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SCUTTLEBUTT #478 - January 10, 2000LOUIS VUITTON CUPPaul Cayard's AmericaOne syndicate and Italy's Prada Challenge took another step toward a nine-race showdown in the Louis Vuitton Cup finals with victories today in Race 7 of the semifinal series. The San Francisco-based AmericaOne defeated hometown rival America True by 1:16, while Prada took care of Team Dennis Conner by 1:09. After suffering a two-race losing streak, Prada has recorded four straight wins and lies second overall with five points, one point behind AmericaOne. The two teams square off tomorrow in a colossal match that could be an early preview of the finals. Like the last two days, a postponement delayed racing for a little more than one hour. The race committee postponed when America True requested a delay to fix a problem with its winch grinding system. But regatta operations director Vince Cooke was also unhappy with the wind conditions, which dropped to an average of seven knots at 1:05 p.m. after averaging 18 knots just 30 minutes earlier. Large windshifts were again a feature of today's racing. Shortly before the start of Match 1 -- AmericaOne vs. America True -- the wind shifted left, then veered back right on the first beat. AmericaOne and Prada both got to the right side off the start line, starting on port at the boat end, which helped propel them to victory. -- Quokka Sports, Full story: http://www.americascup.org/ AMERICAONE BEAT AMERICA TRUE - DELTA 01:16 Paul Cayard on AmericaOne (USA-61) pulled away from his rival John Cutler on America True (USA-51) when the wind shifted 30 degrees to the right shortly after the start. Cayard was able to position himself on the right side of the course by getting to the right of America True as both approached the start line early. When the boats luffed and tacked to slow down. Cayard was to leeward as both boats moved towards the Committee Boat. Cutler couldn't bear off and was forced to tack for the pin end to avoid being over early. By the time America True came back to the right, the shift had moved down the course, and AmericaOne was over a minute ahead. Cutler closed a little on every downwind leg, but Cayard extended on the beats and his lead was secure throughout. LUNA ROSSA BEAT STARS & STRIPES - DELTA 01:09 After a dial up, Francesco de Angelis on Luna Rossa (ITA-45) managed to get on Stars & Stripes' (USA-55) transom. With just under a minute to go until the start, Ken Read on Stars & Stripes was clear ahead. The wind was far to the right up the course and both boats were fighting for the right side of the beat. With 20 seconds to go Luna Rossa managed to get an overlap to the right and to windward of Stars & Stripes. When Ken Read luffed, just before the start, Prada stayed clear and tacked to port to start near the favoured Committee Boat. Due to the luff, Stars & Stripes was over the start line early on starboard tack, and had to bear off and gybe below the line before starting more than ten boat lengths behind. The Italians carried a one minute lead around the top mark. Stars & Stripes worked hard the rest of the way, and gained on every run but lost on the beats. Luna Rossa won a crucial match. ASURA BEAT LE DEFI - DELTA 00:52 Japan's Asura (JPN-44) skippered by Peter Gilmour racked up its fifth straight win today against Frenchman Bertrand Pace sailing Le Defi (FRA-46). This was the end of any hope for a French berth in the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals - but the French went out with style. The right-hand end of the line was heavily favoured and Pace won it, despite the disadvantage of a port tack entry. After the five-minute gun, he successfully dived below the approaching starboard tack Japanese boat. Pace then trailed Gilmour as the seconds ticked down before forcing Asura off to the pin end. On the first cross, nearly four minutes into the race, Gilmour had to tack to leeward. For the next eight minutes they drag-raced only metres apart on starboard tack with Gilmour maintaining a tenuous but safe leeward. As the breeze slowly increased and the seas became more lively, Asura gradually squeezed the French boat until it finally tacked away. Asura made small gains on every subsequent tack until she rounded the weather mark 25 seconds ahead and in control of the race. Le Defi never really got close again. -- Peter Rusch, Simon Keijzer, Keith Taylor, Louis Vuitton Cup website, http://www.louisvuittoncup.com/ CURRENT POINTS STANDINGS:
BIGGER, BETTER, BRIGHTER Who do you call when you want custom sail graphics to make a statement?? Easy. See who the leaders in racing like Sagamore, Sayonara, Samba Pa Ti, Playstation and Stars&Stripes have in common. They entrusted their sail graphics to North Graphics. And better yet, they can do the same for you on your Catalina 27, 1D35 or J/105. Try calling Whitney Gladstone and find out how affordable it is to put custom sail graphics on your boat: (619) 224-8667, http://www.northsails.com/graphics/ QUOTE / UNQUOTE (The following quotes, provided courtesy of TV New Zealand, were generously forwarded to Scuttlebutt by Gina von Esmarch at AmericaOne.) Dawn Riley on why were you struggling this series? -- "We'd made the boat a little bit better for light air and probably underestimated the wind and underestimated how far towards the light air we were going to have ended up and just made a mistake." Paul Cayard on boatspeed -- "Our boat's going well. I don't think we're blowing people away with speed. I think we have a good boat and again, it's important to get control of the race on the first beat. If you have control you can pick your time to tack, you can maximise the shifts and so you can gain even more. Things are going well - we've just got to keep working on it." Dawn Riley on mathematically being eliminated -- "We had out shore crew stay up all night last night. Our shore team made some alterations to the boat which made us faster. Unfortunately we missed that first 30 degree shift and it was all over. We knew that we were struggling from the start of this series. We were kind of disappointed in that. I think what is most disappointing is that Phil Kaiko and his team have done such an excellent job and we let them down on the water today." Dawn Riley on will you challenge for the America's Cup again? -- "Depending on what the final outcome is of the final America's Cup, yeah we probably will come back. If Team New Zealand keeps it we'll probably be back. All our stuff's here!" LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) Letters selected to be printed are routinely edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude personal attacks. But only one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if people disagree. -- Ken Guyer -- The jury issued a fair decision. With Peter Gilmour indicating he will pursue this issue demanding disqualification of TDC from further racing is just plain wrong. Stars & Stripes won the competition out on the water. Nippon does not deserve to gain a point it did not win by racing. Futher this whole incident points to a need to either tighten up the nationality requirements to be closer in line with the intent of the original deed of trust or drop it all together. To have Nippon continue to attempt to remove Team Dennis Conner from competition under this technicality is the height of hypocracy. If there is a violation of what the originators of the America's Cup deed of trust intended when it required teams and boats to be from the country of origin of the challenger, clearly it is having a New Zealander skipper a Japanese entry. The matter should be over, and we should continue to settle who is best qualified to be challenger out on the water. I trust Team Dennis Conner has found new resolve to be that challenger. CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT -- I'm not sure Gilly would be very happy about being called a 'New Zealander. He's Australian. -- From Chris Welsh -- The ugliest part of modern sporting events (Formula One, America's Cup, etc) is the use of lawyers in any context in rules hearings. This is a sporting event, not a business transaction - or at least the teams should maintain the illusion of that for the spectators. Competitors should represent themselves, and perhaps representatives should be limited to on-the-water members of the crew. Is Nippon or TDC's final court of appeal going to be the New Zealand Supreme Court? Uggh! Attorneys are a bad path to start down. -- From Robert Bethune -- The controversies surrounding the America's Cup differ only in visibility and in the money at stake from the controversies surrounding competitive sailing at all levels. Everyone wants to stay out of the protest room, but very few manage to accomplish that feat. When protests concern conduct on the water, the present system works as intended. But when the focus of controversy is boat hardware, the system doesn't work properly. It's not just the America's Cup. The boardsailing gold medal at the Pan American Games was heavily influenced by a challenge about hardware--a measurement issue. At present, there are only two systems that eliminate the possibility that competitors will decide to seek victory in the protest room rather than on the water. One is the principle behind The Race--anything goes, with the victory probably going to the richest. The other is the principle behind programs where the class or the club owns and maintains the boats, with boats assigned to crews on a rotating, random basis. Perhaps the America's Cup competition should be divided into two levels. At one level, the competition would be based on design, and would involve test matches structured to reveal the best sailing technology. At the next level, the best technology would be used to produce boats owned by a neutral governing body for the Cup, and the boats would be assigned on a random, rotating basis to crews from the competing countries. -- From Bruce Schwab, Made in America Foundation, Inc. -- While certainly being one of the most anticipated Open 60's, Kingfisher may not be the last Vendee entry. Our Tom Wylie designed, Schooner Creek built Open 60 "Made in America" will also be launched in March. It is interesting to note that the latest Vendee boats are starting to slim down, but are not nearly as narrow as "Made in America". The "skinny boat" approach has been long ignored, the last such Open 60 was Jean Luc Van Den Heede's boat which amassed an amazing amount of miles and good record over the last ten years or so. Unfortunatly, VDH's boat finally suffered a disabling structual failure in his recently abandoned attempt on the "wrong way" around the world record. Our design is specifically focused on the Vendee. If our goal was a boat for the Around Alone it would be different. Less powerful but more easily driven, our focus is on "knots per calorie" efficiency and better upwind speed. We should also excell in heavy running, while realizing we will give up a bit reaching. Of course, one major advantage of our narrow boat is ultimate stability. One must finish to win, and I have no desire to test upside stability in the southern ocean. Our rig will be mostly unstayed, (D1's only, aside from the stysl, headstay, and runners) providing nearly automatic mainsail shape control. Even though the spar tube will be heavier, once you factor in the rigging we will be as light as anyone else. -- From Paul Miller -- It's not your fault, but in the last Butt was an unwarranted claim in the Open 60's article, "The Open class has pioneered the use of this - be it the recent hydraulically-operated canting keels or water that can be pumped up to large tanks in the boat's beam ends." Canting keels date to L. Francis Herreshoff in the 1930's and water ballast dates to (at least) 19th-century workboats. -- From Robbie Young -- Chris Bouzaid should remember back in 1987 when we were together in Fremantle, races were canceled due to too much wind. Those boats were built to sail in 30+ knots of wind. These IACC boats are built to sail within the Louis Vuitton Cup wind parameters. Most of the syndicates have the same issues. Team NZ came in with broken jumper struts just the other day. Sure, the local club racers and cruising boats can sail in higher winds. Aren't they designed and built to withstand these conditions? Not to disagree with Tom Ehman (SCUTTLEBUTT #476), but I think a correction is in order. On Jan. 4, the day of race postponements, the juniors sailed only one race prior to the cancellation of their races due to deteriorating conditions (according to the NZ Herald). Did the juniors race yesterday with no wind? I would be the first one to agree to sail in heavier conditions if the boats were built for it. The Volvo boats are built to race in much heavier winds. I bet the public would enjoy the racing if there were more carnage. Look at NASCAR! Until the rules are modified or changed to everyone's liking, as part of the sailing community we should promote this and all racing events. If we disagree with the rules of the Louis Vuitton Cup, maybe a letter to the ACCA or AC2000 would be better than talking about it here. -- From Trenter Ellis -- Your correspondents complaining / raving about the ESPN coverage of the recent Americas Cup races should all be grateful. I have scoured the TV and satellite sports schedules here in the UK and cannot find any indication that any Americas Cup races will be screened here, live or otherwise. -- From Dave Few Chairman--NCPHRF -- Regarding ESPN coverage so far I think it has been excellent and for those who relish seeing carnage and screw ups, why not just go to the stock car races/demolition derbys. I much prefer to see the sailors at the top of the game executing precise maneuvers and sail handling where there is no loss of or damage to equipment. Maybe it is just the engineer in me that does not like to see things destroyed. -- From Bert Brown -- Just a note to Alan Trimble to say "Thank you" for responding to the 'Butt e-mail and making us feel we have a pair of "ears" at the network in New Zealand that actually cares about what is aired on TV every night. I sent an e-mail to ESPN at the beginning of the coverage and asked for more rule commentary by Jobson, more even coverage of all the races, and more SailTrack. It appears that ESPN is actually starting to respond to my last request; the coverage of Race 4 on SailTrack was actually pretty good. -- From M. Moshayedi -- I read with great interest the news about San Diego's secession from SoCal PHRF and quite frankly I can't imagine why it has taken so long for the realization that PHRF here is an organization in need of a total makeover. It doesn't take long during a call to the PHRF office to recognize the fact that there must not be a computer on location, it does seem like for every question days have to be spent finding the answer. With all due respect to PHRF's volunteer management team, they need a lot to happen immediately. It is my experience that the current rating system is totally inadequate and quite arbitrary with conflicts of interest for the rating advisors who compete in the classes they advise on. Some new boats, like mine are given a rating based on their IMS certificate which is then changed at whim six times during a two year. It is exactly this type of frustration, which turns people off from racing. I think in this instance the volunteer / professional combination might work better than the current volunteer only organization by turning some functions over to professionals and get the job done properly. Sail boat racing costs lots of money. We should increase the charges for the PHRF certificate perhaps up to $300 -$500, this would give enough funding to computerize the whole system with accurate measurement of boats, sail areas and displacements and make available on the NET. MUST SEE If you're not seeing enough action photos of the IACC boats racing in the Hauraki Gulf it's obvious you have not been visiting the Quokka website often enough. Their photographers have totally captured the action -- and the carnage -- with a plethora of super photos. Great stuff. And when you add in the thoughtful commentary, the daily audio recordings and unparalleled news coverage, this is one website you MUST visit every day. http://www.americascup.org/ PROFESSIONAL SAILING A fleet of 8 to 10 Corel 45s will sail in France, Spain and Italy. Famous America's Cup sailors are expected to be back on the circuit this year. No doubts that some revenges will be taken on board the Corel 45s! Eight events will be part of the European Championship with the big final in Marseille during the One Ton Cup. Nine boats have already confirmed their entry in this event and 12 to 15 participants are expected: a record! K-Yachting International is organising this event for the next five years. The events will be filmed and released on major European television networks. A great opportunity for the sponsors of the boats and the circuit. The name of the championship's major sponsor will be announced in February. The schedule of release will be announced in February. -- K-Yachting Website: http://www.sailing.org/coral45 CAPETOWN TO RIO RACE Sagamore is currently in the lead, having already clocked 470 nautical miles in her race to Rio de Janeiro and covering a quick 256.1 miles on Sunday. Zephyrus IV is in second place with 409 nautical miles between her and Cape Town. The two American maxis are followed by Greenwich Warrior in third position, Maxtec Wizard in fourth and BP Umoya Omusha in fifth. Portugal-Brasil 500 was the other favourite in the race before they had to return to port on Sunday with a broken mast. Ludde Ingvall and his crew set off for a second time last night just before seven o'clock. They now have nearly 28 hours to make up for as the other yachts left Cape Town at 15h00 on Saturday. Both Sagamore and Zephyrus IV have covered more than 200 nautical miles in the first 18 hours of the race which might prove hard to beat. Website: http://www.capetorio.com/ BUDGET TIME Right now, lots of yacht clubs are preparing their budgets for next year. And some clubs are actually including funds for anticipated losses in connection with regatta apparel at their major events. Shame on them. There is no reason any yacht club should lose money on regatta apparel -- not when Pacific Embroidery has a program to supply it to race organizers at a guaranteed profit. There is absolutely no risk to the race organizer. Call Frank Whitton (619-226-8033) for details on how to offset regatta costs while supplying high quality, affordable apparel for the racers. (pacyacht@aol.com) MORE LVC QUOTES Dennis Conner, skipper of Stars & Stripes, on the rudder controversy: "This morning I did have meeting with the guys (the crew) to try and put our last few days of rough water behind us. And to try to get them to focus on the things we can control which was to try and win some sailboat races. I felt that when they left this morning their morale was high." Peter Gilmour, skipper of Asura, on the end of the rudder protest: "We have already protested for that. No, we're not going to seek a reopening of that hearing. The decision of the International Jury is final." Dennis Conner, on following the rules: "I think that the rules are there, and you should read the rules, and you should follow the rules, and if you break the rules there should be some recourse. Otherwise, why would anybody follow the rules? I think it's just redundant just to keep going over and over it. It's not helping the event, its not helping us, and it puts me in a bad mood." -- Louis Vuitton Cup website, http://www.louisvuittoncup.com PATRICK O'BRIAN Jan. 7, 2000 - LONDON -- Writer Patrick O'Brian, who won a devoted following of admirers with his 20-volume series of novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic wars, has died at age 85. O'Brian died at a hotel in Dublin on Sunday, Press Association reported today, quoting funeral directors in the Irish capital. But the British Embassy in France, where O'Brian had lived since 1949, said he died Tuesday. O'Brian's naval series, begun in 1969, has been favorably compared to works by Herman Melville, while his use of language has been likened to Yeats and Jane Austen. The series transports the reader to the early 19th century and the days of Adm. Horatio Nelson's navy, tracing the lives of the fictional Royal Navy Officer Jack Aubrey and the half-Irish ship surgeon and naturalist Stephen Maturin, who is also a secret agent. "Patrick O'Brian has written great and enduring literature which happens to be set largely at sea," the Sunday Telegraph wrote in 1997, praising "the intensity of characterization, the complex elegance of the plotting, and the brilliance of the writing." -- Mara D. Bellaby, Associated Press Full story: http://www.salon.com/books/wire/2000/01/07/o_brian/index.html THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATIONS If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again - it was probably worth it. |
