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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 778 - March 22, 2001Scuttlebutt is a digest of yacht racing news of major significance; commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American emphasis. Corrections, contributions, press releases and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome. COMMENTARY While there were many technical problems with the historic IOR in the 70's and 80's it was, for a while at least, a truly international system, finding favour in virtually every major yacht racing nation. It supported - one often suspects unwittingly - a number of highly successful level rating bands which in their day were a hot bed of international competition amongst both designers and sailors alike. No comparable rule exists today. IMS provides a technically complex solution and excellent racing for a few boats in limited geographical areas. PHRF is restricted almost entirely to the United States. IRM and IRC offer equally good racing using a less complex system to a wider range of boats spread more widely around the world, but it is still far from full international coverage. With the ORC now fully under the wing of ISAF there can be no better time for another attempt at unifying the world of offshore racing. Any moves towards a more cohesive world structure will need to be based on much more than just the bare bones of a rating system. The goals and aspirations of the sailors would be a good starting place. At some point the need or desirability for designs suitable to race out of the sight of land needs to be addressed. For sure there is still a demand for true deep-water racing but perhaps this can best be met in new and innovative ways. Handicap racing will undoubtedly exist alongside one-designs; there will still be a role for professionals alongside the owner-drivers. In short, the health of the boats in which the vast majority of sailors around the world actually race must be address as a whole, not a series of disparate parts. - http://www.sailing.org/makingwaves/makingwaves74/ SUN MICROSYSTEMS AUSTRALIA CUP Gilmour is defending the trophy he won last year, and has bought out the big guns, with Olympic gold and silver medallist Ben Ainslie in his crew. Magnus Holmberg is the current leader of the Swedish Match Grand Prix Sailing Tour, as the second year of the Tour goes past the half way stage. Hanging in close behind these two is American skipper Ken Read, sailing for Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes Cup campaign through the New York Yacht Club. This is a particularly impressive performance from Read, who is competing in his first grand prix match racing event. Explaining his success, he praised his tactician, "Terry Hutchinson is awesome at seeing the water, so we feel like in shifty conditions that we have a strength," he said." The competition on the water has been fearsome, and it is an indication of the depth of talent in this field, that big names like Chris Dickson and Gavin Brady are on the bottom half of the ladder. The day started out with a strong south easterly breeze, which was eventually overcome by the legendary Fremantle Doctor seabreeze. - John Roberson, www.swedishmatchgp.com Scores after day 1: Magnus Holmberg (SWE) 6-0; Peter Gilmour (USA) 6-0; Ken Read (USA) 5-1; Luc Pillot (FRA) 3-3; Jes-Gram Hansen (DEN) 3-3; Andy Beadsworth (GBR) 2-3; Nicola Celon (ITA) 2-4; Chris Dickson (USA) 1-4; Neville Wittey (AUS) 1-3; James Spithill (USA) 1-4; Gavin Brady (ITA) 1-3; Jesper Radich (DEN) 1-4. DOUBLE VENDEE VICTORY THE RACE * Team Adventure, the big American catamaran lying third in The Race of the Millennium, passed the Rock of Gibraltar and reentered the Mediterranean today at 6:00 pm local time. With less than 700 miles remaining in her 26,000-mile sprint around the world, the 110-foot high-tech cat is expected to cross the finish line off Marseille some time on Friday or Saturday. "We were becalmed for much of the day as we worked the north shore of the Straits looking for breeze," said Larry Rosenfeld, co-navigator of Team Adventure, in a satellite phone call from the boat. "A nice breeze came up in the late afternoon and now we're flying again, carrying our big quadrilateral jib and doing 14 knots." - Keith Taylor, http://www.TeamAdventure.org * Team Legato and skipper Tony Bullimore are in the hands of the weather gods and their own weather routers, St James's Yachting, as they attempt to win their race against the clock and arrive in Marseilles before the deadline of 20:56 GMT on 2 April. The good news appears to be the Doldrums are very narrow at this point, allowing Team Legato to pass swiftly through and hook into the northeast trade winds. Team Legato needs to cover 4,450 nautical miles (nm) in the remaining days until the deadline, a daily total of 359nm. - Martin Cross, NOW Sports website, http://www.now.com/ LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON leweck@earthlink.net * From: Geoffrey Emanuel GESAIL@aol.com Although the Sydney 40 is not a popular boat in the U.S., it has been known for 4 years to be the 3rd boat for this event. Why hasn't the U.S. spoken put forcefully against its use until now, when it is clearly too late to do anything about it?! And as far as his budget to campaign the boat, I'd like to see the individual line items, especially the proposed salaries paid to the crew. Finally, the core of the debate has focused on our lack of participation. Underlying this debate is the professional aspect of this event. Maybe the Admiral's Cup should be tailored to the amateur Corinthian sailor and his unpaid crew. If it were, I'd be willing to mount a challenge. But I doubt I'd be welcome. * From: Dee Smith deesail@csi.com After the last AC, there were meetings between the RORC and the IMS owners. The RORC led the owners to believe that the IMS 50 would still be in the AC. After a while they changed their mind and decided on the Corel. It was a political choice. I don't think there have been any Corel's built since 1997. It was the RORC that couldn't have field an IMS class sailing in their event. The Dutch, Germans and Europeans (Brava's Team) pulled out on the announcement. These were all long time competing teams. Without these three teams competing, it is very hard to find other owners that want to spend that kind of money for not too much competition. One more thing, the best suggestion to bring back the stature of the AC was made by the Dutch team after winning the last time, LET THE CUP TRAVEL TO THE WINNING TEAM'S COUNTRY! This will bring in the teams from everywhere and will help sponsorship. * From: Bill Lee wizard@fastisfun.com Very few one design classes composed of larger boats actually take hold. Admiral's Cup did a great job creating the Mumm 36 class. But instead of ongoing support for that class, Admiral's Cup jumped ship to classes of larger boats, but also classes, with the exception of the Farr 40, where the depth of competition in the competing countries has not materialized. One designs represent a good opportunity, but should be selected from fleets where there are strong numbers actively racing. Also with one designs, they don't need to fit a rule, nor do they need to go as fast as the latest hot setup. But they need to be strong, practical, and popular in several different countries. * From: Jeff Sneddon In the millions of containers that move globally every year very few are lost overboard. Someone mentioned retrieving the lost boxes. Most container vessels today do not have deck cranes and if the vessel has found it's way into conditions that are tearing containers off the deck no one would be crazy enough to swing a boom over the side of the ship to try and grab a lost box even if the vessel was equipped with deck cranes. No one jettisons containers purposely. Vessels that lose containers over the side notify the nearest naval state of the location and when ever possible the floating containers are used for target practice. I've sailed in the same waters where I know vessels have lost containers and have yet to see one (thankfully) but I've come across more logs, trees, crates, masses of fishing nets than I care to remember. The comment was made about "the weather be damned...the schedule". We as offshore racers go looking for the breeze. Commercial vessels use highly sophisticated weather routing systems and services that are usually updated twice daily to avoid rough weather. * From: Christopher Teske cteske@oalj.dol.gov Second, from a legal standpoint, most jettisoning cases are treated as though they contain no negligence. Collisions with floating debris have always been treated as collisions with flotsam or jetsam which the law sees as a peril of the sea. The vast majority of cargo lost overboard is either lost because it was jettisoned in an emergency, or because it was swept off the deck in bad weather. In either event, the courts treat this too as a peril of the sea. That means that the vessel, her captain and crew, are ordinarily not negligent, and there really is no way to sue them. Finally, it would be virtually impossible to require ships to recover jettisoned containers. Most (perhaps all) container vessels do not have hoists on board. They use dockside hoists to load and unload. Thus, retrieving a container in mid-ocean would be technically difficult. * From: Chris Danilek yankeex@optonline.net The transoceanic vessels out there these days are huge - 900+ feet, carrying thousands of boxes, hundreds secured on deck, but have no cranes on deck, manned by very small crews. The ship is in port less than 24 hours loading by shore based cranes and cargo is secured by local longshore gangs, inspected by one or two deck officers in a hurry-up-and-get-to-sea scenario leaving little time for correcting a poor lashing job. Even well lashed boxes can break deck fittings, or lashings and come adrift. At sea in heavy weather the ship's crew does not have the cranes or manpower to do much more than get the box numbers by binoculars from the bridge as they go over the side. Most maindecks are too dangerous in a storm to venture out on. Yes, containers can float. If the doors are secured they are watertight and tank containers will float indefinitely. If the cargo inside will float, it may support the container. Still the vast majority probably sink immediately. As to GPS assisted tracking of each container - this is already happening. If the customer wants to track his shipment worldwide, this is now possible with some shippers. * From Glenn T. McCarthy mccarthys@ussailing.net AMATEUR SAILORS AND BIG BUCKS No pledges, no strings - just good racing for a good cause. From the original race in Annapolis to the newest one in North Carolina, sailors have turned out in J/105s, Melges 24s and hundreds of PHRF boats; good ole boats and classic yachts built in the 1930s; dinghies and big Santa Cruz 72s and Concordias. They attract spectators! (A frequent point of discussion here in "Butt). The money raised comes from individual and corporate sponsors who contribute to one or more of the 39 hospices involved and ... actually come out to see the race on spectator boats or from convenient shore locations. Hundreds more of the public see or hear about these colorful events - good for hospices and good for sailing. Why? Hospice regattas raise money and awareness for hospice care. Hospices help you, me, our parents and children, as a loved one is dying, and bereavement care after the person has died. Medical and support services, at home or in a home-like setting, that are often not covered by insurance, but are provided without regard to ability to pay. Seventeen regattas! Four on the Chesapeake Bay! Four on Lake Ontario! Check
it out: To learn more: http://www.kreative.net/hospiceregatta/race_results.htm SWMBO JULES VERNE TROPHY Edwards says she hopes to charter or buy one of the maxi-cats from The Race or possibly commission a new boat, depending on what a future sponsor might want. The crew is likely to consist of almost all the sailors from the Royal & Sun Alliance campaign. - Ed Gorman, madforsailing website. Full story: http://www.madforsailing.com/ THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
