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SCUTTLEBUTT #481 - January 13, 2000A FRIENDLY COMPETITION BETWEEN NATIONSThe Prada Challenge has lodged a protest against Team Dennis Conner. The protest was filed after racing on Thursday and alleges that Stars & Stripes sailed in the Semi-Finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup with a mainsail that was in violation of Articles 17, 13, and 15 of the America's Cup Protocol. The protest document alleges the mainsail "is the product of the intellectual creativity and judgement of the Young America design programme." Bill Trenkle, Operations Manager for Team Dennis Conner says his team has nothing to worry about. "It's absolutely not true," Trenkle said in a released statement. "This sail was not designed by Young America. These are desperate people taking desperate measures to try and win this (the berth in the Finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup) off the water." Laurent Esquier, Operations Manager for Prada denied the move was a desperate one. He says the team didn't protest until now because it needed to build its case. "We wanted to avoid filing a frivolous case," Esquier explained. "It does take a while to put together all the information and evidence that we needed for this case. As soon as we had it, we filed it. It is not a political move, this is a substantiated filing - that's what it is. The Jury will decide." The International Jury will convene to hear the protest at 1800 hours on Friday. The first job of the Jury will be to rule whether the protest is valid. The issue of timeliness comes into play here - did Prada lodge the protest as soon as it became aware of the relevant facts? The next task will be to hear the evidence and listen to a defence from Team Dennis Conner. Then the Jury will deliberate before issuing a decision. If the Jury requires an interpretation of the America's Cup Protocol, that will have to be issued by the Arbitration Panel. -- Peter Rusch, Louis Vuitton Cup website, http://www.louisvuittoncup.com/ MTN CAPE TO RIO RACE American maxi Zephyrus IV has taken the lead in the Cape-to-Rio yacht race after covering 342 miles at an average speed of 14 knots in the race organisers said. Zephyrus, skippered by Robert McNeil, overtook Sagamore, the yacht which had led the race since Saturday's start in Cape Town, during the night. Sagamore, with Jim Dolan at the helm, recorded a distance of 305 miles at an average boat speed of 12 knots during the 24-hour period. The leading boats are expected to complete the distance in under 14 days Event website: http://www.capetorio.com/ VENDEE GLOBE The official launch date of the new Open 60 for Ellen MacArthur is set provisionally for February 17, at the America's Cup village in Auckland. Fitting maybe, for such a hi-tech boat to be launched just 2 days before that other pinnacle in yacht racing technology, the America's Cup Final. Narrower than the current crop of Finot and Lombard designs, with a distinctive cambered deck (for inverted instability), the new 'Kingfisher' is now just a few weeks away from painting and the journey to Viaduct Basin to join the America's Cup boats (that have a smaller draft than the Open 60). The 'Kingfisher' shore team and the dedicated build team at Marten Yachts have not taken much of the Millenium holiday, and progress of the boat build has been incredible in the last few weeks. Recently turned over and weighed, she is already looking eager to sail. Most pleasing for principal designer Merf Owen and composite engineer Giovanni Belgrano is that, at this point, the pre-preg carbon structure weighs in lighter than the design target. The mast is of a classic design in the sense that it is not a wing mast with deck spreaders, and is currently in construction next to one of the Kiwi America's Cup rigs at Southern Spars. An innovative swept back 3 spreader design has been used, and finite element work has been carried out to pick the right compromise between safety, reliability and weight/performance. A configuration of swing keel with assymetric daggerboards has been chosen, and both are nearing completion. This decision is made for both performance and safety reasons. The swing keel is complemented by water ballast for longitudinal trim and stability. The principle has been to avoid trying too many radical ideas, but instead to make small improvements where possible in order to gain in performance terms and focus in on reliability and safety. One area where we will be trying something new is the sail inventory. The first set, which will be replaced for the Vendee itself, will be tested in the Southern Ocean on the proposed delivery back from New Zealand. They will be provided by North Sails and will include some 3DL sails - new for Open 60s. This chance to test the sails in the Southern Ocean is invaluable for North Sails, however, they are investing heavily as well with a large amount of R&D into this next evolution of 3DL. There has been a lot of work on the electronic and power systems, with some special tuning work from Yanmar UK on the engine. Ellen has also spent time at Yanmar UK taking the actual engine to bits and re-assembling it as part of her practical training, which has included everything from First Aid and sailmaking courses as well. A key area for focus and improvement during 2000 is that of weather and strategy and to that end Ellen is working daily on a simulated Vendee Globe race using the Maxsea weather routing software and the boats theoretical polars. Each week French weather expert Jean-Yves Bernot then does a debrief with Ellen with regards to the tactical decisions made. A full history of the build in full colour can be found at the project website: http://www.kingfisherchallenges.com HOT WEBSITE If you like photos of sailboats you should double-click on this link: http://www.northsails.com/graphics/NGphoto.html You'll see some neat boats and some really neat custom sail graphics. Little boats, big boats -- it doesn't make any difference. When you deal with Whitney Gladstone, the work is done right, and it's affordable. So what are you waiting for? Call Whitney and talk about custom graphics for your boat or sails: (619) 224-8667 LOUIS VUITTON CUP Like a phoenix, Team Dennis Conner rose from its penalty-ridden ashes today to beat finalist AmericaOne and keep alive its bid to meet AmericaOne in the Louis Vuitton Cup final. Stars & Stripes had the better start and held off several challenges by the stealth-grey AmericaOne to win by 22 seconds. Prada Challenge also won, cruising to an easy two-minute, one-second victory over Nippon Challenge. Nippon pushed Prada into the first weather mark, trailing by just six seconds, but the Italian boat stretched out, taking advantage of a jib halyard problem on Nippon's Asura. These two results set the stage for a possible sail-off between Team DC and Prada on Saturday. But before that can happen, Stars & Stripes must get past America True tomorrow. While the result of that race is not a foregone conclusion, Stars & Stripes is on a three-race winning streak, including yesterday's 46-second win over America True. The only race America True has won this round was against AmericaOne, when AmericaOne's headfoil blew apart, taking the boat out of the race. -- Quokka Sports, http://www.americascup.org/ STARS & STRIPES BEAT AMERICAONE - DELTA 00:22 Ken Read staked Stars & Stripes (USA-55) to what seemed like a comfortable lead over Paul Cayard on AmericaOne (USA-61). But AmericaOne charged up on the final two runs to make the outcome of this match far from sure until the very end. In the prestart, it was a strange dial-up, with Cayard on the favoured starboard tack first ducking behind Read and then coming up on his left side. Read tacked away and led the boats out to the Committee Boat side of the start line before the boats circled, had another dial up and then made a break for the line. Read led back to the line, and won the start, hitting the line first and upwind of his rival. Stars & Stripes picked the shifts well upwind and built a comfortable lead at the top mark. Read extended on the first run to lead by 45 seconds at the bottom mark. But on the next two legs, AmericaOne found another gear and charged up on Read. On the second run, Cayard closed to within a boat length, and things were starting to look grim for Stars & Stripes. But Read held firm on the final upwind leg, building a comfort zone that would come in handy on the final run. Cayard gained on a gybing duel on the race to the finish, so Stars & Stripes allowed AmericaOne to split, avoiding more gybes and went on to finish with a three boat length lead. LE DEFI BEAT AMERICA TRUE - DELTA 01:14 Bertrand Pace on Le Defi (FRA-46) got the favoured committee boat end of the start line and started on port tack. John Cutler on America True (USA-51) also started on port tack almost three boat lengths behind Bertrand Pace. The wind was fairly stable on the first beat. The French kept their lead until near the top mark. The wind went a bit to the left favouring America True. Near the top mark Bertrand Pace wanted to defend his starboard side advantage. But Cutler outsmarted Pace. America True lee-bowed Le Defi sailing on starboard tack. Cutler, who had rights, luffed head to wind and forced Bertrand Pace to tack away to port. That gave Cutler just enough room to cross ahead of Le Defi on the port tack layline. According to the umpires it was all legal and America True rounded three seconds ahead. On the run Le Defi tried to roll America True but broached and broke its spinnaker pole when Cutler luffed. After that Cutler pulled away a bit. Le Defi could not threaten America True until the next run. Without a spinnaker pole the French were still able to sail with an asymmetrical sail tacked to the bow whilst America True used a symmetrical sail. The French closed the gap in the failing breeze and overtook when America True messed up a gybe. From then on Bertrand Pace led and defended that success. LUNA ROSSA BEAT ASURA - DELTA 02:01 Italy's Luna Rossa (ITA-45), skippered by Francesco de Angelis stayed on the winning track to the Louis Vuitton Cup with a victory over Japan. The port entry boat, Asura (JPN-44), with skipper Peter Gilmour on the helm, took early control of the start by dipping below the starboard tack Italian boat after it was slow to enter the start box. However it was de Angelis who made a perfectly-timed starboard tack back to the line, pushing Gilmour ahead of him. De Angelis grabbed the favoured Race Committee boat end of the line. Gilmour started two seconds in front at the pin but that was the last that he saw of the lead, although the Japanese boat took the fight to Luna Rossa on the first two legs, with margins of only 22 seconds at the first and second marks. Luna Rossa worked out to a comfortable lead on the second weather leg. The Japanese sailed the next run with spinnaker and jib, after a jib halyard jammed and that was the end of any hopes they had of winning today. -- Peter Rusch, Keith Taylor, Simon Keijzer, Louis Vuitton Cup website, http://www.louisvuittoncup.com CURRENT STANDINGS:
NEXT SCHEDULED RACES: Team Dennis Conner / America True LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) Letters selected to be printed are routinely edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude personal attacks. But only one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if people disagree. -- From Mark Yeager -- "A Friendly Competition Between Nations"... Isn't that a little like calling a 'cock fight' a 'petting zoo'? -- From Doug Holthaus (With respect to Larry Edwards'observations in #480) Larry's been here in Auckland long enough to know that people don't "whine" about the America's Cup, they "windge". Larry, if you are going to report Kiwi sailing, you really must learn the local dialect! -- From John Rousmaniere -- Once again, "should we compete?" is being debated in Auckland. The answer might greatly affect the standings. Worse, the fact that the question is asked at all suggests that, despite some wonderful racing, the America's Cup may not be too healthy. The competitors don't seem to be taking much responsibility for enhancing or even protecting the event's integrity as a sport. The essential element of any sport is competition, but now the priority seems to lie elsewhere. Paul Cayard explained that he might not sail the next race by offering the Dilbertian corporate-speak phrase, "Prudence managing the assets would be reasonable." (This came at the same press conference where there was discussion as to whether the French crew had thrown a race.) Last month Dawn Riley rationalized not taking America True out for the last race of the previous series in legalistic terms very similar to Cayard's. Her competitors appeared not to take exception. Even the crew that she shoved out of the semi-finals said they understood her decision. Would the sports fans whom Cup sailors want to attract be so understanding? Someone who is used to Paul O'Neill's running into fences and Steve Young's risking concussions, even in insignificant games, will be left to wonder about an event whose players seize opportunities not to compete in crucial contests. A few people might also reflect on the future of their diet of golden eggs should the golden goose -- starved of nurture and battered by cynicism -- sicken or even die. -- From Craig Leweck -- I am compelled to suggest to all the Buttheads who are disgusted with the 2000 America's Cup to consider one thing: the event has not started yet. What we seem to forget is that the whole point of the Challenger Trials is to pick the best challenger. The event has been designed to provide some leeway so that the best candidate can surface. Is this right? Should the trials be run like a "typical" regatta, with no delays or credits for breakdowns? Or should the straw hats from the days of old at NYYC come back, with a "thank you for participating" awarded to those who can no longer fake it. Certainly with that system, the field would have been narrowed much sooner than December. Certainly the judicial management of the self-inflicted "gray area" makes for bad television. But let's chill out and drop our bombs only if the main event stinks. -- From John Roberson -- Those of us that watched Wednesday's Louis Vuitton Cup racing live on television, were highly amused to see the French crew constantly baling. Now my first crewing job on a sailing boat - back when dinosaurs roamed the earth - was as the baler-boy on an open 15-foot dinghy. I only got to sail when it was blowing hard, and then I never saw anything except the leeward bilges, as a frantically tried to put the ocean back where it belonged. Then Mr. Elvstrom invented his suction baler, and I was out of a job, so I saved my pocket money to buy my first International Cadet. Now we have multi-million dollar, high tech boats, that need bailer-boys, but not little lightweight nippers, but bloody great big grinders, and I notice they couldn't keep pace! Has sailboat design gone backwards? -- From John Drayton -- Earlier this year I had the opportunity to watch the final day of the Ryder Cup (that's golf for all you sailing lunatics out there). I got to witness firsthand one of that sports greatest comeback victories ever - and it was pretty good, well, for golf. OK, I may be a bit biased, but even this year's Ryder Cup can't touch recent AC racing for excitement, especially the last few days (nights). The Prada/AmericaOne race was as exciting sailing as I've ever seen anywhere, and I keep reminding myself that we haven't even reached the defender finals yet! SUBARU TORNADO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Sydney Australia -- After a 2 hour delay the Tornados were sent out to a starting area north of the North Head to get away from the back wash from the waves hitting the Head. The sail out was beautiful with white tops on the 2-3 metre swells and hundreds of seagulls gliding in the troughs and over the waves, inches from the water, looking for food and enjoying the sights of 75 Tornados negotiating the unstable waves as they passed the North Head on the way to the starting line. Standings after six races: 1. GBR403, British Aerospace, Hugh Styles / Adam (26 points) 2. FRA279, Bouygues Telecom, Xavier Revil / Laurent Guillemette (28) 3. FRA27,6 Bouygues Telecom, Pierre Pennec / Yamn Guichard (30) 4. NED1, Strathfield Car Radios, Mitch Booth /Herbert Dercksen (31) 5. FRA275, Bouygues Telecom, Jean-Christofe Mourniac / Philippe Mourniac (31) Others: 14. USA808, John Lovell /Charlie Ogletree (68) 15. USA811, Mike Ingham /Erik (69) 16 USA802, Team Hall Spars, Lars Guck / P J Schaffer (73) Complete results: http://www.sailing.org/today/extended/trnworlds3.html SAILING ON TV: Ralph's Sailboat Services in Lake Tahoe has just signed an agreement with Snowfest 2000 to produce a Ski/Sail Qualifier to be nationally televised. This event held on March 3rd 2000 will be limited to 10 Vanguard 15s. The winner will get free entry to the 2000 Ski/Sail National Championships April 21-23, 2000 at Lake Tahoe. The one-day qualifier will be held at Homewood Mountain Resort with the sailing directly across the street at Obexers Boat Co. also in Homewood. The event will be nationally televised on VH-1 and PAX networks as well as being shown on United Airlines in-flight entertainment package. For more information: ralph@skisail. AWARDS At their annual meeting, St Francis YC made the following awards: Chad Freitas Junior Sailor of the Year, Jessica Lord, Yachtswoman of the Year, Roy E. Disney Yachtsman of the Year. ONE SIZE FITS ALL It's really not important if you like your America's Cup news in bite-sized capsules, or as a more thoughtful and detailed analysis -- the Quokka AC website has it all. Plus photos, audio and video reports. Plus team profiles, commentary and the racing schedule. Plus detailed results and standings. And the people who write the words and shoot the images are the best. And it's updated so frequently, that you always have the very latest scoop. If you're looking for more America's Cup insight, here's the hot link: http://www.americascup.org/ QUOTE / UNQUOTE Tatsumitsu Yamasaki, Chairman of Nippon Challenge, on a future challenge: "This Louis Vuitton Cup is one of the best sports events in the world. . . . I decided to challenge again when he (Cayard) beat us. Yes, we are coming back." Dawn Riley, skipper of America True, on whether boat changes before the Semi-Finals made the boat faster: "The changes that we made tested better and so we assumed that we had improved the boat. It is hard to have confidence in that, with hindsight, because if we made the boat faster, everybody else had to have made a huge leap. In hindsight, it probably did not help us." Chris Coffin, Chief Operating Officer of America True, on a future challenge: "I have to say it has been a wonderful experience. What Auckland and the country of New Zealand have done, providing the venue and the Village here, has been terrific. Coming down early, the reception we had from the people down here has been great. America True has done a terrific job. I'm very pleased with where we've come from, what we've done. We'll be back! No question about it. A very rewarding experience." -- Louis Vuitton Cup website Full story: http://www.louisvuittoncup.com/ THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left. |
