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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 553 - April 20, 2000GUEST COMMENTARYAs a retired sailmaker, whose reputation was based on innovation, I do not know whether to laugh or cry when I read all the hideous legal jargon of the Sobstad/North controversy, the main result of which will surely be to bring the sailmaking industry as a whole into disrepute. It is now exactly 40 years ago since I designed and produced the world's first tri-radial sails. At the time I was working with the late Bruce Banks. Bruce and I shared so much enthusiasm that I stayed with his company for my entire sailmaking career. We were both so overawed by the potential of lining up the threadlines with the loads from the corners that I suggested we should discuss taking out a patent on the idea before we built all the spinnakers for the British Challenge for the Americas Cup in 1964, which was where tri-radial sails first really hit the headlines. The discussion was very short. Bruce said it would not be worth the paper it was written on. All it would do, he said, would be to line the pockets of the legal eagles with the disputes and consequent litigation it would lead to. Time has proven how right he was ! And who is to pay for all this litigation? In the long term is must only be the sailing public if the sailmakers concerned are to recoup their costs. This is great for the other sailmakers who have had the good sense to avoid such costs in their business overheads. A vital question to be asked, though, is just how much the entire sport of competitive yacht racing would have suffered if we had been successful in establishing such a patent on the mechanical principles of tri-radial construction? It does not bear thinking about. Sailmaking would still be in the dark ages. Certainly Peter Conrad's "Airframe" patents would never have seen the light of day. I have always regarded sailmaking as being a bit like farming in that it is more a way of life than a business. Compared with most manufacturing businesses it has pathetically small profit margins because it is so competitive. Its competitive nature results from its high population of dedicated enthusiasts for competitive sailing, who have taken advantage of the way the industry has offered them a platform on which they can turn their enthusiasm into a full-time profession. So many professional sailors have steered this course, the main target being the ability to go on sailing rather than to get rich. Long may it be so, in spite of the determination of some to scuttle what is perhaps too "amateur" an outlook. Looking back, there was absolutely no need for Banks to try to patent the principles of tri-radial construction. The time spent developing the design theory, the manufacturing process and testing the product before it was openly marketed gave us such a head start that it was ten years after we had built the first "Starcut" spinnaker before any other sailmaker had successfully implemented the idea. It was this head start that enabled the Banks name to become known worldwide. In the light of the above, the need to seek injunctions on a competitor for patent infringement can surely and only be regarded as a lamentable reflection on the inventor's inability to exploit the potential of his own product. -- Ken Rose, Former Technical Director, Banks Sails. THE RACE (Following is a brief excerpt from a story by Mark Chisnell for Quokka Sports.) The Race -- Bruno Peyron's non-stop lap of the planet in no-limits, no-rules boats -- has finally reached critical mass. Peyron and his organisational team reckon they will achieve their target of 10 entries. If five or six new boats of broadly similar size -- with intriguing differences in concept -- hit the start-line on Dec. 31, 2000, then Peyron will have done well for The Race's sponsors. But I doubt that I'm the only one wondering what's going to happen after that. Peyron has set some qualification targets for his fleet, to make sure that only the serious and well-prepared set-off on New Year's Eve. Each boat must come within 25 percent of the current record on one of five qualifying courses. So far, the only boat to have achieved this is Roman Paszke's Polish team of Polpharma-Warta. They took their cat east to west across the Atlantic in February, coming in under the qualifying time by just under a day and a half. That Polpharma-Warta crossed the finish line under jury rig, having lost the mast 544 miles out from San Salvador, is encouraging of her speed, if not her reliability. And reliability -- finishing -- is going to be the big issue. Take PlayStation -- after being in the water for over a year she still has to qualify for The Race. It wouldn't be unfair to accuse her of under-achievement so far. The programme started off well enough, strolling through to set a new 24-hour distance run record -- 580.23 nautical miles -- with her first sail offshore. But preparations were set back after an unfortunate on-board fire. It was December 1999 before the big cat was ready to try her hand at qualification and a serious record attempt, with a west to east Atlantic crossing. She was caught by a big squall only eight hours out. PlayStation buried her bows with co-designer Gino Morelli at the helm. The bows came back up, but with several mainsail battens broken she returned to the States. Since then PlayStation has beaten the record for the Newport-Bermuda run, and been based in Bermuda ever since, preparing for another crack at the Atlantic record at the end of May. Then there's Team Philips, the second new boat in the water. She was only days into her sea trials when both the bows failed, the port one breaking clean off. She is now back in the yard in Totnes, Britain, for months of repairs and reinforcements. Adrian Thompson's design is the most radical of those being built, a wave-piercer that dispenses with the forward beam. The idea being that when she nose dives -- as PlayStation did so dramatically on her Atlantic attempt -- there is no step-jump in resistance as the forward beam ploughs into the ocean. The problem is that this leaves the two hulls completely unconnected for the front 12 or so meters. This is the bit that snapped off. The break-up is being blamed on a failure of the bonding between the reinforcing stringers and the primary structure. But I can't help wondering if the loads to which those hulls will be subjected can be properly calculated. -- Mark Chisnell, Quokka Sports Full story: http://sailing.quokka.com/expert/QCMa4sail_s_chisnell_WFC.html ADVANCED RACING CLINIC The 12th annual Advanced Racing Clinic sponsored by the Oyster Bay Sailing Foundation will be held May 27 - 29, 2000 at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY, in Lasers, Laser Radials, Flying Juniors and Club 420s. Last year 90 sailors ages 15 - 65 were challenged by some of the best Olympic and college coaches. For information: 74354,3641@compuserve.com TRANSPAC Transpacific YC directors are working with an ad hoc advisory committee of leading designers to determine an IMS based Transpac speed rating limit for 2001 that will be essentially equal to the first-to-finish contenders of the 1999 Race. Commodore Sandy Martin said, "We're trying to keep the potential speeds of the first-to-finish boats as even as we can. The IMS handicap system is not perfect, and we're not going to make it perfect, but we can try to make the playing field reasonably level." Additionally, recognizing that IMS still punitively rates asymmetrical spinnakers, Transpac 2001 intends to allow boats rated with symmetrical spinnakers to also fly equal-sized asymmetrical spinnakers without additional rating penalty. Among other points being considered are a first-to-finish trophy for smaller boats and an age allowance for older boats. Bill Lee, a board member who created the legendary Merlin and the Santa Cruz 70 class of sleds, said, "We want to keep the older boats coming, and they won't come unless they feel they can be competitive." The board plans to have the new ratings in place by this fall. -- Rich Roberts Event website: http://www.transpacificyc.org/ LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) Letters selected to be printed are routinely edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude personal attacks. But only one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if people disagree. --From Bruce H. Munro, Commodore, St. Francis Yacht Club -- On the subject of sailors vs. lawyers in the North v. Sobstad litigation, I have been a sailor for over 50 years and a lawyer for over 30 years. The legal profession provides many rewards, both financial and intellectual, but I would rather be sailing any day. DAWN RILEY (The Following is an excerpt of an exclusive interview with Dawn Riley by Great Lakes Current. For the entire text see the April and upcoming May issues of Great Lakes Current, The Source for Great Lakes Sailors.) GREAT LAKES CURRENT: What will a realistic budget for the 2003 America's Cup likely be? DAWN RILEY: It will be less money just because you probably won't see a lot of new syndicates, the existing syndicates already have a lot of assets they can use and you only have two and a half years before racing starts. GLC: What will the America True team be like compared with this past year? Will there be a lot of new faces? DR: It will be very similar. We'll probably try to get a few more rock stars in the back of the boat and in trimming positions, just so we have more experience. GLC: Greater attention has been given to junior sailing programs in the past few years. What is America True's connection and commitment to junior sailing? DR: Well, there were no clubs around here (Lake St. Clair) that had junior sailing except for Bayview and DYC (Detroit Yacht Club) when I was growing up. It's not as much junior sailing as just getting new people into the sport. Kids are a great place to start. Of course you will still see them involved until they're 25 and then they have to go make their living. They'll probably be out of it until they're around 40. But then they'll come back to it. But some of these people might become professional sailors. What we try to do with True Youth is get at-risk kids. At risk is a little catch phrase but basically it's any kid that wouldn't normally have the chance to go sailing. GLC: There has been a great deal of talk concerning how many AC syndicates the United States can support from a funding point of view. How many do you think is a reasonable number? DR: I think three. People don't give to the America's Cup as a concept, they give to an individual. So if you said there's only one syndicate, would there be any more funding? No, I think three is a realistic number. GLC: What are the most important changes needed for the 2003 America's Cup and America True? DR: Over all it would be nice to get the TV and all that kind of stuff just done, all the business side done so we can move forward. Prada has never been challenger of record before and they'll call the shots. For America True the biggest difference is, hopefully one that will come naturally, early funding. After that we'll look into every single thing, the training program to the sail program. Another thing is we're going to get people out on the water sooner. We'll have at least two match racing teams racing around the world so we end up creating a team. -- Courtesy of the Torresen Sailing Site News Service, http://www.torresen.com/atwos NEXT NOOD On Friday, April 28, sailors from 20 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada will meet in Annapolis (Md.) to begin a three-day battle for regional honors at the Sailing World NOOD (National Offshore One-Design) Regatta. The 200-boat regatta will be hosted April 28 to 30 by the Annapolis Yacht Club. Contenders from as far afield as California, Florida, and the Great Lakes will be traveling to Annapolis to compete. But for those making long treks on U.S. Highways with boats in tow, they will face an ultimate test when they arrive: racing in springtime on the Chesapeake Bay. A total of 17 classes will compete at the Annapolis NOOD. The J/105s are currently the largest class (28 entries at presstime, with late entries still coming in), and the NOOD is an important gauge for this fleet: The class will return to Annapolis this September to vie for the J/105 North American Championships. -- Cynthia Goss Event website: http://www.sailingworld.com WORRELL 1000 Catamaran sailors are typically regarded as the lunatic fringe of the sailing world, and competitors in the Worrell 1000 are definitely considered lunatics by normal catamaran sailors. Cam Lewis, a former Worrell competitor, provided me the inspiration to explore the fringe when he suggested I do The Worrell. Not being one to shy away from a challenge, I checked out the Web site. The Worrell 1000 features two-person teams in identical 20-foot beach catamarans who race 1,000 miles up the U.S. East Coast across some of the most challenging and treacherous waters in North America. Wow! The race is the beach cat equivalent of the Volvo Ocean Race (nee Whitbread). The daily beach starts take the teams through breaking surf into the North Atlantic Ocean, finishing at the next pit stop variably about 100 miles away. Battling exhaustion, dehydration, sunburn and all obstacles nature throws out, the athletes endure this for 13 days. Oh, there are overnight legs, too! The team that takes the least time to get to Virginia Beach wins. Simple. Armed with a print out of the Web page I scurried around to see longtime friend and fellow professional offshore yachtsman Rick Deppe. Rick's the only person I know crazy enough to go 1,000 miles in the ocean on a boat not much bigger than the average bed, speeding at times in excess of 30 knots. It took me about 20 minutes to convince him, but then we had to deal with his wife! Ten minutes later he rushed back down to the basement, rapidly converted into Team Chesapeake HQ, panting and said, "She said OK, so long as we don't kill ourselves." Good! We were up and running. (My personal thanks to Anastasia for letting me borrow Rick, again! I couldn't do this without him.) We mailed in the entry fee that afternoon. We were committed. Staring at a blank piece of paper we had less than six months to get to the start line. Working against us was our limited catamaran experience and lack of money and boat. On the plus side we are very experienced ocean racers with a very positive attitude, used to working with sponsors, and managing big ocean-racing campaigns. Our plan: To present a professional adventure-racing team that will take on exciting challenges to give maximum return for a sponsor's dollar. Staring at a blank piece of paper we had less than six months to get to the start line. Working against us was our limited catamaran experience and lack of money and boat. On the plus side we are very experienced ocean racers with a very positive attitude, used to working with sponsors, and managing big ocean-racing campaigns. Our plan: To present a professional adventure-racing team that will take on exciting challenges to give maximum return for a sponsor's dollar. -- Tom Weaver, Quokka Sports There's lots more to this story: http://sailing.quokka.com/expert/QCMa4sail_s_weaver_WFC.html THE CURMUDGEON'S OXYMORONS Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie" until you can find a big enough rock. |
