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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 735 - January 23, 2001THE RACEClub Med and Innovation Explorer have been sailing in ideal conditions for 4 days now, the very conditions they were designed for. Strong following winds, between 25 and 30 knots, mainly westerly, on a sea that is indeed rather hard, but good enough for the leading cats to clock up between 480 and 540 miles each day! At this rate, the Indian Ocean is looking more like a nice motorway swept by a succession of lows centred way down South that are generating along the great circle route the ideal conditions for these great catamarans. Both are being careful to gybe at the right moment in order to remain for as long as possible on the edge of the depressions, where the winds are strong, but not too strong, whilst avoiding being caught up in the calms of the anticyclones. The only brake on this bulimia for nautical miles is the prudence of the sailors, concerned about returning both yachts and men to harbour, and preferably Marseilles. So they are perpetually on the lookout for 25 to 30 knot flows allowing the use of full main and the small slightly overlapping storm spinnaker on Club Med, the ultimate weapon for running down wind. - www.therace.org ABOARD INNOVATION EXPLORER - Skipper Skip Novak Although we have moved into second place with Team Adventure's decision to repair in Cape Town, we are so far behind Club Med that we have decided to just disregard them for the moment and sail against the ocean. Our minds are focused on keeping our boat in one piece and getting through this section, and it is proving to be no mean feat. Almost daily something or other breaks: mainsail battens and padeyes are routine, the Solent Jib halyard has been jumping the sheave, this morning the bomb bay door on the main beam for the liferaft locker fell off after impact with a wave, various creaks, groans and bangs are investigated and noted. I have this vision of arriving in Marseilles patched up and in tatters like Kevin Costner's trimaran in Waterworld. We have been sailing fast for the last five days in a northwesterly flow that has brought the warm air from the South Atlantic face to face with the cold sea of the Southern Ocean drift. Bad visibility is the consequence, which doesn't mean much when you are barreling along at 25 to 30 knots in the open ocean. But now, at latitude 46 degrees south, it has at once become precarious sailing. When we passed below 43 degrees south, we had started the system of the stand-by watch being responsible for monitoring the radar. But two nights ago navigator Roger Nilson realized they were playing hooky. When he switched the radar on to transmit, low and behold, four miles dead ahead was a large echo - which could only have been an iceberg. Four miles at 25 knots was about 10 minutes for a bull's-eye. We managed to haul up wind of it and then gybed when we were only a half mile away. We never saw it in the dead of night and fog. Even though you can see these monster bergs on radar, or on a clear night (although even on a moonless, pitch black night they glow sufficiently strong to give good warning) it is still paramount-because of our boat speed--that there are enough hands on deck ready to react in double quick time. This doesn't solve the problems of the bergy bits (house size) and the growlers (car size). Both of these icy manifestations are by and large submerged objects, and even when they break the surface-it could be in broad daylight--they look very much like any old breaking wave crest. This is where the craziness comes into play - it's a crap shoot down here. There is no way you can spot these bergy bits--and you know they are out there - so in effect it's like shutting your eyes when running a red light. - http://www.outsidemag.com/adventure/adventurers/therace2000/index.html ABOARD TEAM ADVENTURE Now safe in Cape Town, South Africa, Team Adventure's crew today faces a momentous decision about continuing in The Race, following the news that their two injured crewmates will not be able to join them. Jeffery Wargo, from Seattle, WA, and Mikael Lundh from Sweden, have been treated and released from Claremont Hospital in Cape Town but neither will be fit to return immediately to the strenuous physical challenge of sailing on the 110-foot catamaran. Lundh was admitted to hospital and released this morning. He has a strained tendon in his neck and will wear a neck brace while he convalesces. Wargo suffered a compression fracture of his L1 vertebrae. He must restrict his physical movements for the next two or three weeks but is expected to fully recover after two or three months. Because the rules of The Race permit no crew substitutions, skipper Cam Lewis must now decide whether to continue racing with 12 crew instead of 14, once repairs have been completed. "It is my ambition to complete the course if at all possible," Lewis said today. "However it must be a crew decision. With two crew out and no way to replace them, we have to decide whether to continue on or not. "Once we have a good assessment of the repairs, and the time to do the repairs, the whole crew will sit down tonight. We'll have to have a long hard look at the rest of the course. It will have to be a group decision, and that decision will be influenced a lot by the report from the boat builders. - Keith Taylor, http://www.TeamAdventure.org SEATTLE TO KEY WEST AND EVERYWHERE IN BETWEEN People from every corner of the US are realizing the benefits of owning a Protector Cabin RIB. Not only do they make great tenders for race boats but they are also being used for commuting, spectating, fishing, picnic boating, sea kayaking, camping and more. Last week many had chance to see these boats first hand. We were at Key West Race Week and the Seattle Boat Show, but if you missed us there go to www.protectorusa.com or call 877.664.BOAT VENDEE GLOBE - By Philippe Jeantot In the last 12 hours on day 75 of the Vendˇe Globe, with under 5000 miles to the finish, the distance separating the two leaders, Michel Desjoyeaux (PRB) & Ellen MacArthur (Kingfisher), has decreased a further 60 miles from 130 to 70 miles. Michel Desjoyeaux, slowed up for a week now, has to cross another, even weaker zone of light airs ahead and he's going to feel it in his boat speed. He has been clocking around 6.5 knots, nearly 3 knots slower than Ellen, who is becoming quite a real threat. The logical chain of events should in theory have it that the leader, slowed first by the high pressure centre, is also the first to pick up the pace again on the other side, and his pursuers all have to undergo the same process. In reality Desjoyeaux has not made it through, and alone he has been paying the price heavily. However, slowly but surely, as the others creep into more similar weather conditions as him, the boat speeds will eventually equalise. But for now, the leader is in the worst of it still, and his rivals are hunting him down. Although the skippers are still in the clutches of Saint Helen, they are already analysing the evolution of the weather forecasts afterwards. The Doldrums may not pose such a great threat in the West as the fleet hugs closer to the coast of Brazil on the way back up, but each mile is being fought over now. Each skipper is not only looking at every subtlety that the weather conditions throw up as a possibility, a card to play, but also keeping a careful eye on each other's progress as a means to consolidate on their strategy and weather analysis. As the weather continues to play tricks for all the Vendˇe Globe fleet, the unpredictable could still happen. STANDINGS: 1. PRB, Michel Desjoyeaux, 4649 miles from finish, 2 Kingfisher, Ellen MacArthur, 71 miles behind leader, 3. Active Wear, Marc Thiercelin, 254 mbl, 4. Sill Matines & La Potag¸re, Roland Jourdain, 285 mbl, 5. Sodebo Savourons la Vie, Thomas Coville, 630 mbl. - http://www.vendeeglobe.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) (Letters selected to be printed may be edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude unfounded speculation or personal attacks. This is not a bulletin board or a chat room - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree. We don't publish anonymous letters, but will withhold your e-mail address on request.) * From: "Paul Swanson" <swompa@hotmail.com> In regards to the recent comments about the current breeds of America's Cup boats, I think that the IACC class is one of the best designs in the world. They are the most High Tech breed around. The only problem I feel is they are too big. You either have to be a multi millionaire or know someone who is to have a real chance to compete. I would agree that the boats should be shortened to 60 feet like the Volvo 60's but the era of the 12m's and the J boats has long passed. * From: "Roger Marshall" <rmarshall26@home.com> Commenting on the twelve meter thread. The twelves were slow enought that tactics counted for a considerable part of any race. With the current breed of AC yachts, tactics appears to play a much smaller part as there are considerable (by America's Cup terms) differences in boat speed. I once plotted the time differences between boats as a percentage of the elapsed time and found that the chart went negative in 1983. (I found the chart and can fax it if you want to use it, but the input data has long since disappeared.) Since that time, in most cases the challenger or defender side that had the most entries won the cup. For example, right up to 1980 there were almost always more defenders than challengers, in Perth there were more challengers than defenders and the cup was taken back the US. Where there are close to equal numbers of challengers and defenders the home team almost alwasys wins. Only in Auckland has the defence had one team and resounding beaten a large number of challenger. This says a lot about the quality of the NZ defence. * From: "Charles Langston" <doclangston@email.msn.com> US Sailing and ISAF may not be perfect, but they are trying to work on our behalf on a level beyond that of our class associations and clubs. If we want them to take a different tack we should join and go to the meetings, or offer constructive advice; or be prepared to do a lot of hard work ourselves. The dues are a bargain. So let's try to use this forum for useful ideas. * From: Chuck Bolduc <woodduck18@juno.com> The real effort for a governing committee would be to minimize the imposition of rules, by seeing what it would take to get the same results using spirit of the sport. As for ISAF Prezz's comment "rules and regulations become more intense so as to ensure "Fair Sailing" and keep the integrity of the sport", I agree. But how about the "integrity of the sport"? If truly inane and nitpicking rules are increasingly required, could that mean that the "integrity" of the whiners and sea lawyers, who make added rules necessary, is the real threat to the sport?? The "intent "of rules is to clarify what is permitted in the contest, not to become a web of restrictions to beat. What is this, anyway, the IRS? I recall a former naval exhortation: Don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, march on down there and light the bloody thing yourself! AMERICA'S CUP The French syndicate for the America's Cup has recently gained control of the legendary "Thirty-Two", the all conquering Team New Zealand boat that won everything in 1995 and took the America's Cup to Auckland. The boat, strengthened and used by Team New Zealand again in their development programme for their new boats NZL-57 and 60 for the last Cup, will be based at the French Atlantic base in Lorient for a programme of two boat tuning and plenty of match race practice. The design team of the French syndicate, lead by Luc Gelluseau, consists of eleven people including Dutch-born designer Peter van Oosaanen, the man responsible for the tank testing of the famous Ben Lexcen-designed wing keel on Australia II in 1983. With the loss of Bertrand Pacˇ as skipper of the French team to Team New Zealand, various other names have been added to the afterguard pretenders list, these include Luc Pillot, Philippe Presti, Sebastien Col and past America's Cup tactician Thierry Pˇponnet. - Louis Vuitton Cup website. Full story: http://www.louisvuittoncup.com/lvcup.sps?section=home&subsection=home&page=default.sps WEIGHING IN - (Peter Isler did a story for Quokka Sports about crew weight limits. Here are two excerpts from that piece.) One of the silliest features of grand-prix racing today is the crew weigh-in. Not the concept of a maximum crew weight, but the administration process and enforcement. Mature adults go through crash weight-loss routines that would make a high school wrestler proud. Starvation, dehydration, overcooking in saunas . doesn't that sound like fun? It's hard to believe it has anything at all to do with the sport of sailboat racing! * Having gone through the dehydration routine more times than I'd like to remember, I know how devastating it can be to your body and your mind. On weigh-in day at last November's Farr 40 regatta in Miami, crews were walking around like zombies. And the weight comes right back on, so the team that just made weight on the practice day may be 100 pounds heavier by the middle of the regatta. Is this how we want to play the game of sailboat racing, where the teams willing to endure the most bodily harm (or at least suffer the most extreme discomfort) have the biggest advantage? Of course not. Ideally, we'd all be sailing at equal weight so that no one has an undue advantage. You could make every crew subject to weigh-in after every race, as they do in the America's Cup, but that's too extreme and a bureaucratic nightmare. The system used at the Etchells Worlds seems like a great solution. If an event or class decides their event is big enough that they want to weigh the crews, it should be done twice: once prior to the regatta and again halfway through the event. The second weigh-in could be at a scheduled time only for the crews in the top 10 percent of the fleet, for example. If you don't make weight on that second weigh-in, your scores stand - but you need to change crew so that you make weight for the rest of the regatta. And I suppose you should be allowed to reweigh the following morning if you want to switch back to your original crew. - Peter Isler, for Quokka Sports. Full story: http://www.quokkasailing.com/expert/2001/01/SLQ_0122_isler_WFC.html MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION When you need the latest high-tech gear for your boat, you: A) Get in the car, drive to the store, wait for someone to show you a catalog. B) Dig out the "Old Boat Supply" catalog, and call for pricing on obsolete products. C) Visit ?????.com, and learn how to tie some knots or dock your boat. D) Call Performance Yacht Systems at 1-877-3pyacht. Click below for answers. http://www.pyacht.com - Hardware / rigging / sails / clothing / marine electronics AWARDS US SAILING's Olympic Sailing Committee has recognized four Olympians as the sport's U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) Athletes of the Year. Recipients of the honor in the Team category are Star Olympic Gold Medallists Mark Reynolds (San Diego, Calif.) and crew Magnus Liljedahl (Miami, Fla.). Finn sailor Russ Silvestri (San Francisco, Calif.) and boardsailor Lanee Butler (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) are Male and Female Athlete of the Year, respectively. After winning the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl went on to win the hotly contested 2000 Nautica Star World Championship in a fleet of 112 boats. Their winning streak continued in Europe at Kiel Week and the Goldener Pfingstbusch regattas, before winning a gold Medal in Sydney. Reynolds and Liljedahl were recently nominated for the 2000 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year Award by the membership of US SAILING. At the Finn Olympic Team Trials Russ Silvestri led the 26-boat fleet throughout their 16-race series, winning his berth to Sydney by a three-point edge. Silvestri then had to qualify the U.S. entry to the Olympics themselves, which he did by placing 25th out of 89 boats at the Finn Gold Cup. He posted his best international finish of the year at the SPA Regatta in Holland where he was fifth out of 62 boats. In Sydney finished the event sixth overall. A five-time Athlete of the Year ('00, '99, '94, '93, '91), Lanee Butler was recognized this year for her fourth-place finish in the Mistral Women's event at the 2000 Olympic Games. As the first woman sailor to represent the U.S.A. at three consecutive Olympics, Butler achieved an Olympic personal-best with her performance in Sydney. She had earned her trip to these Games with a flawless performance at the U.S. Olympic Trials that enabled her to sit out one heat of the 14-race series and still win. - Jan Harley MORE AWARDS Sail Magazine awarded the SCS PTC-IIe PACTOR HF modem the winner of the 2000 Freeman K. Pittman award for the most innovative new communications product of '99 - 2000. This device installs between a SSB radio and a PC to enable a vessel to send and receive email data over SSB up to 9,000 miles from a shore station. At a cost of $649.00, the PTC-IIe provides an economical, yet reliable method of staying in contact while sailing away from home. More information: http://sailmail.com http://scs-ptc.com CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS * April 7: Suddenly Alone seminar presented by the Cruising Club of America's Bonnell Cove Foundation at the Mystic Hilton, Mystic, CT. Discussions of man overboard recovery by the remaining crew member; stabilizing the yacht with sails and engine; radio communications requesting assistance; single handed navigation to a safe haven. - bsbwn@aol.com * June 8 -14: Swan European Regatta, Cowes, Isle of Wight, http://www.nautorgroup.com * July 7- 13: Swan American Regatta 2001, Newport, Rhode Island, New York YC, http://www.nautorgroup.com OPEN 60 Mission America Skipper Brad Van Liew announced five new crew members for his Open-60 in the upcoming EDS Atlantic Challenge Race. These individuals battled it out online to win a spot on the boat and each will play an active role on board and also communicate with children worldwide through the team's educational component: - Abbott Brown - (Leg 1 - St. Malo, France to Cuxhaven Germany) - Dick Lamb - (Leg 2 - Cuxhaven, Germany to Portsmouth, England) - John Jacquemin - (Leg 3 - Portsmouth, England to Baltimore, Maryland - Jim Freedman - (Leg 4 - Baltimore, Maryland to Boston, Massachusetts) - Carl Mischka - (Leg 5 - Boston, Massachusetts to St. Malo, France) The EDS Atlantic Challenge Race is the first in a seven race series that Around Alone veteran Brad Van Liew will skipper with his Mission America team. - www.oceanracing.org THE CURMUDGEON'S QUOTATIONS "The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." - Lucille Ball |
