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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 719 - December 29, 2000SYDNEY TO HOBART RACEThe Swedish maxi yacht Nicorette has taken line honours in the 2000 Telstra Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, crossing the finish line on the River Derwent at Hobart at 3.02.09 am today after battling a gale in Storm Bay in the final hours of the 630 nautical mile race. Galeforce winds reached 50 knots as the 80-footer sailed across Storm Bay under heavily reefed mainsail and storm jib, with snow falling during the night on Mount Wellington that towers above the capital city of the Australian island State of Tasmania. Ironically, two miles from the finish line off Hobart's historic Battery Point, Nicorette virtually stopped as she sailed under the lee of Mount Nelson, with the crew working fast to hoist a bigger jib and shake out reefs in the mainsail. Nicorette's elapsed time of 2 days 14 hours 2 minutes 9 seconds is some 20 hours outside the record-slashing time set by the Danish 60-footer Nokia in the 1999 race. Victorian Yacht Wild Thing has crossed the finish line more than five hours later after a frustrating struggle with erratic winds in Storm Bay. Nicorette was designed by Simonis/Voogd and built in South Africa in 1999, originally racing as Tokolosh and more recently as Skandia on the European maxi yacht circuit and has been sponsored for her Australian racing program. She is water-ballasted and was fitted with a new keel in Sydney especially for the tough Telstra Sydney to Hobart Race. Around the world cruiser/racer Sunstone has taken the overall handicap lead in theTelstra Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race as she sails down the Tasmanian East Coast. Skippered by Tom and Vicky Jackson, the comfortable Sparkman and Stephens 38 was in a pack of yachts off the Tasmanian east coast this morning bound for Tasman Island. During the 1: 00 pm broadcast, in a live cross to Nokia, it was reported that 2 crewmembers aboard the yacht are injured. One has bruising, the other has suspected rib damage. Nokia has faced 55-knot winds, and has suffered some damage to the rigging, with a ripped main sail. The retirement list grew to 20 at 1.50 am today when Shipping Central, a Beneteau 40.7 skippered by Michael Spies, reporting that their rudder had snapped off as they neared the Tasmanian East Coast. LINE HONORS: 1 Nicorette (elapsed time - 2 14:02:09) 2. Wild Thing (2 19:23:41) 3. Illbruck (2 20:03:47) 4. TYCO (2 20:49:46) 5. News Corporation (3 01:35:35) Websites: http://www.syd-hob.telstra.com.au/index.cfm & http://s2h.tas.gov.au/ THE RACE (Quokka's Sean McNeill is in Barcelona for the start of The Race. Here are two excerpts from his story posted on the Quokka website.) * A walk along the floats at Port Vell Marina reveals strikingly different states of preparedness - and configurations - for the six boats expecting to start the inaugural The Race in three days. At one end is Steve Fossett's massive 125-foot PlayStation, with its huge, nearly 10-foot-high destroyer bows. Roman Paszke's 88-footer Warta-Polpharma sits at the other end. The smallest boat in the fleet, Warta (then called Commodore Explorer) was also the first boat to circumnavigate the globe in less than 80 days in 1993. In between are the three 110-foot Gilles Ollier designs built at Multiplast - Team Adventure, Club Med and Innovation Explorer - as well as Tony Bullimore's venerable Team Legato, the 92-footer that lowered the round-the-world record to 74 days in 1994. Once considered the biggest, baddest boats on the planet, Warta and Legato look strikingly out of place. The freeboards are so low compared to the new generation of globe-girdlers that ladders aren't needed to get aboard. Simply, they look like toys, even though both boats now sport wing-shaped masts taller than the ones that propelled them to the original records that gave rise to The Race. * To accommodate the six craft ranging in beam from 13 to 18 meters, the start line will be 700 meters (.4 miles) long and situated off the former Olympic Harbor. The competitors will sail a lap within sight of shore for spectators before heading for the Straits of Gibraltar. Today's long-range weather forecast is predicting rough conditions. "A Force 7 northwesterly wind will kick in on Saturday night, easing off to Force 4/5 toward the end of the morning, with an offshore wind which will fortunately not have any effect on the sea," explained Gilles Chiori from official weather company Meteo Consult. The dash to the Straits of Gibraltar, some 600 miles away, will be the first key point in The Race. If one boat gets out of the Mediterranean in fair conditions, it might open a huge lead heading for the Doldrums. The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone is usually a frustrating part of round-the-world races because of the lack of wind, but it may not cause concern for these catamarans. With their massive sail plans, they can attain boatspeeds of 10 to 12 knots in just 5 knots of wind. THE RACE (Here are excerpts from three separate stories found on the pages of the NOW Sports website devoted to The Race.) * December 27, 2000 16:46:10 GMT - The crew of Club Med, led by skipper Grant Dalton, voted on Wednesday not to loan their 350 sq m/3767 sq ft gennaker to their sister ship Innovation Explorer, skippered by Skip Novak and Loick Peyron. Novak said the Innovation Explorer team was desperately short of money, which led them being short of time on the water and lagging with their sail development program. Novak identified Club Med as the boat to beat out of the three Ollier designed ships, saying it was the only boat of the three to have carried out a full sail evaluation programme, with more than 16,090km/10,000 miles of practise. He felt his team could match Club Med on most points of sailing, but that Club Med had one sail they were missing, namely a medium-size gennaker. Novak said they had run out of both time and money to purchase sails and would have to rely on the 260 sq m/2,800 sq ft small gennaker and a 560 sq m/6,028 sq ft large gennaker. The rest of the sails include the mainsail, working jib, staysail and storm jib. Club Med, on the other hand, has several spares sails left over from the testing programme, which they will not be carrying on the race. It was one of these Novak had asked Dalton's crew to loan to Innovation Explorer for the duration of The Race. While Club Med watch leader Neal Macdonald said: "Why should we? It's a race, isn't it?", Dalton was more circumspect, saying: "It is our spare and we might need it ourselves, if we have to make a stop during The Race." Novak said he respected the Club Med crew's decision, but felt with so few boats in The Race, it was better to have a good competitor. - Jason Holtom, NOW Sports * December 27, 2000, 15:58:00 GMT - Warta Polpharma has been besieged with rumors about her overall seaworthiness since arriving in Barcelona. However, on Wednesday afternoon, members of the crew reported their only problem, apart from lack of funds, was damage to the port side jib track, sustained during the rough voyage to Barcelona. The track had started to work loose from the crossbeam and needed to be rebonded. A temporary tent was erected above the repair, with electric heaters positioned to give the epoxy and fiberglass repairs a better chance to harden. The crew insisted there were no problems with their vessel's engine. However, suspicions were raised when a NOW.com reporter was later mistaken for a representative from Volvo Penta, a company dealing in marine power systems. Twin engines are a requirement of The Race, so the huge-sailed catamarans can motor out of danger. Engines are also used for water making and power generation for the navigation and communication systems. Although not a vital part of the actual event, transmitting pictures and video is especially power hungry. Like a couple of the other yachts, Warta Polpharma is struggling to be 100 percent ready for the start on Sunday afternoon. Her late arrival in Barcelona (due to the storms earlier this month) has seriously delayed her preparations. - Jason Holtom, NOW Sports * December 21, 2000 13:32:00 GMT - Loick Peyron, the vastly experienced Frenchman entrusted with Innovation Explorer, has outlined his philosophy and approach. His is a plan which certainly goes against the image of The Race in general. Caution is his byword. Peyron knows lack of money and time has resulted in crew and boat being virtual strangers, and to push the boat to its limits early on would be foolish, if not dangerous. The best way to win is to finish," Peyron said. "The best pilots know when to brake. It's very easy to go fast, not so easy to go slow." Intriguingly, Peyron admitted The Race frightened him. He added he was equally afraid of the unknown, in that his crew have never sailed in such low latitudes in such an untried boat. - Martin Cross, NOW Sports Full stories and more: http://www.now.com/sport/the_race/index.now AMERICA'S CUP LYMINGTON, England-Ben Ainslie, Britain's gold medallist in the Laser class in Sydney, has joined Craig McCaw's One World syndicate for the America's Cup in 2003. Ainslie revealed that he will sail for the American syndicate, which has challenged from the Seattle Yacht Club, just before leaving his home here for a Christmas holiday in Sweden. - Bob Fisher, Grand Prix Sailor - http://www.sailingworld.com/gps
PRAMS TO PROAS, MAXI'S TO MINI'S
VENDEE GLOBE - By Philippe Jeantot |
