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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 911 - September 28, 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.
LOUIS VUITTON CUP The strongest teams from the last Cup, some of them returning to try again this time, believed that the event format should be changed for future Cups so that the better teams should race only other good teams, spending the rest of their time with their own in-house training; but at the same time allowing smaller teams to benefit from constant competition. After many months of debate the current challenger group, which consists of ten syndicates from seven countries, has devised a new event format that they believe will fulfill the needs of the challenger movement. It will allow strong two-boat teams to spend more of their time training, whilst also giving many of the viable one-boat programmes plenty of racing and the chance to go all the way to the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals, and beyond, if they are good enough. The racing for the sixth Louis Vuitton Cup will begin on the 1st October 2002 and the Challenger should be known sometime in the third week of January 2003. The event starts off with two Round Robins, where each syndicate will race each of the others once per round for one point per win. At the end of these two rounds a pecking order based on races won will have been established with the fleet seeded from one to eight. The two syndicates having finished ninth and tenth after the Round Robins will be eliminated at this point. The Louis Vuitton Cup Quarter Finals begin on 12 November 2002 and see the remaining eight boats split into two groups, the Double Chance and Single Chance groups, according to their ranking (one to four - Double Chance, and five to eight - Single Chance). The top ranked teams in each group (ie number one and number five) choose their opposition for a best of seven series. All things being equal team number one and team number five will choose the lowest two ranked boats in their respective groups (ie number four and number eight) so as to have the best chances of progressing to the next stage. This leaves teams three and seven to race teams two and six respectively, also in a best of seven series. At the end of this round the two Single Chance losers are eliminated and the two Double Chance Winners qualify directly for the Semi-Finals. The Quarter Finals Repechage then takes place which sees the two losers from the Double Chance group exercise their second chance against the winners of the two pairs in the Single Chance group, again in a best of seven series. The winners from these two pairs make up the third and fourth teams for the Semi-Finals - the losers are eliminated. The Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals, a best of seven series with four teams racing, starts on 9th December 2002. The top two teams would have both benefited from 18 days without competition, time they will have used for modifications and in-house training and testing with their second boats (if they have one). This will be the first time that this pair has raced each other since the early Round Robins, more than five weeks previously. Again the new system helps the strongest team or the team that is improving fastest, by keeping their development out of the limelight until it is needed. The winner of this series goes straight through to the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals. The second pair in the Semi-Finals, also race a best of seven series. The loser of this side is eliminated and the winner must then go up against the loser of the Double Chance side Semi-Finalist in the best of seven Semi-Finals Repechage series. The winner of this series becomes the second Finalist. The p Finals is designed to be a dress rehearsal for the America's Cup itself, that is to say it is a best of nine series where the first team to win five races wins all. The winner takes the Pui Forcat-crafted Louis Vuitton Cup silver trophy and becomes the Challenger, the team that will race the Defender, Team New Zealand, for the America's Cup. The Louis Vuitton Cup Finals start on 11th January 2003 and is interspersed with a layday after every three races. - Marcus Hutchinson/ Maria Ryan, Louis Vuitton Cup media center CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT: The Louis Vuitton Cup website (www.louisvuittoncup.com) was offline at the time we distributed this issue of 'Butt. Perhaps it will be up later with some additional information that was contained in their press release. In any event, we'll have more about this new format in our next issue of 'Butt.
ROLEX WOMEN'S KEELBOAT CHAMPIONSHIP The team scored a 7-3 in the shifting light-to-medium breezes gusting off the Annapolis shore. Closest rival in the 61-strong fleet of J/22s was Carol Cronin of Jamestown, R.I., who had a reasonable day with a 9-1 but could not shake off the close attention of Sertl in both races. Sertl, a Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year who won this event back in 1985 crewing for Betsy Alison, commented afterward: "It's great to have won this regatta as a skipper. We had good pace all week which allowed us to sail a conservative style." This year, Sertl fulfilled a longstanding commitment to race the Rolex regatta with her great friend Pease Glaser. Glaser, the current Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year and a 470 Olympic Silver Medallist from 2000, was the tactical brains behind the team's success this week. It was a challenge that she relished and dreaded at the same time. "It was easy to lose your head at this regatta, seeing other boats sail 30 degrees higher than you in totally different wind. But the key was to work with what you had and be patient. Glaser also credited smooth interface with Sertl to having similar sailing styles. "Cory will look upwind and see things the same way as I do, and so she is happy to let me get on with the decisions while she drives the boat fast." Early series leader Nancy Haberland of Annapolis, Md. appeared to have bounced back with a 4-2 score that would have seen her pass Cronin into second place overall. But her fourth in the first race was spoiled by infringing the Z-flag rule for crossing the start line early. This means she had to add 20% of the fleet size to her score, taking her points for that race up from 4 to a very expensive 17. She, along with a number of other boats, attempted to protest the race committee's procedure in flying the Z flag, but this was later disallowed by the International Jury.
STANDINGS:
Daily reports, results and photos: www.ussailing.org/riwkc
BOAT ENVY
FARR 40 NAs The offshore storm clouds made it difficult for the race committee to set a fair course as the clouds first pulled the wind more into the east, and then backed off letting the wind swing back into the north. Patience paid off and the first race of the day, race 4 for the regatta got off to a clean start. The whole fleet was fully powered up with lee rails buried and crews straining to hike their weight as far to windward as possible. Day two ended with a new overall leader. Bob Hughes and Wally Tsuha claiming the top spot with an 8 point cushion over Richard Grunsten's Voodoo. Samba Pi Ti (John Kilroy) was disqualified in a protest in race 6 and drops back to fourth overall. Brack Duker's Revolution from California YC in Marina del Rey is third. Two races are scheduled for Friday. Full results: www.chicagoyachtclub.org/
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From Andrew Hurst, Editor, Seahorse International Sailing: Why is our sport supporting terrorism? Please could someone with a name, rather than a 'committee title', explain to me why these events are being cancelled. To my knowledge not one has yet been cancelled due to direct personal tragedy or out of respect for the dead. Only out of fear. The UK has a long and bitter experience of being on the receiving end of such mindless acts, the funding of which is of course another issue... I do not know of one single sporting event that has ever been cancelled as a result. Sailing is a sport for individuals of independent mind. I am embarrased that a major section of our sport appears to be caving in so quickly when all around, and most especially our countless friends in the USA, are striving to set examples of how to carry on as normal. * From Harry Morgan: According to a long time member of the Lauderdale Yacht Club who had spoken to the commodore, the Melges 24 Worlds were cancelled because a lack of entries. Apparently a large contingent was coming from Europe. This was reduced to 11 boats on a ship from France which was unable to get here, leaving Lauderdale Yacht Club with 6 confirmed entries. This was obviously not enough to make the regatta worthwhile. * From Dan Meyers: I could not more vehemently disagree with the two letters in Scuttlebutt #910 that protest the cancellation of a few sailing events due to the attacks. Prior to September 11th, I had planned to bring my IMS 49' to Manhasset and American YC fall series. Partying in the near shadow of these tragedies is a mockery. What is your position here: 'Damn the humanity, the yachting and carousing MUST go on!' To put things in perspective, it has only been two weeks, rescue workers still work around the clock to find over 6000 missing people and if your biggest problem in life is that your little regatta got cancelled, thank your lucky stars. Other people have bigger ones than that these days. * From Ned Roseberry (in reponse to John Brownings letter): "Apologize" to people for canceling a regatta. I'm not sure what remote part of the world you live in, Mr. Browning, but as someone who lives near NYC, works in NYC, and travels throughout the eastern corridor through Boston quite extensively, the tragedy (irrespective of fear) felt by people is indeed enormous. It is when I read things from people using Websters definitions of "terrorism" to try to justify holding a sailing regatta that my heart really goes out to the 6,000+ people who are still missing loved ones, and the 1500 children of missing Cantor Fitzgerald employees, as one example, none of whom will see one of their parents again. While I am aware of the physical, financial, and time commitment one makes to attend a World Championship, I think at times like this a certain level of understanding goes a long way, and I hope the Commodore of the Lauderdale Yacht Club hits the DELETE button before reading any of the ridiculous emails people may send him regarding canceling what amounts to a sailboat race.
VOLVO OCEAN RACE John Kostecki's Illbruck and Kevin Shoebridge's Tyco head the fleet, but Shoebridge has been watching his old skipper like a hawk. "He is probably the fastest in these conditions," concluded Shoebridge of Dalton's pace in the 20-25 knot winds and upwind seas. "He's been chipping away at us for the last couple of days and has now just about drawn even." Krantz points to tactics to explain the 40-mile split between the front and back of the fleet, particularly SEB's fall from the lead on Monday. "We are still suffering from our mistake near Ushant," he admitted. "That mistake costs us five places and a lot of good mood." SEB held on to what they believed to the optimum course for 45 minutes only to find it was an error. "It changed the whole scenario for us," Krantz said. The bouncy upwind conditions have created problems for crews, both preparing food and for some, keeping it down. Among the loose objects which went airborne was Illbruck's sewing machine, which jumped free of its stowage and broke a pipe. "Every time we dropped off a wave we had a mini Trevi Fountain in the forepeak," reported navigator Ian Moore. - Tim Jeffery, The Telegraph, UK. Full story: sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2001/09/27/soyots28.xml
STANDINGS on 28 September at 0400 GMT:
VOLVO SEA BAG Full interview: www.sailingworld.com/gps/
505 WORLDS
STANDINGS after seven races with one discard (105 entries):
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS * September 8-15, 2002: The 12th Swan Cup, Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, Porto Cervo, Sardinia. www.swancup.com
QUOTE / UNQUOTE - Volvo Ocean Race - "Another day on the black dragon with bashing upwind. I just came down from deck, finishing a sail change. The wind is increasing and we are wondering how to reef this mainsail, which is lashed to the top of the mast. The only way to reef it is to send someone up the rig to cut the lashing. I do not think there are too many volunteers to go up that rig in this sea state. He would for sure break something. (Not on the rig) "I'm not looking forward to crawl in to the bunk. There you will have to hold on so you do not get thrown out of it. Apart from this, on each wave everybody slides forward. With our one bunk system with very limited total length this makes being the most forward person very unpopular; after two hours you will find the two persons behind you with their feet on top of your head. A kind "sorry, could you move back please" soon makes place for more insisting language! I was very unlucky the last off-watch, as the "small off-watch" made place for the "very tall off-watch". This meant a crucial decrease of the already very limited space between us of at least 30 centimeters! A disaster to say the least!"- Espen Guttormsen, djuice dragon - "We're totally feeling sick of beating to weather. It's hard to get any information off the boat, like photos and phone calls. Every time we drop off a wave, the satellite connection breaks down. Also, one of our computers - the one we type on - has broken. Today, Shreda (Damien Duke, bowman) upturned a boiling kettle of water onto his bum. The boat crashed off a huge wave and he went flying across the cabin and knocked the kettle off the stove. He's in a bit of pain, but no permanent scarring (the girls will be pleased to know)."- Ross Field, Navigator, Team News Corp - "Progress so far has been slow due to very light winds as we left the English Channel and the time we have spent going upwind since then. There is already talk of food rationing and our engineer can often be seen carefully measuring the amount of fuel we have used and calculating whether we need to reduce our daily consumption." - Steve Hayles, Tyco
FALL BOAT SHOW SEASON
FINN GOLD CUP Sailing was extremely difficult today. The sea was flat but the wind evolved from 2 to 6 knots, with lots of shifts and very localised pressure. The current played a big role as well. "What was hard out there" explained Mateusz Kusznierewicz "was to be able to anticipate the shifts. There were no obvious signs." The very light wind didn't provide many chances either to make up for early bad choices. - www.easternyc.org CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT: Sorry, but the results were not posted at our distribution time.
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATIONS |
