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SCUTTLEBUTT 2495 – December 13, 2007Scuttlebutt is a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions, featuresand dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors. SEVENTH ENTRY CONFIRMED FOR VOLVO OCEAN RACE The seventh entry for the 2008/2009 Volvo Ocean Race has now been announced, with double Olympic medallist Ian Walker (GBR) as the skipper of the Reichel Pugh designed entry. The boat is already being build at McConaghy Boats in China. The team’s participation is twinned with a race stopover in the west Irish port of Galway. The Green Team has secured initial funding from a combination of private investment (led by a project board which includes John Kileen, Enda O’Coineen, Eamon Conneely and Jamie Boag as Team CEO), commercial sponsorship, and government backing. “Everybody I have spoken to enthuses about these boats and this race,” Walker said. “I have not looked forward to going sailing so much for a long time. Many people will see me as a predominately inshore sailor, but you would have said the same about Torben Grael before the last race. You have to keep learning new things and pushing yourself in order to progress. I want a new challenge and offshore sailing is arguably the biggest growth area of our sport.” Walker, though making his round-the-world debut at the age of 37, has world-class sailing credentials that include the Olympics and the America’s Cup. -- Complete details: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/article/2007/december/greenteam/index.aspx PLAN PUTS HISTORY, SAILING AT ODDS Opening the planned National Sailing Hall of Fame in a city nicknamed "America's Sailing Capital" should be smooth sailing. But the state's recommendation yesterday to demolish or move a 19th-century home on the Annapolis waterfront to make way for the estimated $20 million facility sets up a potential battle between two groups closely identified with the Colonial capital: sailors and historic preservationists. The recommendation, released Monday in a report commissioned by the Maryland Stadium Authority, said trying to incorporate the modest home, one of the original pieces of the waterfront streetscape and now used as office space for the Department of Natural Resources Police, would be "too challenging." "This is the single most prominent piece of real estate in the city. ... It's the last piece of vernacular property on the Annapolis harbor. So what they do on that property needs to be of interest to everybody who lives in Annapolis," said Gregory A. Stiverson, former president of the Annapolis Historic Foundation. "It may not have much value as a structure, but in terms of what it represents of the history of what the waterfront used to be, it certainly has some value," he said. -- Baltimore Sun, read on: http://tinyurl.com/2y3b4o AMERICA’S CUP: TACKS AND GYBES * The Spanish team Desafío Español, which was the original Challenger of Record until they were stripped of that title for violating the terms of the America’s Cup Deed of Gift, is now speaking publicly about the current impasse regarding the next America’s Cup. While there was an attempt to talk nice, the Spanish team clearly appears to be tiring of Alinghi’s delays in organizing the next event. -- Translated version of their release: http://tinyurl.com/ysvodc * The bid package for the candidacy of Madrid, Spain to host the 2016 Olympic Summer Games have officially named Valencia as the site for the Sailing events, beating out strong contender Palma de Mallorca to obtain the nomination. -- The Valencia Life Network, mailto:publisher@valencialife.net * Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's nine-year experiment to develop an on-demand software company is about to get market tested. NetSuite, co-founded by Ellison in 1998 to deliver business apps via a software-as-a-service model, on Monday launched the bidding process for an initial public offering of its stock. NetSuite is offering 6.2 million shares of its stock with a suggested price range of $13 to $16 a share in the hopes of raising $99 million to pay off some debt and make new investments. Ellison remains the majority shareholder of NetSuite, with his share of the company expected to drop from 61% to about 55% following the IPO. -- http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204800476 WINNING THE ALLSTATE SUGAR BOWL (REGATTA) Ullman Sails customers enjoyed a successful weekend staying ahead of the pack in New Orleans Yacht Club’s Allstate Sugar Bowl Regatta, December 8-9, 2007. In 7 to 11 knots of breeze, Rob Keister and crew on Olson 30 ‘WildCard’ and Glenn Higgen’s team on Easterly 30 ‘Quest’ won their divisions -- neither one placing lower than second in any race. Other top results included Ullman customers finishing in two of the top three places in Spinnaker A division. For more information on the ‘Fastest Sails on the Planet,’ contact a local Ullman Sails loft and visit http://www.ullmansails.com WHAT MAKES A RACER/CRUISER? by Kimball Livingston, SAIL At the King's Cup in Thailand, Frank Pong's maxi, Jelik, cleaned up at the top end of IRC, but that's no cruising boat. On a completely different wavelength in the exotica of tropical regattas in 2007, there were charter boats from Sunsail that raced, but those are not race boats. Then here came Fred Roswold in his cruising boat, out from Seattle and roaming since 1996, winning the whole shebang overall. And Wings was designed and built with no thought for anything except racing. Wings is a Peterson 43, a Two-Tonner, as they were known back in the day. It's the sort of warhorse that would have been campaigned by the leading pros. Fred and Judy Roswold have owned the boat for 20 years, and their experience bears out an assertion made often by another Seattle guy, designer Bob Perry. It goes something like this: "If you want to go cruising and not spend a fortune on the platform, buy an old IOR boat. They're cheap, they sail well, and yes, they have issues with their downwind sailing qualities, but if you're cruising you won't be pushing the boat hard enough to experience that." -- Read on: http://sailmag.com/features/RacerCruiser BARCELONA WORLD RACE Open 60 doublehanded round the world race (started Nov 11; 25,000-miles) (Day 32 - December 12, 2007) The three leaders in the Barcelona World Race are pushing deep into the southern latitudes, and are now dealing with snow and icebergs. “We lost some distance last night because we wanted to avoid the ice,” said Paprec-Virbac 2 skipper Jean-Pierre Dick this morning. “The temperature is very, very cold where we are. We took a wise decision in some extremes conditions. It is really cold, and damp inside and outside. It is painful on our hands when we are manoeuvring. To warm up, we are covering ourselves with more fleeces, hats, and gloves. The thing is not to get wet otherwise it’s the end.” The leaders are about 350 miles from that next gate they must pass through, which is positioned at 53-degrees south. For Hugo Boss, skipper Alex Thomson and co-skipper Andrew Cape have had their 24-hour record ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. The record now stands at 501.27 nautical miles for a monohull up to 60 feet, with the previous record of 468.72nm having been set by Alex Thompson in 2003 (CORRECTION: The WSSR Council has NOT yet ratified this record). Hugo Boss is also the stage four winner of the Barcelona World Race, making the passage from Fernando de Noronha to the gate south of the Cape of Good Hope in 10 Days, 15 Hours and 24 Minutes. The four race stages of the race have now had four different winners. For those heading to Cape Town, PRB is now in port and Estrella Damm is due to arrive Wednesday evening, while Delta Dore is making arrangements for a tow due to insufficient fuel onboard. -- http://www.barcelonaworldrace.com Positions at 18:00 GMT - Distance to leader (+gain/-loss since previous day) 1-Paprec-Virbac 2, Jean-Pierre Dick/ Damian Foxall, DTF not available 2-Veolia Environnement, Roland Jourdain/ Jean-Luc Nélias, 125 mi DTL (+21) 3-Hugo Boss, Alex Thomson/ Andrew Cape, 206 (+15) 4-Temenos II, Dominique Wavre/ Michéle Paret, 927 (-32) 5-Mutua Madrilena, Javier Sanso Windmann/ Pachi Rivero, 1641 (-131) 6-Estrella Damm, Guillermo Altadill/ Jonathan McKee, 2059 (-200)* 7-Educación sin Fronteras, Servane Escoffier/ Albert Bargues, 2373 (-163) Retired - PRB, Vincent Riou / Sébastien Josse (broken mast) Retired -Delta Dore, Jérémie Beyou/ Sidney Gavignet (broken mast) * Returning to Cape Town for rudder repair * The Scuttlebutt website is taking a weekly snapshot of the fleet, and this week we find the lead Open 60’s down at the 52-degree latitude, with more than half the distance to go along the Southern Ocean track that spans the tips of the African and Australasian continents. Race tracker: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/bwr NEW WORLD RECORD FOR JOYON (Day 19 - December 12, 2007 - 14:00 UTC) Francis Joyon onboard the 97-foot IDEC trimaran has broken the singlehanded 24-hour distance record, after covering 616.07 mile at an average speed of 25.7 knots. The record is subject to ratification from the World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC). The previous best distance was set in 2006 by Yvan Bourgnon (SUI) onboard the 60 ft trimaran "Brossard" that clocked 610.45 nm at an average speed of 25.76 knots. Joyon has 13,707 miles remaining in his quest to establish a new singlehanded round the world record, with his path across the Indian Ocean now down to the 47-degree latitude, and his advance over Ellen Macarthur’s record pace in 2005 up 100 miles to 1,964. -- http://www.trimaran-idec.com CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) The Scuttlebutt Event Calendar utilizes the only shared database on the Internet, meaning that events that get posted here are viewed by an extremely broad audience. The self-serve tools are easy for even the most challenged online users, and if you have a long list of events to input, we can transfer your data file for you. View the calendar at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar SAILING SHORTS * Since it began in early November, the 2007 US SAILING Annual Appeal has raised just over $57,000 from 380 donors for youth sailing programs, which represents 76% of the $75,000 goal. The target date for the completion of the campaign is December 31, 2007. -- Details: http://www.ussailing.org/donations/ * A study of 100 sailboat sinkings from the BoatUS Insurance claims files noted that the incidents were divided evenly into two broad categories – those that sank at the dock and those that sank while underway. The study includes the common causes of sinkings, along with five tips for prevent a sailboat sinking. -- Complete report: http://www.boatus.com/news/releases/2007/december/sink.asp * The O’pen BIC has been awarded the 2007 “Blue Boat” Prize for its ecological design and production. The Blue Boat prize is awarded on an annual basis by the “Fédération des Industries Nautiques” (Federation of Nautical Industry), for either boats or equipment that show a strong commitment to the environment and sustainable development. With this prize, the FIN is looking to help reduce the impact that the nautical industry has on the environment, and to keep our seas “blue”. -- Complete announcement: http://tinyurl.com/ywysfw SANTA IS WEARING WHAT??? Rumor has it that Santa stopped by Team One Newport to pick up warm clothing for his travels on December 24th. He was helped by the awesome customer service experts and selected a Gill Speedskin to wear against his skin (and we thought he had enough insulation!!), a Gill drysuit since he will be flying over the great oceans, and a pair of dinghy boots (little did we know that Santa has hiking straps in his sleigh). You too can get come last minute Holiday gifts at Team One Newport. Their expert staff and unbelievable selection is the best around. Visit http://www.team1newport.com or call 800-VIP-GEAR (800-847-4327) HO HO HO!! VIDEO OF THE WEEK This week’s video is for the urban sailor, that person that resides in the big city and far from the expanse that the tony yacht clubs provide. This 1:58 minute clip shows that you can still have it all, strolling from your lower Manhattan residence in New York City, toward a stretch of land along the river, under an overpass, and sporting a sufficient sidebreeze. Joining our urban sailor is the Blokart, that highly portable and easily assembled landsailing craft, with fun music and humorous commentary layered into the edit. Also, if you have a video you like, please send us your suggestions for next week’s Video of the Week. Click here for this week’s video: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/07/1210/ LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name, and may be edited for clarity or simplicity (letters shall be no longer than 250 words). You only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot, don't whine if others disagree, and save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. As an alternative, a more open environment for discussion is available on the Scuttlebutt Forum. -- Scuttlebutt Letters: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com -- Scuttlebutt Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Jack Griffin: A big “thank you” to Cory Friedman for another entertaining, clear essay (in Issue 2494). But I think changes to the Deed of Gift face a much bigger legal hurdle than the rule of “cy pres” that Cory described in Butt 2494: the interests of the beneficiaries. Any yacht club qualified to challenge for the Cup is a beneficiary of the trust created by the Deed of Gift. As a beneficiary of the trust, Golden Gate YC just won their case against trustee Société Nautique de Genève. I would guess the New York Surrogate’s Court has already seen more than a few cases of trustees trying to change a trust to profit from it, to the perceived detriment of the beneficiaries. So all it takes to prevent the proposed changes to the Deed of Gift is a few yacht clubs who agree more with Bob Fisher and Bruno Troublé than with Ernesto Bertarelli's vision * From Damian Christie, Melbourne, Australia: Thanks to Bob Fisher (in Issue 2492) for his excellent, measured response to Ernesto Bertarelli's maniacal ravings. It angers me (a non-sailor!) that Bertarelli continues to show utter contempt for the traditions of the America’s Cup by dismissing the recent disqualification of CNEV under the Deed of Gift as a 'technicality' and by describing the Deed in his 'open letter’ as the 'achilles heel' of the event. As Bob rightfully argues, the Cup was intended by its founders to be the 'iconic representation' of the defender's superiority. It seems to me that if Bertarelli and particularly the Societe Nautique de Geneve (SNG) are not prepared to honour that tradition, then SNG is in breach of its fiduciary duty as Cup trustee and should forfeit the Cup. After all, when each Cup trustee assumes control of the Cup, it effectively signs a contract to continue to abide by the requirements of the Deed under which the Cup was donated as a challenge trophy. If the Deed happens to obstruct Bertarelli’s tinpot plans for Cup domination, then good! While some parts of the Deed are archaic and do not promote parity between challenger and defender, the recent court case in New York has nevertheless demonstrated the Deed is still as relevant today as it was 150 years ago. Bertarelli should get on with negotiating a new protocol with GGYC and stop blaming the Deed for his abject failure to run the next Cup defence both fairly and impartially. * From Angie Coen, New Zealand: Bob Fisher's open letter to Bertarelli (in Issue 2492) expressed clearly what many of us think and one can only hope that Ernesto is finally "getting it", though I very much doubt it. Bring on the one-on-one race with the big cats, Larry will certainly win it, and we can get back to the much enjoyed traditional AC. Don't see why we have to fix what wasn't "broke" in the first place - and from a very selfish point of view, I'd love to see the Cup being raced for in San Francisco - the time difference is less drastic for us Down-Under! * From Paul Mixon, Black Boaters Summit: Thank you all for your comments, even those of Craig Fletcher. Your comments serve to provide support for our effort to get more people sailing. But Craig does have a following. A like comment is posted on our YouTube BBS Promo Video. I would simply say to Craig that, except for Black Boaters Summit Week, it is indeed a White Boaters Summit. Just look around the next time you are in a crowed anchorage. Talk about "your third smallest book." BYW all are welcome to BBS2008. Please visit www.honeyletstravel.com and sign up. Let it be known that Captain Bill Pinkney has wanted me to change the BBS name for years; see what he has to say on the use of Black Boaters Summit as our venue title: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lifedreams/mixon_pinkney/webisode1_4.html => Curmudgeon’s Comment: Without getting too involved in this thread, I did want to note that the most recent person Craig Fletcher sponsored for membership at his club (Balboa Yacht Club in Corona del Mar, CA) is now the club’s first African American member. * From the Forum (sailor44): I noted with some interest (in Issue 2494) that West Marine has changed leaders, due, I suspect to their poor financial performance lately. Well, I think I know the problem. Ever since West bought out Boat US, they seem to believe that they now have no competition, and have raised their prices throughout their stores. I have found them to be non-competitive to local marine businesses, so much so in the past couple of years that I have just about stopped even shopping their stores or website for parts. Indeed, many of my fellow sailors have done the same, preferring to check out the prices at Defender, or other, similar, websites, for anything of any cost, rather than even bother with West. So, some advice for the new President: You are not the only game in town. Get competitive on your prices, and we will once again visit you for our supplies! -- http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=5669 CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs. Special thanks to Ullman Sails and Team One Newport. A complete list of Scuttlebutt’s preferred suppliers is at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
