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SCUTTLEBUTT 2011 - January 18, 2006Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus.HEAVY AIR EXCITEMENT In sailors' parlance, it blew "stink" Tuesday off Key West. Howling 20-25 knot winds and heavy seas challenged the fleet of 286 boats competing in Acura Key West 2006, presented by Nautica. There were spectacular wipeouts and equipment breakdowns aplenty as a southeasterly that gusted to 30 knots produced a slew of DNF (did not finish) and DNS (did not start) designations on the results sheet. Rough seas also were a problem and helped bring down the masts on at least two big boats - Lloyd Griffin's Hadley 40 Cash Flow and Pete Hunter's Thompson 30 Wairere. Michael Brennan, owner of the Transpac 52 Sjambok, saw 21 knots of speed while screaming downwind under asymmetrical spinnaker. Boats in other high-performance classes such as Farr 40 and Melges 24 were also going incredibly fast. Goombay Smash, owned by William Douglass of Newport, R.I., had another strong day with a 1-2 line to increase its lead in Swan 45 class. Danilo Salsi's Italian entry DSK-Comifin held second, but now trails Goombay Smash by seven points instead of two. Barking Mad, owned by Jim Richardson of Newport, R.I., had the most impressive performance on the Farr 40 course - posting a pair of bullets. California professional Vince Brun is tactician aboard Barking Mad, which moved from 16th to sixth. Skipper Massimo Mezzaroma teamed with tactician Lorenzo Bressani to sail Nerone to a third and fourth. That effort vaulted the Italian entry from sixth to first in the overall Farr 40 standings. Mascalzone Latino, another Italian boat, is four points behind in second. Three-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts is calling tactics for owner Vincenzo Onorato, who placed second in Race 4. Switzerland skipper Franco Rossini and his team aboard Blu Moon put up a pair of Top 5 finishes to hold first in Melges 24 class. Swiss Olympian Chris Rast is steering Blu Moon, which has yet to finish lower than fifth yet leads Partners & Partners (Philippe Ligot) by just one point in the overall standings. It was an extremely productive day for Pegasus Racing, which has three teams in Melges 24 and posted single-digit finishes across the board. California sailmaker Dave Ullman posted a second and a first in the big breeze to jump from seventh to third in the overall standings. In addition to class honors, his Team Pegasus 505 entry won The City of Key West Boat of the Day. -- Bill Wagner, complete results: www.Premiere-Racing.com Updated 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 RECYCLED COCA-COLA CANS Movistar (Bouwe Bekking), which made a spectacularly quick turn around in Albany, SW Australia yesterday, to make repairs to the damaged port hydraulic ram is still experiencing problems. The obvious question is, how did movistar manage to sail 20,000 nautical miles and beat the 24-hour monohull world record, before the start of the Volvo Ocean Race without having real problems with the hydraulics? Bekking's answer: "they [the rams] were nearly double the weight, and working with a less pressurized system, and I changed them for 'performance' gain to be made. In Melbourne we will rip these ones out and send them back to the manufacturer and put our stainless steel ones back in movistar. Who gives me a guarantee that our rod will not snap as well? These rods were replaced in Cape Town, after recommendation after what happened to Ericsson in leg 1, but I guess they must have mixed up some material numbers, and made the rods out of recycled coca-cola cans. It is hard to believe, you lay your trust in a worldwide well respected hydraulic company and this happens. This was supposed to be a yacht race, and not a survivor race." "In Melbourne we will rip these ones out, and send them back to the manufacturer (Money back!) and put our stainless steel ones back in movistar. It is easy to calculate how many hours the boat will be slower, when sailing them virtual around the world with the heavier rams, but at least you can sail the boat full throttle and ... can sleep a little better when off-watch," Bekking concluded. The light winds ahead will be tricky and not suited to the leading two Dutch boats, ABN Amro One (Mike Sanderson) and ABN Amro Two (Sebastien Josse), but it will suit the injured movistar as they will not need to cant the keel to gain stability. Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) has been almost becalmed for most of the last six hours after resuming racing at 1707 GMT. Volvo Ocean Race Positions at 2200 GMT Tuesday 1. Team ABN Amro One, Mike Sanderson, 925 miles to finish 2. Team ABN Amro Two, Sebastien Josse, +40 miles 3. Movistar, Bouwe Bekking, +140 miles 4. Pirates of the Caribbean, Paul Cayard, +413 miles 5. ING Real Estate Brunel, Grant Wharington, +906 miles 6. Brasil 1, Torben Grael, +1944 miles 7. Ericsson Racing Team Neal McDonald, retired Event website: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/ BOURKE DEFENDS TROUBLE-HIT VOLVO RACE Failure rates of 65 per cent among a fleet of just seven on each of the first two legs of the Volvo Ocean Race might alarm some people, but event chief executive Glenn Bourke is not among them. Concerned, yes; alarmed, no. "Reliability is an issue. We can't run away from that," said Bourke in Melbourne awaiting the finish of leg two from Cape Town. "Having only three boats able to race to their full potential is not my preference. But I don't think the problems crews have had takes anything away from the race. What we're seeing is an evening out process. I think people are pretty excited about what's going on. They ask 'can crews keep their boats together?'" Bourke sought to revitalize the race with the new, ferociously potent canting-keel Volvo 70 class. "I never said it would be easy. In fact, I specifically wanted this race to be a harder challenge than before," said Bourke. "We set out to create the world's most cutting edge yacht." Safety and reliability are so integral to minimizing risk and maximizing a winning chance in round-the-world racing that they drive everything. Bourke says Volvo created a safe rule with the new class. The problems which have afflicted Pirates of the Caribbean three times, Ericsson twice, Movistar twice and Brasil 1 once are ones of reliability for which the designers, engineers and teams are ultimately responsible. "Designers always try to create the most competitive tool that they can," says Bourke. "A lot of that centres around getting the weight as low as possible and getting as much weight out of the hull as possible and into the bulb. That's a discretionary judgment the designers have to make." - Tim Jeffery, Daily Telegraph, UK, full story: http://tinyurl.com/dtoub MORE STORE, MORE STYLES, MORE CHOICES… Team One Newport is closing our store for 6 weeks so we can bring you more choices of the greatest sailing gear to keep you warm, dry, and comfortable while enjoying your sailing adventures! Team One Newport has the best stock of Henri-Lloyd, Musto, Gill, Patagonia, Camet, Harken, Ronstan, Gul, Sperry, Teva, Railriders, Kaenon, Native Eye, and lots more! And we make really cool crew uniforms!! Call us at 800-VIP-GEAR or visit http://www.team1newport.com HAIL TO THE CHIEF Brad Dellenbaugh (USA) has been appointed Chief Umpire for the 32nd America's Cup by Regatta Director Dyer Jones. An avid racer himself, Brad Dellenbaugh has worked as a college sailing coach since 1980, and is currently the Sailing Director of the New York Yacht Club. He has served as an International Judge since 1997 and an International Umpire since 1998. In addition to his work at the last America's Cup and during each of the Louis Vuitton Acts to date, Dellenbaugh served as the Chief Umpire at the 2003 and 2004 ISAF Match Racing World Championships, and was a rules advisor to the United States Olympic Sailing Team in Sydney, Australia. -- www.americascup.com WEIGHTY ISSUE "We have to over build things and in doing so, bury the gremlin, and we have to find the limits gently as to how hard we can push these new boats" said ABN Amro One skipper Mike Sanderson. "Both of which are possible. When ABN Amro Two (Sebastien Josse) broke the 24 hour record, the conditions were too bouncy for us - we need flatter water than that - but they [ABN Amro Two] are a stronger boat and the price they have paid for that stronger boat is less lead in the keel, so upwind and tighter reaching, they are slower than us. Those are just facts of life, so while we had to be at 90%, they were at 100%." Andy Hindley, race director for the event, commented: "The rule management group and the race committee had already issued notification in Cape Town that all boats would be reweighed in Melbourne and weight removed from the keels where required to compensate for extra materials added to strengthen the boats." Sanderson agrees and concludes, "The race management group will have to give us the two weeks [in Melbourne] to do only the changes the teams and the designers think is necessary to make the boats tough enough, and then we have to re-weigh and take lead off our keels accordingly." ROLE MODELS "Role models have been an inspiration for me to be mentally tough, I have always admired the two Kiwi sailors Chris Dickson and Russell Coutts; those guys have always been about winning. Sometimes you have to be ruthless and you just have to accept that is what sport is all about. When you are on the water your racing and that is all that matters when you come off the water you are a different person; for me the two don't really mix." - Olympic Gold Medallist Ben Ainslie from an interview posted on the Bang the Corner website, http://www.bangthecorner.com/default.asp?m=da&id=28117 NEWS BRIEFS * The International Lightning Class Association has appointed Jan Davis, of Denver, Colorado, as the new ILCA Class Executive Director/Executive Secretary. Davis has been active in the ILCA for the many years, sailing in or attending many of our sanctioned national and international regattas. After 10+ years of running the ILCA's class office, Karen Johnson has decided to pursue a new career in teaching. -- www.lightningclass.org * For Dee Caffari's Aviva Challenge 'wrong-way' nonstop solo circumnavigation, the rain has gone and the clouds are breaking up again to give a more familiar look to the Southern Ocean skies. "The wind has been a constant 27 - 32 knots. The lulls are around 25 knots of wind and the gusts are in the region of 35 knots of wind," she wrote. She has made 145 miles during the last 24 hours for an average speed of 6 knots with 15,907 miles still to go. * Sailing in 15- 25 knots of wind in Melbourne Australia, the crew of Bruschetta, helmed by Mauricio Santa Cruz (BRA) has taken the J24 World Championship lead on countback. Standings after six races with one discard: 1. Mauricio SantaCruz (Brazil) 20pts; 2. Luigi Ravioli (Italy) 20pts; 3. Ian Southworth (Great Britain) 25pts; 4.Wataru Sakamoto (Japan) 29pts; 5. Sean Wallis (Australia) 31pts; 6. Mike Ingham (USA) 40pts; 7. Yasutaka Funazawa (Japan) 43pts; 8. David Klatt (USA) 44pts; 9. Doug McGain (Australia) 46pts; 10. Jon Powell (Great Britain) 48pts. -- http://www.sailmelbourne.com.au/ * Acura Key West 2006 is now playing on T2P online TV along with and an interview with Terry Hutchingson, a West Coast Report and Gary Jobson's Paradise Found: Presented by Sunsail. - www.t2p.tv * Educators from five of the country's top boatbuilding schools will discuss the state and practice of educating builders and restorers of classic yachts at the second Classic Yacht Symposium TM, to be held in Bristol, Rhode Island, March 31 - April 2, 2006. Educators Betsy Davis, Clark Poston, Jamie Houtz, David Mullens, and Rich Hilsinger will discuss "what works - what we're doing right - what needs to be done better." Halsey Herreshoff will moderate. The Classic Yacht Symposium is sponsored by the Herreshoff Marine Museum and the New England Section of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. -- www.herreshoff.org * Hunter Marine, North America's largest sailboat manufacturer, will sponsor the Discover Sailing tour for the sixth straight year as part of Sail America's Strictly Sail™ shows across the U.S. in 2006. As part of its sponsorship, Hunter will provide boats at the in-water shows that all include complete safety equipment, along with experienced captains to sail them. The boat size and type will vary by show, but usually include a small boat such as a Hunter 216 and a larger keel boat such as the Hunter 38 or 41 models. * Nautor's Swan has opened a new Charter Office within the company's U.S. headquarters in Newport, R.I. The office will represent a portfolio of Swans from across the U.S. and Caribbean, as well as manage a fleet of new, company-owned Swans based in Guadalupe, but available to sail throughout the Caribbean basin. Running the office as charter manager is Carolyn Cox Titus, a 24-year veteran of the charter industry who has significant experience chartering Swan and other yachts. -- www.nautorswan-usa.com POP QUIZ Eight quiz questions are posted at NorthU.com including this one: Yesterday morning's light onshore wind resulted in a moderate afternoon seabreeze. This morning there's a light offshore gradient. What do you expect this afternoon? Submit your answers, see theirs, and (right or wrong) you could win a prize. While you're there get information on NorthU's full range of Racing, Cruising, Weather, Performance Software and Suddenly Alone seminars. You can spend a lifetime learning to be a better sailor. NorthU accelerates the process. http://www.NorthU.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 Stevan Johnson: Calling boat parts by the wrong name is a grand old tradition, just like reinventing boat names. Dave Hollom is likely to get his knickers even more twisted if he spent any time on my (or most any race) boat these days. Its the pointy end, the back of the bus, the sewer, the round side (the part you want down), the flat side (the part you want up), the front sail, the round sail, the driver, strings, spaghetti, and don't forget the "downf....r". Or my favorite...the Czech stay. * From Joseph Launie: From another grumpy old man - sorry Dave but a boat does have a ceiling. That is what the bulkheads (inside walls) are called. * From Rob Mundle (edited to our 250-word limit): Magnus Wheatley, where on earth are you coming from? We were offered two differing views on the VOR in 'Butt 2010 - Magnus Wheatley's assumptions and fear mongering, and words of wisdom from Grant Dalton, one of the world's truly great and most experienced offshore racing sailors. Blind Freddy can work out which of those two views carries the greatest merit. Alternative views can be healthy, but only when they are factually based. Sadly we now live in a cloistered world where do-gooders, the vocal minority and legislators have way too much influence. I was in Cape Town for five weeks with the VOR and can tell you that not one sailor I spoke with was not looking forward to sailing these stunning new yachts into the Southern Ocean. Yes, they were tough boats to handle, and there were elements of danger, but they were bloody exciting to sail - multihull type performance from a monohull. These crews knew what they'd signed on for in this race and were wearing it with relish. Everyone knows that the VO 70 is a developing design, but so too was the Whitbread 60 when it first raced, and as we also know, there were some significant problems with them back then. The VO 70 concept is brilliant, and it will develop into being a sensational class. I can defend the canting keel concept from firsthand experience, having raced aboard the best of them offshore in Australia. It is the future in Grand Prix level racing. * From Tom Cain: Surely the race sponsors and organizers have by now, done the legal review of the current circumstances, concluding that if death occurs, they are not liable. That takes away a big realistic reason to intervene. So what is left?...What you are asking is that the Organizers take a proactive approach to the issue … but woooh … that is a way to intellectual for this crowd … of sailors. "They" justify continuing the race with a re-active approach … when it breaks, then we can fix it, sorry about the cost and this risk (according to them), was ours not yours. It is no longer Volvo's risk, because they are Ford. * From Nick Roosevelt: The VOR website people are publishing projected point totals, not actual point totals. This is not real sports reporting, and it is quite confusing. The Times writer you quoted fell for that trick. ABN1 has 22 points and ABN2 has 18, not the 29 and 24 that he indicated. Those are the point totals they will have IF they maintain their positions through to Melbourne. Please, let's all send email to the VOR website and ask them to stop the nonsense. If you want the actual totals, you can go to the Wikipedia VOR article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Ocean_Race * From Jesse Deupree (Regarding the canting keel discussion): When the cant angle of the keel reaches 90 degrees, it will dawn on someone that a keel filled with air canted to leeward would be just as effective and much lighter. Next will come the realization that the canting mechanism is heavy and complicated and slow to tack, and it would be simpler to have an air filled keel on either side. A bright designer will try and patent the twin-air-keel-fixed foil monohull but will be overruled because of previous discovery of this concept several thousand years ago. My point is that the canting keel concept leaves you with a boat with a big hole in the bottom, a heavy swinging weight attached and a complicated risky adjustment mechanism that requires engine assistance with all the risks, complexities and costs associated. This boat will not be as fast for its sail area, in the Southern Ocean as well as inshore, as any number of multihull designs that are cheaper to build and easier to sail by fewer people. And the reason it is considered progress is? Is it because it can't float upside down but rather will be upright on the bottom of the ocean? * From George Bailey (re "Canting keels don't belong on ocean going sailboats."): Nonsense. Are you telling me that we cannot build a canting keel that will not fail until long after lots of other stuff fails? Of course we can. But - it would be too heavy, given current technology, to be race-competitive. Racing - that's the rub. Sailboat design down through the ages has always been, when it breaks make it stronger until it doesn't break or the weight makes the boat unmanageable. Modern racing, with its priority on lightness, forces us to see lots of breaking while at the same time trying to develop new materials so we do not have to end the carnage by going heavier. We will find a way to build a stronger canting keel that is no heavier. Of course, you may not want to race the boats that get us from here to there. But there are no shortage of people who are willing to risk their lives. In the long run, we all benefit from lighter stronger faster boats (assuming you prefer lighter and faster to more sea kindly), * From Jack Engel: Seems to me that Michael Blecher is the real "Curmudgeon". Forget the VOR and give us stories about a first crossing in an Alberg 35? C'mon! Perhaps Michael ought to take up badminton, maybe bridge? CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION Definition of a will: It's a dead giveaway. Special thanks to Team One Newport and North U |
