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SCUTTLEBUTT 3063 - Monday, April 5, 2010Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors,providing a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Scuttlebutt on Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Scuttlebutt on Facebook: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/facebook Today's sponsors: USSTAG, Kaenon Polarized, and Oyster Marine. . BARKOW TAKES BRONZE AT PRINCESS SOFIA TROPHY Palma de Mallorca, Spain (April 2, 2010) - At the 41st Princess Sofia Trophy in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, one of seven International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Sailing World Cup events, USA's Sally Barkow (Nashotah, Wis.), Katie Pettibone (Sacramento, Calif.) and Suzy Leech (Avon, Conn.) won the petit-finals today against Great Britain to secure a bronze medal in the Women's Match Racing event. All three races were tight matches, but thanks to a steadier sea breeze than what they experienced all week, they were able to concentrate on their boat speed, which they used to their advantage. Barkow said that winning two out of the three starts made all the difference. "We were confident in our boat speed against a very strong team," stated Barkow. "We feel really satisfied, it was a great week." Zach Railey (Clearwater, Fla.) dominated the top-ten Finn Medal Race from start to finish today, earning a bullet that punctuated his strategy-testing week. Railey, the 2008 Olympic Silver Medalist, dedicated this week to trying new techniques on the starting line in order to make progress this spring, which caused some initial setbacks in his results. He said he learned from some of the mistakes he made earlier in the week, and as the week went on, he felt more comfortable executing what he and the USSTAG coaches had been working on. "It was great to get out front and stay there today, unlike earlier in the week when I was rounding further back and had to work my way through the fleet," said Railey. "It's good to know if I have a bad race, I have the ability to catch up, but that's not the key to success in a big fleet like this." In the Men's 470 Medal Race today, USSTAG's Stu McNay (Boston, Mass.) and Graham Biehl (San Diego, Calif.) secured a sixth place overall, while USSTAG's Amanda Clark (Shelter Harbor, N.Y.) and Sarah Chin (Hoboken, N.J.) finished the event eighth overall. -- Full story: http://sailingteams.ussailing.org/Releases/Princess_Sofia_Final.htm Event website: http://www.trofeoprincesasofia.org ANACORTES TO BASK IN GLOW OF SAILING'S BIGGEST PRIZE The town of Anacortes, WA is a world away from the glitz and glamor of Valencia, Spain, where two of the world's richest men recently pitted their deep pockets against each other in two of the fastest and most advanced sailboats ever built to claim sailing's biggest prize - the America's Cup. But the decidedly blue collar, old-salt town can claim its fair share of the glory for BMW Oracle Racing team's victory. After all, the stunning trimaran that set a new standard in sailing was built within a stone's throw of the commercial shipyards and oil refinery that define this town's shoreline. And on Saturday, April 10, the town will finally get to bask in its share of the spotlight, when the winning BMW Oracle team brings the America's Cup trophy to town for a public celebration. "The community is thrilled," said Anacortes Mayor Dean Maxwell. "This is big stuff. I don't think the America's Cup has ever been to Anacortes before, nor do I expect it will ever be back in Anacortes again. It's history, for sure." For the past two years, a team of international workers toiled under a cloak of secrecy in Anacortes, building the various pieces of the boat in a large industrial building in a fenced lot at the corner of R Avenue and 28th Street. Some 150,000 hours of work went into the trimaran's construction, which involved extensive involvement from Janicki Industries, a Sedro Woolley-based company specializing in high-precision fabrication. Core Builders, which constructed the trimaran, also chose Anacortes to construct two boats for regattas leading up to the 32nd America's Cup. BMW Oracle reached the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup but was beaten by Alinghi, who went on to win the 2007 America's Cup. Don Wick, executive director of the Skagit County Economic Development Association, began working with the Core Builders team around 2005 when they first began looking at Anacortes. Wick said the team, comprising workers from countries including New Zealand, Spain, France and England, among others, became an important part of the community of almost 17,000. -- Three Sheets Northwest, read on: http://www.threesheetsnw.com/blog/archives/8706 ATLANTIS CHEERS USSTAG: Gold Partner Atlantis WeatherGear congratulates the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics on strong performances at the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma, Spain. Stu McNay and Graham Biehl took sixth place in the Men's 470 after finishing fourth in the medal race. Amanda Clark and Sarah Chin took eighth in the Women's 470, and Zach Railey finished 9th overall in the Finn. Atlantis congratulates 2008 Olympian Sally Barkow and her Women's Match Racing crew of Katie Pettibone and Suzy Leech for taking the Bronze Medal by defeating the British team, skippered by Lucy MacGregor, 2-1 in the petit-finals. Atlantis is proud to be the official technical and casual apparel partner of the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics. Follow the team on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/krhovk WORLD MATCH RACING 2010 TOUR BEGINS APRIL 6 The World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) is the premium global match racing series culminating in crowning the ISAF Match Racing World Champion at the end of 10 international events. This year's Tour starts on Tuesday in Marseille with 'Match Race France' running from April 6-11, at Yacht Club Pointe Rouge. This is the second time Marseille has hosted the WMRT, the area is blessed with excellent match racing courses and is a much-loved destination for the global stars of the sailing world. The diverse range of competitors includes young hot shot Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team, racing legend Bertrand Pace (FRA) Aleph Sailing, and WMRT top standing regular Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team. Marseille will be catering to the local Tour fans as well as the general public; the racing will be free to view from just 50 metres off Escale Borely Beach and depending on weather conditions the boats will be within touching distance of the break water. Match Race France's competitor line up includes 12 skippers from 6 different nations. The racing will be intense with the current top five 2009 WMRT standing skippers attending as well as others such as Francesco Bruni from Italy who will be racing fresh from his recent win at the Congressional Cup and is a hot favourite for Marseille. The unique strength of the Tour is that it involves match racers from across the spectrum of the sport introducing the new generation to the highs of racing against the seasoned pros. -- Full story: http://www.wmrt.com/the-world-match-racing-tour-starts-2010.html Match Race France Official Skipper Line Up: Adam Minoprio (NZL) BlackMatch Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team Ben Ainslie (GBR) TEAMORIGIN Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team Sébastien Col (FRA) ALL4ONE Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Italia Philippe Presti (FRA) French Match Racing Team Francesco Bruni (ITA) Azzurra Pierre-Antoine Morvan (FRA) Torvar Mirsky (AUS) skipper of Mirsky Racing Team Bertrand Pacé (FRA) Aleph Sailing Team Gian Luca Perris (MON) Event website: http://www.wmrt.com/ GAINING TRACTION Amid youth sailing, the push toward fun boats continues to gain traction. When the high performance 49er skiff became an Olympic event, it opened the door for a youth version of the boat - the 29er. Here is a report by Peter R. Macdonald, 29er class, U.S. vice president: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 29er class has increased in membership this year as more and more juniors (and a few adults) have jumped in. We have six new junior teams in the last year from San Diego alone. The class has voted in a "new" Board of Directors and we are playing a much more active role. We are selling "Open sailing and Junior sailing", all teams finishing and racing together, yet at the end of the regatta we announce the top open teams, top Junior and Girls team. A number of experienced dinghy parents find it interesting and the dynamics very positive. Comments being heard are, "It was great to see a debrief after sailing", "that's not done in the other junior classes", "It seems that the kids get along better off the water, and like to help each other". There are a few oddities such as pairings with junior and adults, but that is working its way through. The growth seems to come from the youth. One new adult team is Brady and Lulu Sih, a husband and wife team. They just wanted to sail together and liked the boat. Brady is a past Olympian and his wife was an accomplished 470 sailor. In the last two years I have seen a huge change of philosophy within the class; the kids / young adults are really gamers and well behaved. I personally have received thank you's from regatta PRO's stating that the sailors were very polite and thanked them during and after the regattas. * The class recently held their west coast Midwinters in Coronado, CA, where teams from Canada, Florida, and Washington joined the locals, with Olympians, junior national champions and U.S. SAILING development team members competing. -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9570 HURTS SO GOOD THIS OCEAN By Kimball Livingston, Yachting Journalist So I made a wisecrack about how Qingdao-to-San Francisco, crossing the North Pacific in winter storms, would not be the leg for little old me, and Zoe Williamson shot right back, "Having done the full-circle navigation, that's the one leg I wouldn't let anyone take away. There were times when I wondered what I was doing, but the sense of achievement at the end was amazing." Apparently, in this sailing thing, the more it hurts, the better it gets. Eventually. Hand it to the organizers of the Clipper Round the World race, they are enablers of the first order. I don't much care who wins this deal, but sailing around the world is sailing around the world. Clipper 2009-10 is better than halfway around - they're due back in Britain in July - and I was running a contact high on the conversation. Zoe went around four years ago, finishing her Pacific leg in Vancouver, B.C. With her was Carol Reed, a 45-year-old media relations director taking a long sabbatical this year to be a rounder, as they call it, rather than a legger. Carol was only slightly removed from sailing through the Golden Gate on the Canadian entry, Cape Breton Island, on the first boat to finish her own Pacific leg. We were kicked back in sofas on the lower level of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, San Francisco, just a few feet from where other Cape Breton Island crew were mending sails that were obviously straight from the front lines. Zoe asked, "Carol, if someone said to you now, I can let you do that round-the-world sail, but we'll just take out the leg with all the storms in the North Pacific, how would you feel?" "Oh no, you can't take that," was Carol's answer. "That's the leg that made a real change in me." -- Full story: http://kimballlivingston.com/ * Since Tuesday 30 March, the internationally sponsored fleet of stripped down ocean racing yachts competing in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race have been arriving in San Francisco at the end of a grueling five week long North Pacific leg from Qingdao, China. -- Event website: http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/index.php/Home EIGHT BELLS: Guy Eldridge Guy Eldridge will always be known as an anchor for the establishment of law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman BVI, and a sailor, according to his business partner Robert Briant. Eldridge, 46, died instantly as a result of a fall during the recent International Rolex Regatta in St. Thomas. He was a well-known sailor and captain, and contributor to All At Sea, the Caribbean's Waterfront Magazine. The incident occurred on Friday around 5 p.m. when Eldridge and his crew were wrapping up for the day. According to Briant, his long time friend fell on the companionway and hit his head. "I was in New York when I received the devastating news later in the evening," Briant recalled. Eldridge, a citizen of Bermuda, first joined the firm as an associate in Bermuda in 1988. He later moved to the BVI in 1997 and started the BVI office where he became a partner in 2001. "Guy was an integral part of the BVI office, and a true asset of the firm. He will be sorely missed," Briant added. "Guy's interests were sailing and military history. If there is any comfort to be had, at least he was doing what he loved." A service will be held on April 10 at the Davis Funeral Home, Road Town, BVI. Eldridge leaves to mourn his wife Sue-Ellyn and step-son William, who is 14. SPRING FRESH FROM KAENON POLARIZED First, the no-brainers: Kanvas and Klay. All about lightweight, durable, fit and function, with good looks and our patented SR-91 polarized lenses. Pure Kaenon Polarized at attractive entry-level pricing. Next up - Fresh Color - for both men and women: Fern, Havana, Kelp, Dark n' Stormy and Matte Black in Delite, Leila, Lewi and Beacon. Metals: Basis and Segment are in bloom again, along with the brand new lightweight Spindle S5 and the uber-hot Sequence (think retro ... Ted Turner at the wheel of Courageous!). All available in prescription. Kaenon Polarized. Evolve Optically. http://www.kaenon.com SAILING SHORTS * Team New Zealand are considering entering next year's Volvo Ocean Race following the announcement that Auckland will be a stopover port for the event. Team New Zealand chief executive Grant Dalton says time is really tight, but it is logical for them to look at entering. The Kiwi says there is an opportunity to do both the America's Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race. He says if New Zealand has a boat in the race then Kiwis will have a reason to be interested and it could make the Auckland stopover as popular as it once was. -- Report at: http://tvnz.co.nz/sailing-news/team-nz-consider-volvo-entry-3446825 * BMW ORACLE Racing's Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp., made $84.5 million in total compensation in 2009, compared with $84.6 million in 2008, according to proxy material reviewed by The New York Times. His pay was substantially greater than the next three corporate heads on the list, according to the newspaper's annual list of highest-paid CEOs, which ranked 200 top executives at 199 companies. The firms had to have revenue of over $5.78 billion to make the list. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/yfsrt7s * The New York-Barcelona Transoceanic Sailing Record begins between April 5th and the 12th from Ambrose Light in New York and will finish in the Barcelona port between April 20th and the 30th. The two competing teams are comprised of Alex Pella, Pepe Ribes and the American Stan Schreyer with Estrella Damm, and Pachi Rivero, Antonio Piris and Peter Becker with W Hotels. The New York Yacht Club, which is collaborating with the project, has picked Edward Cesare as a reserve skipper for both teams. -- Complete report: http://tinyurl.com/yhl5jp3 * Neil Pryde's Welbourne 52, Hi Fi, took Line Honours victory at the 2010 Rolex China Sea Race, crossing the finish line off Subic Bay, Philippines at 07:36:11 local time. Hi Fi's elapsed time of 67hrs, 26mins shaved close to four hours off their previous record, set in the 2008 race. Hi Fi also won the IRC Racing A division overall on corrected time. -- Full story: www.regattanews.com * CORRECTION: The Photos of the Week featured in Scuttlebutt 3062 last Friday had the wrong link. If you were hoping to see sweet engines, shark glasses, Quantum kicks, flight path sailing, Caribbean frostbiting, 'rear rash' recovery, and get your April computer monitor background, here is the correct link: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/10/0402/ SCUTTLEBUTT SAILING CALENDAR Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar LETTERS AND FORUM Please email your comments to the Scuttlebutt editor (aka, 'The Curmudgeon'). Published letters must include writer's name and be no longer than 250 words (letter might be edited for clarity or simplicity). One letter per subject, and save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. As an alternative, a more open environment for discussion is available on the Scuttlebutt Forum. -- To submit a Letter: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com -- To post on the Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Paul Warren, Redington Beach, FL: (re, Scuttlebutt 3061) Thank the Lord that we (in Annapolis) have progressed from a Mayor (Dick Hillman) who saw a "forest of sticks" to a Mayor (Josh Cohen) who at least recognizes that Our Town has a "sailing claim to fame!" Now, I would urge Mayor Cohen to promote Annapolis as a "sailor's paradise", not just "The Nation's Sailing Capital - plenty of anchorages, dockage, chandleries, good restaurants and (sailor's) bars, shopping and points of interest. In the Annapolis vs. Newport debate, I think Annapolis wins: more comfortable (less stuffy), milder temperatures (we sail all year round), more yacht clubs (3 major clubs vs. 1). I don't have specific numbers at hand, but I believe that Annapolis has hosted more World Championship regattas in recent years, too: Stars, Snipes, Farr 40's, Melges 32's, among others. Plus, Annapolis is host to a number of major intercollegiate and high school events, courtesy of the US Naval Academy and its facilities. * From Jay Solomon, Titusville, FL: Just my humble two cents, if you want to add excitement to the next America's Cup, add cameras. Do it like the Volvo Ocean Race does. I was riveted watching not only fixed cameras showing the speed of the boats but the actions of the crews. If they can upload video clips via satellite from the onboard media person in the middle of the ocean, then they can live feed from a media person on board an America's Cup Yacht in San Francisco Bay or where ever they race. It gives you the feel of being one of the crew. They did this a little bit for the LVPS but it could be better. * From Ron Breault: Regarding the America's Cup, I have not seen, maybe I missed it, any discussion of a Defender Series such as NYYC had in the good old days. I think that US interest (both the sailing and non sailing public) would increase significantly if GGYC held such a series to determine the Defender. Potentially, syndicates from widely separated areas such as the Chicago/Great Lakes, Newport/NE, New York/LIS, Annapolis/Chesapeake, St Petersburg/Florida, Houston/Texas, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco/California and Seattle/Pacific Northwest might compete. Having the prospect of a 'reasonably priced boat and campaign' would be important. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION When a woman hears "It's a guy thing", it translates to "There is no rational thought pattern connected with it, and you have no chance at all of making it logical." Special thanks to USSTAG, Kaenon Polarized, and Oyster Marine. 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