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SCUTTLEBUTT 3088 - Monday, May 10, 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.facebook.com/sailingscuttlebutt Today's sponsors: APS, Flexofold, and LaserPerformance. SHOULD WE BE HANDICAPPING THE BOAT OR THE PEOPLE? By Don Finkle, RCR Yachts The search for the optimal handicapping system has been going on forever and the results are elusive. Over the years we have had a parade of better mousetraps, rules/systems such as CCA, IOR, LOR, ORR, IMS, MORC, Portsmouth, PHRF and now IRC (sorry if I left anyone out, but you get the idea). What usually happens is there is an initial level of excitement for the new rule as sailors look forward to better racing, especially the thought that maybe their own boat will be treated more kindly under this new rule. Then invariably some of them decide that their yacht is not so favorably rated after all, and they become disgruntled as they were before. We end up with some owners liking the rule because they feel they are rated well, and others who don't like their own rating. The rules may change, and those who are happy or unhappy may change, but the result is the same. Not everyone likes the system then in vogue. Hence this continuum of systems being discarded in favor of something newer. Regardless of what rule is used, the sailors that compete under it vary widely in skill, experience, competitive nature and commitment, as well as the reason they race in the first place. Let's assume that it is a given that everyone wants to win, but they don't all expect to win. Problems arise when owners either feel they have no chance to win, or when they are used to winning and expect to win, but aren't winning any more. In either case they will be unhappy, and then look for another rule or worse yet, quit sailing. This is the challenge for those who administer the sport, how to appeal to most of the sailors most of the time, so that we maintain and even grow participation. The rule used can either encourage or discourage, depending on how good a job it does of providing equitable competition. It is an elusive and even a moving target, especially as boat designs change. There is one other point to consider here. Should we stick to handicapping boats only, and not the people who sail them? Generally only the equipment is rated, not the people, and of course the better people usually win this way. That is good for the better sailors, if their goal is a trophy, but maybe it's not actually the best for them in the long run. If they had to work harder to win maybe they would actually benefit. Other sports such as golf and bowling handicap the people, so that everyone has a better chance. It seems to me that we should consider offering both types of racing, some that handicaps boats, and some that handicaps people. Everyone would know the game when they set out, so there should not be any upset when a more accomplished sailor lost to one of lesser experience who happened to have a good day. Maybe this encouragement would keep people interested long enough until their skills improve to the point that they can be competitive in a system where only the boat is handicapped. Excerpts on the subject from RCR Yachts Racer's News: http://psndealer.com/dealersite/images/rcryachts/racersnews041410.pdf http://psndealer.com/dealersite/images/rcryachts/racersnews041410.pdf HIGH SCHOOL SAILING CHAMPIONSHIP Twenty high schools competed in the Interscholastic Sailing Association (ISSA) Double Handed Championship (Mallory Trophy), hosted by Indian Harbor YC at Greenwich, CT on May 7-9, 2010. The teams arrived to perfect New England weather on Friday for the practice/registration day. Unfortunately, when racing began on Saturday, sailors were greeted with thunderstorms and no wind, and then lots of wind. The Race Committee was only able to complete two races, with one subject to a redress hearing (the jury eventually allowed the race to stand). Undaunted, teams returned Sunday morning to typical New England weather (18-22 kts, 50 degrees, and a wind chill in the 40s). The race committee moved the course closer to shore, and while it was puffy, shifty, and cold, the competitors embraced the conditions. Ten A and B division races were completed, with Cathedral Catholic High School (San Diego, CA) taking the overall title, led by skippers Judge Ryan (senior) placing third in A division and Nevin Snow (sophomore) taking second place in B Division. Earlier in the season, Snow won the Laser Radial division of the ISSA High School Single Handed Championship (Cressy Trophy). Final results (school, location, A div, B div, total) 1. Cathedral Catholic HS (San Diego, CA), 63-48, 111 points 2. Point Loma HS (San Diego, CA), 80-43, 123 3. Newport Harbor HS (Newport Beach, CA), 53-79, 132 4. Lake Forest HS (Lake Forest, IL), 49-84, 133 5. Broadneck HS (Annapolis, MD), 84-68, 152 Complete results: http://www.indianharboryc.com/intraclub/query/catquery.html?doc_number=961 APPAREL TO BLOCKS TO CORDAGE Androids or iPads, you can get your Scuttlebutt anywhere but there's still one thing you have to get in print. The APS catalog! Forget fancy websites with no actual stock on shelves behind them. Why risk getting parts sent from all over when you must have something for the weekend to go sailing? From Apparel to Blocks to Cordage, APS is the "World Leader in Outfitting Performance Sailors" and our catalog and APS are the only two places sailors can hold it all in their hands. Keep your eyes peeled for your 2010 APS catalog in the mailbox. http://www.APSLTD.com LIES, DAMN LIES, AND PR SPIN By Bob Fisher, (preeminent) yachting journalist I stand in awe at the achievement of Jessica Watson. That one so young has had the fortitude to withstand the elements of the oceans alone and unaided for the 200 plus-day duration of a voyage through some of the most hostile waters on the planet, should be more than enough to warrant our appreciation of her seamanship and raw guts. This is no easy voyage. It is one whose demands would leave the majority of us carefully looking the other way and making excuses as we exited stage left. It has been a truly wondrous performance by this Australian teenager, who will sail into Sydney Harbour (on Saturday, May 15) to complete her loop. It has been a sailing performance par excellence, one of which she can be justifiably proud and we should applaud it for what it is, and not for what it is not. It might seem at this time of rejoicing, harsh to point out that Jessica has not sailed a course that is approved by the World Sailing Speed Record Council, the international body that approves world records, as it did in the case of Jesse Martin. Rules must be observed in sporting challenges and there are few greater than the circumnavigation of the globe under sail, let alone as an unaided single-hander. Jesse did and sailed more than the required 21,600 miles, but, under the WSSR rules, Jessica has not. She cannot therefore claim to have beaten Jesse's record (as youngest person to non-stop circumnavigate the globe solo), as her publicist insists. There never has been a better example of the vast difference between fact and public relations perspective than this. It is an almost unfathomable chasm. On the one hand, the facts are indisputable, while on the other those facts interfere with the public relations objective. Distortion is the name of the game, and all in pursuit of large swathes of cash. There are concerns that truth is being sacrificed on the altar of Mammon by the actions of Andrew Fraser of 5 Oceans Media. One outstanding example is that while there is extensive questioning of the performance claims across the broad spectrum of the media, there is a total absence of these from any of News Limited's outlets - print or television - perhaps because the Murdoch empire has a reported A$700,000 investment in her exclusive story. -- Sail World, read on: http://tinyurl.com/28l2kp2 TEAM EXTREME DOMINATES PREMIERE TEAM RACE EVENT (May 9, 2010) - The sixty-first edition of the Wilson Trophy British Open Team Racing Championship, hosted by West Kirby Sailing Club, is widely recognised as one of the world's premiere team-racing events. Thirty-two teams from the UK, Ireland and the USA came to fight it out over three days of Swiss league and elimination rounds comprising over two hundred races and culminating in the Grand Final to be sailed in front of a packed spectator grandstand on Sunday afternoon. Despite the unique logistical challenges thrown up by a regatta of this sort, with over sixty years of experience, the team of volunteers at the host club put on an impressive show. The marine lake at West Kirby forms the perfect amphitheatre for an event of this type of event, with all-round spectator access to view the racing augmented by live expert commentary piped throughout the regatta venue. The Wilson Trophy on-the-water organisation is equally impressive, with the racing taking place in a fleet of thirty-six equally matched and coloured coded Firefly dinghies provided by the organisers. The Wilson Trophy utilises a custom automated starting system to get the races underway smoothly and results are posted online within minutes of each race finishing. Given the high-intensity, cut and thrust nature of team racing and to avoid the need for time consuming protest hearings, instant justice is dished out on the water by a squad of twenty-five RIB-based international umpires. The final day of the 2010 Wilson Trophy dawned beautifully bright and clear and following a brief delay to allow the wind to build strength and stabilise direction, racing for the final part of the round robin element got underway. At this stage in the competition, every point counted for those teams hoping to make into the final eight and with a gaggle of teams mathematically capable of progressing to the next round, many of the matches understandably developed into full pitched battles. The semi-final pairings saw two American teams on one side and the two local West Kirby teams on the other. However, it was the American Team Extreme, who had dominated the qualification rounds so comprehensively, that advanced and went on to pull off an equally dominant 3-0 victory in the Grand Final to win the 2010 Wilson Trophy British Open Team Racing Championship. Team Extreme was comprised of Zach Brown & Emmet Smith, Adam & Melanie Roberts and Stuart McNay & Abby Coplin. -- Daily reports: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9778 PERFORMANCE MATTERS Under sail or under power; daysailing, cruising or racing - performance matters. The single most important thing you can do to improve the performance of your boat is to change to a low-drag, high-thrust Flexofold propeller. The attention to design and manufacturing details is apparent at first look. Relentlessly refined for maximum efficiency under power and lowest drag under sail -Sail faster & further, motor at lower RPM with a Flexofold sailboat propeller. Click the link for more information: http://tinyurl.com/FlexoFold-scuttlebutt WHAT A LONG STRANGE TRIP By Kimball Livingston There were no bombshells in the America's Cup 34 press conference held in Rome's Musei Capitolini (last Thursday), but the hour-long session had its moments. Most of all it got me to thinking how long it's taken for a familiar idea to take root. That being, to normalize Cup racing, give it a structure, and establish a marketable schedule for an event that long ago outgrew the 19th century vision of a yacht club somewhere challenging another yacht club for a trophy. Not everyone agrees that independent management should be the future of America's Cup, or that it should be "normalized" according to the prescriptions I heard today. But this approach makes sense to me. We'll still have yacht clubs, and challenges, but no yacht club is big enough to manage what the America's Cup has become, no amount of talking and wishing has produced another sailing event to rival the America's Cup, and our sport deserves something that works. This is it. I can remember Paul Cayard talking about this as a goal as he raced, unsuccessfully, at the 2000 match in Auckland. When he and Russell Coutts attempted, also unsuccessfully, to promote an international circuit in big catamarans, the vision was not far from what I heard now described by Coutts, representing the Defender, and Vincenzo Onorato, representing the Challenger. With the difference that we don't have to invent the America's Cup; we just have to reinvent it. The future as they laid it out will see racing in many parts of the world, culminating in an extended series of challenger races at the America's Cup venue, staged out of what Coutts called, "a fantastic Cup Village; I think it is important to have that village for the fun factor, for the teams, for the commercial partners." -- Read on: http://kimballlivingston.com/?p=2995 Key dates announced - Protocol for the 34th America's Cup will be issued by August 31 - Design rule released by September 30 - Notice of Race & Sailing Instructions published by December 31 - Venue confirmed by December 31 - Challenge Period open from October 1 - January 31, 2011 SCUTTLEBUTT SAILING CALENDAR Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar SAILING SHORTS * (May 8, 2010) - American Anna Tunnicliffe beat reigning champion Claire Leroy (FRA) by 3-1 to win the ISAF Grade 1 XII International Women's Match Race Criterium in Calpe, Spain. The Semi-Final round saw Tunnicliffe advance past Australian Katie Spithill 3-2 with Leroy beating Spanish Tamara Echegoyen by 3-1. Sailing with Tunnicliffe was her Olympic team of Molly Vandemoer and Debbie Capozzi, with Liz Bower and Mary Rook added to the team to sail the larger Tom 28s used for the event. -- Full report: http://tinyurl.com/29pswsk * The Carlos Aguilar Match Race (CAMR) has been chosen to be part of the World Match Racing Tour as an official Qualifier for one of the World Tour's events, Match Cup Sweden. The winner of this year's Open Division will be awarded a berth to sail in Sweden at their 2011 event. The CAMR will be sailed from December 1-5, 2010 in the Caribbean waters of downtown Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas. The CAMR is currently accepting requests for invitations to both their Women's Division and Open Division. Both divisions have applied for a Grade 2 status from ISAF. -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9812 * New Zealander Stuart Bannatyne (aged 39), who has raced around the world five times, will be joining CAMPER as a watch captain for its Volvo Ocean Race project. The CAMPER campaign for the 2011-2012 round-the-world race is being run by Emirates Team New Zealand. Bannatyne's first round the world race was on board New Zealand Endeavour, skippered by Grant Dalton, and is the only person to have won the Volvo Ocean Race, previously the Whitbread, on three different classes of yacht - maxi ketch (New Zealand Endeavour) in 1993-94, Volvo 60 (Illbruck) in 2001-02 and VO70 (Ericsson 4) in 2008-09. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/27rawld * Eighteen boats will set sail on May 12 and 13 in the 26th biennial Regata al Sol from Pensacola, Florida to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Having tracked the Gulf of Mexico oil spill daily, race officials will institute an offset east of the rhumb-line course that will provide a safety buffer away from the spill while only extending the course length by a dozen or so miles. Scratch boat will be Stephen Murray Jr.'s TP52 Decision, who will be chasing their own record, set in 2002 aboard the Andrews 70 Decision, of 59 hours 4 minutes for the 555 nm course. -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9811 * The Clipper Race Committee announced on May 7th that it would shorten the race to Panama due to light and unreliable winds which could affect the fleet's planned transit through the Panama Canal. Overall leader 'Spirit of Australia' crossed the finish line first at 1140 GMT on May 8th, with 'Qingdao' crossing the finish line in second at 1334 GMT, just eight minutes ahead of 'Team Finland' who finished third and will remain in second place overall. Once through the canal, the ten boat fleet will start again for a race to Jamaica. -- Event website: http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com NEW LASERPERFORMANCE FINANCING OFFERS Let LaserPerformance help you with your fleet. Tough economic times have impacted the ability for schools, clubs and camps to finance boat purchases. We want to help keep your fleets in top shape and are excited to announce the LaserPerformance factory financing program. Please call 800-966-7245 or e-mail mailto:info.northamerica@LaserPerformance.com for details. http://www.Laserperformance.com 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 Will Baillieu: How sad to see such argument about Jessica Watson's voyage. When she finally sails into Sydney she will have done exactly as (Waiknot has) stated. Started and finished in Sydney, crossed all the meridians of longitude and sailed in both hemispheres. Short of physically dragging her boat across continents that get in the way, or sailing around in circles in the North Atlantic I don't see how else she was supposed to sail around the world. What a lot of rubbish all you "record keepers" spout. What a miserable bunch of pedantic killjoys you are. Why don't you all try something new; try simply enjoying the youthful enthusiasm and determination that young Jessica has displayed. Try imagining yourselves in her situation and think how you might cope. She has endured all that can be expected. She has coped admirably and relived the experience of Chichester and Rose and all the other famous solo circumnavigators. She has enthralled us and captured our hearts with her cheery attitude and her youthful bravery. She has done all this because she genuinely loves what she is doing. She is not trying to set or break records. She simply wants to sail around the world. With any luck she will achieve her goal some time after the weekend. Personally I will miss her cheery blogs. I care nothing for all the hooha that the press will thrust upon us. I am sure the teenager will not either, and I hope she is not damaged by it. While she is entitled to reap her rewards, I suspect the real reward will be in her own heart, in the knowledge that she has gained about her own abilities. What a wonderful example to the youth of the world. -- Scuttlebutt Forum, http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9786#9786 * From cowabunga: It is sad to see this argument. It need never have happened if Jessica had simply followed the rules, and if her PR people hadn't told lies. There is no doubting it is a great achievement but she simply hasn't done a TRUE circumnavigation (difficult to achieve for anyone on water) nor has she fulfilled the requirements for a Round The World voyage as defined by the WSSR (World Sailing Speed Record council). I don't understand why she didn't just sail to a point further north and thus satisfy the RTW rules. Her whole support network seems more geared to PR and sponsorship than good navigation. Her own website had the conversion from nm to km incorrect. Now they are saying she sailed over 23,000 nm, but are a bit shy on saying whether that is point to point GC distances or actual distance sailed. It must be the point to point distances. So yes, it is sad that she didn't satisfy the requirements to elevate this feat to true RTW status, and it is sadder to see her PR machine go into overdrive with half truths and spin. -- Scuttlebutt Forum, http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9798#9798 CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION My GPS says "Estimated Arrival Time." I see "Time to Beat." Special thanks to APS, Flexofold, and LaserPerformance. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
