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SCUTTLEBUTT 2010 - January 17, 2006Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus.SKATING ON VERY THIN ICE - Magnus Wheatley Firstly I salute the unbelievable seamanship and bravery of all the sailors in the Volvo Race. Secondly, the amazing sponsorship of Volvo from grass roots to grand-prix is terrific for the sport and something to behold. I am almost getting a good night's sleep now but waking up in the morning, I still hold my breath hoping that there are no awful shots of upturned hulls, swimming sailors and an Australian Navy vessel making 'good speed' to a disaster zone. The press loves to akin the Volvo race to Formula 1 well let's have a look at that and see if we've learnt anything from that sport: In 1994 at the San Marino Grand Prix, two racing drivers - Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger - were killed and, in the words of the F1 website, "the aftermath of that horrible weekend changed forever the way grand prix cars were built and forever changed the way the races themselves were conducted." Not so in 'grand prix' yachting. What did the organizers do? Make the boats lighter, more powerful, more expensive and inherently far more dangerous with unproven technology succumbing to 'dynamic' loading that even the clever-clogs with their wind tunnels and tank-tests can't predict. "That shouldn't happen" say the designers. I'm sorry that is unacceptable. If a canting keel piston rod with a breaking strain of 100 tons is failing (Ericsson) then surely the writing is on the wall. An insider on Ericsson tells me that, "everyone is just waiting for the next thing to break on these boats and that half the crews are scared witless of the consequences." That's very different from the upbeat press reports from Volvo Race Control and it's plainly not right and not good for our sport. I just hope and pray that someone with an ounce of intellect is willing to thoroughly review these boats and the entire race in Melbourne. The organizers and sponsors may get away with lady luck (and some damn good seamanship by the sailors) on this Southern Ocean leg but as any gambler knows - she's a fickle dealer and I fear the Volvo Race is skating on very, very thin ice. The sport can't afford a tragedy. A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW At a café in what used to be America's Cup Alley, Halsey Street, on Auckland's Viaduct Basin, a former winner admitted to being green-eyed with envy at what has been unfolding in the Southern Ocean during the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race from Cape Town to Melbourne. Grant Dalton, who is now in charge of New Zealand's America's Cup bid, was bubbling. "The whole Volvo event has been reignited," he said. "It has rediscovered the old excitement, adventure and danger. Everyone is talking about it when they come in the morning. There is a real pulse and a huge buzz. I would love to be down there again." Dalton, a staunch Kiwi if ever there was one, said he would like to shake the Volvo's Australian chief executive, Glenn Bourke, by the hand, a rare gesture of Trans-Tasman goodwill. He thought the new world record set up by ABN 2 was "just so neat", and insisted on highlighting the decision by ABN's Roy Heiner to give Argentina's Juan Kouyoumdjian the design brief. He had no time for the doom- mongers dwelling on breakdowns and keel-technology failures, despite the retirements and anxieties. As long as a second generation of the new Open 70 design was allowed to develop, they would be stronger and even faster, he said. -- Stuart Alexander in Auckland, The Independent, full story: http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/article338666.ece BOAT SHOPPING SEASON With the New Year upon us and sailing season underway, come visit Sail California San Diego. Check out exciting new models like the J/124 and the J/65. J/65 hull # 2 will be arriving in San Diego later this month and will be available for showings in February. For a complete listing of new and used power and sail boats, go to the Sail California website, give us a call at 619-224-6200, or email us at mailto:sandiego@sailcal.com. Cell phone numbers are: Jeff Brown, 619-709-0697; John Bohne, 619-944-3002; Ken Bertino, 619-980-2623. View website at http://www.yachtworld.com/sailcal INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR Day 1 of Acura Key West 2006 served up an international smorgasbord within the grand prix classes. A Norwegian entry is atop the Farr 40 standings while a Swiss boat took the lead in Melges 24. A pair of American skippers sit in first in the Transpac 52 and Swan 45 classes. Swan 45 is contesting its inaugural world championship and Goombay Smash, owned by William Douglass of Newport, R.I., is the early frontrunner. British match racing veteran Chris Law is calling tactics aboard Goombay Smash, which posted a fourth and a third Monday and leads DSK-Comifin (Danilo Salsi, Italy) by two points. Norwegian Steam, owned by Eivind Astrup, is the pacesetter in Farr 40 class after Day 1. Morten Henriksen is calling tactics for Astrup, who notched a second and fourth and is one point ahead of the Italian entry Calvi-Gameon (Carlo Alberini). They also took home the Nautica Boat of the Day honor. Racing on Division 1, which includes the Swan 45s and Farr 40s, was delayed about two hours to allow the breeze to build. At around noon, the wind filled from the southeast at 11-12 knots and enabled organizers with Premiere Racing to get off two good races. Rush, owned by Thomas Stark of Newport, R.I., sits atop the leader board in professional-laden Transpac 52 class. America's Cup veteran Ed Baird is calling tactics for Rush, which won Race 2 and placed second in Race 1. "Whenever you've got Ed Baird by your side you're usually going to be in the right spot," Stark said. -- Bill Wagner Other class leaders include Mumm 30: TeamBOLD, Nelson Stephenson; IRC-1: Moneypenny Jim Swartz, IRC-2: Gold Digger, James Bishop; PHRF-2: Boys Are Back Colahan/McManus; PHRF-3: Carinthia Frank Kern; Melges 24: Tie - Blu Moon, Franco Rossini and Excellent, John Pollard; J/105: Masquerade, Thomas Coates; J/80: Synergy, Jay Lutz; Melges 32: New Wave, Michael Carroll. -- Complete results: www.Premiere-Racing.com Great Images: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/06/keywest View and post comments: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi View dockside reports at Scuttleblog: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/blog GROUNDHOG DAY Surely Paul Cayard has the wrong film backing his Volvo Ocean Race campaign? With the second keel problem on the Cape Town to Melbourne stage, and the third incident of the race, his boat is more Groundhog Day than Pirates of the Caribbean. Just 24 hours from declaring that the "keel had made it", Cayard suspended racing yesterday having passed the scoring gate at Eclipse Island on Australia's south-western corner and put into Albany, nine miles away. Five days ago Pirates had a major alarm with leaks and cracks in the keel's secondary support structure. Yesterday's failure - a port hydraulic ram problem - struck at noon GMT. Cayard got the boat through the scoring gate at 14.48, behind the ABN Amro One (Mike Sanderson), ABN Amro Two (Seb Josse) and Bouwe Bekking's movistar, and was alongside little more than an hour later. Prior to this, movistar had also stopped racing at 10.52 with her own faulty hydraulics. She was under way again just over three hours later. - Tim Jeffery, the Daily Telegraph, UK, http://tinyurl.com/854vr Volvo Ocean Race Positions at 2200 GMT Monday 1. Team ABN Amro One, Mike Sanderson, 1201 miles to finish 2. Team ABN Amro Two, Sebastien Josse, +19 miles 3. Movistar, Bouwe Bekking, +82 miles 4. Pirates of the Caribbean, Paul Cayard, +151 miles 5. ING Real Estate Brunel, Grant Wharington, +915 miles 6. Brasil 1, Torben Grael, +2073 miles 7. Ericsson Racing Team Neal McDonald, retired Event website: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/ REPORT CARD With all four of the Bruce Farr-designed Volvo Open 70s struggling with repeated structural and component failures, the two Juan Kouymoumdjian-designed ABN yachts are now well clear in the overall standings. At the Eclipse gate, for example, ABN Amro One has 29 points, while their team-mates have 24. The nearest Farr challenger in the overall standings is Bouwe Bekking's troubled Movistar, some distance back on 15.5 points. The catalogue of failures continues to lengthen. After the serious damage to Brasil 1 and Ericsson at the start of this leg, Movistar and Pirates of the Caribbean have been dealing with fresh technical issues, with both suffering hydraulic ram failures. - Edward Gorman, The Times, UK, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,4041-1988702,00.html LATEST RULES QUIZ IS A THREE'FER Finish lines: Is the committee boat an obstruction? When are you really clear? And when do the rules of Part 2 no longer apply? These scenarios play out on-line in UK-Halsey's just-posted animated Rules Quiz 20. See if you're really on top of your game - before you approach your next finish line and possibly get busted for not knowing. It's easy. It's fun. It's free. And much better than "going to the room." Try #20, the latest. Then brush up on the rest of the rules with the other online quizzes. http://www.ukhalsey.com NEWS BRIEFS * Shifty, light and choppy," was how Luigi Ravioli (ITA), skipper of the regatta leading Black Jack, described racing on a long three race first day of the J24 World Championship sailed off Sandringham Yacht Club in Melbourne, Australia. Americans Suzie Taylor and David Klatt each won a race. Klatt is currently in 4th place, 8 points behind Ravioli and American Mike Ingham is nine points further back in 6th place, with Suzi Taylor in 19th. Brazilian Mauricio SantaCruz and Ian Southworth (GBR) are tied for second - one point ahead of Klatt. -- http://www.sailmelbourne.com.au * The Alinghi skiing team was made up of trimmer Nils Frei, pitman Yves Detrey, sailing team coach and ex-speed skiing champion Pierre-Yves Jorand, designer Luc Dubois, team mate Phil Schneuwly and event coordinator for Serono, Claudy Dewarrat. The six raced for 24 hours, rotating every 1 ˝ hours to achieve their best result in three years of competing: 8th out of 106 teams. The team was racing in aid of Formula Charity, a non-profit charity that benefit children's charities. * Paralympic medallists, reigning and past world champions are amongst the 70 competitors from 14 nations who will contest the Alcoa IFDS World Disabled Sailing Championships that begins Thursday in Perth, Australia. U.S. Sailing's Rolex Yachtsman of the Year 2005 Nick Scandone will be one of the top contenders in the singlehanded 2.4 metre class. His strongest competition is likely to come from Frenchman Damien Seguin, the defending IFDS World Champion, and gold medallist at the Athens Paralympics in 2004. -- www.2006ifdsworlds.com.au * Leaders after four races at the 470 NAs at the US Sailing Center of Miami, FL - Men's Division (14 boats): 1. Nic, Asher/Elliot , Willis (GBR) 9pts; 2. Anderson, Mikee/Hughes, David (USA) 13pts; 3. Zadonna, Gabrio/Trani, Andrea (ITA) 15pts; 4. Gerald, Owens/Sam (IRL) 26pts; 5. Matthias, Schmid/Florian, Reichstaedter (AUT) 27pts. 470 Women (15 boats): 1. Ingrid, Petitjean/Nadege, Douroux (FRA) 14pts; 2. Amanda, Clark/Sarah, Mergenthaler (USA) 14pts: 3. Sylvia, Vogl (AUT) 17.pts; 4. Pippa, Wilson/Sheena, Craig (GBR) 18pts; 5. Jen, Provan/Carol, Luttmer (CAN) 22pts. -- http://tinyurl.com/duv9o * The Brazilian catamaran Adrenalina Pura crossed the finish line in Salvador at approximately 18h00 local time (23h00 SA time) on Saturday evening to take line honours in the multihull class of the Heineken Cape to Bahia yacht race. With her awe-inspiring performance and crossing time of 10 days 8 hours and 1 minute, Adrenalina shattered the previous crossing record by just over to five days. As predicted, she beat the race organizers to Salvador and two traveling South African journalists and officials from the nautical centre CENAB became the official race time keepers in the absence of the race committee. - The Daily Sail subscription website, www.thedailysail.com * The crew of the British tall ship Stavros S Niarchos from Portsmouth have rescued two American female rowers taking part in the Trans-Atlantic Rowing Race 2006. The events started yesterday, Sunday 15 January 2006, when at 1649 Hours GMT a 406 Mhz EPIRB activation alert was picked up by the US Coastguard registered to American Fire Atlantic Challenge crewed by American women, Sarah Kessans and Emily Kohl. Sarah and Emily were found clinging to the upturned hull of their rowing boat American Fire Atlantic Challenge. They had been there for 16 hours but fortunately they were unharmed. - Yachting World, http://tinyurl.com/d77vh * K-Challenge, the French Team for the 32nd America's Cup, is back to work at its training base in Gandia after the Christmas break, and the team is now preparing the coming season. The shore team is now working on 60, the racing boat with which the team won its races against Alinghi and Emirates Team New Zealand in Trapani, Sicily, during the Louis Vuitton Act 8 last October. The boat is now being modified in order to improve its performance again. In fact, the French Team will sail this year with 60 as well, while the new boat of the team will be built. * Land's End has signed on for its second year as the title sponsor of Sailing World's National Offshore One Design (NOOD) Regatta Series. The eight-event 2006 season opens at the St. Petersburg YC in St. Petersburg, Florida February 17-19 and make stops in San Diego, Annapolis, Maryland, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, Marblehead, Massachusetts and Larchmont, New York before ending at the Lakewood YC on Galveston Bay, Texas in September. - www.sailingworld.com TALENT SEARCH OCSC Sailing, the premier sailing school on San ncisco Bay, is seeking two experienced sailors with a talent for sales and customer service. Sell our award-winning program, counsel, mentor, and delight our students/ members, and guide OCSC's daily operations. Additional information at http://www.ocscsailing.com/about_ocsc/jobs.html and resume and cover letter to mailto:antonia@ocscsailing.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. You only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree. And please save your bashing, and personal attacks for elsewhere. For those that prefer a Forum, you can post your thoughts at the Scuttlebutt website: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi) * From Matthew L. Thomas: In following the current Volvo race and hearing about the definite unreliability and possible safety issues related to the VO70's it is interesting to note that the primary sponsor, who has been financially involved in a number of the boats racing, built it's business and reputation on providing the safest vehicles available to the consumer. Volvo has always stressed safety and reliability! Now they're involved in a race where clearly this is not the case. Makes you think … doesn't it? * From Jim Mahaffy: I have been trying to compose an answer to all the naysayer on the VO70 race, until now Bianculli Kurt said it all! The human race has always push the envelope! Other wise we would still be living in the dark ages. There are so many explores who have wanted to know what was on the other side of the mountain we are better off for them. Not the ones who want to sit in their couches safe and sound. To find what the limits are you have to test those limits. Yes some people die doing that, thats regrettably the cost of progress, other wise men would not have walked on the moon. It's called progress. * From Michael Eaglen (Chairman, High Performance Yacht Design Conference 2006, Auckland, New Zealand) Glenn McCarthy and Bill McEachern each make good points about collective learning from the experiences of this Volvo race. Technical conferences are a proven way to facilitate these discussions - down here in New Zealand we're preparing to host the second High Performance Yacht Design conference next month. This will include three in-depth papers from those at the sharp end of canting keel engineering, amid three intense days of other technical content from around the world. Given that two of the key sponsors for the conference include High Modulus and SKF - again two companies in the thick of the canting keel action - I think interest in promoting ongoing dialogue and development in this area will be fairly strong. See www.hpyd.org.nz * From Ray Tostado: With sincere respect to the designers, maybe the term should be altered to the "Can't keels". Can't be designed properly; can't hold up to the work load; can't be isolated to locked center when failure occurs. I spent 35 years designing and building and operating dynamic hydraulic support systems. I could not have lasted 35 days with the dismal track record demonstrated throughout the entire spectrum of moveable appendages. In fact I would have been out of business with the first failure. A motor having to run continuously? Nonsense. I expect the prerequisite will be that it has to be a light system. Again, nonsense. But then, I have a great respect for the speed barriers being demolished by these new machine. But where does this fit into my Catalina Island trips? * From Dave Hollom: It is a constant source of irritation to me (I really must be turning into a grumpy old man) that people who would never dream of calling the bow of a boat the front, the stern the back, port left or starboard right talk about downstairs on a boat and presumably upstairs as well. In the same way that the front of a boat is the bow, downstairs is down-below and on deck is up-above or on deck. In the same way boats don't have ceilings but deck-heads. * From Stephane Leveel: I wonder, if all the VOR fleet had been designed by Juan K will we be having all these arguments? * From Tim Hedges, <thedges@clipper-ventures.com>: My thanks to Malcolm McKeag (Scuttlebutt - January 13) for inadvertently validating the process used by the Clipper race organizers for shortening Race 5 of the Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race. When it became apparent that the lack of wind on this leg would mean a major delay to their arrival in Singapore the finish line was moved south to an existing mark of the course listed in the course instructions (WPT. T. LAYAR. [06 44.9S 105 12.6E] Leave to starboard). This instruction was passed to all 10 boats via email approximately 24 hours before the estimated time of the first boats arrival at that point, with receipt of the message being acknowledged by return. So, luckily, no dilemma for the skippers or for the 150 or so crew currently on board who though I suspect would take some issue with his opening comment. If Mr. McKeag would like clarification of anything else he is more than welcome to contact me directly. * From David Few (edited to our 250-word limit): Scoring of races by these Time on Distance (TOD) and Time on Time (TOT), the most widely used today, approach the task from distinctly different philosophies, but with similar results when the conditions are nominal. Nominal meaning steady winds, no unfavorable or favorable currents and accurate course distances. Not always the case here on San ncisco Bay for all three parameters. Time on Distance -- Regardless of the conditions of wind, current, accuracy of course measurement, and time taken to sail the race, TOD assumes you are always "x" seconds a mile faster or slower than your competitor. TOD most often then favors the faster rated boat in a slow light air race with unfavorable current and or a course specified as shorter than it actually is. Conversely it will favor the slower rated boat with moderate wind, favorable current and a course specified as longer than actual. The above assumes both boat designs were optimized for the same conditions. Time on Time -- Regardless of the conditions of wind, current, time to sail the race and accuracy of course measurement, which is not even a factor for TOT, TOT assumes you are always the same % faster or slower than your competitor. This system has a tendency to cancel out the beneficial or detrimental effects of wind and current, and accuracy of course length since time on the course is the operative parameter not the length of the course. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION "Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." --Isacc Asimov Special thanks to Sail California SD, UK-Halsey Sailmakers and OCSC Sailing |
