SCUTTLEBUTT No. 600 - July 3, 2000

PRAMS TO PROAS, MAXI'S TO MINI'S

Whatever it is you may race, Optimist Prams off the beach to Maxi Sleds offshore, Ullman Sails have proven time and again they can accelerate you into the winner's circle. Check out http://www.ullmansails.com and find out what many already know - Ullman Sails can help you dive into the silver.

STONEWEST INTERNATIONAL 14 WORLDS
Beer Sailing Club, East Devon, England (115 boats) - The American team of Kris Bundy and Jamie Hanseler will be crowned International 14 World Champions later today after the final day's racing in Beer was abandoned due to lack of wind. The pair, who were level on points with the British team Colin Goodman and Jim Storey, took the championship due to having more race wins during the regatta. - Peter Danby, Sailsail.com

FINAL RESULTS: 1. Kris Bundy and Jamie Hanseler USA (8 points), 2. Colin Goodman and James Storey GBR (8), 3. Zeb Elliott and Dan Johnson GBR (10), 4. Andy FitzGerald and Tim Hancock GBR (32), 5. Mark Upton-Brown and Ian Mitchell GBR (41) 8. Zach Berkowitz & Karl Baldauf USA (49), 30. Ron Boehm & Pete Mohler USA (103), 40. Paul Bieker & Mark Newbrook USA (150).

Complete results: http://sailsail.com/news/news-article.asp?Articleid=3D1085

LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net)
Letters selected to be printed are routinely edited for clarity, space (250 words max) and to exclude unfounded speculation or personal attacks. You only get one letter per subject so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.

--From John Ingalls - I am concerned with the proposed format of the host country choosing the boat to be used in the Olympics for women's match racing. One aspect that seems to be overlooked is that regardless of the boat chosen, the serious campaigner will without doubt buy the chosen boat and begin practicing. Practicing will include participating in the major and minor events that the selected class organization schedules. Once the Olympics are over, the process of buying the next "chosen" boat begins again. The only hitch is that the contender will now need to sell their boat from the previous Olympic campaign, and who do you think would want to buy it? Young or first time campaigners will not be able to buy a good used boat left over from a previous campaign. From my perspective this will raise the cost of campaigning for those who attempt more than one campaign.

-- From Geoff Lynch - With regard to the report in 'butt 597 where Bruce Gardner asks where else can you race round an Island - guys come on over to the UK around Mid June each year, and race with well over 1400 yachts, multihulls (this year including Playstation) & day boats around the Isle of Wight in the Hoya Round the Island Race - run by the Island Sailing Club. Get your entry in before mid May otherwise it costs megabucks to enter.

Typically starting on the ebb around 6.00am, all starts are normally completed (at 10 minute intervals) by 8.00am, with well over 1,400 boats all going down the West Solent to the Needles on a 50+ mile course with plenty of hazards to contend with, including the famous Goose Rock and Varvassi wreck just off the Needles.

In a good year the majority of yachts will be finished by 16.30, but in a bad year some may be still finishing at midnight.

Entries include maxi yachts, IRC and Club handicapped yahcts, as well as Dragions, Ultra 30 skiffs, Etchells, Contessa 32s, Nicholson 30s, Hunter 707s, Sonars etc.

-- From Bruce Parsons (Re Warning whales) - Here in New Foundland there has always been lots of whales - fins, humpback and minke mostly. The humpback seem the most approachable, and I have had many close encounters and several times startled them, and they always move to avoid the boat.

Jon Lien got together with some local fishermen in an attempt to save their nets a number of years ago. If I am not mistaken, a small battery powered pinger on the nets really cut down on this problem, and saved from drowning many whales that in previous years they had to dive on and cut out of the nets. The whales always tolerate this well, even injured ones, bending around to watch the divers work.

When I know I am in the vicinity of whales I tap my wedding ring on the steel of the pushpit, and this seems to enough for them to locate you. I suspect that even on a fast boat, very little power is required, and one might consider using the whole hull as a sounding board to broadcast the sound - no doubt keeping everyone on board awake.

Even though many of these animals are old enough to have been hunted, it is remarkable they make every effort to avoid collisions. One friend of mine in a 16 ft open boat had the fluke of a startled rolling humpback miss him only by a foot as it twisted to avoid him. He now thumps his hull when he knows they are around. And yes, caplin breath as we call it here, does= stink.

-- From Don Ricketts - Ken Guyer is exactly right. The billionaires will structure the game to their liking, applauded by certain professional sailors whose dream is a feeding frenzy exceeding NBA or NFL free agency.

The only remedy is to stop caring so much about whether "America" can get the Cup back. Soon the global business/sports "culture" will come to resemble the old movie "Rollerball" where the teams were sponsored by the very few megacorporations ("Air" "Energy" etc).

-- From Steve Loeb (Re IMS racing - 'Butt 597) - I can also report that IMS racing is doing very well and growing in the North Eastern United States. The heart of the IMS fleet in this area is the IMS 40 Association. The Association's members consist of sixteen state-of-the-art IMS racers and cruiser/racers 39-43 feet loa and with IMS GPH ratings from 551-570. Several additional members are expected before the end of the Season. This group has the most competitive handicap racing in the area. The Spring IMS 40 Trophy Series consisted of 3 regattas, each won by a different boat.

-- From Toby Rowland-Jones - Surely Michelle M. Orr must be seriously joking when you proffer your objections to environmental causes bannered on America Cup boats. The environment is not personal, but global. Let us do away with environmentalism, and the Cup boats and the spectator fleet might well have no option but to race (anywhere in the world) in fetid and oil-slicked waters. And do you honestly think that certain companies that promote themselves through the Cup aren't involved in either poor labor practices or environmental damage at some point?

Are we to be spoken to by the mouths of industries that control the media and politics through your ideal? I hope not! With the advent of "free speech", everyone with the money, and also within the boundaries of reasonable taste, anyone should have the power to advertise.

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS VIC-MAUI 2000
Conditions are changing as the fleet rounds the corner of the Pacific High off San Francisco, and heads directly for Maui. Though winds lessened today to 10-15 knots, some boats are already reporting occasional squalls. The general feeling is they are entering the trades.

The lighter winds slowed the fleet a bit, and there are only a few changes in fleet placings. GRAND ILLUSION still leads Class A, SHOW ME is second, and MIDNIGHT SPECIAL third. Both GRAND ILLUSION and RENEGADE logged the best daily runs (220-odd miles). FARR-ARI leads Class B, followed by JOIA and PURSUIT. JOIA put in the best daily distance here (185 miles). Apparently PURSUIT is being dogged by something on her keel, and may be slow until she frees whatever it is. NIGHT RUNNER leads Class C, with GREY HOUND second, and TURICUM third. The order in Class D is ORIOLE, PRAIRIE VOYAGER and TETHRA. Overall, ORIOLE still leads the fleet (though by a lesser margin) followed by GRAND ILLUSION and FARR-ARI.

The squally conditions caused PRAIRIE VOYAGER to broach violently enough to put her mast in the water. She recovered without any problems other than the mess to cleaned up. ORIOLE reports a night of spinnaker difficulties, but says she is back in the groove too.

It seems everyone is getting something special out of the race. DARBY reports finding a 15-inch Japanese glass fishing float, and disturbing a sleeping whale while retrieving it. The whale encircled the boat with a stream of phosphorescence. TETHRA already considers she's won the fishing derby, and is inviting the other crews to come back for dinner. Not to be outdone, DREAM CATCHER reports catching a 25lb tuna. Her crew has spotted two different kinds of whales and a shark.

Complete standings: http://www.vicmaui.org

VOLVO OCEAN RACE
(Sean McNeill has written a very comprehensive story for the Quokka website about the upcoming Volvo Ocean Race. Following is but a brief excerpt from that piece.)

The most noticeable change is in the racecourse. The race still features nine legs for a total of 32,250 nautical miles. It will visit six of the 10 ports that hosted stopovers in 1996-97: Southampton (race start), Cape Town (Leg 1), Sydney (Leg 2), Auckland (Leg 3), Baltimore/Annapolis (Leg 7) and La Rochelle (Leg 8).

New ports, however, include Hobart, as part of the Sydney to Hobart Race, before heading for Auckland. Later, the race returns to Rio de Janeiro (the first two races visited Rio), and then makes its first call in Miami (just 20 miles south and in place of former stopover Ft. Lauderdale). Rio and Miami serve as new finishing ports for similar legs from the last race.

The race concludes with two new legs, La Rochelle to Goteborg and Goteborg to Kiel. Goteborg is home to Volvo headquarters in Sweden, and Kiel is an important market to Volvo.

"The new legs give spectators an opportunity to see the boats, and it takes the race farther into Europe," said Woods. "We still have a good balance between sailing and commercial aspects."

The scoring system introduced for the last running has been tweaked. The race's first six editions were scored on time, either elapsed or corrected based on handicaps. In an effort to make the race easier to understand for the non-sailing public, a points system was introduced for the seventh edition, with certain legs weighted more than others, based on perceived difficulties.

The weighting system, however, awarded more than 57 percent of the total points when the boats had arrived in South America. Race winner EF Language basically wrapped up the victory on Leg 5 to S=E3o Sebasti=E3o, reducing the interest on the final legs, although Dalton did overtake Krantz for second overall by a scant 9 points on the final 450-mile sprint to the finish.

For the upcoming race the weighting system has been eliminated, and the addition of a leg to the end of the race, in place of the Fremantle to Sydney leg, should help keep interest longer. The shorter legs around Europe at the end of the race will count as much as the marathon legs across vast stretches of ocean and against icebergs, whales and lost containers.

The lack of a weighting system stands to change the strategy of the race. Some boats may optimise the design for the shorter legs rather than the rough and tumble southern legs, and in particular for the Atlantic Ocean legs and around Europe. This will be a key factor in the upcoming race. - Sean McNeill, for Quokka Sports

Full story: http://sailing.quokka.com/stories/06/SLQ__0630_s_volvo_WFC.html

FOR THE RECORD
The maxi catamaran Club Med is in Newport for a complete two-week check. From then on, she will be ready to go on standby to attack the famous Atlantic crossing record between New York and The Lizard. Because with an almost 20 knot average (Jet Services V =AD Serge Madec / 1990), this record is probably the most difficult to beat in the world.

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ANOTHER LAUNCHING
On June 28, Denise and Paolo Sheaffer became the proud parents of 7 pound 11 ounce Julia - 20.5".

KIEL WEEK
(Bob Merrick forwarded these Final Results to Scuttlebutt.)

STAR CLASS (9 races with discard): 1 Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl USA (26pts) 2 Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira Bra (42pts) 3 Ian Walker and Mark Covell GBR (45pts).

470 WOMEN (15 races with discards): 1 Ruslana Taran and Olena Pakholchyk (48pts) 2 Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell Aus (55pts) 3 Sofia Becatoura and A Tsoulfa Gre (74pts) 8 JJ Isler and Pease Glaser (121pts)

470 MEN (15 races with discard): 1 Tom King and Mark Turnball Aus (52pts) 2 Paul Forrester and Bob Merrick USA (65pts) 3 Simone Cooke and Peter Nicholas (66pts)

MISTRAL WOMEN (12 races with discards): 1 Jessica Crisp Aus (27pts) 2 Lai Lee Shan Hkg (34pts) 3 Lisa Vidal Fra (35pts) 6 Lanee Butler USA (70pts)

TORNADO CLASS (9 races with discard): 1 Roman Hagara and Hans P Steinacher Aut (26pts) 2 Roland Gaebler and Rene Schwall Ger (33pts) 3 Pierre Pennec and Yahn Guichard Fra (46pts) 5 John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree USA= (51pts).

NOTICE TO OFFSHORE READERS
On July 4 we celebrate Independence Day here in the US, so Tuesday will be 'Butt-less.

THE CURMUDGEON'S COUNSEL
When you lose, don't lose the lesson.