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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 616 - August 1, 2000KENWOOD CUPThe two practice races scheduled to open the Royal Hawaiian Ocean Racing Club's 12th biennial Hawaii International Offshore Series for the Kenwood Cup had to be abandoned today due to lack of wind. Two years ago we saw the first ever postponement of and then abandonment of racing here at the Kenwood Cup. Then it was thanks to the remnants of Tropical Storm Estell which left a ridge of tropical disturbance blocking off the normally reliable Trade Winds. This time it is Hurricane Daniel - the first of the season here in the Pacific. Although officially downgraded to a Tropical Storm yesterday here on the island of Oahu we are on a Tropical Storm Warning which means that it is expected to hit within the next 24 hours. Daniel is one of the largest storms to brush past the Hawaiian Islands since Hurricane Iniki caused major devastation on Kauai in 1992. For the moment the storm is certainly keeping Race Director Ken Morrison and his Race Team on their toes. If current forecasts are correct Daniel will hit tonight causing very heavy rains, localized flooding, high seas and winds ranging between 45 and 60 miles per hour with higher gusts. The hope is that it will all be over by tomorrow morning and racing proper can get underway with a triangle race in the morning and a windward/leeward course in the early afternoon. Six teams will challenge for the Kenwood Cup itself with the United States fielding a red, blue and white team. Japan and Australia have sent teams and New Zealand is back in force to defend the title. The USA RED team includes the new Farr 50 Esmeralda owned by Makoto Uematsu and skippered by, John Kilroy's 1999 World Champion Farr 40 OD Samba Pa Ti, and Philippe Kahn's Farr 40 OD Orion. The WHITE team comprises the highly optimized Sydney 41 Glama! owned by Seth Radow, Scooter Simmons' Cha-Ching, another Sydney 41, and Zamboni, Doug Taylor's Farr 40 OD. The USA BLUE team which includes Jason Khoury's Aerodyne 38 Matador is down to 2 boats owing to the withdrawal of Neil Barth's Growler. Five boats have come from Australia including the biggest yacht here John Kahlbetzer's new Sydney 62 Bumblebee 5 which will be the reserve boat for the Aussie team which comprises Yendys a Farr 49 owned by Geoffrey Ross, Fruit Machine owned by Neil Whiston and Smile owned by brother Simon Whiston - both Beneteau 40.7s optimized to the max. The Kiwis are fielding an extremely strong team once again - Mick Cookson's new Farr 47 Air New Zealand High 5, Naohiko Sera's new Farr 47 Sea Hawk and Hideo Matsuda's Far 45 Big Apple III. Andrew Taylor's Davidson 55 Andiamo takes up the reserve spot. The Japanese team comprises Karasu, a Judel/Vrojlk 43 owned by Yasuo Nanamori, Masato Fujimaki's Farr 40 OD Foundation and Liberte Expres a new Beneteau Farr 47.7 owned by Yasumasa Kawamura. Kenwood Cup 2000 runs from August 1 to August 9 and has also been designated the Pacific Region Championship for the Farr 40 OD class and a fleet of six J105s is here for the first time from San Francisco and includes a charter entry from Great Britain by Chris Brown. Racing begins tomorrow, Tuesday (hopefully) and continues with triangle and windward/leeward races on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. A 55-mile race on Thursday and concludes with the 150-mile Molokai race beginning Monday 1 August. - Susan McKeag, http://www.kenwoodcup.com/ QUESTION If a picture is worth a thousand words, what do you suppose the OFFICIAL videotape of the Sydney-Hobart Race is worth? Of the 115 starters in this race, only 40 made it to Hobart. After a pleasant start, the race quickly became a battle for survival - a battle six men would ultimately lose. 80-foot seas and 80-knot winds - something you never want to see in person. Footage from cameras on the boats documents the bravery and the extraordinary rescue efforts. This videotape is now available online, but supplies are limited. It's only $29.95 plus postage and handling: http://www.titanaustralia.com.au/ TOUR VOILE Lance Armstrong showed it could be done on two wheels by winning the French-conceived and dominated Tour de France. Last weekend Adrian Stead's Barlo Plastics crew completed an equally impressive domination of sailing's equivalent endurance race, the 1,000-mile Tour Voile. The fleet made 18 stops during the month-long race. Barlo Plastics flew the leader's red spinnaker soon after the Tour Voile's start on July 1 in Dieppe and completed the event with an 80.8-point cushion. The team placed seventh on the final leg from Imperia, Italy, to Calvi, on Corsica's northwestern tip. The British crew never finished outside of the top 10, placed in the top three in 15 of the 24 races and also won six stages. "We have had a great program, a good sponsor - and it looks like we're going to get the result," said a deeply contented Stead before the final leg. - Tim Jeffery, for Quokka Sports Final results 1. Barlo Plastics, Adrian Stead (GBR), 1,516.3 points 2. Marseille 2000, Alain Fedensieu (FRA) 1,435.5 points 3. Easy Oars, Tony Buckingham (GBR), 1,390.5 points 4. Region Ile de France, Jimmy Pahun (FRA), 1,390.5 points 5. Saint James-Port Manches, Pierre Alexis Ponsot (FRA), 1,303.3 points Full story: http://sailing.quokka.com/stories/07/SLQ__0731_s_tourvoile_WFC.html ADRIAN STEAD SIDEBAR Despite a reputation as one of the world's up and coming match racers, Stead was forced to watch this years America's Cup from a television commentary box and he is determined not to repeat the experience. "I'd love the opportunity to race the America's Cup but money talks, it was frustrating to see the French team compete on a very limited budget this year and yet gain so much experience for next time. I wanted to be out there but was cramped up it a TV studio. It's a lesson we need to learn for four years time." Said Stead - James Toney, Boatmagic website Full story: http://www.boatmagic.com/ LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) Letters selected to be printed are edited for clarity, space (250 words max) and 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 David Lyons, ORC Council (Australia) and ITC (On recent outbursts against the IMS by Tony Castro and Juan Kouyoumdjian) -: (1) IMS offers a competitive chance to one-off racers, cruiser/racers and production designs. OWNERS regard this as an attribute of the system. NO other Rule can do this. (2) That two custom cruiser/racers could make the IMS Grand Prix fleet obsolete is alarmist nonsense. (3) IMS does not exist just to produce one-off racers. It has a broader church than that. (4) To say that IMS only exists due to His Majesty the King of Spain is also nonsense. The large Italian, Dutch, Belgian, Finnish etc. fleets owe nothing to the current 50 Class in the Med to which you apparently refer, nor does that important fleet represent all that IMS is about. (5) Tony's constructive contribution to Rule development will always be welcome, but is unfortunately absent in this shot from the sideline. Regarding Juan's comments: (1) Invoking sour grapes following the declared illegality of your 50 design at the last CMAC will be of little interest to readers. (2) We have strong IMS Grand Prix racing in Australia, and NONE of it is level rating. What a myopic constraint to place on the definition of Grand Prix! (3) Recently concluded and upcoming IMS Grand Prix racing includes the IMS50 Worlds, the IMS Europeans, the IMS Worlds, Hamilton Island Race Week, the Kenwood Cup and the CYCA's Telstra Cup. -- From Steven M. Loeb - I was surprised that Tony Castro was so critical of Dave Pedrick's views and the Dave Lyons' Seahorse article in praise of IMS. It seems as though he does not have good knowledge of the current IMS scene. The IMS rule is working and deserves praise. The IMS purpose built cruiser/racers and racing boats that were being compared at the recent IMS Worlds in Newport are all similar animals. These boats can effectively compete with each other under the IMS rule. The cruiser/racers are not dull production boats but state of the art dual-purpose boats built of high tech materials. They are great boats to sail. The Italian boat that has been said to make the grand prix fleet obsolete is itself a grand prix boat sailed by some truly great sailors. It has not made the fleet obsolete. The Italians simply sailed better and in most races outsailed the other boats boat for boat. The King of Spain does not have the only healthy IMS fleet. There is a great IMS fleet on the east coast of the United States known as the IMS 40 consisting of 16 state of the art IMS cruiser/racers and racers. This fleet is alive and well and growing. Its members made up over 35% of the boats in the IMS Worlds. See www.IMS40.org for more information. -- From Jim Parker - I'm following with great interest the discussion on the current state of the IMS. I have an idea that I would like to share. My background is dinghy sailing. Some of the most exciting and innovative classes sailing are the open development classes. While these are sailed without handicaps, the rules gives designers, builders and sailors a lot of freedom about the final product. I believe this type of "box" rule is exactly what IMS sailors are looking for. Examples abound about this type of class: The Moth, International 14, A-Class Catamaran, C-Class Catamaran, Mini Transat, Open 60's, meter classes, etc. While some could argue that this creates an "arms" race, one could counter that based on the current budgets of the IMS fleet, that this is hardly a deterrent. One should also remember that most professional match racing is done in this type of class, so fleet racing should not be an issue. Just look at the championship regattas for the some classes mentioned above. -- From Cory E. Friedman (Re Bob Fisher/ Olympic Classes) - The disciplines of the Olympics are supposed to be athletic events, not sporting events. Olympic sailors should look like track and field or other serious athletes. While not best for the individual classes lobbying for the Olympic designation they hope will keep them from dying, sailing as a sport would be best off using the Olympics to showcase the athletic sailing events and develop new classes at the cutting edge of technology that are also at the athletic cutting edge. To the extent that the 49er does those things, keep it. To the extent the venerable Finn does those things, keep it. To the extent that keelboat racing can be done competitively by those of us who are athletically challenged, it should go. Keelboat racing is a marvelous activity for the non-athlete and, like chess, deserves non-Olympic championship recognition. However, keelboats should not be crowding out athletic sailing events at the Olympics. Someone ought to take a fresh look at the Olympic classes and choose or design boats that are best for athletic sailing and athletic sailors (male and female) of all genetically determined sizes. The keelboat sailors with a spare billion or two always have the America's Cup. BREAKING UP IS SOOOO EASY TO DO August 1, 2000 - Kiwi sailor Grant Dalton's super cat, Club Med, has lost the front metre of its bow in the Atlantic Ocean during its attempt to break the trans-Atlantic record. The catamaran hit a wave which broke off what is known as the "sacrificial bow" and it is now limping back to New York. It is understood the boat is not taking on water and the crew are not in any danger. The 33.5 metre catamaran started its record-attempt in New York on Friday. NZ Herald, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sports/ CODE RED PlayStation Remains Code Red Through Wednesday 2 August for TransAt Departure. Steve Fossett: "The hopes of a Wednesday (August 2nd) opportunity have been dashed by the high pressure block on the approaches to England. Bob Rice is hopeful there may be a change in the low pressure track in about a week which would provide new TransAt opportunities." - http://www.fossettchallenge.com/ TECHNOLOGY As technology moves forward in sail design and materials so it does in custom embroidery as well. New machines, software and techniques have made it possible to produce a product far superior today than in the past. Call Frank Whitton at Pacific Yacht Embroidery and Imprintables (619-226-8033) to stay up with the rest of the world. Don't settle for less when for the same price you can have the best. THE CURMUDGEON'S COUNSEL If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'. |
