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SCUTTLEBUTT 2996 - Monday, December 21, 2009Scuttlebutt 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 are Summit Yachts and MyBoatsGear.com. MARK IVEY: COACH OF THE YEAR At thirty-two years old, Mark Ivey just received US SAILING’s 2009 National Coach of the Year award. Michelle Slade talked to Mark about his career as a professional sailing coach: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * What’s your sailing background? I grew up in Huntington Beach, CA and learned in the junior programs in Huntington Harbor and at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach. We sailed in Sabots which was the first boat I learned to sail on, then I gradually starting crewing for a lot of people to learn about the racing scene a little more. My sailing developed from there. I continued to do all of the youth program regattas, I qualified for the youth championships, and started sailing more out of California and out of the country in my early and mid-high school years which made me see that there was a lot more out there. * How did you get into professional coaching? I did my own Olympic campaign in Athens in 2004 and was exposed to a lot of the management side of the sport. I saw a need for high-level coaches, at least at the Olympic level. I was trying to make some money first off, and to continue the sailing dream I had. Professional sailing can be tough. Lucky I’ ve succeeded but the early stages I was just a new kid trying to learn all the different routes in the industry. Coaching helped supplement that and to get my name out there. Some of the first teams that I started to coach were in the Star class. I coached a lot in Miami where the Olympic trials were in 2004, and got hired by Andy Lovell and Magnus Liljedahl as their coach all the way through those trials, so that was my first professional coaching gig. * What do you get out of working with sailors at this level? There’s definitely something about working with Olympic athletes. They are pursuing their dreams and trying to become just the best they possibly can, which is a lot different to other coaching that happens in sailing, as they’re paying with their own money and really putting it as a main priority in their lives so their sacrifice is pretty high. They’re very responsive, very organized and very passionate about what they’re doing. It’s awesome to be around people like that and I try to raise my level as a coach to match what they’re trying to give as an athlete. -- Full interview: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/09/1219/ CANADIANS, AMERICANS SHINE AT SAIL MELBOURNE Melbourne, Australia (December 19, 2009) - For the Olympic and Paralympic classes where the top North Americans participated, it was a good showing at Sail Melbourne, the first event of the International Sailing Federation’s (ISAF) 2009-2010 Sailing World Cup series. More than 350 sailors from 29 countries attended the event, enjoying ideal sailing conditions of 12 to 15 knots for the final day of racing after facing a week of unpredictable weather. The Canadians only sent two sailors to Sail Melbourne, so to grab gold in both divisions is about as good as it gets. In the Laser division, the medal race proved decisive, with Canadian Michael Leigh’s fourth place in the medal race enough to give him a two point win over American Clayton Johnson, who finished the final race seventh. Said Leigh. “I kind of figured that Clayton and I would have a little bit of a pre-start match race, we were playing cat and mouse out there. But once we got underway he went left and I went right and I just had him at the top mark.” Canadian Paul Tingley won the final 2.4m race, and in the process won the regatta. “Today was great, I won the race and won the regatta,” said Tingley. “The wind was a little more consistent and it was more about boat handling out there, going into the race I kept it simple, I knew if I could win the race the overall win would be mine as well.” Final positions for North American participants: 1. Paul Tingley (CAN), 2.4 Metre 2. Stuart McNay/ Graham Biehl (USA), 470 Men 5. Adam Roberts/ Nick Martin (USA), 470 Men 2. Paige Railey (USA), Laser Radial 1. Michael Leigh (CAN), Laser Standard 2. Clayton Johnson (USA), Laser Standard 25. Derick Vranizan (USA), Laser Standard 38. Sean Fabre (USA), Laser Standard Complete results: http://tinyurl.com/Sail-Melbourne-09-results Event website: http://www.sailmelbourne.com.au COUNT DOWN TO KEY WEST RACE WEEK Just one month to go to the start of Key West Race Week, and the Key West debut of the new Summit 35. We will have two of these great new race boats from Summit Yachts racing at this great winter classic. Act One, the first of these new Mark Mills designs has already shown its speed by winning the Ft. Lauderdale to Palm Beach race overall. Boat two will be chartered by Dave Dwyer and his race winning Mariner’s Cove crew from Ireland. Check out our web site for more information on the Summit 35 and our exciting Summit 40: http://www.summit-yachts.com FUTURESAILING - PART 3 By Kimball Livingstone, yachting journalist Part Three of a series of conversations with people who are driving profound changes in the way that we are able to sail. Once the opportunities are clear, how will people choose to sail? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- “You start on these projects,” says Dirk Kramers, “and you never know where you’ll end up.” Meaning the Alinghi catamaran. The man was in an airport - somewhere in Europe, I guess I never heard him say which, bound for Newport, R.I. and the holidays, but he was doing his Alinghi engineer thing and talking via cellular to the journo guy and being a good sport about the topic I foisted upon him. Because, the new AC boats are using engines to generate stored power to drive the winches. Some people are outraged by that. Meanwhile, the fastest big monohulls are using engines to generate power to cant their keels, etc. I’m doing this series that I call FutureSailing, and a big chunk of the come back has to do with automating sailing. So Dirk, where could we go with this? A pause. A think. “Well, ninety nine percent of the boats out there have engines, so why can’t the auxiliary be integrated into sail control systems? There are a lot of possibilities. Right now if you go racing in your 37 footer you need to round up maybe eight of your buddies. If you could get that down to two or three that’s a worthy goal.” “I guess.” I could hear the man thinking on his feet, with a touch of ambivalence. This is not a Dirk Kramers agenda item. “We felt forced into automating the catamaran,” Kramers says, “but then it opened a lot of possibilities. It looked as if the other guys were going to throw every legal technicality at us, one of which was to sail under the club rules of SNG, and the club allowed powered winches. The catamaran was not originally designed for it, but if BMW Oracle showed up with powered winches and we showed up without them, what then? Knives to a gunfight?” -- Read on: http://kimballlivingston.com/?p=1001 CRUISING WORLD ANNOUNCES BEST BOATS By Bill Springer, Cruising World senior editor The judges were impressed with the design of the keel, centerboard, and dual rudders of the J/95. Nascar has the Daytona 500. The N.F.L. has the Super Bowl. Racing sailors have the America's Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race. But for anyone interested in the newest cruising boats launched in any given year, there's only one place to be on Columbus Day weekend: the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland. Now, I'm not saying that Cruising World's 17th annual Boat of the Year Awards judging program is the World Series of water sports or the Stanley Cup of sailboat tests, but I will say that when the cannon was fired to signal the start of the Annapolis show, it was quite apparent that the boatbuilders and designers had come to play. And so did our BOTY panel of industry experts. If you've visited the show in the past, you may have seen them in action. They're the ones wearing lots of Cruising World swag, clutching notebooks, and sticking their noses into every nook and cranny of all the new boats tied to the docks. And when the show breaks up, they begin jumping from test sail to test sail on the waters off Annapolis like some kind of amphibious assault team. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/ybqjrge FIRST BOATS HOME IN ROLEX TROPHY SERIES PASSAGE RACE Sydney, Australia (December 19, 2009) - Neville Crichton and his Alfa Romeo crew made short work of the Rolex Trophy Rating Series 27 nautical mile Passage Race today, the 100 footer from New Zealand taking just one hour 48 minutes 25 seconds to complete the race. Sean Langman’s 100 foot Investec LOYAL from Sydney was next home at 12.07.25, followed by the yacht everyone is talking about, RAN, the JV72 owned by Niklas Zennstrom, which arrived in Sydney just days ago and had its first proper hit out in Sydney waters today. RAN, which was declared the overall winner of the Rolex Fastnet Race in August, is highly rated as a chance to take out the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race later this month. Representing the United Kingdom, Zennstrom has said he is keen to win both races back to back. Zennstrom and his international crew finished the race at 12.22.45 and were followed home by Peter Harburg’s RP 66 Black Jack from Queensland and Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki, an RP 63 from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, the organiser of the Rolex Trophy Rating Series. Today’s race started in a 10 knot west south westerly near Shark Island on Sydney Harbour with most hoisting kites soon after the start signal. The wind veered south east as the day went on. At 1.30 pm, half of the fleet was yet to finish the race, enjoying surfing downwind in a lovely 15 to 18 knot southerly breeze as they headed towards the Watsons Bay finish line. For full results: http://www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2009/club/rts-rating/SGrp24.htm * The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2009 starts on December 26. Follow the race at http://rolexsydneyhobart.com LIFEJACKETS MYTHS & TRUTHS A lifejacket is an important piece of kit. Every dinghy sailor knows this and has their personal PFD. However, for many yachtsman and crew we rely on what is onboard the boat were sailing on. How do you know what you are getting when you step on board? If you are kitting out a boat and safety gear, what should a boat owner choose? Is it to satisfy Coast guard regulations or is it to save lives. Get this article and sign up for more product reviews on facebook at http://myboatsgear.com/mbg/index.asp WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TRACY EDWARDS? The inspirational round the world sailor and feisty creator of the all girl Maiden Whitbread crew went to ground when her attempt to move into sailing event management unravelled spectacularly in 2005. Now she's reinventing herself in a completely different field with the aim of making her mark working with children. Edwards exited sailing ignominiously when she was declared bankrupt. She had borrowed over 8 million pounds to fund the Oryx Quest round the world race for maxi multihulls on the promise of a massive 38 million pound rolling sponsorship deal from Qatar. The race was run with four boats but she says that when it was completed none of the promised money was paid. The venture went under amid acrimonious claims, counter-claims and threats of legal action, and Tracy Edwards disappeared completely from the sailing scene. Edwards's life has been full of ups and downs since being expelled from school as a tearaway teenager of 15. But whatever her mistakes she was always gutsy, energetic, enthusiastic, hard-grafting and well supplied with peppery determination to get enormously ambitious projects off the ground when all the critics were circling. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/ydhbkxk SAILING SHORTS * Alinghi and BMW Oracle held another meeting last Thursday afternoon, together with the mayor of Valencia and the President of the Valencia Region, a sign that the city and the region are eager to fully back the 33rd America’s Cup. One of the main issues in discussion in the meeting was the mayor's desire to move the start of the regatta from Monday, February 8th to Friday, February 12th and from 3 races to 7, in order to make it more accessible and more interesting to the general public. Although all parties agree in principle with Rita Barberá, no formal agreement has been reached yet. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/ygp23t6 * The Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) has announced the dates and venues for its 2010 schedule of Championship events. In all, the current list of championships includes 9 National Championships (so far, more are expected), 2 Continental Championships, and the World Championship, which is to be held in Flensburg, Germany over 6-12 September. Among dozens of events held globally on every continent, new locations include ORCi use in Rolex Sydney Hobart Race and the first ever ORC Championship in Russia. For dates and events, visit the ORC website: http://www.orc.org. * BMW Oracle has withdrawn from the Auckland regatta of the Louis Vuitton Trophy in March. As one of the founding forces behind the Louis Vuitton regatta that so successfully launched in Auckland last summer, BMW Oracle say they are too busy with their impending big-boat America's Cup challenge against Alinghi in February. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/ydbd6v7 * U.S. Sailing’s Olympic Sailing Committee has named Marblehead resident Maureen McKinnon-Tucker 2009 Paralympic Sports Woman of the Year. After winning a Paralympic gold medal with Nick Scandone in the SKUD-18 in Qingdao, China in 2008, McKinnon-Tucker transitioned from a double-handed keelboat to a triple-handed keelboat with ease in 2009. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/yc6pwv7 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 Fred Roswold (re, story in Scuttlebutt 2995): I reject Mr. Johnson’s philosophy. It is exactly the opposite of mine and I think he is all wrong. Bob, maybe you could sell more boats if they required less work and less personal commitment but I'd rather you just go one step further and make it completely virtual, then the owner never even has to leave the comfort of his easy chair back home and I might see fewer boats motoring around with the main up calling it motor sailing. Or just take the mast off entirely and then I'm fine with it. But don't call it sailing. Sailing is a sport; it takes a little work and always has, and it will not be better if we turn it into a lifestyle for sedentary people who really don't like to sail. Personally I don't mind a little bit of work, its fun and it makes me feel good. When I can't or don't want to do a little work on deck I'll quit sailing. Meanwhile Judy and I love it and we often go sailing just for fun, much to the amazement of the Island Packet crowd who think a “weather window” is four days with no wind in the forecast. * From Julian Everitt: Now that a final decision has been reached to sail the 33rd America's Cup match between Oracle and Alinghi in Valencia, I can reveal a new perspective from the Gulf. As long ago as March last year extremely senior people within Abu Dhabi where trying to get Alinghi to listen to a proposal to hold the 33rd AC in AD if all the court actions were dropped and mutual consent was implemented in all areas of dispute between themselves and Oracle. They declined to attend the invitations to talks. Subsequently in July I presented an outline agreement from Larry Ellison to Abu Dhabi informing them that Oracle was happy to race the America's Cup in their waters as long as they were given similar commercial opportunities to Alinghi and providing the outstanding issues of disagreement regarding the rules of the Match were resolved. Alinghi, once again declined the opportunity that this presented to talks in Abu Dhabi. Even more incredibly, when Ras al Khaimah was announced as a venue by Alinghi, I presented to Dr Khatter Massaad, the key man representing the Emirate, a letter from Larry Ellison outlining the conditions under which Oracle would be happy to race in RAK. This letter was presented to RAK in late August. They declined to follow it up in any way, thus becoming the losers of the opportunity to stage the AC, due to their own inaction. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION I was in the express lane at the store quietly fuming. Completely ignoring the sign, the woman ahead of me had slipped into the check out line pushing a cart piled high with groceries. Imagine my delight when the cashier beckoned the woman to come forward looked into the cart and asked sweetly, "So which six items would you like to buy?" Special thanks to Summit Yachts and MyBoatsGear.com. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
