean Race crew is competing in the around-the-world race. The match race team will be joined by Kostecki and other illbruck Challenge race crew as the schedule permits. Henriksen will continue in a coaching role with the illbruck race crew following the completion of the Volvo Ocean Race in June 2002 when the entire sailing team will then focus together on training for the America's Cup. - Jane Eagleson,www.illbruckchallenge.com TEAM RACING There's a demo of the CD on O'Hare's website. Even if you're not into Team Racing, you should check it out. Who knows, maybe there are a few old dogs who might enjoy learning a couple of new tricks: www.obyc.com/teamrace/ctr.html VOLVO OCEAN RACE The traditional method on building these types of boats is using a 'male' plug. A plug is built from wood slightly smaller than the original size of the hull, the boat is then built on top of the plug. In that case the hull is built from the inside to the outside. A disadvantage is to get the outside layer in the preferred smoothness. It is necessary to fair it very thoroughly and the plug can only be used once. With the female mould method, a carbon mould is built on top of the male plug. That carbon mould has the exact shape of and the hull will have its exact shape and smoothness without having to fair it. It is more exact and saves weight in plaster. It is also possible to use the mould again. Another advantage when building two boats with a female mould is that the two hulls will be almost identical. The decks have been built with a male mould in Southampton. Both decks are finished and the first hull has just recently been transported to Southampton, where it will be bonded with the deck. - Simon Keijzer, www.assaabloyracingteam.com SEATTLE TO KEY WEST AND EVERYWHERE IN BETWEEN CORRECTIONS TO THE CORRECTIONS * The places and the faces of folks who race out of here might best be understood with the following clarifications : Buddy Melges lives in Fontana, WI; Melges Boat Works is located in Zenda, WI; The Lake Geneva Yacht Club is located in Fontana, WI; The name of the lake is "Geneva Lake"; Geneva Lake is surrounded by the municipalities of Fontana (west), Williams Bay (north), and (city of ) Lake Geneva (east), Linn Township covers most of the rest; None of this has anything to do with Minnesota (except they're a bunch of really fast sailors) - Mike Kurzawa * Isle of WRIGHT ???? - John Christopherson (Obviously, that correction should have read 'Isle of Wight.') EXTREME SAILING Sailing identical 20-foot, off-the-beach catamarans in this event that is often described as a nautical Tour de France, the competitors race north in 13 daily legs averaging 70 to 80 miles, regardless of weather. The course includes every major beach resort from southern Florida to Virginia, a distance of 1,000 miles, with stops at 12 oceanfront checkpoint cities in 5 states before finishing almost two weeks later on Saturday, May 19th in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Called extreme before the term became widely used to describe events that pushed the boundaries of competition and endurance, the Worrell 1000 has traditionally attracted a small cadre of hard charging sailor/athletes. These are not thrill seekers looking for a quick fix, but world-class competitors pursuing the black belt of beach catamaran sailing. This year's field is that and more. They are Olympians, world champions, and national champions. There are two females. They are also architects, engineers, accountants, college students, carpenters, and professional yacht racers. The oldest is 54, the youngest is 19. Their average age is 37. In the eighteen races since the Worrell 1000 started in 1976, 202 teams have started and 122 have finished. In 1998, in a particularly rough race, twenty-one teams started and seven finished. Of the fourteen that failed to finish, ten were taken out in the infamous "Graveyard of the Atlantic" along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. At Cape Hatteras, in front of a stunned crowd, one team was literally slingshoted through the checkpoint finish line as their 20-foot boat propelled by huge storm seas performed a gravity defying pirouette as it cartwheeled to the beach. Randy Smyth, 6-time winner of the Worrell 1000 and 2-time Olympic Silver Medalist, says "It's one of those races that it's good that it only happens once a year. You forget how hard it is. In the early races in the 1970s, it was all about man versus the world. Now, it's about how fast we can go and still survive." Website: http://www.worrell1000.com QUOTE / UNQUOTE As design moves on, there is no question the IRC/IRM allows us to be more creative and make boats that are more fun to sail. - Ludde Ingvall, Skipper of the Sydney Hobart Line Honours-winning Maxi, Nicorette (March issue of Seahorse magazine.) THE CURMUDGEON'S QUOTATIONS |
