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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 894 - September 5, 2001Scuttlebutt is a digest of yacht racing news of major significance; commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American emphasis. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere.
VOLVO OCEAN RACE "We have five boat builders in the team, riggers, painters, electronics technicians, electricians and computer experts. Probably we could do with another couple of boat builders. Everything is coming together in a rush," Dalton said. "Sail makers are working long hours completing the last of the race sails and we'll be ready for the start." Which boat is still the question for Nautor Challenge? Nineteen days from the start of the Volvo Ocean Race and Nautor Challenge syndicate boss Grant Dalton is still not sure which of the new v.o.60s he will race around the world. He still bears the scars of his choice of boat in the last Whitbread Round the world Race in 1997-98. Dalton is sure that the Merit Cup syndicate chose the wrong boat. The yacht they left behind in England would have been more competitive in the weather conditions encountered around the course. Given only slightly different weather patterns on two or three legs of the race and the result could have been different. "During testing in the Mediterranean and on the 2000-mile qualifying voyage we identified differences in performance in various sailing conditions," Dalton said. "In the last week at our testing base in Spain and then on the 650 mile trip from Spain to Portsmouth, we have been able to quantify some of those performance differences. The only part of the picture that is perfectly clear is that we have two very good, but quite different, strong yachts. We believe each is capable of winning legs. Each, given only slightly different weather, is capable of winning the race. Now we are running the mass of data that we have collected alongside historic weather data for the race route and also against predictions, given that weather predictions so far into the future cannot be very precise." - www.nautorchallenge.com * NEWS FROM illbruck: Content that they are as prepared as they will ever be for the start of the Volvo Ocean Race, the illbruck sailing team (excluding the shore support team) are enjoying a two-week break until September 12th. On their return, the boat will be stored with food and other supplies for the first leg to Cape Town, before joining her competitors in Ocean Village, Southampton, for Assembly Week. - Sail-World website: www.sail-world.com
IMS CERTIFICATES
LESSON TO BE LEARNED
AMERICA'S CUP Auckland already has a shortage of quality rental properties, says John Crocker, director of Bayleys Property Management, one of the largest property rental specialists in the city. He said rentals had risen 10 per cent this year because of demands for properties near the central business district. Most popular areas are Herne Bay, Ponsonby, St Marys Bay and the fringe localities of Parnell, Mission Bay and Kohimarama. In the past month alone, Bayleys has rented a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house on the northern slopes in Remuera for $3000 a week. Another Remuera house went for $2400 a week. "We're doing a lot of corporate rentals at the moment and most above $1000," Mr Crocker said. "If you arrived in Auckland today and said, 'Look, I'm in a hotel room and I want a nice two-bedroom apartment for $500 a week', I would say I can't do that because I don't have anything coming up until September 25." Bayleys Property Management has already rented at least 20 properties on long-term leases to people associated with the America's Cup, although racing is not due to start for a year. Most of the crews and staff from the 10 challenger syndicates are expected to arrive during the next few weeks for summer. Mr Crocker estimated the occupancy rate for inner-city rental houses and apartments was between 98 per cent and 99 per cent, and said no type of property in the city was proving difficult to rent. Rental properties is going so quickly that Bayleys is not posting them on its web. - Anne Gibson, NZ Herald. www.nzherald.co.nz
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From David Dellenbaugh: Is safety really number one in sailboat racing? An incident at the America's Cup Jubilee left me wondering. In Race 2 of the America's Cup Class, one boat lost a crewmember overboard while sailing downwind at 11 knots. Instead of stopping, or even slowing, the boat continued racing and radioed their tender for help. The crewmember, who had been knocked off the foredeck, was alone in the water for roughly two minutes. By the time he was rescued, his boat was more than a quarter mile away. This incident surprised many of us who saw or heard about it. What made the situation even more troubling was the result of a protest filed against this boat. When a crew falls overboard, rule 47.2 requires the boat to get him or her back onboard before continuing in the race. In this case, however, despite basic agreement on the facts above, the jury did not disqualify this boat. Doing so would have made it clear that leaving a crewmember behind is totally unacceptable. Instead, they gave her a 20% penalty under a sailing instruction that allowed tenders to help rescue crewmembers (but didn't allow boats to abandon them). Fortunately, the sailor in this incident received only minor injuries. But future crewmembers may not be so lucky unless all boats follow basic principles of safety and seamanship. To ensure this, juries should vigorously enforce rule 47. No race (including the America's Cup) is more important than the welfare of its participants. * From George Bailey: The point is using kinetics is still propelling the boat using only wind, water and sails so why is it illegal." Because you are using energy directly generated by your body on your sails and hull to move the boat, not energy generated directly by the wind or water only. It makes it a different sort of contest. If that's what some people want for some boats, they should start a kinetics racing class. Imagine boats evolving to maximize the effects of body energy. Then there would be the debates about where to draw the line? Should sculling be legal, or flapping the boom back and forth using you arm, etc.? - * From Bob Huckaby (re Kinetics): Rule 42 is specifically allowed to be changed by class rules (RRS 86.1(c)), so all the classes have to do is act. Where's the beef? * From Bob Anderson: I have watched air rowing windsurfers in light air at several Olympic Classes Regattas and it really bears little resemblance to sailing. It is much more akin to distance running, swimming or rowing. The person that pumps the hardest and the longest wins. The problem with windsurfers is that the mast and sail attached to the hull by a universal joint. The rig can be moved at will in any direction. I suppose the powers that be determined policing kinetics on windsurfers was too hard so they gave up on it. The upper level Laser sailors use kinetics quite a bit in light air but the techniques are subtle almost undetectable but learnable. I can only imagine what would happen if air rowing were made legal in Lasers. * From Brian Todd (re kinetics and edited tour 250-word limit): I coached at a number of regattas this summer including the Youth Worlds and the Laser Worlds, in each of those events there were many yellow flags. The problem is that many of them were on the startline where Lasers use tiller motion to keep the bow up or down in the last moments before the start. In my view does not fall into the propulsion category. Then there is the penalty, first a 720, then a DSQ, then you pack your bags. I believe the penalty is rather draconian and does not reflect the seriousness of the infraction. Competitors in large fleets crowd into weather marks with little concern for the rules and they can do that all day long and all they have to do is a 720 each time and they are free to sail each day. On the other hand three pumping infractions and you are out of the regatta, only rule 69 is that hard on competitors. I agree with Paul Henderson that it should be a flag with a wind minimum but if that cannot be agreed on then look at a system that does not throw a sailor out of a regatta! Two sailors were DSQ'ed from racing at the Laser Worlds and one 15 year old at the Canadian Youth Champs, surely there has to be a better way to get across the message other than sending people home from an event in such a level of disgrace.
CAN SMALLER BE BETTER? Proponents of model boat sailing say that their sub-discipline of the sport has been taken seriously almost since sailing began. They do acknowledge, however, that the advent of relatively inexpensive and reliable radio control electronics in the 1960s made a significant impact on their pursuit. Instead of simply coaxing their boats across the pond with gestures and shouts, now model boat enthusiasts partake of interactive competition where shouts of "Starboard!" are more than common as nimble fingers maneuver the joysticks that translate trimming and steering out to the boats. If you hang out pondside with some of these model boat-racing devotees you'll realize that this crowd is as dedicated to its minute arena as the rest of us are to our life-sized racing. Practitioners here engage in technical debates regarding sail shape, rig tension, and ballast ratios. There's a national authority to guide these sailors (The American Model Yacht Association), and class associations and clubs for them to belong to, and magazines to enjoy. There's even a separate set of rules maintained by the sport's international governing body that you'll find included in your own rulebook. It's almost as though this parallel universe of sailing exists, yet most of the rest of us remain completely ignorant of it. - SailNet website Full story: www.sailnet.com/collections/racing/index.cfm?articleid=sailne0725&tfr=fp
THE ODDS At the weekend bookmakers William Hill were offering the following: 7/4 illbruck Challenge; 4/1 Team Tyco; 9/2 Team News Corp; 11/2 Assa Abloy; 11/2 Team SEB; 11/2 Amer Sports One (Dalton); 8/1 djuice ; 33/1 Amer Sports Too (McDonald). The Australian website Centrebet has a different opinion: 3.2 illbruck Challenge; 4 Team Tyco; 4.5 Amer Sport One (Dalton); 6.5 Team SEB; 6.5 Assa Abloy; 6.5 Djuice Dragons; 8 Team News Corp; 50 Amer Sports Too (McDonald). - madforsailing website: http://www.madforsailing.com/
CARBON SAILCLOTH
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS
RANKINGS
SOLING NAs
Final results (18 boats):
THE CURMUDGEON'S COUNSEL |
