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SCUTTLEBUTT 3587 - Wednesday, May 8, 2012Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors,providing a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Website: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sailingscuttlebutt RSS: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/rss/index.xml Today's sponsors: Doyle Sails, Summit Yachts, and Soft Deck. MIAMI HERE WE COME (May 8, 2012, Day 17) - CAMPER are not letting up on their relentless attack on longstanding Leg 6 leaders PUMA as the sun sets ahead of the final day’s racing to Miami. At 1900 UTC CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand were racing at speeds about two knots quicker than PUMA from 11 nautical miles astern. But it is yet to be seen whether CAMPER’s last-ditch effort is enough to close in on the American team before they round Eleuthera Island and start the homeward drag race, where passing will be difficult. Skipper Chris Nicholson is prepared to throw everything at the team’s attempt to win their first offshore leg. “I think there will be a lot of opportunities in the next couple of hundred miles, both good and bad,’’ Nicholson said. “It’s always far from over when you’re close to shore.” Ken Read, PUMA Skipper, said, “To be honest, these are conditions that suit CAMPER a bit better than us. They have always excelled in the light air and this is no exception. So for this we are pretty pleased we have held them off to date. And as we approach a left turn at Harbour Island in the Bahamas, we are stressing out a bit because overnight we lost sight of them and in these fickle conditions that could mean disaster. When we see them, we have a better chance of defending effectively. When we don't see them, we rely on the 3 hour position reports to tell us what the next move should be in the chess match.” The scuffle for third place continues to intensify as Groupama sailing team pulled another risky move, ducking behind Cat Island while Team Telefónica have left it to port. Groupama are holding a 15 nm lead. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/89tkhqp Leg 6 - Itajai, Brazil to Miami, USA (4,800 nm) Standings as of Tuesday May 8, 2012, 21:01:51 UTC 1. PUMA Ocean Racing (USA), Ken Read (USA), 212.9 nm Distance to Finish 2. CAMPER (NZL), Chris Nicholson (AUS), 8.30 nm Distance to Lead 3. Groupama 4 (FRA), Frank Cammas (FRA), 67.7 nm DTL 4. Telefonica (ESP), Iker Martinez (ESP), 78.5 nm DTL 5. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (UAE), Ian Walker (GBR), 137 nm DTL 6. Team Sanya (CHN), Mike Sanderson (NZL), Did not start Tracker/Standings: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/racetracker/rdc.html Schedule: http://tinyurl.com/VOR-2011-12-schedule Video reports: http://www.youtube.com/user/volvooceanracevideos BACKGROUND: During the nine months of the Volvo Ocean Race, which started in Alicante, Spain (Oct. 29) and concludes in Galway, Ireland during early July 2012, six professional teams will sail over 39,000 nautical miles around the world via Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Auckland, around Cape Horn to Itajai, Miami, Lisbon, and Lorient. Teams accumulate points through nine distance legs and ten In-Port races. - http://www.volvooceanrace.com FESTIVE WELCOME FOR VOR FLEET Miami, FL (May 8, 2012) - Tamme Irby Flood, Secretary for the Miami Yacht Club on Watson Island in Miami, took a shift over the weekend as a volunteer for the Volvo Ocean Race Miami Village. “It truly is the perfect place for people who love sailing,” Irby Flood said. “I met people from all over the world and I think people are really excited about this! The ribbon cutting for the village was Sunday and it would have been great to have the boats in...But who can control the wind!? People need to know that the Race Village is FREE...I think most people think it is super-exclusive...but it's not at all. Irby Flood was impressed with the VOR simulator in the village, which lets people experience what it’s like to do the race - a fun activity to do with the kids. She added that the village location, at 1075 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, is in the heart of downtown right next to the American Airlines Arena, so easy to reach by car or public transportation. With members of MYC and other local clubs planning to greet the VOR boats at the finish mark, the welcome should be a good one for a weather-beaten weary fleet. Volunteers are still needed at the Event Village, so if you have time and would like to be part of the action in Miami, check out the event website at http://www.volvooceanracemiami.org, where you will also find a calendar of events. -- Michelle Slade, Scuttlebutt UNSURPASSED RACING TECHNOLOGY While Doyle's CFD analysis illustrates how powerful and efficient sails can be made, the results are proving it with two-time Yngling World Champion Maarten Jamin winning the 2012 Yngling Open Springtime Championship held May 2-5, 2012 in Riva del Garda, Italy. Maarten is powered by Doyle sails designed and crafted in North America. When the one designs come down to one, it's Doyle. -- http://www.doylesails.com/onedesign 2012 ATLANTIC CUP GOES CARBON NEUTRAL By Joseph P. Kahn, Boston Globe Mike Dreese, the cofounder and CEO of Newbury Comics will pilot his 40-foot racing yacht, Toothface, in the 2012 Atlantic Cup race, beginning May 11, joined by crewmate Ken Luczynski. As the first carbon-neutral sailboat race in the United States, this year’s Atlantic Cup requires teams to charge their batteries using alternative fuel sources (solar, hydro), eschew plastic water bottles, recycle waste products, and take other ecofriendly steps while competing for $30,000 in prize money. --------------------------------------------------------------------- BG: How long have you been sailing competitively? MD: When you’re cocooned in a high-pressure job like mine, it’s very liberating to be out at sea by yourself for three days. I took it up seriously six years ago, when a group of us bought Shout, a sailboat that races on Boston Harbor every Wednesday. During a Marblehead-to-Halifax race, I decided to get a double-handed, technical ocean-racing boat. BG: What does a boat like Toothface cost to build? MD: Without equipment, about $300,000. We put another $100,000 into it. It’s expensive, but it’s also a racing machine, not something you have wine and cheese on the back of. There’s nothing on it that’s not there to help you race. BG: How often do you race it? MD: Usually about five significant races per year. Boston doesn’t really have a traditional yachting scene, like Marblehead or Newport does. Class 40 racing isn’t about that, anyway. A lot of these guys are French or German. They’re rebel types who don’t wear blue blazers or have cannon salutes at sunset. They’re more Extreme Sports types. This is racing sailing, not yachting sailing. BG: Talk about the race’s carbon-neutral feature. MD: This really started with the French. Because we’re out on the open ocean a lot, distance racers like myself have more respect for the ocean in general, I think. We feel close to it. I have solar panels on Toothface, so when we dock, we don’t plug in anywhere to recharge generators. We probably use half the diesel fuel that other boats use in the open ocean. On a 25-day trans-Atlantic race, you don’t want to be carrying all that diesel fuel anyway. It’s like mountaineering: Everything must be compact and lightweight and efficient. Being green in general is efficient for racing purposes. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/7mxkwlw BACKGROUND: The Atlantic Cup presented by 11th Hour Racing is the United States’ premier Class40 sailing race. The 2012 race will kick off in Charleston, South Carolina May 11th. From Charleston competitors will race double-handed to New York City. There will be approximately a 4-5 day stop-over in New York before the race restarts and competitors sprint to Newport, Rhode Island. Once in Newport, skippers will race an inshore grand prix with a crew of six. -- http://atlanticcup.org/race/ FORMULA FOR SUCCESS Established in 1915, Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit, Michigan is considered the Midwest’s "Shrine to Nautical Culture". In 2012, this sailing-focused yacht club intends to launch an inaugural regatta, and expects more than 200 boats to attend. Lofty goal? With already 174 boats entered, they appear to be on track. The Bayview One Design Regatta will be held May 31 - June 03 on Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. Here are some of the features for this new event: - Reduced entry fee with early bird deadline May 11. - Free launching and free dockage. - Professional photographer hired for on-the-water and on-shore coverage. Free access to photos for competitors. - An emphasis on better racing with new race management, including rolling starts to get more races in per day and racing circles closer to the club to reduce travel times. - New Dingy race area in front of the club. - Champagne race on Saturday afternoon back to the club (non-counting). - Great parties with bands booked for each night and exhibition Moth racing on the river. - No wristbands, with pay-as-you-go food at reasonable prices including deeply discounted drink prices: $1 Bell's Beer, $2 Mount Gay Rum drinks. - Prizes awarded daily. Division and race area overall winners to be recognized as well as Boat of the Regatta with Bayview One Design Regatta perpetual trophy and Grand Prize. Details: http://tinyurl.com/BYC-042512 THEY CALL IT MARKETING The Industry News Forum allows marine companies to post their personnel, product and service updates at no charge. As a bonus, each week the Scuttlebutt newsletter includes some of the recent updates. Are you in the marine industry? Post your updates here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum/industry_news BUSY TIME AT SUMMIT YACHTS Spring brings more racing and more wins for Summit Yachts. Mike Bartholomew’s Summit 40 “Tokoloshe” recently won the Spring Big Boat Series in the UK, and Andrew Kearnan’s Summit 35 L’Altra Donna took a first in the New South Wales IRC Championship. All this as Summit Yachts prepares to ship its most recently built S-35 to join the Summit fleet in Japan. Spring also brings a start to the racing season here in the US, where we expect to see continued success. Check us out at http://www.summit-yachts.com SAILING SHORTS * (May 8, 2012) - Perfect Mediterranean conditions were served up for the second day of racing for the SEIKO 49er World Championship in Zadar, Croatia - the kind of conditions where the sailors were able to get the most out of their boat; flat water with tight racing in 8-15 knots in 30 minute races under cloudless skies. Tobias Schadewaldt and Hannes Baumann (GER), moved into the lead ahead of Lukasz Przybytek and Pawel Kolodzinski (POL) are now tied with current 49er World champions Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen (AUS). -- Full report: http://www.49erworlds.org * (May 8, 2012) - The 27th edition of the Regata al Sol from Pensacola FL to Isla Mujeres MX (a small island off Cancun) starts today with 16 boats sailing in the Cruising and Adventure Divisions crossing the line with the "Island of Women" 555 nautical miles away. Another start of 4 racing division boats will start tomorrow (Thursday May 10). The race is expected to take 3 days for the scratch boat, Stephen Murray's new Carkeek 40 Decision and as much as 5 days for the cruising boats. Follow the race at http://www.regataalsol.org and the tracking website http://www.americanregatta.com/regattas/2012/sol * (May 8, 2012) - The 38-mile trek up the St. Johns River from Palatka to Jacksonville - aka the 59th Annual Mug Race - in north Florida was a light air affair this year. Of the 109 registered boats, 55 finished within the time limit of 8:15 PM. There was a reverse start, with the slowest boats starting at 7:30 in the morning and the fastest at about 10:30. First monohull dinghy was a Raider Turbo sailed by Dave Ellis, placing 7th overall. Results at: http://www.rudderclub.com/results.html * (May 8, 2012) - The finals of the Audi Laser World Championship 2012 got off to a good start today with the wind much more stable than during the qualifying series. Tom Slingsby (AUS) is steady in the top position while Croatian Tonci Stipanovic now in second. For some people who fared well in the lighter conditions the strong winds today resulted in drastic changes in the results, like David Wright from Canada who scored mostly top ten results in the qualifying series but dropped to an overall eighth with a 19th and 50th today. -- Full results: http://tinyurl.com/89gsala * West Palm Beach, FL (May 8, 2012) - The premiere issue of CharterSavvy, an online magazine devoted exclusively to bareboat chartering, has been launched by F&F Publishing. Free to subscribers, each quarterly issue is filled with in-depth features and stunning photography about bareboat charters worldwide. The editorial team of self-proclaimed "charterholics" is led by award-winning journalist and charter expert, Chris Caswell, a well-known veteran of boating publications. The first issue, which reached an audience 35,000 plus dedicated boating enthusiasts, features bareboat adventures in the British Virgin Islands, Greece, the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest, and canal barging in France. -- Details: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=13741 SOFT DECK - SOFT AND PADDED NONSKID This week only Sabot kits are 50% off! If you are a grownup kid like us, or have kids sailing Sabots we have a great looking, light weight (23oz) pad to save your knees and provide some traction! Enter promo code SABOT at checkout from now till May 14th. http://www.soft-deck.com/collections/sabot-kits GUEST COMMENTARY Scuttlebutt strongly encourages feedback from the Scuttlebutt community. Either submit comments by email or post them on the Forum. Submitted comments chosen to be published in the newsletter may be limited to 250 words. Authors may have one published submission per subject, and should save their bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. Email: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Paul Henderson (re, Scuttlebutt 3686): I cannot accept that sailing is the second most expensive sport to run in the Olympics. If the host country is clever they revitalize a piece of derelict waterfront turning it into a profitable legacy. Barcelona, Kingston, Athens, Qingdoa now Weymouth have set the standard. In fact Barcelona Olympic Sailing Marina is so successful they are increasing the size. City politicians come from all over the world to see how Olympic Sailing revitalized their waterfront. ISAF should put forward reality not accept the uninformed pitch that sailing is more expensive than velodromes, swimming complexes, white water canoeing, 100,000 seat stadiums, rowing courses, and on and on which need continuing government subsidies when sensible marinas are profitable. * From Rich Jeffries, ISAF Windsurfing and Kiteboarding Committee: In Scuttlebutt 3586, Jim DeSilva seems to have blamed Charley for the ousting of Windsurfing from the Olympic Games. It’s not Charley's fault. Charley’s one of 36 votes on the ISAF Council and a great contributor to the sport of Sailing here and world-wide. As the US representative to the ISAF Windsurfing and Kiteboarding Committee, I feel the problem clearly does not lie with Charley but with the way ISAF set the stage for the vote. The Chairman of the Events Committee and The Executive of ISAF positioned the issue to consider Kites by asking the sailing world: should we have board and/or kites in the Olympics? Since the ISAF knew that the International Olympic Committee would not grant sailing an additional medal or allow us to have more than the 380 athletes one had to go for one to be added. Should it have been windsurfers? No, but that is the way the ISAF set the stage. Much like catamarans have fought back and are now back in the 2016 Games in Rio, the windsurfers need to stand up and be counted. The RS:X class (the Olympic windsurfer) has started a petition drive. Our Committee is an information and consulting committee and does not make these decisions. The processes at ISAF our sometimes frustrating but, when dealing with representatives from so many cultures and languages, things move slowly and sometimes in directions we, the US, disagree with. Charley is not the bad guy. * From Barry Ault: Windsurfing was doomed to be eliminated from Olympic competition the moment the rules writers made it an aerobic demonstration rather than a sailing contest by allowing pumping. The number of people with the ability let alone the desire to compete dropped and other sailors laughed at the result. Apparently this was necessary to make the events work in light air and to help the judges maintain order. Thousands enjoy windsurfing in flat water and light air but light air is not what windsurfing is about. Robbie (Yogi) Naish had it right when he said, “To windsurf you need wind and surf!” Kiting may be a better Olympic choice because of the kite’s performance in light winds. Time will tell. Windsurfing will continue to be a great sport where there is wind and where there is surf. * From Brent Boyd: Great to see kiteboarding included in the Olympic sailing venue next time around. Windsurfing with the current gear is exciting, but after two decades it is time to step up the basic concept and kitesurfing meets all the requirements. Without going into boring details, let’s just say that the kites are fun to watch, the speed is incredible, the maneuvering fast and precise, and the action intense. Just go to Fiesta Island or one of the beach jetties on a breezy day to watch the fun and notice the large crowds that gather to spectate. My lone hope is that ISAF does not get heavy handed with byzantine equipment rules and archaic management that will kill the spontaneity of the sport. * From Peter Johnstone: Kites, cats & skiffs…ISAF is starting to get the Olympic mix right. Just need some foiling moths….and some bins for the Elvis era dinghies. Create the right freestyle events, and the kites have the potential to become the main attraction of the summer games. Think summer version of snowboard half pipe. Cameras in the kite…Who cares about racing. Let's see what they can really do! * From Robert Thuss, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: No windsurfers or keelboats in the Olympics. As a longtime sailor of both, I'm in shock. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION You know you're getting older when you have to find your glasses to make scrambled eggs. SPONSORS THIS WEEK BIC Sport North America - New York Yacht Club US Sailing - North Sails - Pure Yachting - Doyle Sails Summit Yachts - Soft Deck - US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider Ullman Sails - Beneteau Yachts - The Pirates Lair Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
