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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 802 - April 26, 2001Scuttlebutt is a digest of yacht racing news of major significance; commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American emphasis. Corrections, contributions, press releases and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome.
CONGRESSIONAL CUP Holmberg, along with Team New Zealand's Bertrand Pacé, won all five of his races on opening day to make an early move toward his third win in four years in the match racing classic. Between fog banks that blanketed the course during a Southern California heat wave, the 40-year-old veteran from the U.S. Virgin Islands swept through Britain's Andy Green, Stars & Stripes' Ken Read, Denmark's Jesper Radich, France's Sebastien Destremau and Rod Davis, a U.S. native who lives in New Zealand and sails for Italy's Prada Challenge. "I have to credit having [tactician] John Cutler on board," Holmberg said, referring to the New Zealander who joined Oracle after sailing Dawn Riley's America True entry in the last America's Cup. "Once you have confidence in your tactician, I can concentrate fully on driving." Concentration might have been a problem considering tales of tribulation about the Oracle operation that circulated around the world this week: the imminent departure of designated skipper Chris Dickson; a fracas among crew members; one of the boats, USA 61, falling off its cradle onto some rocks. "There's no truth [to it]," Holmberg said before racing started. "Completely fabricated. Somebody's trying to make a National Enquirer thing in our sport. A little rumor's OK, but this one's gone too far." Holmberg's most interesting wins were against Read and Davis, who are tied at 3-2. In managing the pre-start in the heavy Catalina 37s - the largest boats on the world match racing scene - he drew a pre-start foul from Read, then another immediately after the start that forced Dennis Conner's A-Cup driver to do an immediate 270-degree penalty turn and left him in a hopeless hole still owing a second turn. Pacé, ranked third in the world, had a harder road to 5-0. Against Read in the day's first match, the lead was swapped twice before the Frenchman won by four seconds. Then Pace had an even closer finish - two seconds - against Morgan Larson (2-3), sailing for Seattle's OneWorld Challenge. Pace got a pre-start foul on Larson, who led throughout with Pacé dogging his transom but didn't have quite big enough a lead to do his penalty turn at the finish line. Larson later said of the penalty, "It was fair." Racing continues Thursday in the double round robin format followed by sailoffs on Sunday. - Rich Roberts CONGRESSIONAL CUP NOTES AND QUOTES: Denmark's Jesper Radich (1-4, although ranked No. 7 in the world, said, "This is my first time ever steering with a wheel. Every tack we lost half a boat length." . . . Britain's Andy Green (1-4): "We won only one of five starts today, and that was the race we won. I've got to get off the line a little better." . . . Stars & Stripes' Ken Read, who lost his first two races, then won his next three: "The first two races I felt like I had training wheels on." Day 1 results: STANDINGS (after 5 of 18 flights) - Tie between Holmberg and Pacé, 5-0; tie between Read and Davis, 3-2; tie among Luc Pillot, Larson and Spithill, 2-3; tie among Radich, Destremau and Green, 1-4. Details of each race: www.lbyc.org
AMERICA'S CUP Discussions had since resumed, Mr Plattner said, but SAP was interested only in signing up for a minor sponsorship role. Although Mr Plattner is an enthusiastic sailor his yacht Morning Glory won the 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart race he said a deal with Team NZ would be based purely on potential brand exposure for SAP. Sponsorship requirements to pay for the 2003 campaign are tipped to be as high as $85 million - up about 80 per cent - leaving a question mark over who will pick up the slack. Ê * Last May, the Government negotiated a $5.6 million deal with Team NZ after key figures Brad Butterworth and Russell Coutts defected to a Swiss syndicate. Sport Minister Trevor Mallard said the extra cash was intended to stem the flow of Team NZ members to foreign challengers. Last night, Mr Mallard would not comment on whether the Government might step in again to bail out Team NZ if a new sponsor could not be found. "I am in relatively frequent contact with Team NZ, but it is inappropriate for me to comment on the state of play of any of their individual negotiations." A Team NZ spokesman said that sponsorship negotiations were continuing and an announcement on a new family-of-five sponsor would be made once a deal was struck. Chris Barton and Simon Hendery, NZ Herald. Full story: www.nzherald.co.nz/sports/
EVERYWHERE
AROUND ALONE Sixteen yachts entered the last Around Alone race which started in September 1998 in Charleston, South Carolina USA, and generated some 500 hours of TV coverage and 6000 press articles around the world. The top competitors had budgets of more than US $3 million, indicating total campaign funding raised by competitors and event owners of more than US $25 million. A shortlist of European and US candidate cities to host the 2002 start / finish will be drawn up following applications to Clipper Ventures with a decision planned by August 2001. Unlike the recent Vendée Globe race, which has its roots in Around Alone, Around Alone is a "stopping" race. The sailors will compete in up to five long-distance race legs, each approximately 6,000 nautical miles. Formerly called the BOC Challenge, the start and finish have been historically been hosted in the USA, and stopovers have been in South Africa, Australasia and Latin America. Competitors from 19 different countries have raced the Around Alone, with USA, France and UK the top 3 providers. Race rules allow for the sailors to make repairs to their yachts during stopovers; because of this, competitors push themselves and their yachts to the very limits of endurance and technology. Held every four years, the 2002 event will mark the 20th anniversary of the world's most intrepid personal sporting challenges. 79 applications have already been received from yachtsmen representing 17 different nations, showing promise that its anniversary year will be the biggest and most competitive race yet. www.clipper-ventures.com
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From John Drayton - I enjoyed Tom Donlan's commentary even though I find the whole US Sailing/ISAF discussion pretty boring. In my myopic little world, my recommendation would be for US Sailing/ISAF to focus all their time exclusively on 1) Olympics, 2) Advertising, 3) America's Cup, 4) Rules Issues (e.g. whether a 40' boat is eligible to race in the Ensenada Race next weekend). Maybe if there's time left over, we should encourage them to work with the NBA to revise their new rule about zone defense. In my book, the more time ISAF and US Sailing spend on these "big issues," the less likely they are to find new ways to screw up a sport I enjoy. By the way, isn't it about time that Scuttlebutt drops this whole discussion? CURMUDGEON'S COMMENTS: We put a halt to the US Sailing bashing some time ago, but it seems that Mr. Henderson's recent comments have opened the flood gates. * From Art LeVasseur: I loved Paul Kamen's note regarding his decision to "unilaterally" remove the Eligibility Code via his club's sailing instructions and the fact that, while technically not allowed, no one complained. At Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit we raced in club-owned Ultimate 20's in our Spring Series over the last several weekends and we did not use either the new starting system or written sailing instructions! We just used the same starting system we used when we raced last fall and announced the course before we left the dock. No one cared that we were out of compliance with a whole host of provisions contained in the RRS. The only rules that we needed or used for our races were the "Right of Way" rules in Part 2, plus a few rules in other Parts that affect what boats do on the water. For ISAF and US Sailing to try to use the RRS to force people to do things they find unnecessary or objectionable and then tell people they can't change those parts of the rules will not work. It reminds me of the 55 mile per hour speed limit. No one paid attention. * From Bob Daniel: While I am not an Olympic sailor, I am an active club racer, sailing over 40 one design races this year. People like me are the corner stone of the sport. I really feel that the eligibility rule is way off base for the majority of sailors in this country. I have enough trouble getting crew without telling the person... OK, before you can sail with us you have to send $40 to this or that organization. US Sailing, under the leadership of Dave Rosekrans has "fixed" this problem for club racers in the US. But I hate to support the ISAF when they don't support me. Clearly the eligibility rule will hurt the club sailor and the ability to attract new sailors to the sport. It needs to be applied ONLY to the highest levels of the sport. * From Peter Wood: Tom Donlan's comments regarding the Appendix on Banned Substances is totally off the mark. The ISAF and MNA's must police this activity. The appendix is not about having a couple of beers while drifting about a Wednesday night PHRF race. It is about high performance athletes taking steroids and other performance enhancing drugs to improve their results. We have seen internationally unranked athletes in swimming and track come from nowhere to set world records after receiving a new training diet regimes developed by nepalise diet gurus (the old East German Women's Swim Team). Taking performance enhancing drugs is cheating. It is no different than racing a one design boat that has been performance altered beyond the limits of the class rules. * From David Hammett: From reading the past few issues of the Butt it really sounds like some of these elected leaders are pushing the edge of a socialized sailing society. And they to want keep ramming it down our throats with their beliefs and morals. I'm proud to say we are in the upper class levels of society spending our and other people's expendable income trying to have some fun. After we beat ourselves up work all day long and for the average it is probably 12 hours a day 5-6 days a week 3-4 weeks per month. If this is the future of sailing which is my passion in life? These elected officials can have it. Lets start our own "International or US committee " founded by WE THE SAILORS" and write the rules that support and promote sailing to the fullest extent possible. * From Peter Godfrey: Scott Truesdell, Ralph Taylor, Paul Kamen and anyone else who thinks that ISAF/USSailing are out of touch with the vast majority of sailors, and not giving them much if any support, should contact me about USASA - currently a notional-only concept to create a governing organization aimed solely at the amateur side of the sport, and solving many of the problems frequently mentioned in 'Butt. There are currently 22 volunteers providing ideas, web site design, and nominal funding to see how much support this notion gets and whether it can in reality make improvements. Anyone interested may contact me at USASA1@optonline.com. * From Kurt Klimisch: Let me get this straight. In order to police and enforce the ISAF power on Elite Sailors - by Mr. Henderson's definition - "those desiring to compete in the Olympic Games" we need to require that everyone who participates in the sailboat racing to register with the ISAF? In other words, to control a handfull, certainly less than a 100 sailors in the USA we need to require the thousands, and tens of thousands of sailors nation-wide to join and be duly registered. This is insane. Kind of like the tail wagging the dog. This is an extremely weak reason for doing this. You can count me out. I will be cruising with my family and kids - I don't need them. And we wonder why sailing participation is declining? * From Chris Woods (edited to our 250-word limit): I believe that yacht clubs should take a closer look at US Sailing's supplemental regatta liability insurance because in our club's experience, it was unnecessary in terms of prudent club management while complicating the regatta sign-up procedure. When I took over as Treasurer of a small but active dinghy club, I reviewed the insurance policies and found them to be wholly inadequate for the operation, in part because of the false-reliance on US Sailing's supplemental regatta liability insurance. The fact is that there is really is no difference between the daily operations of a yacht club and a "regatta" from an insurance liability perspective. Both involve racing boats between independent skippers, with plenty of interaction between employees, volunteers, club boats and facilities, etc. So if you are covered properly for the average Tuesday afternoon Jr. Program squall-rescue by a club employee using a member's borrowed boat, then you should be properly covered for a race committee error resulting in a collision/loss at a "regatta." US Sailing's supplemental regatta liability insurance gives a false sense of security to clubs that might have (in our litigious society) real liability exposure that they are not aware of. Even in the difficult insurance times of the 80's (when I guess the program got started) it was not a good idea unless you didn't have ANY insurance. I won't go so far as to say that it is a disguised marketing gimmick to encourage USSA membership, but I don't understand why it is still around. * From John Liang (In support of Larry Law's "What's good about sailing" thread): Another example of what's good about sailing was started in the 1940s and can be found on the banks of the Charles River in Boston, MA, at Community Boating, Inc. The thing about CBI is that for kids from 10 to 18, the only requirements are having parental/guardian permission, passing a swim test and paying one dollar to sail as much as you want for the whole summer. One dollar. This is not some yacht club where your parents need to be members just so you can use the restroom - it's a place where kids of all ages and economic backgrounds can come and learn about the sheer joy of harnessing the wind. You started out by going out with some of the older, more experienced kids who taught you the basics on fifteen-foot Cape Cod Mercuries. Once you mastered the basics, you'd be able to take a boat out on your own. If you wanted you could do nothing else for the rest of the summer and still have a blast. For those who wanted to try out different kinds of dinghies, they could move on to master other boats like the Laser, 470 and Sonar. Of course, adults can learn how to sail there as well at very economical rates, and CBI has a good number of people and organizations who believe in its work and help support it, both as volunteers and financially. I now live in Virginia, but my love of sailing stems from summers at CBI.
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS
GOOD STUFF
NEW TOYS
MUST SEE
ALTER CUP
Standings: Complete results: www.ussailing.org/Alter/news01.htm
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
