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SCUTTLEBUTT 2343 – May 14, 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 support provided by UBS, main partner of Alinghi, Defender of the 32nd America's Cup (http://www.ubs.com/sailing). THE SEMI-FINALS Valencia, Spain - Four days of calm here will be shattered at about 1pm Monday when a barrage of air horns countered by deeper booms from the collection of mega-yachts in the harbour will signal the departure from their bases of the four semi-finalists in the Louis Vuitton series of the America's Cup (for the 3pm start). For all four this is the first of three possible crunch points. For the two semi-final winners, the challenger final starting on 1 June will be the second. Only one will make the third - the America's Cup races themselves against the defender, Switzerland's Alinghi, starting on 23 June. Years of preparation are reaching their culmination as Team New Zealand line up for their best-of-nine series against the home team, Desafio Español (Spanish Challenge) and the San Francisco-based BMW Oracle face Luna Rossa of Italy. Bookmakers William Hill are absolutely clear about the initial outcome, making TNZ even money to win the Louis Vuitton Cup and to have an easy passage against the 40-1 Spanish, with BMW Oracle, at 6-4, possibly having to work a little harder against Luna Rossa (7-2). That would leave two Kiwi skippers, Dean Barker of TNZ and Chris Dickson of BMW Oracle, to decide who will race against a third, Alinghi's Brad Butterworth. -- Stuart Alexander, The Independent, full story: http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/article2536820.ece First team to win 5 races advances to challenger finals. The pairings are: 1. Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) vs. 4. Desafío Español 2007 (ESP) 2. BMW Oracle Racing (USA) vs. 3. Luna Rossa Challenge (ITA) * Television schedule: Versus’ coverage of the Semi-Finals will consist of live coverage from 8:30–11:00 a.m. ET, with replays from 12-2:30 p.m. and 4:30–7 p.m. ET. -- http://www.versus.com/americascup * Changes: Look for the semi-finals to be different in 3 ways over the Round Robin series: 1) The weather is expected to be more settled as the summer establishes itself, with stronger sea-breezes and bigger waves; 2) The races start an hour later each day, which should allow for the sea-breeze to be further advanced than in the earlier matches of the round robins; and 3) The courses are longer, moving up from 2.5 nautical mile legs to more than 3 miles. * Weather forecast: For Monday, Emirates Team New Zealand website is calling for northwest to northeast winds of 10 to 20 knots, 14-22 C degrees, sunny with some clouds. * Spanish syndicate Desafío Español 2007 will use Valencia as its base to prepare for the next America's Cup. "The base will be in Valencia because there will be a Spanish challenge," team director Agustin Zulueta was quoted as saying by local media. -- Guardian Unlimited, full story: http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6628311,00.html FEUD OVER DESIGN BMW Oracle must have something really sweet under the hood. With almost two months of America's Cup racing still to go, the designers already are squabbling over who gets credit. The lone U.S. entry in the America's Cup had a fine run in challenger round robins, losing only three of 20 races to finish one point off the top of the standings. Billionaire Larry Ellison's San Francisco-based team now faces Italy's Luna Rossa in best-of-nine semifinals starting Monday. BMW Oracle won both prior meetings. An Oracle win would be no surprise; it might even be easy. Then it would be on to challenger finals, and with a little luck the Cup match after that. With all that silver lining, a cloud has to be lurking somewhere. It popped up last week when Bruce Farr, the Annapolis-based yacht designer who is taking his seventh crack at winning yachting's premier trophy, took umbrage at suggestions he may have had more than a little help in drawing the lines of the high-flying race boat. -- Angus Phillips, Washington Post, full story: http://tinyurl.com/2p82e9 TEAM NZ DIALING IN Grant Dalton likened his team's performance in the early stages of the challenger series to that of a radio which was a little bit off the station. Dalton, who is Emirates Team New Zealand's managing director, said: "There was nothing wrong with the radio, you just had to move the dial around a little bit and get on the station. That is what we did. Now it is going a lot better." Which is bit of a relief considering Crowded House's Better Be Home Soon had just sounded out in the team's stylish hospitality area. Team New Zealand finished the round robin competition as the top challenger, thumping Chris Dickson's BMW Oracle Racing in the final match. "The team finished the round exactly as we planned so long ago, strong and sailing well," Dalton said."On Monday the game starts all over again. Every win to date in the Louis Vuitton Cup counts for nothing." -- NZ Herald, full story: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/4/story.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10439241 MORRIS FAMILY AND FIREFLY DOMINATE ANTIGUA RACE WEEK Cuyler Morris and family aboard the Morris 45 Firefly dominated their class at the 2007 Antigua Race Week. Firefly swept the five race series and came away 1st in the Cruising I Division and 3rd Overall in the fleet of more than 200 boats. Firefly earned line honors the last day. With the kids on the rail and the bimini up for sun protection, the crew ignored pleas from many skippers in their 16-boat Class to slow Firefly down. The family is now sailing back to Bass Harbor. Firefly will go on the market in June. For more information: http://www.morrisyachts.com/news THE DIAL DOWN A question from Scuttlebutt’s America’s Cup Hotline asked for an explanation of the "Dial Down" used at the weather mark, including which rules apply. Ian Williams, who is currently #1 in the ISAF World Match Race Rankings, provides the following: “The dial down at the windward mark is most effective in the situation when the port-tack boat is on the port layline and will be able to duck the starboard-tack boat and still lay the windward mark on port, but the starboard-tack boat is unable to safely lee-bow the port-tack boat and still lay the mark (note that the weather mark in match racing is rounded to starboard). The starboard-tack boat has one of two objectives. One objective may be to prevent the port-tack boat from ducking at all and forcing them to tack away, allowing the starboard-tack boat to tack for the mark and lead away. “The alternative objective would be to force the port-tack boat to do a much bigger duck and consequently leave them both slow and below the lay-line for the top mark. By the time the ducking boat has accelerated and tacked, the dialing boat (which by now will have tacked onto port) hopes to now be able to cross ahead and round the mark. The starboard-tack boat is obviously the right of way boat (Rule 10) but any change of course by them must give the port-tack boat room to keep clear (Rule 16). Furthermore, the call book for match racing requires that the starboard-tack boat does not bear away below a beam-reach (when dialing down after the start). This was a safety measure introduced as a result of some fairly major rig clashes.” -- Ian Williams * Read additional comments by Brian Angel and Art Engel, and post your questions here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/acup/hotline ULLMAN SURVIVES WILD WEST WINDUP Santa Cruz, CA (May 12, 2007) - How tough was it on the last day of the 2007 Fullpower Melges 24 World Championship, hosted by the Santa Cruz Yacht Club? So tough, with Monterey Bay cranking up 30 knots of howling chaos, that Dave Ullman, the winner, said, "We weren't racing at the end, just surviving." So tough that Hank Stuart's race committee announced as the first race of the day was finishing that there wouldn't be a second---a first in the class's 10 world championships. So tough that 19 of the 58 starters did not finish. One, Corinthian Division winner Othmar Mueller von Blumencron of Great Falls, Va., lost half of his mast but finished with what was left of his rig. Four or five other dismastings, a few blown-out spinnakers, one man overboard (recovered by another boat)---those were the prices paid for sailing when the wind hits Force 7, with gusts to 35 (gale-Force 8) and five-foot seas form stair-steps up 10-foot swells. Ullman, a 61-year-old icon of American sailing from Orange County in Southern California, sailed Pegasus 505 with a crew of tactician Bill Hardesty, Brent Ruhne, Andy Estcourt and Shana Phelan. They started the day two points ahead of Brian Porter's Full Throttle team from Winnetka, Ill. and were trailing their most serious rival early on the last leg downwind when . . . let Hardesty tell it: "We saw [Full Throttle] capsize, took down the spinnaker and went into survival mode. We didn't have to worry about anything but finishing." They finished fourth behind, in order, Gabrio Zandona on Italy's Joe Fly, Italy's defending world champion, Nicola Celon, and France's Francois Brenac, followed by John Pollard of the UK and Team Barbarian's Jamie Lea. Porter recovered to finish 20th, his first double-digit finish of the week. -- Plenty more to this wrap up report here: http://www.melges24.com/displayarticles.asp?year=2007&id=1211 Final Results (9 races/1 drop; 58 boats) 1. Pegasus 505, David Ullman (USA), (18)-1-1-11-1-5-1-8-4, 32 pts. 2. Full Throttle, Brian Porter (USA), 3-5-3-5-(8)-7-5-2-20, 38. 3. EFG/.Groupe Partouche, Nicola Celon (ITA), (16)-3-2-8-5-13-9-5-3, 44. 4. Joe Fly, Gabrio Zandona (ITA), (28)-24-9-6-3-1-2-1-1, 47. 5. Bete Bossini, Francois Brenac (ITA), 2-4-(16)-2-14-4-3-15-2, 47. 6. Team Barbarians, Jamie Lea (GBR), 14-12-6-1-2-(DNF)-8-11-6, 60. 7. Pegasus 575, Mark Christensen (USA), (16)-3-2-8-5-13-11-16-8, 66. 8. Altea, Andrea Racchelli (ITA), 13-10-4-15-6-8-(17)-6-7, 69. 9. Gannet, Othmar Mueller von Blumencron (USA), 6-9-23-4-4-9-15-9-(27), 79. 10. West Marine Rigging, Chris Larson (USA), 12-8-7-(ZFP)-15-6-6-4-21, 79. Corinthian Division 1. Gannett, Othmar Mueller von Blumencron (USA), 2-2-5-2-1-1-3-1-(7), 17 pts. 2. Monsoon, Bruce Ayres (USA), 1-1-3-4-2-3-4-2-(5), 20. 3. Courage X, Eddy Eich (GER), 3-3-2-3, 4-(5)-1-5-1, 22. -- Complete results: http://www.scyc.org/melges24/rr/race-series.html -- Sharon Green photos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/07/m24worlds BULLIMORE ABANDONS RECORD ATTEMPT (May 11, 2007 - Day 10 Report) British yachtsman Tony Bullimore has had to call a halt to his latest solo circumnavigation attempt after a 50mm pin holding the forestay on his 102ft catamaran Doha lost a retaining bolt and begun to pull out. “If the pin had pulled out completely, the rig would have fallen down and I would have been left adrift.” Bullimore said early today, adding. “When I found it during a daylight check of the rig a few days ago, my heart almost stopped. With the rig under so much tension, there is no way of banging the pin back in place. In fact, it is the tension that has stopped it from falling out altogether.” Bullimore spent several hours lashing the forestay to Doha’s main beam to secure both the stay and the rogue pin, and having already chosen to head north east away from a low pressure system that was to sweep over his course on May 9, is now diverting to New Zealand to affect repairs. “I’m devastated, particularly after the promising start I had from Hobart when I was running ahead of the record. I have devoted the past two years preparing for this solo round the world attempt. I can only assume that the retaining bolt came loose during the bashing Doha received in the 50knot winds experienced a week ago. All I can say is thank goodness it happened now and not when I was deep in the Southern Ocean or close to Cape Horn.” “The rig is now secure and I am sailing under reduced canvas northwards to New Zealand. Once repairs have been completed, I will sail back to Hobart and re-start the Blue Ocean Wireless Round the World Challenge later in the year.” -- Complete report: http://www.teambullimore.com/content/view/145/50 FREE KEG OF BEER FROM THE PIRATES LAIR Place your regatta merchandise order of more than $1500.00 before May 18 and receive one keg of beer for your event. No kidding. The Pirates Lair does crazy stuff like that... really. Does your printer? To get started, call 888-724-5286 or log on to http://www.pirateslair.com/sailing WORLDLY WIRELESS Getting ready for the next Volvo Ocean Race, and generating the essential budget? It means publicity. And that means wireless. We used to refer to public relations as "puff" pieces. They work! - but if you're half way around the planet in a solo boat, getting your puff pieces back to London and New York takes more than wind. It takes technology. Specifically, it takes Livewire Digital technology. This is not a first date. Livewire Digital, provider of integrated data, voice and video broadcast services, has been appointed by the Volvo Ocean Race to provide the on board video and audio broadcast system for the world famous yacht race which sets sail on 11th October 2008 - and this will be the fourth race running that Livewire Digital will provide the on board media delivery infrastructure for the entire fleet of Volvo 70 class yachts. It's a studio on a boat. It's a satellite link back to HQ, too; but it's the ability to shoot - and edit - video at sea that matters - without too much electrical power, too. -- Newswireless, full report: http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/3347 CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar SAILING SHORTS * Twenty high school sailing teams from across the country were in Long Beach, CA this past weekend for the Interscholastic Sailing Association (ISSA) National High School Doublehanded Championship and the Mallory Trophy, hosted by the United States Sailing Center. Newport Harbor High School (Newport Beach, CA) beat out second place Point Loma High School (San Diego, CA) by 38 points for the win, with Severn School (Severna Park, MD) in third. Complete results at http://www.ussclb.org/results.txt * The latest Sailing World College Rankings were released on May 11, 2007, with St. Mary's occupying the top spots in both the coed and women's rankings. -- http://tinyurl.com/3ya4vb * A new major trophy for offshore yacht racing has been announced for those skippers competing in consecutive Newport Bermuda and Marblehead-to-Halifax races. The Olin J. Stephens Ocean Racing Trophy will be awarded yearly to the skipper with the lowest total point scoring in consecutive races of the subset of boats competing in both of these prestigious ocean-racing events. The low-point scoring will be determined using the ORR, the VPP-based handicapping system that serves as the primary scoring system for the Newport Bermuda Race. More information at bermudarace.com and marbleheadtohalifax.com * Geneva, 12th May 2007 – The Grand Prix Chopard – first stage of the Challenge Julius Baer- benefited from very good conditions this week end off the Société Nautique de Genève. Ten boats – strict one-design Décision 35 high tech catamarans – were involved in the event. Former winner of the Vendée Globe and well-known offshore skipper, Alain Gautier (Foncia) dominated the week-end, finishing all regattas amongst the top three. Ernesto Bertarelli and his crew on board Alinghi, finishing second overall. -- http://tinyurl.com/2whq69 * The launch of the ISAF Sailing World Cup and the Olympic Sailing Competition were amongst the key discussions at the ISAF Mid-Year Meeting, held in Paris, France, the birthplace of the International Yacht Racing Union 100 years ago. The ISAF Council, the final decision making body of ISAF, met over the weekend of 5-6 May 2007, preceded by meetings of the ISAF Executive Committee and ISAF Events Committee. The discussion in Paris ranged from ISAF finances to membership to Olympic and event issues. The minutes from all meetings will be published sailing.org in the coming weeks. -- Meeting overview: http://www.sailing.org/default.asp?ID=j1,FnA?CB&format=popup * If you had trouble last Friday accessing the video for the J/65 ”Brand New Day,” here is the link again: http://tinyurl.com/3cbsv7 "MAN OVERBOARD!" - SEAMARSHALL HAS A BETTER WAY Looking for the best marine locator beacons for your crew? Insist that they are fully automatic; manually activated beacons are of absolutely no use to an unconscious or hypothermic victim. SeaMarshall water-activated beacons are the accepted standard in overboard recovery gear for racers, cruisers, and powerboaters. Contact Chip Barber: mailto:admin@chbarber.com; http://www.chbarber.com/seamarshall.html 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 Brent Larlee, Marblehead, MA: Tucker Thompson’s assessment of the America’s Cup (in Issue 2342) is right on. My wife and I went to Auckland for the Louis Vuitton finals at the last Cup and I came away in awe of the energy and excitement around the event. Granted this was in New Zealand where people are more sailing crazy than many other locations, but even cab drivers that probably had never been in a sailboat race knew the standings and the personalities at play in the regatta. It may not be every sailor’s cup of tea, and there may be plenty of ways to improve the event, but the energy around the AC complex could be felt by anyone with a pulse. * From Jackson Michaels: (edited to the 250-word limit) In response to the article in Issue 2341 concerning the BMW Oracle/ Team New Zealand race: I highly doubt it was in Oracle’s best interest to throw a race to anybody. It is difficult to believe that BMW Oracle would be worried about competing at a "lower level" ....I mean come on....a win is a win no matter what level you are at, especially at this level of competition. Perhaps the concept of "throwing a race" helps ease the loss for BMW Oracle.....but come on guys......give some credit to the winner once in a while and give Team New Zealand a break and just swallow some pride or dollars or whatever it is and be a good sport and say, "Well done Team New Zealand". This mucking about as to someone throwing a race is just silly speculation on the part of someone too ashamed to admit that maybe a race was just lost, bottom line. Take it like men and go out and fight harder next time. A higher level of sailing is also represented by the ability to accept a loss and not make excuses. The unhappiest are those whose expectations exceed their abilities! And Okay, if they really did throw the race, then isn't that just really bad sportsmanship? Something these races do not need any more of and most likely a label that BMW Oracle does not need! * From Bob Hunkins: (Re: Robert Thuss's comments in Scuttlebutt 2342) I think what the poll regarding interest in the Louis Vuitton cup is really saying (at least for those of us in the USA) is that it is not easy to follow sailboat races that are not televised. I'm very disappointed that the round robins were not broadcast in the US this time. For the last several iterations of this competition there was always a broadcast starting with the round robins. It was great fun to go to my local bar and watch the races with my fellow sailing enthusiasts to enjoy the spectacle, play the armchair tactician, and maybe even learn something from watching the pros. What gives? Why is there such poor coverage? It's not even available on a pay-per-view basis! There's something I would have paid to see on TV. Shame on the US TV networks for "missing the boat" on this one! * From Jeff Smith, New Zealand: Re: Allan Reid’s comments (in Issue 2342) of more Kiwis on Oracle than ETNZ. I think you will find that on the last race of RR2, Oracle had 12 Kiwis onboard and ETNZ had 14. Additionally, Oracle have over 250 people on their team, and 72 of them are Kiwis. ETNZ have approx. 130 on their team and 85 of them are Kiwis. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION A free agent is anything but. Special thanks to Morris Yachts, Pirate’s Lair, and C.H. Barber. Scuttlebutt is also supported by UBS, main partner of Alinghi, the Defender of the 32nd America's Cup. |
