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SCUTTLEBUTT 1798 - March 18, 2005Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions,features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing, whining and personal attacks for elsewhere. THE ELLEN PHENOMENON - Andy Green The headlines this last month have been dominated by Ellen. She has made a total transition to mainstream fame and this is surely a good thing for sailing. I am constantly asked by non-sailors about how she does it, what drives her and how much she is now charging for weddings and bar mitzvahs. For sailing in general Ellen and her team have shown how it is possible to give a return to sponsors. B&Q/Castorama must surely be impressed at their return if their investment was £5 million as is widely touted when it was signed. 5 million! What a bargain that has proved to be! Hopefully good returns for sponsors and managing your goals realistically will ensure that sponsors who sign up for big events in the future are not given short shrift. I am thinking here of HSBC who sponsored Graham Dalton for a sum rumored to be not that dissimilar to B&Q/Castorama's investment and who are locally in Qatar now involved in Tracy Edwards' Oryx Cup. I am all for being positive but the Oryx Cup is certainly not providing non-sailing returns in the UK and there are only two boats left. This will probably prove to be how not to do it and that's a shame because Tracy clearly puts her heart and soul into it. With Ellen's publicity raising the profile of our sport now is the time for the marine industry to really capitalize on this huge public awareness of sailing. - Brief excerpts from commentary by Andy Green posted on The Daily Sail subscription website, www.thedailysail.com AMERICA'S CUP The Challenger Commission for the 32nd America's Cup ("CC") met in Valencia, March 15-16 and discussed a wide range of subjects. Their main decisions and points of discussion included: - A proposal by ACM for the Challenger Selection Series scoring/format was, by unanimous decision, not accepted, and the proposal adopted by the CC at its February meeting ("San Fran Plan") affirmed. A working party of John Cutler, Tom Ehman, Bruno Finzi and Dawn Riley was appointed to meet with ACM officials, and attempt to reconcile differences and reach an agreement before the 29 April 2005 final challenge deadline. - A draft Act 4 Notice of Race, previously negotiated by the Chairman with Dyer Jones and Brad Butterworth (Alinghi) following guidance from the CC at their February meeting, was reviewed and supported with minor modifications. Notably, it was suggested that the per-leg time limit be increased from 40 to 45 minutes given the approx. half-mile increase in leg length in 2005 (the target length in 2004 was 2.0-2.5 nautical miles; and will be 2.5-3.0 n.m. in 2005). - It was unanimously agreed that onboard cameramen for the 2005 Acts should be permitted (as they were in 2004) only if ACM and their vendors comply strictly with all required insurance, indemnity and waiver provisions. - A proposal by K-Challenge to amend the Protocol to ban the use of land-based lidar, radar and similar to track competitors' yachts was unanimously supported, and the Chairman will pursue enactment with the Defender. - The Chairman reported on behalf of the Challenger of Record that the ISAF Review Board had received an application from Russell Coutts concerning Protocol Article 13.12, that the Review Board had forwarded the application to the Defender (SNG), the Challenger of Record (GGYC) and ACM asking for a response prior to 21 March, and that a letter has been sent by those three parties back to ISAF drawing their attention to the ISAF-ACM Agreement signed in November, 2003. Under that Agreement the ISAF Review Board has no jurisdiction over the America's Cup. It was also noted that the Agreement states that the America's Cup can adopt, or decline to adopt, any ISAF Rule or Regulation; and that in the case of conflict between ISAF and AC rules or regulations, the AC rules/regulations prevail. The CC received the report and agreed no action was required or appropriate on the part of the CC. To read the full report of the Challenger Commission: www.challengercommission.com/ THE REST OF THE STORY Brunswick, Maine - The sailor who hocked his house and ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt preparing for an around-the-world solo race returned to Maine on Thursday to visit schoolchildren who followed his every move. Bruce Schwab, who became the first American to complete the Vendee Globe with a ninth-place finish last month, said during a visit to Brunswick High School that he was proud of completing the race despite the debt and fatigue. "It´s one thing to do a sailboat race if it´s just for yourself. But to know that people are getting something out of it, well that pretty much closes the circle on it," said Schwab, a 43-year-old yacht rigger from Oakland, Calif. " "I wound up having to seek individual support, and that grew more into just asking people for money. It grew into really bringing them along," said the suntanned Schwab. "But I really want to get back on even footing." In the meantime, the personal experiences and connections to the students during the race have made the race rich in payoff, he said. - Ryan Lenz, Maine News, http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D88STEGG1-75.shtml BEIJING, 2008? BRING IT ON. The US Sailing Team, due to be announced next month, has a new focus on winning precious metal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The US Sailing Team also has a new Official Cordage Sponsor focused on making Olympic dreams happen: New England Ropes. The timing is perfect. After years of development with Olympic and world champion sailors, New England Ropes has launched its line of Dinghy & One-Design Ropes, a comprehensive range of lighter, stronger, low-stretch, and easy-to-handle control lines, sheets, and halyards. Call 800-333-6679 for info, or download the Dinghy & One-Design brochure at: http://www.neropes.com/pleasure_marine/dinghy_brochure.pdf BIG With the starts still four months away, the official entry list for the Centennial Transpacific Yacht Race has soared to 68 boats---the most in a quarter century---and brought prospects of a blistering Barn Door battle between sailing superstars for the record. Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory, with three-time America's Cup winning skipper Russell Coutts on board, is among the latest to sign in. The German industrial software magnate will line up against Roy Disney's Pyewacket in a duel of Reichel/Pugh maxZ86s. They'll try to beat the fastest elapsed time by a monohull set by Disney's previous Pyewacket in 1999---7 days 11 hours 41 minutes 27 seconds---or at least claim the 3 1/2x4-foot slab of carved koa wood known as the Barn Door that goes to the fastest monohull. Philippe Kahn's Pegasus boats won it in 2001 and 2003, Disney's Pyewackets the previous two races. Besides Coutts, Morning Glory's crew will include world 505 champion Morgan Larson as a watch captain and all-round world-class competitor Peter Isler as navigator. Larson sailed on the two Pegasus winners. Pyewacket regulars include Olympic gold medalist Robbie Haines and record-setting navigator Stan Honey. There also are 14 Cal 40s - the 40-year revival seems boundless - and, in all, boats from six countries and four continents. Entries close on June 3. - Rich Roberts, www.transpacificyc.org/ ORYX QUEST 2005 Team Daedalus has had a frustratingly slow 24 hours as they sail up the coast of Argentina. After strong headwinds the wind has died away completely leaving a glassy smooth ocean with barely a cats paw rippling the surface. In the last 24 hours the big multihull has made good only 137 nautical miles towards Los Lobos Island. Tony and his team sailed almost 180 miles through the water, but they were chasing breeze all over the ocean and the distance to the turning mark off Uruguay remains a painstaking 800 miles distant. Brian Thompson and his team on Doha 2006 also had a relatively slow day if you can call 421 miles covered slow. At the 07:00 GMT poll on Thursday morning the Qatari cat was sailing at a sedate 10.2 knots Standings at 0100 GMT Friday: 1. Doha 2006, 6047 miles to finish, 2. Daedalus 3430 miles to leader; Retired: Geronimo & Cheyenne. - www.oryxquest.com/ MARSEILLE INTERNATIONAL MATCH RACE The Marseille International Match Race is an ISAF Grade one event using J/80s. With only a third of the matches in the first round robin behind them, the crews still have a long way to go to qualify for the next rounds. If weather conditions allow it, and nobody is betting on that, the next round will be another round robin with the first 6 boats from the first round. If not, the top 4 will go straight into quarter finals, semis and the finals. Standings: Mathieu Richard, 5-3 Ian Williams, 4-2 Staffan Lindberg, 4-2 Dimitri Deruelle, 3-0 Sébastien Col, 3-2 Chris Dickson, 3-2 Ed Baird, 2-2 Philippe Presti, 2-1 Paolo Cian, 2-1 Iain Percy, 2-0 Event website: www.ycpr.com NEWS BRIEFS * The International Optimist Association announced an open competition to design the Optimist sail of the future. In the past ten years the Class has successfully modified the specification of the hull, spars and foils. Now it seeks to modernize the sail, introducing a new specification in 2008. For further details: www.optiworld.org/sailcompetition.pdf * Team Racing is a paradigm shift from traditional sailboat racing. It has broad appeal because of the ease of participation (boats and sails are provided), sailing 50 races in a weekend, excellent competition, and great camaraderie at the social events. Team racing promotes cooperation toward a common goal. Racers, umpires and race managers enjoy being close to the action. In January, 33 people worked as one large team to help team racing grow in the U.S. A report from this meeting is available for downloading: www.ussailing.org/championships/adult/ustrc/TeamRacingCommittee.htm * New England Ropes has become the Official Cordage Sponsor to the US Sailing Team, the US Disabled Sailing, and the US Youth World Team. As part of the agreement, New England Ropes will outfit all team-members with a custom line-package, developed with input from the athletes and coaches. * With the completion of the Laser Midwinters West last weekend at the California YC, US Sailing has determined the Laser and Laser Radial members of the 2005 US Sailing Team. The newest members of the Team are, in the Radial: Paige Railey, Anna Tunnicliffe, Leah Hoepfner, Lindsay Buchan, and Stephanie Roble; in the Laser: Brad Funk, Andrew Campbell, John Pearce, Ryan Minth, and Matthew Sterett. The 2005 US Sailing Team will be complete in mid-April upon completion of the Star Western Hemisphere Championship. Get the current standings for all the classes of the US Sailing Team: www.ussailing.org/olympics/2005/standings.htm NEW! JUST RELEASED! UK SAILMAKERS UPDATED RULES QUIZ CD The protest room is the wrong place to learn the rules, especially when the most pain-free method is the 2005-2008 edition of the UK Sailmakers Rules Quiz CD. The CD is packed with new quizzes, sound effects, exciting video, all the appendices, and the appeals. Analyze the animation, then read the Facts Found, the Conclusions and Rules That Apply. The animations can be viewed full-screen, or they can be viewed smaller along with the quiz answer and any rule questions you have - all on the same screen. Truly the easiest way to learn the rules. Buy it at http://www.uksailmakers.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. This is not a chat room nor a bulletin board - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.) * From John Harwood-Bee: Yes the French are to be applauded as supporters of endurance sailing. Good for them. However to describe the Jules Verne Trophy in such emotive terms is excessive. Round The World records were here long before the JV which has only been in existence a mere 12 years. Having been challenged for by many of the great ocean racers for whom it was a prestigious prize, that prestige was thrown away in 2004. The trophy, previously awarded only for the fastest circumnavigation, was then awarded to Geronimo for a time 5 days slower than Cheyenne. To now claim the JV as a fantastic marketing concept is a nonsense. It is a 'paid for' prize with a costly entry fee for little return. It would have been better for all if the trophy had been withheld. To criticize Steve Fossett also shows a lack of knowledge of the facts. Fossett tried to negotiate with the JV people but was unable to reach agreement. Those negotiations continued even after he had started his RTW attempt. As for spirit, I can think of very few people who have used so much of their own resource in pushing back the boundaries of so many activities as Steve Fossett. * From Gareth Evans: I have to agree and disagree with Reynald Neron. He is correct: you have to be French to understand how important the Jules Verne Trophy is. Meanwhile the rest of the world understand how important the trophy WAS. Steve Fossett proved that it was not necessary to spend thousands of Euros for the privilege of sailing the course to receive a trophy at the end of it - all he wanted was the record. Steve's record was impressive, and it was entirely within the spirit of our sport - that anybody can sail the oceans of our planet without having to pay a fee. As Reynald stated: "The Jules Verne Trophy is a fantastic marketing concept". If the news is big enough, no marketing is required. Just look at the media coverage achieved recently by Ellen without the "help" of Jules Verne. Congratulations to Bruno for breaking Steve's record in such outstanding style! However I still believe that the Jules Verne Trophy is dead - only serving to confuse the public as there are effectively two records (now brought back together). The only record that counts is that ratified by the WSSRC. * From Alan R. McReynolds: First off, what a tremendous feat in the round the world records chase. Hats off to Bruno, Orange II, and crew. Bravo. It was very exciting to watch on-line. I wish I could have the experience of 600 - 700 miles days on a sailing craft. Very cool! That said, I have to ask the question - why people are still bashing Steve Fossett? The man is amazing. Over the last five years, I believe he has set records in sailboats, high-performance gliders, balloons, and high performance jets. While the crew of Orange were smashing Cheyenne's round the world record, he set off to be the first to fly solo non-stop un-refueled around the world in a plane. Wonderful stuff. All of his public communications that I have seen have always been very gracious and respectful. That has not always been the case with Bruno, Olivier De Kersauson, and others associated with the Jules Verne Trophy. * From Bob Hofmann: Steve's letter in 'Butt 1797 Re: Peyron's justly deserved record just goes to show that he is a class act. Way to go Steve!! And to Renald Neron, the only problem with Steve and the Jules Verne Trophy that I have read about in 'Butt, is that he didn't want to pay some ridiculous fee to be able to participate for that specific trophy. I'm not sure what the fee has to do with the "spirit" of the competition, but then, I'm American and I guess you have to be "French" to truly understand RTW racing. * From Tom Fischbeck: Hurray for Bruno! Maybe now we can consider a "Multi Hull" a yacht? Maybe America will finally get tired of pushing lead through the water! Unbelieveable! * From Hal Ward: Mir finishing Transpac backwards is truly remarkable. But how about Cheval winning Transpac Line Honors - without a mast? * From Andrew Troup (On the real-time integration of pitch and heel - edited to our 250-word limit): To derive their rate of change and apply the result to cancel their perturbations of wind instrument data, I recall proposing such a technique to Mike Quilter. The solution was pretty obvious, and the technology was up to it, even back then (although it would have cost far more). It was just one of those problems which wasn't high enough on anyone's list to inspire leaping the hurdles to get it to happen. I have a similar solution on my current list: the problem is the disorientation which afflicts the deck watch and helm on cloudy nights, particularly offshore in a breeze, during maneuvers. My fantasized solution is to use oscillating laser beam(s) from high point(s) in the rig to paint colored arrows or stripes on the ocean around the vessel, one representing the true wind angle, and the others being intended heading, and the perpendicular and reciprocals, OR True North, E, W and S. One hurdle to doing this was to have real time ability to cancel the rig motion via data, modifying the oscillation of the beams in real time, to avoid the expense of stabilizing the laser projection platform. That is now clearly available. Lots of people have such lists, and most of us have literally dozens we're never going to get around to doing anything about. Prior to the Internet there was no way of passing these on to whoever might be disposed to "run with" them, but that excuse has gone. * From Marc Hollerbach: Reading Mr. Fisher's comments regarding instrument technology and its most recent advances brought back a flood of memories from 1978. This is what my sons call one of my "No sh*t guys, this really happened!" stories. I was sailing SORC on the C&C 2 tonner Evergreen with Lowell North, Peter Barrett & Tim Stearn, among others. I was sitting at breakfast before the start of the St. Pete-Ft. Lauderdale race with the Pope and Pete and they started discussing this radical concept of a machine that could take the data (we didn't call it that then) from the apparent wind and boat speed instruments and somehow generate a true wind reading. They start to get really excited about it. Pete pulls out a pencil & starts writing trig calculations on a napkin while Lowell is drawing potential form factors of his "black box" on his. I had the privilege of munching on bacon while I watched two of the sports true geniuses push sailing way past its technological boundaries. Now, I don't know how much input these two pioneers contributed to the development of the first true wind indicator but my guess is that someone in the R&D department at B&G probably spent some time with them in 1978. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION When they bought a water bed, the couple started to drift apart. |
