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SCUTTLEBUTT #522 - March 6, 2000THE CURMUDGEON RETURNSI'm back, bronzed and four pounds overweight. (Beer sure goes down quickly after racing in 80+ degree weather.) My sincere thanks go to David McCreary for sitting in while I was gone -- insuring that every 'Butthead had access to America's Cup news and other racing stories. My two-part Mexican racing adventure started on a sour note, but turned out to be wonderfully successful =85 and incredibly enjoyable. Sour note? For most of the first three days of San Diego Yacht Club's race to Puerto Vallarta we were sailing on the wind, mostly with a #3 genoa. Not exactly what you'd expect on a Mexican Race. In fact, I've never experienced that much beating on any of my previous 52 Mexican races. About the time I was beginning to question why I was doing this, the wind turned around and I quickly remembered why I've spent more than one year of my life racing down the Baja Peninsula. We had day after day of spinnaker running and reaching with winds in the mid-twenties and following seas building into the 10-12 foot range. And it got warmer each and every day. No question about it -- I'll keep racing to Mexico as long there are owners willing to take me along. For this race I navigated Jim Madden's shinny new J/160, Stark Raving Mad. Although this was the boat's first race, it was well set up and prepared. Everything worked, and nothing broke. Not all crews can make similar claims. In fact, five boats were forced to retire and limp to shelter. Taxi Dancer (R/P 70) and Quantum (Andrews 50) both broke their mainsails; Sorcery (Mull 82) broke a running backstay tang; Mongoose (SC 70) destroyed their headfoil system (which is an essential part of the boat when you're beating into 35 knots of wind) and Ariel (SC 52) abandoned the race for some reason that I never learned. On Stark Raving Mad, the race ended in the only light air we saw on the 996-mile passage. Thankfully, we were still able to hang on and claim second place by a thin 10-minute margin over Fred Howe's very well sailed Santa Cruz 52, Warpath, with Whitbread navigator Mark Rudiger aboard. First place was totally out of reach. Winslow Lincoln's new Andrews 45 Locomotion was never seriously challenged. After starting prematurely and doing 'donuts' for a pre-start foul, it only took them about 12 miles to work their way through the entire 14-boat class and disappear over the horizon. They weren't just in another Zip Code or another Area Code -- they were in another Time Zone. Literally. PHRF dramatically underestimated the downwind potential of this ultralightweight design by Alan Andrews. This 45-foot boat is only 12 feet wide and weighs something like 12,000 pounds. Off the wind, it flies huge masthead A-sails from a penalty pole that is seriously oversized. Locomotion corrected out on us by seven hours and 21 minutes -- more than 26 seconds per mile. Although its rating was obviously wrong, take nothing away from the great job done by the superb crew that included Keith Kilpartick, Craig Fletcher, Mark Gaudio and designer Alan Andrews. Winslow is going to have a lot of fun with his new hot rod=85 no matter what rating PHRF ultimately gives Locomotion and her sisterships that seem sure to follow. (No I'm not opening the PHRF thread again -- it still is tightly closed.) James McDowell's Santa Cruz 70 Grand Illusion was the overall winner of the 996-mile sprint, correcting out on Brack Duker's sistership, Evolution, by just 23 minutes. There were 37 boats in the race, the largest fleet to do a long distance Mexican race in many, many years. Why the big turnout? Certainly the fact that it's the only Mexican race we've had for 12 months, and the only Mexican race there will be for the next 12 months, had a lot to do with it. Apparently 'natural selection' has weeded out the less attractive and unworthy races. Let's hope the Mexican race calendar stays uncrowded so we don't revert back to subdividing the fleet with competing events. Stark Raving Mad did not participate in the MEXORC Regatta, but happily Dr. Kelly Vince had invited me to call tactics for the regatta on his J/120, Simply Red. Kelly put together a strong crew to do battle in Class D against a small but talented fleet that included a handful of J/120 sisterships, a J/130 and a pair of the new Schock 40s. Fortunately, Locomotion was not put into this 'sprit-boat' class. The racing in our class was much closer than the results would indicate, but we still clinched the top prize with a day to spare. Dr. Vince was rewarded with nine trophies plus a Rolex Submariner watch for our 1-2-2-1-1-1-1 series. Mike Campbell's new Schock 40 took second place, 12 points behind us. Perhaps the most fun part of this regatta for all of us on Simply Red was the final race. With the series already sewn up, Kelly let the crew steer the boat as he rode the rail. I got to drive the start and the first weather leg before Rob Moore, Jim Catrell and Daniel Casal took their turns. However, when the wind built into the high teens, we needed these guys back doing their sail-handling chores, so Kelly took over for the final two legs and guided Simply Red to another class win. It appears that a couple of Simply Red's class victories were a bit too one-sided because the 'Boat of the Regatta' trophy (winner in the most competitive class) went to Rogilio Partida's venerable N/M 41 Seata from Acapulco, with Lowell North calling tactics. MEXORC is truly a great regatta blessed with warm temperatures, wonderfully reliable wind conditions and thanks to the experience and skill of Mike Wathen, flawless race committee work. FINAL RESULTS - SDYC Puerto Vallarta Race (37 boats): CLASS A: 1. Grand Illusion (SC 70) James McDowell, 2. Evolution, (SC 70) Brack Duker, 3. Pegasus (Andrews 70 TurboSled) Philippe Kahn, 4. Pyewacket, (R/P 73) Roy P. Disney, 5. Magnitude, (Andrews 70 TurboSled) Doug Baker. CLASS B: 1. Locomotion (Andrews 45) Winslow Lincoln, 2. Stark Raving Mad (J/160) Jim Madden, 3. Warpath (SC 52) Fred Howe, 4. Cantada (Andrews 53) Ron Kuntz, Falcon, (Tripp 50) David Janes. CLASS C: 1. Wild Thing (1D35) Chris Busch, 2. Black Knight (Farr 39) Philip Freedman, 3. Bravura (Farr 44) E & D Pennell, 4. Simply Red (J/120) Kelly Vince. PERFORMANCE CRUISING CLASS: 1. Novia del Mar (Beneteau 405) Mike Busch, 2. Everfit (Catalina 36), Steve Jackson, 3. Amazing Grace (Farr 55) Allen= Puckett MEXORC Results (30 boats): CLASS A: No entries; CLASS B: 1. Locomotion (Andrews 45) Keith Kilpatrick; CLASS C: 1. Ole' (J/V 45) Antonio Elias; CLASS D: 1. Seata, Rogilo Partida; CLASS E: 1. Simply Red (J/120) Kelly Vince, 2. Cincos (Schock 40) Mike Campbell, 3. Veloce (J/120) Andreas Baptista CLASS F: 1. Dreadnought (Capri 37) Mike Daniels. Event websites: http://www.sdyc.org/ http://www.mexorc.com.mx/ POSTSCRIPT -- This was obviously a very good trip, and I haven't even mentioned my seven new shirts, the Kahala shorts or the new fleece vest. And now that I'm back, letters to Scuttlebutt should once again be sent to: leweck@earthlink.net OLYMPICS PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (March 2, 2000)--The Olympic Sailing Committee of US SAILING, national governing body for the sport, has announced the twelve sailors who have qualified for the upcoming Laser Trials. A limit of 32 entries for the Trials necessitated a series of qualifying events for sailors in that class. The Trials which will select the Laser representative on the U.S.A.'s 2000 Olympic Team - Yachting are scheduled for April 6-16, 2000, at San Francisco Yacht Club, Belvedere, California. Qualified to date for the Laser Trials are the 1998 and 1999 winners of the U.S. Singlehanded Championship for the O'Day Trophy who each received automatic entry to the Laser Trials. They are, respectively, Paul Zambriski (Redondo Beach, Calif.) and Mattia d'Errico (San Antonio, Texas). The Laser East event qualified Brett Davis (Largo, Fla.), Mark Mendelblatt (St. Petersburg, Fla.), John Torgerson (Annapolis, Md.), Bill Hardesty (San Diego, Calif.), Clay Johnson (Toms River, N.J.), John Myrdal (Kailua, Hawaii), Charles Meade (San Francisco, Calif.), Will Glenn (Orlando, Fla.), Dave Perkowski (Toms River, N.J.), and Andrew Scrivan (Riverside, Conn.). The two remaining opportunities for sailors to qualify for entry to the Laser Trials are at the Laser West - March 2-5, 2000, at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, Long Beach, Calif.; and Laser Final - March 9-13, 2000, at California Yacht Club, Marina del Rey, Calif. (Visit www.calyachtclub.com for additional information on the Laser Final.) The Laser West and Laser Final events will each qualify the top 10 U.S. finishers not previously qualified. At the Marina del Rey event, however, sailors who qualified at either the East or West event are not eligible to compete, and entries will be restricted to U.S. citizens. Complete details are available by calling Katie Richardson at 401-683-0800 ext. 621, or online at www.ussailing.org/Olympics/olympictrials/lasqu1.pdf. The remaining Olympic Team Trials are as follows: Tornado - March 23-April 2, 2000, at Santa Cruz Yacht Club, Santa Cruz, Calif.; Europe - April 6-16, 2000, at San Francisco Yacht Club, Belvedere, Calif.; Finn - April 6-16, 2000, at Richmond Yacht Club, Pt. Richmond, Calif.; Star - April 6-16, 2000, at St. Francis Yacht Club, San Francisco, Calif.; and Soling - June 1-11, 2000, at St. Francis Yacht Club, San Francisco, Calif. -- Jan Harley The Trials Notice of Race and entry form are available online: http://www.ussailing.org/Olympics/olympictrials/nor.htm COMMENTARY -- Angus Phillips This was the first match in the event's 150-year history that included no U.S. entry in the final. American yachtsmen are embarrassed and have embarked on an ambitious plan to form a "super-syndicate" financed initially by donations from such corporate icons as Rich deVos (Amway), John Thomson (Thomson Ball Bearings), Jim Clark (Netscape) and oilman Bill Koch (Koch Enterprises). The plan is to bring together top yacht clubs from across the country, starting with a coalition of New York Yacht Club and Saint Francis in San Francisco uniting behind one team with the best American sailors and boat designers. But such cooperation among yacht clubs will not be easily accomplished, veteran Cup observers said. Al Van Metre, the Alexandria housing magnate, has been working to assemble the group. A key figure appears to be Paul Cayard, the veteran Cup skipper who made it to the challenger finals with AmericaOne before being vanquished by Prada, 5-4. But can Cayard work with Conner of Stars & Stripes, America True's Dawn Riley and the leaders of New York's Young America Syndicate? "There are a lot of egos to deal with," Van Metre admitted. "It's a political minefield," said Chris Coffin, the Midwestern businessman who backed America True. One thing on which all contenders agree is that time is short to mount a challenge. With the start of the next Cup season only 2 1/2 years away, serious competitors will need to be in Auckland next October, testing and training and developing boats. -- Angus Phillips, Washington Post Full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ AMERICAONE PLANS Currently, there are about 25 of us left here in Auckland. That will be down to five by March 10. Our core shore team - Brad, Donnie, Ted, Coz and Sting - will stick around until about March 20. Most of us will be seeing some of New Zealand's South Island before we head home (its amazing - I've been here for six months and have not been out of Auckland yet!). With Team New Zealand winning the Cup, we are making plans to operate again in Auckland. Our landlord, the America's Cup Village, is finalizing approvals to extend our lease on the Base at reduced, "off-season" rates. This is very smart on their part as it will make it much easier for us to compete in the event again. Hopefully, we will simply pack up the boats and condense our base into our big boat shed and several containers stacked next to it. Our portable office block and retail shop will be broken down and returned. We will keep one office unit with the primary electrical and telephone connections coming up through the wharf as well as the video surveillance system (which will remain active). Again, this will provide for rapid and efficient remobilization. Speaking of the boats, we have taken advantage of our great facility and talented shore team. The hulls are off their keels and have been stripped of all hardware. All the appendage parts and deck hardware has been meticulously cleaned and treated with protective coatings and packed away. The topsides and decks have been sanded down and given new paint jobs - a clear seal for the topsides and new white nonskid for the decks. The boats will be all ready to go when we reactivate them. The office equipment and files are going into a container to be shipped to San Francisco. I tried to persuade the office staff to go in the container also. We have been given permission to set up a temporary office trailer at the East end of the St Francis Yacht Club for three-four months. That will be home when we move in on March 27.-- Bob Billingham, http://www.AmericaOne.org YOUNG AMERICA PLANS AUCKLAND, New Zealand, March 6, 2000 -- The Young America Foundation's President John K. Marshall announced today that the Prada Challenge has purchased Young America's yachts USA 53 and USA 58 and their racing equipment. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. "After extensive consideration of all the options, the Young America Board of Trustees voted unanimously to accept Prada's offer," Marshall said. "During this campaign we asked our supporters to stretch to the limit to help fund an effort dedicated to winning," Marshall said. "While we know many would love to try again we concluded that the demands that would be placed on all our supporters to finance a winning challenge in 2003 would simply be too great. Accordingly our board concluded that Young America would not field a team for the next America's Cup match." "Many experts would agree that Young America's two IACC yachts, USA 53 and USA 58, were among the fastest in the Challenger fleet," Marshall said. "Unfortunately the circumstances never gave the Young America team the chance to optimize these magnificent racing yachts. We are pleased to know that they will now be used by a very serious challenger to advance their program for America's Cup XXXI." -- Jane Eagleson PRADA PLANS DESIGN TEAM -- A series of meetings are being currently held at Prada's operations base in Auckland in order to determine the new lay-outs and programmes. In the first meeting there has been consensus on the themes and the projects for the future. SAILING TEAM -- The team is holding meeting to discuss the training sessions, the racing schedule and the sailing team structure for the next three years. The start of the next training session in Punta Ala, Italy, has been set for June 2000. The team will probably return to Auckland in October/November to train, once again, throughout the New Zealand summer. The sailing team, in collaboration with the sail loft staff, has began the long process of checking and storing the sails and the equipment. The work on the two Luna Rossa yachts has begun, in order to get them ready for the shipping to Italy (5 weeks of sailing approximately) which will take place by April. LOGISTICS -- The operations base in Auckland will be temporarily shut down; it will be neither subleased nor dismantled, and it will be ready to receive the team according to their training calendar. -- Alessandra Ghezzi OLYMPIC CAMPAIGNS -- In line with its commitment in sailing, Prada will support the Olympic Campaigns of some sailors within the team. The Olympic campaigns for Sydney 2000 of the following Prada team members have been finalised in detail: Torben Grael (Star class, Brazil), Pietro D'Al=EC (Star class, Italy) and Rod Davis (Soling class, New Zealand). Syndicate website: http://www.Prada-americascup.com TEAM NEW ZEALAND PLANS For Russell Coutts, the long sea journey that has brought him fame, fortune, Olympic gold -- and now, for the second time, the America's Cup -- began at the helm of a touchy little P-class dinghy off the windswept coast of Dunedin on New Zealand's rugged South Island. Now, at 38, Coutts may face his greatest challenge yet. For, after skippering Team New Zealand to a 5-0 sweep of Italy's Prada Challenge in its first defense of the America's Cup, Coutts is expected to at least partially fill the power vacuum left by the departure of Sir Peter Blake, the Kiwi legend who spearheaded the syndicate's fund-raising and shoreside efforts. Blake is off to head up the Cousteau Society, and the reins have been passed to Coutts; his lieutenant and tactician, Brad Butterworth, 40; and the navigator and design-team supervisor, Tom Schnackenberg, 54. "It's their turn," Blake said. "My biggest fear is that Coutts and Butterworth care more about themselves than they do about the longevity and well being of the event," the American cup veteran, Paul Cayard, said in a recent interview. "But we have to hear their plans and, more importantly, see what they actually do about them, not what they say they're going to do." Thus far, Coutts and the others have kept their intentions to themselves, insisting that they first had to tend to the business at hand. It does appear they will continue to operate under the auspices of a single defense campaign. "Certainly we'd have to have good reason to change anything," Coutts said. "It's obviously worked pretty well." Immediately following the cup finals, Coutts said he'd like New Zealand to hold the trophy for the next two decades or more. After their Prada deconstruction, the notion may not be far fetched. The Kiwis' intricate local knowledge of the Hauraki Gulf proved to be a devastating home-court advantage. And their design program, now riding the crest of consecutive 5-0 whitewashes in the last two cup regattas, seems exponentially ahead of anything the challengers have created. -- Herb McCormick, NY Times Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/ LASER OLYMPIC TRIALS QUALIFIER SERIES Alamitos Bay YC (50 boats - 10 races w/two throwouts): 1. CHARLES MEADE (19 points) 2.ANDREW CHILDS (28) 3. ANDREW SCRIVAN (33) 4. PETER HURLEY (47) 5. GREGORY SKIDMORE (48) 6. ANDY LOVELL (54) 7. MARC JACOBI (66) 8. KURT TAULBEE (70) 9. MATT MCQUEEN (77) 10. CHRIS RAAB (82). Complete results: http://abyc.org/2000REGATTAS/ SORC MIAMI BEACH - Gordon Schiff from Tampa, FL won The Florida Governor's Perpetual Trophy at the Acura Southern Ocean Racing Conference (SORC), without even raising sails of his Mumm 36, The Wall. Forecasted Northwesterly winds never materialized for the final day of the five-day regatta, and after three hours becalmed off Miami Beach, entrants in the 59th SORC returned to Miami Beach Marina where Schiff accepted his trophy for the eight races sailed over the previous four days. The Tampa Bay skipper was one of seven owner/skippers to take home first place silver. Schiff won the Performance Handicap Ocean Racing Fleet (PHRF) Division 2 with a very consistent record that included two first places, five seconds and a fourth. His performance also won him the Governor's Trophy for the best-scoring PHRF boat. Italian skipper Massimo Mezzaroma who won the hotly-contested Farr 40 Class, and the SORC Trophy for the best performance by a series yacht, was another first-time entrant. Sailing the chartered Farr 40 Dawn Raid with his co-charterer Antonio Sodo, Mezzaroma opened the week in third place. On Thursday he tied for first place with Atalanti XI, sailed by George Andreadis of Athens, Greece. On Saturday Dawn Raid turned in a strong performance as Atalanti XI faded, leaving the Italian boat with an almost unassailable points lead. It was the first time that Mezzaroma's crew, which includes veteran tactician Vasco Vascotto, had raced a Farr 40. "We decided to have a bit of fun," said the 28-year-old skipper. "We've won the Italian J/24 championships and the Mumm 30 Championships in Italy and Europe, so this was a logical progression. We had some tough sailing. I was surprised at the high standard of competition in the class." Bache Renshaw of South Dartmouth, MA, won the series' third major trophy, the Mark H. Baxter Perpetual Trophy. Skippering his Nelson/Marek 48 Virago, Renshaw led the International Measurement System (IMS) Class all week with a solid record that included five first places. The Baxter Trophy is awarded to the top scoring boat in the IMS fleet. -- Keith Taylor Event site: http://acurasorc.com/ HEINEKEN REGATTA The 20th annual Sint Maarten/Saint Martin Heineken Regatta,with 256 entrants, is now the largest regatta ever in the Caribbean. The participants raced in 17 classes under the CSA (Caribbean Sailing Association) rating rule, and represented 22 different countries. Although the regatta ended Sunday, its web page did not have the final results at press time: http://www.heinekenregatta.com WD SCHOCK MEMORIAL REGATTA Newport Harbor YC -- Nasty weather shortened this event to just three races for most classes. Class winners: SANTANA 20 (41 boats) Yumio Dornberg; SANTANA 30-30 (5) Redline, Bob Marcus, SCHOCK 35 (16) Wings, Dennis and Sharon Case; THISTLE (10) Chris Gedrose; HARBOR 20 A (10) Reprise, Arthur Strock; HARBOR 20 B (6) Sail 'n Win, Win Fuller; LEHMAN 12 (10) Cara Harries; LIDO 14 A (14) Marc Barra; LIDO 14 B (6) Greg Bougreaux. Complete results: http://www.nhyc.org THE CURMUDGEON'S COUNSEL Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Note: Nelson Weiderman has created a "Curmudgeon Server" at http://noeticharbor.com/curmudgeon/. It randomly pulls Curmudgeonly wit from a database loaded with past 'Butt Observations, Counsels, etc. Check it out! |
