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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 688 - November 13, 2000ISAF MEETING(Following are excerpts from Charlie Cook's reports posted on US Sailing's website concerning the just concluded the ISAF Annual Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland.) The decision is now final - the women's event will be conducted in Ynglings with a crew of three. Although the class has no weight limit, one will likely apply at the Olympics. That decision will be taken later. The format will be fleet racing. The US SAILING Delegation and the US Olympic Sailing Committee have received countless emails about the decision to adopt fleet racing for the women's keelboat event. As mentioned in earlier emails, there are several concerns about match racing. First, the IOC charter requires that an event be competed in 35 countries. A sailor on the ranking list does not establish that match racing is competed in her country. It simply means that she may have traveled to another country to compete in a graded match race event. His Majesty King Constantine summarized the concern - relying on numbers that can't be completed supported risked losing the event. A number of members of Council also expressed concern that match racing at the highest levels is very exclusive. It is hard to gain an invite to a Grade 1 event. On the other hand, any sailor can gain access to a high level fleet race event. US SAILING supported match racing. Its representatives spoke in favor of match racing at all of the relevant committee meetings and to the Council. We had hoped that the rapid growth in this discipline would justify the match racing format. Nevertheless, a decision has been taken. The US Olympic Sailing Committee's challenge will now be to bring home some medals. The Advertising Code has been adopted, and no more changes will be effective until January 1, 2003. Unless classes or event organizers decide otherwise, the "default" will be Category A. Permitted advertising under Category A is much as it is under the current Appendix G in the RRS. The only significant difference is that advertising on clothing may not be restricted. If a class permits advertising beyond Category A, an event organizer will have limited opportunities to restrict advertising. It is critical that classes, event organizers and PHRF fleets look at the code NOW, not at the beginning of the season. A copy of the full text of the code will be available shortly on ISAF's website (www.sailing.org). US SAILING will post on its website (www.ussailing.org) information on various options available to classes, event organizers, PHRF fleets and sailors. SAILING WORLD will also publish information in the next issue. A Competitors Classification Code with many similarities to US SAILING's Prescription (Appendix R) also passed. For a period of two years, the ISAF code will be voluntary. After that trial period, it is expected that the final code will become mandatory for any ISAF class, and the organizer of any international event, wishing to classify competitors. US SAILING will be able to maintain its Appendix R for racing in the US (but international classes such as the Mumm 30 may have to drop their use of Appendix R in favor of the ISAF code). It is recommended that any class or event organizer try the ISAF code (perhaps in parallel with Appendix R) during this trial period. Last, but not least, Council have adopted many changes to the RRS (Racing Rules of Sailing). Bill Bentsen and Dick Rose, our representatives on the ISAF Racing Rules Committee have worked very hard for the past 4 years on changes to the RRS. US SAILING will publish the rules in the Spring 2001. The changes will also likely be posted on ISAF's website (www.sailing.org). There are very few "game changes." Event organizers should be aware that the rules regarding scoring, tie breaking and starting procedures have changed. - Charlie Cook, US Sailing Full reports: http://www.ussailing.org/News/isaf_report.htm MUMM 30 WORLDS Miami Beach, FL, USA - A weak cold front passing through the area brought a change in wind direction to the North-Northwest at a moderate 8-10 knots for the first race of the final day of racing in the Mumm 30 World Championship. There were fewer radical shifts than the previous day, but many shifts in the standings none the less. The 2001 World Championship is scheduled for early October in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia in Italy. - Laura Jelmini Final results (40 boats) - 1. ONORATO, VIN (60 points) 2. SIGNORINI, A (64) 3. COLLINS /ALLA (72) 4. GLADCHUN. JE (73) 5. PAHUN, JIMMY (73) 6. KAHN, PHILIPPE (97) 7. GARLAND /SHUL (100) 8. HERRALT, FR (100) 9. DRESSELL/POM (102) 10. STICHTING, B (110). Compete results: http://www.mumm30.org/ ONLINE SERVICES FOR PRIVATE CLUBS Is your club Web site generating 20,000 page views per week? Are you effectively employing the latest Internet technology to touch your members lives every day? Does your club site get updated daily? If you answer yes to all of these questions, then you are probably already a LifeCast.com affiliate. LifeCast.com can easily transform your site into a Gated Portal, which are secure, members-only Web sites and get the results you've been working so hard for. LifeCast.com will build, host and maintain your online community. Visit us at www.lifecast.com for more information. THE RACE CHERBOURG, FRANCE - The 110-foot American catamaran Team Adventure will be launched in Cherbourg, France, Monday, November 13, Skipper Cam Lewis announced. Lewis is CEO/Skipper and team leader of the Maine-based American group that has commissioned the 110-foot catamaran to win The Race. The non-stop 27,000-mile sprint around the world will start from Barcelona, Spain, on December 31, this year. Seven mega-multihulls have entered. The first boats are expected to finish in just over 60 days, demolishing all previous sailing records for circumnavigations. Lewis' giant catamaran, the third of three sister ships built to compete in The Race, has been under construction in the JMV Shipyard in Cherbourg since January, under the supervision of her designer, Gilles Ollier. For the last two months, shipyard workers and members of Team Adventure have been assembling the hulls, crossbeams and the giant trampoline, inside a huge shed at the neighboring CMN shipyard. On Friday, workers lifted the 110-foot by 60-foot almost-completed boat onto a giant trailer, preparatory to moving it to the water's edge on Monday. Lewis said that if weather conditions were favorable on Monday, the yard crew would launch the boat and step its 150-foot high mast. Special high-strength, lightweight sails, constructed for the boat in American sail lofts are already in France ready to be fitted as soon as the mast and rigging have been fitted and tuned. Last week 20 Team Adventure crewmembers and supporters were working on the final outfitting, along with 30 yard workers, in a virtually around-the-clock operation. The feverish pace continued this weekend to complete the myriad outfitting details while the boat was still in the shelter of the shed. "It's all coming together finally," Lewis said today. "This has been a major effort by a lot of people and I wish we had finished in September with more time to prepare, but we're going to make it. I plan to be sailing later in the week if all goes well." With just over six weeks to the start of The Race in Barcelona, Lewis and his 12-man crew must complete a series of sea trials off Cherbourg. They will then set off out into the wintry North Atlantic and then on to the Mediterranean, in order to qualify as an official entry. - Keith Taylor Team Adventure website: http://www.TeamAdventure.org The Race website: http://www.therace.org 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. -- From Laurence Mead - Gasps in the conference hall of the ISAF meeting (as reported in Fridays Scuttlebutt) on the announcement of the Yngling decision???? Even I, cynical as I am of the exceedingly poor management of ISAF managed a gasp of my own at that one. The ISAF people are out of touch with sailing, out of touch with modern life, self-centered and lacking any long-term strategic visions of our sport, or what is best for sailors. No wonder the pages of Scuttlebutt have been so filled with comment about sailing legislators in general if this is the sort of leadership and decision making that we are presented with. I say get rid of them all, bring in either professional mangers or open up each and every decision making post to regular and very widespread voting, without accountability we will go on getting this sort of "inconceivable" decision. What a mess... -- From Marty Browne - as a member of the Marblehead Sonar Fleet, I am delighted that the Sonar was not chosen. I assume that Yngling owners will be both delighted and appalled - depending on their outlook. -- From Peter Godfrey - This is getting to be fun. I certainly can't bemoan the passing of the Soling out of the Olympics. Awful boat. But while we are it, shouldn't ISAF scrap one or the other of the men's 470 or the 49er. Two two-man dinghies???? Probably should also scrap one of the two men's singlehanded classes. I opt for ousting the Laser - full-grown men can't be competitive in it in anything but gales. Keep the 470 if need be, but open it up to men and women together, any way the competitors want to mix it up. Why not the 49er also? By the way, now that the Soling is gone, there are only two classes left in which normal big guys, say 6'4" and 200 lbs, have a chance [Star and Finn]. -- From Manfred C. Schreiber - Taking the Soling out of the Olympics... not a smart move when one puts into perspective the sailing skills which the Soling competitors got through the match racing within their class. I have watched the last Kiel Weeks Soling matches and it was obvious that the participants had raised their games dramatically above ourselves, being left out of the circuit, due to not sailing a Soling. Soling sailors made their way through to the top ranks everywhere and the Soling match racing has put more emphasis on athletic crew than on people just carrying too much weight. The women's class should not be decided by the ISAF. No way. It should be an open class instead. Supplying 6 - 10 boats from a fleet, popular in the country having the event, should not be a problem. This will raise the standard of sailing for the women as nothing is more important than knowing how to adjust quickly with any boat and not just learning the settings, given by the coach, as is a matter at present in women's Olympic sailing. At least with some top European teams where I can prove it. -- From Ian Williams - On the last day of the Sydney Olympics a huge crowd watched a nail-biting Soling Match Racing final. Staged close enough to the shore to be seen without the aid of binoculars, the initiative swung from one previous gold-medalist (Denmark) to the three times gold-medalist (Germany). With the score at 3-3, the final was eventually decided right at the finish mark of race 7. Meanwhile, the last race of the Finns was taking place without the gold medal winner. This came the day after the Laser class was decided in the protest room 4 hours after the end of the race. I am not trying to take anything away from the massive achievements of all the medalists in Sydney. However, from a media point of view, most of the fleet racing was simply impossible to cover. Who wants to watch a race, and then wait 4 hours to find out the result? Or tune in to see your countryman triumph in the final race, only to find that he has already triumphed and is in the bar celebrating? The Olympics is one of precious few times when sailing is in the non-sailing public's interest. It is surely in the best interests of the sport -- From Pete Mohler - While not a big time ocean racer, I take issue with the suggestion that the round the world adventurers should post a bond to pay for potential rescue. The next step is to require all seafaring vessels to do the same. What is the difference in accountability between a well prepared, single handed, round the world racer and a poorly maintained Liberian flag freighter, undermanned by a poorly paid, incompetent crew and master? The sailor is out for adventure and fame and the freighter is out for profit. While we are on the subject, What exactly is the accounting of these millions of dollars in costs for the rescue? I figure the excess cost at several thousand gallons of fuel, a couple of life rafts and time on the helicopters against the next rebuild. The ships and aircraft are already bought and paid for. The rescue crews would be paid the same whether they leave port or not, and they probably would have spent some fraction of that gas on practice anyway. -- From Dan Fogarty - I would like to thank the organizers and participants in The Race, without whom we would not be witnessing one of the most interesting technology leaps to happen since the 12 meter first grew wings or the sail was first molded. To say that all the current participants will enjoy a safety level as high a Sunday ride at Disneyland would obviously be an overstatement but I would be willing to bet that none of them wish to be aboard a boat that will fail. In response to Mr. McCarthy's statement (scuttlebutt # 677) "that the engineering is being conducted in a seat of the pants fashion" I would remind him that the best engineering is a balance of personal creativity, design tools available, budgets, and past data collected and extrapolated. What we will all witness when the current entries leave is a spectacular sailboat race that only a very few military vessels could keep pace with. My view is that Team Phillips may well be a solid concept and design. Let us not forget that even NASA had some troubles and made some sacrifices in getting to the moon. -- From Penny Piva Rego, Communications Manager, US SAILING (Regarding Scott Ridgeway's comments in Scuttlebutt #682) - US SAILING's Annual General Meeting indeed concluded a few weeks ago and we are proud of the meeting's many accomplishments, which have been reported on our website virtually from the moment of their completion. Information reported in Scuttlebutt is at the discretion of Scuttlebutt's editor, not US SAILING. Visiting www.ussailing.org might be a worthwhile adventure. Visitors to the website will find many, many things, including a number of reports and minutes from various committees, that membership dues support--all to benefit sailors and sailing. CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT: Unfortunately this email has been sitting in my email box for the better part of a week while I was down in the BVI. However, now that I'm back let me quickly agree with Penny when she says, " Information reported in Scuttlebutt is at the discretion of Scuttlebutt's editor." But I also must add that 'Butt has printed generous portions of EVERY press release that US Sailing sent to us following their recent Annual Meeting. The content of those releases focused totally on the awards presented at the AGM - they never mentioned any of " the meeting's many accomplishments." VENDEE GLOBE Although the first two days of racing has been relatively comfortable with 15 - 20 knot Southwesterly winds, plus a few downpours, the notorious reputation of the Bay of Biscay didn't fail to deliver the usual combination of high winds and nasty seas overnight. The skippers were all impatient to see the front pass, and the new Northwest winds arrive in place of the head on blow from the Southwest. However, the group of competitors interviewed this morning related one of the hardest nights they have ever known at sea. Eric Dumont (Euroka - Un Univers de Services) spoke of a real battlefield, with 50-knot gusts sweeping in and whipping the sea up into a nasty, cut up state, which is so harmful for the boats. "The banging is relentless" complained Marc Thiercelin (Active Wear). "Every time the hull slams into the next wave I fear that something has broken". Despite undergoing a kind of baptism of fire the fleet suffered little. The skippers all recall that this moment "is like a rite of passage to gain confidence in your boat before the long descent down the Atlantic, which will lead us to the threshold of the 40th degree parallel, the home of permanently bad weather." These hard conditions seemed to have disrupted all the skippers from finding a good rhythm on board yet. Most of the skippers speak of how little sleep they have had still, and how queasy they feel. It has been evidently much harder to leave their habitual routines on land. Still a few more days until they get in phase with their boats. The front has toughened them up a little. "We've had to sail right through the middle of it and both skipper and boat have had a thorough washing," as Roland Jourdain (Sill Matines La Potagere) put it. - Philippe Jeantot Standings: 1. Aquitaine Innovations (Parlier) 23337 miles to go; 2. PRB (Desjoyeaux) 23342; 3. Kingfisher (MacArthur) 23375; 4. Active Wear (Thiercelin) 23379; 5. Whirlpool (Chabaud) 23383. 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. For answers, check http://www.pyacht.com hardware / rigging / sails / clothing / marine electronics US OFFSHORE CHAMPIONSHIP In earlier issues of 'Butt, we carried a running discussion of the maximum weight problems at US Sailing's Offshore Championship conducted at Long Beach Yacht Club. Journalist Rich Roberts dug into the matter and has written a comprehensive piece for The Log. It's an interesting case study - well worth reading in its entirety: www.thelog.com THE BEAT GOES ON On Nov 8, Sobstad Sails filed a new lawsuit against North Sail concerning Marathon 3DL. The entire complaint is now posted on the Sobstad website: http://www.sobstad.com/ BITTER END YC PRO-AM Virgin Gordo, BVI - The "junior / senior" team of Rod Johnstone and Peter Holmberg took home the top prize at the SailNet.Com Pro-Am Regatta with the best combined-score in their respective classes. However, the real winners were the guests at the Bitter End Yacht Club who got to sail with the talented skippers entered in the event. Sailing experience was never a consideration when making crew assignments. The guests of the resort simply had to sign up ahead of time to be a trimmer or a bow-person for Johnstone, Holmberg, Russell Coutts, J.J. and Peter Isler, Keith Musto, Lowell North, Paul Cayard or the curmudgeon. J.J. Isler has been a regular at the event for the last decade, and quickly slid into the mood of the regatta. "This event is not about winning," Isler explained. "This is a chance to do something for the sport by making sure the people who arranged their vacations so they could take part in the regatta have a good time." The sailing characteristics of the Freedom 30 used for the "Triple Racing" lend themselves perfectly to that chore. Because tacks were so 'expensive', the skippers would generally decide which corner to hit before the start of each weather leg. With only one or two tacks per leg, the crews did not have to crawl over the cabin tops very often. Perhaps the most spirited racing actually took place on lay days or free afternoons as the competitors jumped into a Laser or a Hobie Wave for some fleet races. At the enthusiastic awards dinner that concluded the event, the biggest trophy was presented jointly to Linda Coleman and Mark Fineberg. Who are they? Well, year after year Linda and Mark have been coming from Missouri to attend this regatta. This year they picked up the big prize - the Spirit and Enthusiasm Award - which is really what the Pro-Am Regatta is all about. CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT: I'm very grateful to David McCreary who stepped in and produced 'Butt while I was at the Bitter End YC. He did a hell of a job during a very busy and important week. THE CURMUDGEON'S CONUNDRUM If you win a rat race, are you still a rat? |
