SCUTTLEBUTT No. 642 - September 8, 2000

INVESTMENT ADVICE

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LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net)
Letters selected to be printed are edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude unfounded speculation or personal attacks. This is not a chat room - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.

-- From Hugh Elliot - Try giving orders to someone else's CAT!

-- From Keith Brown - In response to Carl Watson's concern about powering up the boat by easing the jib while ducking; As long as you've made the decision to take the duck in the first place (by your choice or not) you may as well get as much boat speed and acceleration out of the maneuver as possible. Properly trimmed sails, both main and jib accomplish this. Properly trimmed being the key concept. If trimmed for the boat's course, you shouldn't have a problem with being over powered. The trimmers clearly need to stay alert to the wind shifts as passing through the shadow of the ducked boat.

-- From Nelson H. Weiderman - In the July issue of Speed and Smarts, Dave Dellenbaugh opines that roll tacking is prohibited by 49.2 of the RRS if you go outside the lifelines to do it. He bases this opinion on ISAF Case 83, which states "Repeated sail-trimming with a person's torso outside the lifelines is not permitted." The rationale is that trimming the spinnaker is a task that can "reasonably be carried out within the lifelines." While this Case certainly supports Dave's opinion, it is not definitive about whether roll tacking can be reasonably be carried out on a displacement boat within the lifelines.

Appeal 72 addresses holding a spinnaker out by a crew outside the lifelines after the pole has been dropped as a "brief and necessary" operation which permits the crew to go outside the lifelines. In my opinion ISAF Case 83 and Appeal 72 still leave the roll tacking question up to the interpretation of the protest committee. It would be worth all our whiles to get this issue settled once and for all.

-- From Dick Martin - I'm sure that I'm not the first to wonder why your Letters to the Curmudgeon section does not require submitters to include a one-sentence description of their credentials regarding their subjects, particularly when dealing with controversial issues. Many of your readers, like me, must recognize the names of only a handful of authors and have difficulty evaluating some of the comments that you publish.
(OBTW, I have no credentials or expertise on this subject, except normal human curiosity)

CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT - Well, that's not going to happen. One thing I've learned in the 35 years I've been racing sailboats, everyone with a pair of topsiders is an expert.

LESS DRAG, MORE SPEED
In the world of Formula One, people like Adrian Newey (design chief for the McLaren Team) rely heavily on wind tunnels to hone the performance of racing cars to the nth degree. In the yachting world, the designer's great asset is the towing tank.

"Ultimately, aerodynamics is still where all the performance is in Formula One," claims Eddie Jordan's technical director, Mike Gascoyne. Marine designer Lorne Campbell says: "Towing tests are absolutely essential for racing yachts. With so little power driving the sails, you need to maximise it by minimising drag."

By towing a three-metre-long scale hull at a specific speed in a tank, at a wide variety of angles, and closely observing the water flow around it, it's possible to predict - fairly accurately - the behaviour of the full-sized craft in smooth and rough conditions.

"Such work pretty much tells you all you need to know about wave behaviour on the hull," says England's widely respected Andy Claughton, a senior engineer at the Wolfson Unit for Marine Technology and Industrial Aerodynamics at the University of Southampton. "Then you can start playing with the keel and rudder. That's when you might move into the wind tunnel."

Since the Volvo Ocean Race takes place in all weathers, boats have to be controllable at speed regardless of water conditions. Like Grand Prix auto racing, today's race is a pedal-to-the-metal affair throughout. The days of proprietary hulls and cocktails in the cabin during relaxed evenings are as long-dead as the 1970s. Now the search even for tiny reductions in drag is paramount. - David Tremayne, Volvo Ocean Race website

Full story: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/Pre/00/NS_000802_gen_tremayne_WFC.html

SAILING ON TV
This Sunday at 12:00 noon PDT, the Subaru Gorge Games will be on NBC Sports. Watch the McKee brothers, take on the French and British Olympic teams. Twenty One 49ers compete in 20 knots for $10,000 prize money.

GRAPHICS
There is no reason the great graphics on your boat can't be exactly replicated on your crew shirts and other sailing attire. But if you want it done right, you should really talk with Frank Whitton at Pacific Yacht Embroidery. Whether you need tee shirts, polos or jackets - Frank is the man. Get in touch with him now and find out how affordable it can be. Frank delivers! Pacyacht@aol.com 619-226-8033 http://www.companystoresite.com/

TRADING DOLLARS FOR ADVENTURE
(Dan Dickison takes an in-depth look at the BT Global Challenge, which starts this weekend. Here's an excerpt from his story on the SailNet website.)

According to the song, only "mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun." If the creators of musicals were writing about sailing exploits these days, they might resurrect those lyrics for a ditty about the BT Global Challenge. This odyssey, the third edition of which begins this weekend in Southampton, UK, is a seven-stage, amateur adventure/race around the globe against the prevailing winds and currents. Basically, the course is almost entirely upwind. That in itself would seem reason enough to steer clear, but add on the nearly $40,000 that each of almost 300 participants has paid for this privilege, and the whole situation prompts incredulity.

The BT Global Challenge, which will be staged aboard identical 72-foot steel cutters, is the brainchild of Sir Chay Blyth, the British adventurer-cum-entrepreneur who first distinguished himself among maritime aficionados in 1966 by rowing across the Atlantic in an open dory with Captain John Ridgway. Ridgway ended up with most of the accolades, but Blyth went on to turn heads when he solo-circumnavigated the globe the "wrong way" in a 59-foot ketch called British Steel four years hence. Thirty years and a knighthood later, Sir Chay sits at the helm of a private company that bills itself as the "organizer of the world's toughest events," specializing in pay-to-play maritime adventures.

Blyth and his associates at the Challenge Business have come a long way since 1989, when he inaugurated his venture with a small announcement at the London Boat Show, saying he was looking for 120 adventurers who would ante up roughly $30,000 to sail around the world. The response was off the charts-thousands of people wrote and called in, and the concept stuck. Even more remarkable than someone wanting to pay that amount of money to bash upwind around the globe is the fact that almost 70 percent of the initial clients had no sailing experience. You read that correctly-no sailing experience. One of his central objectives, says Blyth, was to open up sailing opportunities for anyone of any background. For his scheme to succeed, he knew that he and his team would have to adequately prepare these adventure guinea pigs so that they would not only make it around the globe, but ultimately become his emissaries-walking, talking advertisements for the Challenge Business. Suffice to say that this year's event sold out three years ago, and the company's next venture, the New World Challenge (2002), which begins and ends in San Francisco, is nearly sold out now. - Dan Dickison, SailNet website

Full story: http://www.sailnet.com/collections/racing/index.cfm?articleid=ddcksn0327&tfr =fp

THE CURMUDGEON'S COUNSEL
Never wrestle a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.