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SCUTTLEBUTT 3748 - Monday, January 7, 2013Scuttlebutt 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. Website: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sailingscuttlebutt RSS: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/rss/index.xml Today's sponsors: APS and Marion-Bermuda Race. INAUGURAL ROB MOORE MEMORIAL REGATTA The Corinthian Yacht Club of San Francisco (CYC) and the Bay Area Racing Federation (BARF) have announced the inaugural Rob Moore Memorial Regatta, to be held on February 16, 2013 in conjunction with CYC's popular Midwinter Race Series. The event will honor Rob's legacy in the San Francisco Bay sailing community by promoting a well-run, fun regatta, while raising money for lung cancer research. As racing editor of Latitude 38 for eighteen years, as a boat owner and racer, and as crew on many large and small racing programs, Rob Moore made innumerable contributions to San Francisco Bay sailing. He was an honorary member of CYC for nearly as long, and actively supported the club's midwinter and Friday night racing series. As he penned in his "Ten Commandments of Beercan Racing," first published in Latitude 38 in 1989, Rob believed strongly that sailboat racing should be competitive and fun, and encourage participation at all levels. He was discouraged by the recent downturn in participation in SF Bay racing, and he was constantly trying to find ways to increase the number of boats on the water. With this in mind we have launched a yearly event that will honor Rob's contributions to our sport with a focus on upholding his Ten Commandments. Rob was only 58 years old when he succumbed to lung cancer in January 2012. He was among the 20% of lung cancer victims with no history of smoking. It may be surprising to some that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., numbering more than breast, colon, pancreatic, and prostate combined. The five-year survival rate is only 15%, however it receives less than a quarter of the research funding of breast cancer alone. -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=15022#15022 EDITOR'S NOTE: Rob was a friend and contributor to Scuttlebutt during his short life and we miss him dearly. Look for Rob's "Ten Commandments of Beercan Racing" to be reprinted in Scuttlebutt as we get closer to the summer season. However, if you want to apply his commandments now, here is the link: http://www.latitude38.com/misc/10Command-opt.pdf THE TRAVELLING LIFE Olympic sailor Ben Ainslie Ben Ainslie CBE, 35, is the most decorated Olympic sailor of all time, having won gold in four consecutive Games since 2000. He has been World Champion 10 times , European Champion nine times and was named World Sailor of the Year 2012. Currently based in California to train for the America's Cup, he shares some of his favourite traveling discoveries: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * How many holidays do you take a year? One: normally a sailing holiday, believe it or not. It's nice to be able to relax and enjoy a boat, rather than race it. I wouldn't be any good at a beach holiday; I need to be doing something active. * Favourite holiday sailing spots? The Greek islands and the Caribbean. Places like the British Virgin Islands are easy to sail around and have lots of character - but if you want a bit more adventure and a longer voyage, St Barts, St Kitts and Nevis are all beautiful islands. * Plans for your next holiday? It would be nice to go skiing, because I haven't been allowed to for so long. I went six years ago to a chalet near Chamonix and loved the fresh air, the breathtaking scenery - and the sport. Related Articles * Favourite spots in America? I've travelled all over - New York, Miami, Seattle. I also really enjoy San Francisco, where I've been based for the past few months. * Any tips for visiting the city? I do quite a lot of cycling to keep fit and I tend to head for a beach called Stinson , about 10 miles out, which is on a beautiful little cove. There's a steep climb up Mount Tamalpais en route, but it's worth it. * What about restaurants? Ozumo, an Asian fusion restaurant downtown, is very relaxed, with a good bar and great Asian food. * Favourite hotel in America? The Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District of New York is a lot of fun, and it has a nice rooftop pool. I love New York: it is mad, and so intense. * Great spots to sail on the US coast? San Francisco, which has its own micro-climate. Because of its position, air is sucked under the Golden Gate Bridge , so you are guaranteed winds, as well as a warm climate and gorgeous scenery. Read on: http://tinyurl.com/Tele-010613 THE JANUARY RIGGING SALE AT APS Happy New Year! That means APS Annual January Rigging & Cordage Sale is on. It's time to replace those halyards, sheets, shrouds, and lifelines. With discounts up to 25% off normal retail prices, it's a practical opportunity to get your boat ready for winter events and the season ahead. If you're gearing up for the big breeze of Key West, let us know, and we'll put your order through to meet your racing deadlines. More info here: http://bit.ly/APSdeals OPPORTUNITY AND ANGUISH (January 6, 2013; Day 58) - Ever since the Vendee Globe dominate duo of leader Francois Gabart (FRA) and Armel Le Cleac'h (FRA) began on January 1 tackling the changeable conditions and upwind angles of the south Atlantic, third place Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA) has reduced his deficit by 230 nm. With Gabart and Le Cleac'h closely covering each other, the forecast for the next 36 hours is sufficiently variable for Dick to seek the leverage that may help to further crash their party. One racer who hasn't had much to party about lately is Bernard Stamm (SUI). Needing a pit stop in New Zealand nearly two weeks ago to repair his hydrogenerators, his dragging anchor and some unintentional assistance from a neighboring ship was sufficient for the International Jury to disqualify him for a rule violation. With Stamm intent on continuing in the race and appealing the decision, Stamm today hit an unidentified floating object, ripping off his port side hydrogenerator. His second hydrogenerator is also broken and is not charging. Due to previous energy-related issues, he no longer has sufficient fuel onboard. Stamm informed his team he was shutting down all energy-consuming devices to conserve what little energy he had remaining for the autopilot. "He was a little bit more than 1,000 miles away from the Horn when it happened," explained Regis Rassouli from Stamm's team. "The weather is bad, there is ice in the area, it's a very tricky situation. So we're working on several possibilities to find a shelter or get additional fuel. We're checking the weather and it's stressful because we know Bernard has no way to receive weather data any more. The boat and Bernard's safety are clearly jeopardized." Tracking: http://tracking2012.vendeeglobe.org/en/ Top 5 of 20 - Rankings as of Sunday, January 6, 2013, 20h00 (FR) 1. Francois Gabart (FRA), Macif: 5711.2 nm Distance to Finish 2. Armel Le Cleac'h (FRA), Banque Populaire: 41.5 nm Distance to Lead 3. Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA), Virbac Paprec 3: 238.2 nm DTL 4. Alex Thomson (GBR), Hugo Boss: 615.4 nm DTL 5. Jean Le Cam (FRA), SynerCiel: 1774.8 nm DTL Full rankings: http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ranking.html BACKGROUND: Twenty skippers began the Vendee Globe, a solo, non-stop around the world race in the IMOCA Open 60 class. Starting in Les Sables d'Olonne, France on November 10, the west to east course passes the three major capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin and the Horn before returning to Les Sables d'Olonne. Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) set the course record of 84 days in the 2008-9 edition. -- http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ QUOTE / UNQUOTE "I am pretty sick of freeze dried food right now! I was pretty sick the first time I had it! I still have a reasonable selection, but you never have enough, enough treats and all the nice things seem to disappear." - Mike Golding, competing in the 2012-13 Vendee Globe race WINTER WEATHER CYCLES By Chris Bedford, Sailing Weather Service With the New Year the winter sailing season in Florida is ramping up and in two weeks the focus turns toward Key West Race Week (Jan. 21-25). While it is too early to say what weather will greet competitors this year, it is most definitely not too early to start watching conditions and getting a feel for the weather patterns that are common to Florida Keys this time of year. During the winter months, there is a very well understood weather cycle across the southeastern US and Gulf of Mexico which - when in progress - is quite repeatable. Watching weather maps over the next couple of weeks should give you a good opportunity to monitor development of the pattern. And, unlike last year, this winter is shaping up to be much more of a "normal" winter, suggesting that the cycle may play a key role in the weather for this year's racing in Key West. The cycle starts when a cold front crosses Key West while high pressure in the Plains moves towards the Gulf Coastal States. This ushers in a fresh to strong northerly wind with gusty and shifty conditions. The weather turns cooler across the keys with cloudy skies and showers clearing out in the 12-24 hours following the front. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/SWS-010613 CONVICTED, FINED, SUSPENDED It would seem that nearly every decision for the 34th America's Cup has been in pursuit of the golden goose - the non-sailing public that can be marketed to commercial sponsors who in turn can help pay the team budgets. But with the non-sailing public comes the non-sailing press who can occasionally get overly excited. A story last week in the Huffington Post hoisted this headline" "Larry Ellison's Team Oracle USA Convicted, Fined, Suspended". Sounds serious... here's an excerpt: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The America's Cup is known for some risky behavior: high-speed crashes, capsized catamarans, boats floating into the bay unmanned at night. And now you can add espionage to the list. According to the San Francisco Business Times, an international jury has found Oracle Team USA, the America's Cup champion team owned by Larry Ellison, guilty of spying on Luna Rossa, the Italian rival team. The team was fined $15,200, forced to hand over ten photos of the Italian team's boat and will be suspended from five days of practice as the race approaches. According to sailing blog Sail World, both the Italian team and another rival, New Zealand's Emirates Team, sought a substantially harsher penalty for Oracle, but the jury denied the request. Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/americas-cup-spying_n_2411436.html EDITOR'S NOTE: In case your non-sailing friends expect you to be the expert, here's the jury notice on the incident: http://noticeboard.americascup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/JN059.pdf SCUTTLEBUTT SAILING CALENDAR Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar SAILING SHORTS * The 2012-13 Etchells Midwinters Series continued this weekend (January 5-6) with the Sid Doren Memorial in Miami, FL. "The Jag", as it has come to be known, is a series of four regattas between December and March. Hosted by Biscayne Bay Yacht Club, 57 teams came for the good weather, great competition and even better camaraderie. With five races in the can, Ante Razmilovic's "Swedish Blue" with Chris Larson and Stuart Flynn won. Second went to Skip Dieball, Jon McClean and Paul Abdullah. Steve Girling sailed his Lion Heart to third along with Ched Proctor and Dave Lutian. -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=15040#15040 * The Southern California Yachting Association will hold its 24th Annual Women's Sailing Convention on February 2, 2013 in Corona del Mar, CA. The event features 30 workshops and featured speaker Katie Pettibone, veteran of two America's Cups and two Volvo Ocean Races. This event is open to all women interested in sailing from novice/beginner to expert. Details: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=15024 * The ORC handicap rule is the platform for the 2013 ORCi World Championship, sanctioned by ISAF as the Offshore World Championship, which in 2013 will be held in Ancona, Italy over June 21-29. This event will feature a week-long mix of inshore and offshore racing on the Adriatic coast from the event venue based at Marina Dorica. As in the last two years, the number of entries is expected to exceed 100 boats, and even now there are already 28 entries from 7 countries on three continents. -- http://www.orcworlds2013.com/index.php?lang=en * CORRECTION: The results link in Scuttlebutt 3747 for the Open Orange Bowl Regatta was faulty. Here is the correct link: http://tinyurl.com/Oops-010613 RACE TO BERMUDA - JANUARY INFO SESSIONS Many sailors want to make the passage to Bermuda but there are so many questions that must be answered. Information sessions to help you prepare boat and crew will be presented by Marion Bermuda Race Organizers at New England based Landfall Navigation and West Marine stores throughout January 2013. This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to see what it takes to race to the beautiful island of Bermuda safely (and maybe win a little silver along the way). Info Session Dates & Locations: http://www.marionbermuda.com/#west Safety at Sea Seminar (March 23-24): http://www.marionbermuda.com/sas GUEST COMMENTARY Scuttlebutt strongly encourages feedback from the Scuttlebutt community. Either submit comments by email or post them on the Forum. Submitted comments chosen to be published in the newsletter may be limited to 250 words. Authors may have one published submission per subject, and should save their bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. Email: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Arthur Engel, US Sailing RRS committee: Regarding the Sydney-Hobart OCS boat that was given redress (Scuttlebutt 3747), we don't have the Facts Found by the Jury but it is easy to imagine a set of facts that would entitle a boat to redress. The boat is close to the line but doesn't think it was over early (there are other boats that might be over and the RC makes the visual and sound signals correctly). The boat turns on the radio four and a half minutes after their start to listen for OCS boats, hears nothing and turns it off six minutes after their start. Had the RC made the correct radio announcement they would have heard it and gone back. Since SI 20.3 clearly states that the radio announcement will be made at the 5-minute mark, making it earlier is probably an "improper action" by the RC. However, that wouldn't result in redress here since no one seems to have been prejudiced. [Had the OCS boat heard the earlier hails and gone back then other boats presumably would have been entitled to redress for an "improper" early radio announcement by the RC.] This situation is exactly why long-distance races commonly impose a time penalty (say 5, 10 or 15 minutes) to boats that are OCS but fail to return. It isn't very competitor-friendly to be DSQed from a 2-day+ race for an infraction that even in theory would gain you less than 1 minute or so of advantage. * From Bill Doyle, Newport RI: Maybe we have just found exactly what is wrong with our sport. In my opinion, the skipper / owner challenging the Sydney Hobart race committee to exonerate themselves from a clear and unquestioned foul is the lowest form of unsportsmanlike conduct. Period. When Ragamuffin-Loyal learned they were positively OCS, regardless of what the RC did, they should have withdrawn. Period. We are a self-policing sport, much like Golf, and if we can't do that our future is bleak. We were involved in two similar situations that made us question the honor of our fellow competitors. In one race the RC appropriately posted an amendment that instituted a mid-course gate. About 15 boats missed the gate, including us. All other competitors came to protest the RC over a minimal procedural error to get their DSQ exonerated. We refused to go along them. End results: 14 boats were re-instituted and we were disqualified (appropriately.) In another incident, we were involved in a significant accident and the at-fault boat refused to accept the decisions by the protest committee, and two appeals, and it ended up in the courts. (They lost). If winning is so important that you are willing to trade your honor for it, have you really won anything? * From George Sechrist: The incident at the Sydney Hobart Race is a great lesson to all organizing authorities or anyone that writes NOR's or SI's. If you write it, be absolutely sure that it is reasonable and that you can enforce it! In this case, no problem if the words "approximately five minutes" were deleted. The use of the word 'approximate' will always cause controversy, as 10 different protest committees can and will make their own interpretation of what is 'approximate', a slightly different twist on this case. However, the RC somehow determined that their attempted hails on VHF were not approximately 5 minutes, but were they 4 minutes, 4.5 minutes, 5.5 minutes, 6 minutes, or what? It can be argued that these are all approximate, and all are not approximate. Keep it clear and simple! * From Shawn Millar: What kind of silly rule is it for the Sydney Hobart race where they call the OCS boat approximately five minutes after the start? When was the last time you restarted after sailing a race for five minutes? * From Andrew McIrvine, Admiral, Royal Ocean Racing Club: Rules are rules... except they are not. This is amply demonstrated by two recent incidents. Bernard Stamm's disqualification in the Vendee Globe Race is supported by virtually no one, while Ragamuffin's lack of disqualification in the Sydney Hobart is supported by even fewer. Go figure! COMMENT: A couple points regarding the Sydney Hobart Race. The SIs award a boat that is a premature starter and fails to return and start a scoring penalty of 30%. Also, the request for redress for Ragamuffin being OCS came from the race administration headquarters after they learned about the procedural miscue on the water by the race committee boat. Rather than having Ragamuffin file for redress, the RC beat them to it - a rare action for an RC. Given the fact now that an improper action by the RC allowed Ragamuffin to start early -and receive no penalty - could the other yachts in the fleet have filed redress, saying that their position in race was affected by an improper action of the RC? -- Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt PRO BONO The Scuttlebutt website allows marine companies to post their personnel, product and service updates. For free. As a bonus, each week the Scuttlebutt newsletter includes some of the recent updates. Are you in the marine industry? Post your updates in the Industry News section of the Forum. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION "Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you a better man." - Benjamin Franklin SPONSORS THIS WEEK APS - Marion-Bermuda Race - Atlantis WeatherGear Team One Newport - J Boats - North Sails - Block Island Race Week Ribcraft - Ullman Sails - North U - Melges Performance Sailboats Need stuff? 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