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SCUTTLEBUTT 1395 - August 18 2003Powered by SAIC (www.saic.com), an employee-owned company. Scuttlebutt is adigest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. SWEDISH MATCH TOUR Light five knot winds could easily have made the last day of the Swedish Match Tour's Danish Open about as interesting as watching paint dry. Nonetheless, the more 1,000 spectators packed onto the mole off Skovshoved Havn were treated to a day of lively and highly tactical match racing between some of the top names in the business, with the ultimate result being a decisive win for Sweden's Magnus Holmberg of Team Stora Enso over this former Victory Challenge teammate, Jesper Bank of Denmark. This is Holmberg's third straight Danish Open win (he didn't complete last year due to commitments to the Victory Challenge) and the second consecutive time he has ended up in the finals facing Jesper Bank. Additionally, the win here this week marks Holmberg's sixth overall on the Swedish Match Tour, moving him two ahead of Team New Zealand's Dean Barker and Denmark's Jesper Radich, with four wins apiece. With the onshore sea breeze established for the afternoon's finals and petit-finals the start line was moved to a position within 100m of the spectators, who were able to see the full cut and thrust of the pre-starts. These were particularly hard fought between Radich and Gilmour, sailing for the bronze medal, which Gilmour won with a 2-1 score. - Shawn.Mcbride, www.swedishmatchtour.com. Danish Open Final Standings: 1 .Magnus Holmberg, SWE/Team Stora Enso 2. Jesper Bank, Denmark 3. Peter Gilmour, AUS/Team Pizza La 4. Jesper Radich, DEN/Team Radich 5. Kelvin Harrap, New Zealand 6. Luc Pillot, FRA/Team Pillot 7. Andy Beadsworth, GBR/Team Henri Lloyd 8. Karol Jablonski, POL/Jablonski Sailing Team 9. Roy Heiner, Netherlands 10. Jes Gram-Hansen, DEN/Team Victory Lane 11. Lars Nordbjaerg, Denmark 12. Paolo Cian, ITA/Riviera di Rimini Sailing Team THE NEW AMERICA'S CUP RULE There's a lot of rumour and conjecture about the shape of the new ACC rule that will be released some time in September. Tom Schnackenberg keeps his ear very close to the ground in such matters and is adept at winnowing the wheat from the chaff. He believes the America's Cup 2007 organizers have resolved to help preserve the value of existing boats in an effort to keep costs down. Changes will be limited so that existing boats may be modified to become viable racing under the new version 5 of the ACC rule. However they are working to fine-tune the Rule formulae to make the boats more exciting. Tom understands that racing this year and next will probably be under the old Rule, Version 4. But racing in lead-up regattas in 2005 and 2006 will be under the new Rule, Version 5. A Draft of version 5 will be published in September, presumably in San Francisco where the race between Alinghi and Oracle is taking place. - Team New Zealand Newsletter MUSTO IN THE USA The America's Cup, Volvo, Vendée, the Mega Cats and the Super Maxi's: Musto is the favorite brand of foul weather gear amongst the crews. It is available to purchase across the States - try one of the following retailers or by going on-line: PX Annapolis Performance Sailing - www.apsltd.com Fawcett Boat Supplies - www.fawcettboat.com Layline - www.layline.com Fisheries Supply - www.fisheriessupply.com Pineapple Sails - www.pineapplesails.com Team One Newport - www.team1newport.com West Marine Stores - www.westmarine.com You don't need to be a professional sailor to experience Musto. Give it a try next time. http://http://www.musto.co.uk NEWS BRIEFS * More than 1,000 sailors were on hand at the Royal Citadel in Plymouth for the Fastnet Race prizegiving. Charles Dunstone's Nokia Connecting People, won Best Overall under IRC for the Fastnet Challenge Cup, while Mike Slade on Leopard won Best Overall under IRM for the Fastnet Rock Trophy. Both winners were awarded a Rolex Yachtmaster Rolesium. - www.rorc.org * The Antarctica Cup web page crew register is a real league of nations with 212 sailors from 26 nations registering their interest. The top countries in terms of registrations are Australia (75) UK (43) USA (34) NZ (20) Italy (15) Ireland (6) France (5) Canada (5) registrations have been received from Hong Kong, The Philippines, Croatia, Norway, South Africa, Netherlands, Spain, Uruguay, Brazil, Belgium, Scotland, Lithuania, Austria, Argentina, Chile and Poland. www.antarcticacup.com *Those interested in starting a Yngling campaign now to work toward 2008 may be interested to find one of 2003 Yngling World Champion Betsy Alison's boats for sale. Says Betsy, "USA-332 was fast out of the box, and was a big part of our victory at the 2001 Women's World Championship." The US Yngling Trials are scheduled for February 12-22, 2004 at Key Biscayne Yacht Club. Boat information at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/classifieds.html * US Sailing's Committee on Sailors with Special Needs has created the Gay S. Lynn Memorial Trophy for Outstanding Service to Disabled Sailing and Sailors. The first award will be made in November, during the 2004 US Paralympic Team Trials - Sailing, at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club in St. Petersburg Florida. Nominations of individuals, or organizations, which can be made on-line at http://www.ussailing.org/awards/nominate.asp?AwardID=12 * Barrett Sprout, with his father Randy as crew, repeated as Coronado 15 North American Champions, winning the 33-boat regatta sailed at Half Moon Bay, California. Blair and Mark Elliott finished second with Mike Shea and Bob Anderson in third place. - http://tinyurl.com/k9tv * The 46th Annual Lido 14 Class Championships were held on Mission Bay (San Diego, CA) with reigning champions Mark Gaudio and John Papadopoulos narrowly retaining the title against 26 other teams. Kurt Wiese, sailing with Anne Wiese, finished three points back in second place - winning a tie-breaker with Stu Robertson & Erin Frederick. This marks the third Lido 14 Class Championship in a row that Gaudio has won. - http://tinyurl.com/kb6q * Steve Aspery (Worthington, OH) sailed a remarkably consistent series despite five days of very light and shifty conditions to win his second Interlake Sailing Class National Championship hosted last week on Portage Lake near Ann Arbor, MI. Sailing with his wife Lisa, the Asperys compiled scores of 2-2-(7)-1-1-1-4-5, clinching the series before the last race. Another former national champ, Scott Savage (Columbus, OH), finished second six points back, with Jeff Clark in third in the 34-boat Interlake fleet. www.ms-pyc.com/ilncs03/ * The Mini-Transat doesn't start until September 7th, but already one of the favorites has his boat listed for sale for after the race. Says Jonathan McKee, "It has been a lot of fun sailing this little boat. I guess this is an opportunity for another American to have a crack at the Mini Transat with a fully dialed in boat. I am selling my Mini at the conclusion of the Transat, so it is available either in Brazil (October) or France (December)." - http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/classifieds.html * Cedar Point YC (Westport, CT) is hosting the Charles Schwab 2003 Lighting North American Championships this week ... the first races were Sunday. Seventy boats are competing in the regatta. After three races, Ched Proctor, with crew Tom Proctor and Kathryn Josenhans lead the Qualification Series ahead of Bill Healy and Tom Allen. The fleet will be split after the next race with the top portion continuing on in the Championship Series. www.cedarpointyc.org * In 2000, US Sailing Olympic Director Jonathan Harley's "Diary from Sydney" provided a behind the scenes look at what goes on during the Olympics. With sailing's second and final test event for the 2004 Games set to begin, follow along as he reports back on the progress in Athens at http://www.ussailing.org/olympics/ J/80 PASSES HULL #600 MARK What began as J Boats' family-friendly entry model for its sprit boat range (26'-53') is now ISAF recognized with 600+ boats in twelve countries. The 2003 Worlds are in Fort Worth, TX, October 11-17, and a special package is currently available from J Boats. - http://www.jboats.com/j80 J-105 NAs Local Favorite Good Timin skippered by Chris Perkins won this year's J-105 North American championship hosted by The St. Francis Yacht Club and San Francisco Bay Fleet 1. The winning team included Jon Perkins, Phil Perkins, John Collins, Amy Leroy, and Dave Wilson. Thirty nine boats from all over the country competed in this seven race, no throw out regatta. Zuni Bear (Rich Bergmann / Shawn Bennett, San Diego, CA) finished second overall in the regatta, and Bold Forbes (Jack Franco / Ed Cummins, Corona Del Mar, CA) took third place. Peter Wagner from Atherton, CA on Nantucket Sleighride finished fourth, and Jim Sorensen from Sag Harbor, NY on Masquerade finished in fifth place. - Anika Leerssen, http://www.stfyc.org/ SNIPE JUNIOR WORLDS Moscow, Russia - Light winds of 6-10 knots greeted the sailors on the reservoir both Friday and Saturday, creating lake like conditions with tricky shifts. Mikee Anderson-Mitterling and Graham Biehl of the USA won two races on Friday, securing their Snipe Junior World Champions title. They did not have to sail the final race on Saturday. The Argentine team of Adolfo Benavides and Federico Pierson took second place with Russia's Maxim Kuzmin and Alexander Shirokov finishing third. The USA's Adam and Melanie Roberts sailed a 3-2-1 series the final two days to move them into 5th overall. The top two finishers of the Junior Worlds qualify for the 2005 Worlds to be held in Gamigori, Japan. - Jerelyn Biehl, final results will eventually be posted at: http://www.yachting.ru/snipe2003/junior/results/ UPGRADE YOUR OCKAMS Is your Ockam system still living in the 1980's? Because backward/forward compatibility has always been a mainstay of Ockam's engineering approach, your system can easily be updated to 2003 standards. Consider Ockam's newly developed products, updated existing components, firmware and software. We even offer trade-in credit for older gear. Want to interface that new GPS and trade-in your old Loran interface? Update Version 14 CPU firmware for Unisyn V16? How about swapping out your clip-in card type 005 displays for the amazing Matryx? Unisyn CPU to Tryad T1!? Contact Tom Davis (tom@ockam.com) or look for dealers at http://www.ockam.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com) (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. This is not a chat room nor a bulletin board - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.) * From Glenn Bourke, CEO, Volvo Ocean Race: We can assure not just Magnus Wheatley, not just the media, not just all our registered competitors and their sponsors, but anyone who takes an interest in the Volvo Ocean Race that we are fully alert to all the opportunities of bringing the event to a growing and wider-based audience. We understand how the choices are made by those producing the major national and international newspapers, magazines, radio and television programmes. Just look at the audience figures. We think the international media do a great job when it comes to digging out the stories and battling for the space and airtime to present them. We have made a major investment at our headquarters to ensure a constant stream of information is available both to the media and direct to the public. The competitors, also, make sure they are making a parallel effort. So, there are six-hourly reports, there is supporting audio and video, there are e-mails from the boats, all of which also pours on to the web site, and there are media operations at every stopover. Some have even complained there is too much information! We have also, for a number of years, constantly monitored the audience, the changes that are occurring during the race, the areas of strength, and the areas of opportunity. We put a lot of effort and resource into running a good media operation, but, primarily, we have to run a grand prix yacht race. The first name on any crew list is the skipper's, not least because his is the responsibility for the safety of all the others on the boat and his is the responsibility of putting together a winning crew and a winning performance. The technology of communications has changed since 1983 and so has the multi-skilling of the crews. Under the new format there will be onboard places in our event for the media during the inshore races. It is unlikely that, when football or baseball teams run out on to the pitch there will be a journalist among them. After that, every crew-member has to earn his place. And, in the Volvo Ocean Race, it is possible to interview the key players while the game is in progress. Are we listening? Yes, 24 hours a day. * From Bob Fisher: Magnus Wheatley should understand that his tirade against journalists is uncalled-for and untimely. He must also learn what makes a news story and what is considered acceptable by the Sports Editors who have the final say. To suggest that the 'first name on the crew list should be the media guy' is to lower the standard of the crew even if, as he claims, there are 'good, young, fit, informed journalists out there.' None of them could hold a candle to the professional crews on the boats that make news. Three out of the four broadsheet national dailies in Britain have sailing correspondents who have done their time aboard boats and occasionally have provided the first-person story, but that is far removed from journalism. No one expects even David Beckham to report on each match he plays. Reportage must be derived from observation of the entire event and this is obtained from all available sources, not a single boat's viewpoint, nor simply by surfing the Internet, which provides information for the general public and is not a primary source for a reporter. The style of reportage derived from competitors' stories that are, in themselves, material for journalists. The e-mails from crews aboard the last Volvo Ocean Race were a case in point. They needed careful editing and compiling before they could become a news story. Just what sort of story could have been provided by the majority of boats in this year's Fastnet defies comprehension. It was a dull and largely boring race, except for the front-runners duel. It was hardly a race that would have done anything for the sport on radio or television - sailing's image would have been tarnished rather than enhanced. Our sport is not a main line item on any sports desk. That is fact. The only occasions where we can expect lots of ink to be consumed on sailing is when there is a sinking or a rescue - Bullimore and Goss provide excellent examples. That too is a fact, however regrettable. Curmudgeon's comment: Out of respect for the position held by Mr. Brooke and a significant stature of international yachting journalist Bob Fisher, both of these letters were allowed to run a bit over our normal limit … although Mr. Fisher's comments were in fact pruned down by the editor, who as he acknowledged in the above, "has the final say." * From Michael Short, Sydney: I second the comments of Jerry Coe. Ben Lexcen is a king amongst yacht designers. During his life he designed many boats, from skiffs to maxis; many continue to race competitively. Under his original name, Bob Miller, he was responsible for the design of the Contender skiff. Probably one of the most difficult yet exhilarating classes yet created - with the probable exception of current generation Moths. The Contender is such a superb design that people credit the lines to the design team of Ben Lexcen and Bob Miller. Designed in 1967 as a successor to the Finn, it achieved international status in 1968. A single handed trapeze rigged boat - it was deemed by many as being too much of a handful to generate the universal appeal necessary to gain Olympic class status. Nevertheless it remains a highly competitive class. The Contender and development classes like the Cherub, of which Lexcen was also a designer and sailor, mark the beginnings of the light displacement lineage we now race and enjoy. This lineage developed other greats in design like Farr and Russell Bowler. We should all owe our gratitude to Ben Lexcen for the steering of yacht design away from heavy displacement IOR dinosaurs and giving sailors faster and more forgiving yachts. A trailblazer, Ben Lexcen died in May 1988 at the height of his fame. His loss is sorely missed. He also designed a small white 12-metre called Australia II. * From Bob Afflerbach: I read with interest, Gary Jobson's advice on planning which side to play. I agree with such advice but feel that it simplified beyond good advice. Getting to the proper side in the first run is certainly good advice but making that final decision before the start is too prone to a low level of success. If that is so well shown before the start, you will be very busy getting there first and in my limited experience one wind shift on the way to the first mark is a dream not reality. The statement about just starting to that side where the shift is anticipated requires a lot of planning just to accomplish that, so make your decision well early, or if having no anticipation, start in the center and you have already planned a left side and most likely the back end of the fleet. The comment about sticking to your choice is going to make some of your opportunities to make shifts work for you on the way to the buoy impossible. Go deep to either side and you have cast your only chance to succeed. I make reference to the AC races to illustrate the plans to work the middle until a strong gaining position becomes obvious. When wind shifts occur being on the wrong layline is very harmful. My whole point is that planning for a good start preempts planning for a good side. * From Steve Clark: Further to Cam Lewis' point. The almost ideal safety/ coach craft is already on the market. It is called the Jet Ski. Hated by almost everyone for the idiocy of its operators, this vessel is cheap, fast, unsinkable, and safe around swimmers. I have watched the Maverick surfers in California and have been absolutely amazed at what the wave runners are able to do in the most testing of all conditions to support these surfers. Jet skis have also been used as support craft for long distance canoe and swim races. Combined with modern waterproof communication gear and clothing, they are almost the ideal small boat support vessel. They are very good thing if the testosterone level of the operator is under control. * From Ronald Katz: Maybe a good alternative between the lack of maneuverability of a jet drive and the inherent risk of a prop drive can best be served by installing a prop shield around the propeller as some measure of protection. If memory serves me correctly, recent court decisions have held that these are a safer remedial measure than an unprotected spinning prop. Nevertheless, I truly believe it always comes back to proper operation of the powered vessel whether prop or jet drive that will insure safety to fellow sailors and other boat operators. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATIONS The worst thing about accidents in the kitchen is eating them. |
