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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 643 - September 11, 2000OLYMPICS(A report from Sydney, Australia by US SAILING's Olympic Director, Jonathan Harley.) Today was the first day of Olympic measurement and our 49er and Soling were scheduled. Olympic measurement is like no other measurement a sailor will ever experience. The measurement manual is very detailed as to how to present your boat (dry) whether your mast is rigged or not, how much gear is aboard, etc. In the 49er class there is a requirement that all Olympic boats were to have been constructed after March 1, 1999. To ensure compliance, all licensed builders were required to hide a computer chip somewhere in the hull, centerboard and rudder during construction. This chip has a bar code indicating the builder and date built. In the accompanying photograph 49er Olympic measurer Barry Johnson is using a sonograph to locate the computer chip in the US 49er. The chips were not all placed in the same exact location on each boat built and it took Barry 15 minutes to locate the chip on the first boat he measured. He located the McKee's in about 2 minutes, but said he kept looking so no one would know where the chip was placed. Once hull measurement is completed the identifying USA IOC code is applied, and as you can see Charlie McKee is very happy to have the process completed. Our Soling went through measurement and also passed with no problems, except for a very small weight that needed to be added to the tip of the mast. The process took about 2 hours, and included the taking of approximately 800 different measurements. I had a chance to talk with Chief Olympic Soling Measurer Terry Polidor (Rochester, NY) during the process as he excused himself from the US boat measurement. The boat is weighed and full hull templates are attached to insure the boat is a "legal" Soling. After measurement the three-letter IOC code USA is applied as well as Sydney 2000 graphics indicating we have a legal Olympic Soling. Soling sails will be measured later this week. To show how complete the measurement process in the Europe class is, the first boat entered the measurement tent at 9:30 a.m. and was still being measured at 5:00 p.m. The saying is "the smaller the boat the more complicated the measurement". Fortunately they are not measuring Optimists! ;-) To read all of Harley's comments: http://www.ussailing.org/olympics/2000/diary.htm MAXI YACHT ROLEX CUP Yacht Club Costa Smeralda Porto Cervo, Sardinia - The regatta offered up the full range of conditions, with light airs graduating to strong breezes by the end of the week. Luca Bassani's hi-tech Tiketitan with the swing keel dominated the racing for line honours. But to watch the week unfold was to witness a fascinating battle between the traditional manpowered IMS Maxis like Rrose Selavy and Alexia against the gleaming, hydraulics-powered Wally yachts. Whilst the stylish Wally yachts like Tiketitan and Wally B undoubtedly win for their stunning lines and sleek looks, owners like Roy Disney prefer to rely on their human engine rooms over the complexity of hydraulic power. "The more simple the boat, the less there is to go wrong," he said. Certainly, his ultra-fast 70-footer Pyewacket provided the most spectacular sight of the week when she charged downwind at speeds in excess of 25 knots, under perfect control. On Friday, gale force winds and enormous waves crashing through the entrance to Porto Cervo forced racing to be cancelled at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2000 in Sardinia. There was still high drama, however, as multi-million dollar yachts like Alexia, Skandia and Pyewacket had to enlist the help of a harbour tug boat to tow them clear of the dockside, as they bore the full brunt of the waves searing through the tiny entrance of the picturesque harbour. With 50-knot gusts creating a relentless howl through the hi-tech carbon-fibre rigging, crews' faces were etched with the stress and responsibility of moving their boats to calmer waters without causing any major damage. - Susannah Bourne Final results: IMS-ORC (Racing) Division 1. Rrose, Selavy Riccardo Bonadeo (9 points) 2. Alexia, Alberto Roemmers (10) 3. Edimetra, Ernesto Gismondi (14) Light Division 1. Magic Carpet, Lindsay Owen-Jones (9) 2. Virtuelle, Carlo Perrone (11) 3. Kauris II, Marco Tronchetti Provera (15) Cruising Heavy Division 1. Aldabra, M Niccolini (5) 2 Unfurled, Harry Macklowe (12) 3. Antonisa, Chris Harmsworth (13) Event website: http://www.yccs.it/Stagione2000/Maxi/Index.htm WHERE'S DAVE? A sailing icon around the planet, sailmaker Dave Ullman is located in Newport Beach, around the corner from INTERNATIONAL CREW. So we included the "icon" in our new Nautical Luxuries catalog (what are friends for?). You can't actually buy Dave's sails from us, but you can find his logo among our elegant nautical gifts, crystal bowls, teak trays, and nautical gift baskets. Find it, and we'll take $5 off your first order. For an INTERNATIONAL CREW catalog, call 888-891-6601, E-mail sales@internationalcrew.com, or on the internet www.internationalcrew.com . For an Ullman sail, call Dave. ERNESTO BERTARELLI (Here is some biographical information about the man behind the new Swiss America's Cup team.) President of the Swiss Challenge, CEO, Deputy-Chairman Serono International SAErnesto Bertarelli, CEO and Deputy Chairman of Serono, the leading biotechnology company. Born in 1965, he attended Babson College in Boston and then went on to Harvard Business School where he obtained his MBA. Recently married, he lives in Geneva. Passionate about sailing since early childhood, he has participated in many competitions, both at sea and on lake Geneva. He has dreamed of competing in and winning the America's Cup ever since then. He has won the Sardinia Cup in 1998, the Bol d'Or twice in 1997 and 2000 and finished third of the 1999 Fastnet Race. Recently, he has commissioned and had built one of the highest performing catamarans in the world. The 12.5 meter long Alinghi IV carries 376 square meters of sails for a total weight (including sails and crew) of 1,850 kilos. His strategies for yachting and running a company intersect at the point of using speed and state-of-the-art technologies to reinforce leadership. "If you see my boat, you will understand my management style," says Ernesto Bertarelli. (And here is some more insightful information about Bertarelli excerpted from a story by Tim Jeffery on the QuokkaSailing website.) When he scouted Auckland for a boat at the time of the last Cup, Bertarelli returned empty-handed. Later, as TNZ imploded and the first sailors started to sign up with the Ellison team, then McCaw's, Coutts rang up Bertarelli. "At first, I thought he was upset," remembered Bertarelli. "For me, to have Russell Coutts on the phone was a big thing. He said, 'You want to buy my boats?' I said, 'Don't get uspet; I'm not trying to raid your team. I'm just wondering about the boats you guys need money?' He said, "that's not going to happen, but on the other hand I am in Europe next week. Why don't we see each other?' "It was then that I learnt that what seemed a perfect team wasn't, and that Russell was looking for something else. For him it was a difficult decision. For me, too. But at the end of the day, I couldn't let the opportunity go by," said Bertarelli. And that is how Ernesto Bertarelli became a player in the 2003 Cup. In New Zealand, all hell broke loose. Coutts, Brad Butterworth and the other members of Team Magic (Simon Daubney, Warwick Fleury, Murray Jones and Dean Phipps) gave the TNZ trustees three weeks' notice of their decision to quit and agreed to a no-poaching arrangement with Tom Schnackenberg. Even so, Coutts' resignation triggered a torrent of mud-slinging in New Zealand. Outsiders still don't know the full story of the unseemly mess that TNZ got itself into in the winding up of one blind trust and the creation of another. But things were so bad that the old trust sold the team's Travelift, so the reborn TNZ had no means of launching its boats. - Tim Jeffery, for Quokka Sports Full story: http://www.quokkasailing.com/stories/09/SLQ_0908_bertarelli_WFC.html LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) Letters selected to be printed are edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude unfounded speculation or personal attacks. This is not a chat room - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree. -- From Brendan Dobroth - Many larger boats WILL NOT bear off if you don't ease the jib during a duck. Heeling is the main cause of Weather helm, and if the boat stays heeling, the rudder force is not great enough to compensate for the ducking maneuver. Easing the jib reduces the heeling, allowing the duck. -- From ChrisBouzaid - It is time there is a Sportboat class in the USA. The UK has one New Zealand and Australia have one so lets get one going here in the USA. Most of the rules are for yachts between 6 to 10 meters long. If you have a Sportboat, any type, Melges, Henderson, Farr, J Boat, Antrim or any other between 6 & 10 meters long (20 to 32 feet) and want to be on my mailing list send me your full address and your email address to chris@autoprop.com and I will get back to you with my ideas and we can start some dialogue. DOWNWIND SAILIING (Getting down the racecourse fast requires practice, as well as understanding and executing a few basic principles. Zack Leonard explains it all on the SailNet website. Here's a brief excerpt from that story.) If you go around the windward mark as part of a large group of boats, executing your game plan can be a challenge. Boats often bunch up while they look for the mark and struggle with sail controls and spinnakers. Your primary goals upon exiting the windward mark are to sail the boat full speed, in clear air, and pointing in the direction you've decided you want to go. Immediately after you round the mark, you need to be mindful of boats that are still sailing upwind, particularly if you're racing in a large fleet. If the left side was favored on the beat and the whole fleet was sailing near the port-tack layline, you might be able to escape the cluster by jibing immediately to get clear air. However, it's more likely that the fleet will be stacked up on the starboard layline, so a jibe, even to clear your air from downwind boats behind you, can land you in no-man's land. This is the area just to leeward of the mark where the air is entirely broken up from the upwind boats still approaching the windward mark. How can you determine if your air is clear downwind? The best way is to use telltales on your shrouds. Simply draw an imaginary line parallel to the telltale pointing back upwind behind you. If that line is pointing at another boat that is anywhere close by, then you are sailing in that boat's windshadow. What strategies can you use to clear your air? First, you can head up, which will clear your air out in front of the pursuing windshadow, but this usually means you'll be sailing extra distance to get to the mark. Second, you can jibe. Jibing will clear your air quickly and can sometimes take you back closer to the rhumb line. Given the choice, you should choose the method of clearing your air that allows you to sail the favored tack or gets you closer to the rhumb line. If staying on the favored tack means heading far above rhumb line to clear your air, then consider a quick jibe to the unfavored tack, and then a jibe back to the favored tack so you'll have a clear lane. Of course, if one side of the run has a lot more wind than the other, you should always clear your air toward the side with the increased velocity. (That brings up an important point-though you're sailing downwind, at least one person on the boat should focus his or her attention upwind, where the wind is coming from. With some practice, almost anyone can learn to read the wind on the water to know where the best breeze is. - Zack Leonard, SailNet website. Full story: http://www.sailnet.com/collections/racing/index.cfm?articleid=leonar0020&tfr
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