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SCUTTLEBUTT 2392 - July 19, 2007Scuttlebutt is a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions,features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Scuttlebutt is distributed each weekday with the support of its sponsors. THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW The shining star turned into a shooting star with the announcement of the controversial 33rd Protocol, which wiped out the Louis Vuitton Cup series and gave Team Alinghi the right to sail in both Defender and Challenger selection trials. Just over a week later after the signing of the Protocol, Tom Ehman representing BMW Oracle Racing and Melinda Erkelens, a Golden Gate Yacht Club board member, travelled to Geneva, Switzerland to deliver a formal letter disputing the validity of the accepted Challenge from Club Náutico Español de Vela (CNEV). A second letter lodged a formal Challenge for the America’s Cup with the Defender Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) citing the specifications for a Challenge in the absence of mutual consent – a Match in 10 months time in a 90ft waterline boat. Two days later, long time Challenger Selection Series sponsor and overall sponsor of the 32nd AC, Louis Vuitton, announced that it was pulling out of the event. They are unhappy with the direction the America’s Cup is headed, and with a role reduced to that of another sponsor for the ACM- organised event. Their new role was a far cry from that of the previous five Challenger Series, where Louis Vuitton had been the mainstay of the onshore event organisation. As the Challenger teams wind down, international pressure is mounting on a number of fronts to resolve the issues within the Protocol announced by SNG’ s appointed event and commercial manager, America’s Cup Management (ACM). Two regattas for the America’s Cup class in Germany and San Francisco, which were to have been held later this year have been cancelled, making a difficult situation worse for sponsored teams seeking some interim exposure and revenue generation. -- Read on, as this Sail World story does a nice job of detailing how much Alinghi is trying to change the game, and why they may have overplayed their advantage: http://www.sail-world.com/indexs.cfm?nid=35777 LIGHT WIND, NO TRACKING, AND MAYBE NO RECORD (July 18, 2007) Yesterday's rock stars are today's washouts in a Transpacific Yacht Race full of baffling twists and turns en route to Hawaii. Just as Roger Sturgeon's new STP 65 Rosebud appeared to be lining up on Roy E. Disney's Pyewacket with a 297-nautical mile 24-hour run down south a day earlier, dying wind slowed it to only 167 miles before Wednesday's 8 a.m. roll call. Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 101 was another classic example of how quickly it can change. His doublehanded Open 50, rated as the sixth fastest boat in the fleet, led Tuesday with a run of 299 miles in the south but Wednesday made only 146 miles---one less than Bill Myers' Cirrus, a 34-year-old Standfast 40 leading the Aloha B division with Lindsey Austin, 22, as skipper and four other women as crew. The south was still good for Cirrus and a few others. Tom Garnier's Reinrag2, a J/125 in Division 4 that at one time was the farthest boat south of all, tied into breeze that swept it 232 miles---second only for the day to Mag 80's 237 and Fred Detwiler's 233 on the TP 52 Trader ---and into first place overall on corrected handicap time for the entire fleet. Unless the winds increase dramatically, Pyewacket's hopes of reclaiming the elapsed time record of 6 days 16 hours 4 minutes 11 seconds set by Morning Glory two years ago are slim. Flagship's tracking program---introduced to Transpac for this 44th race---also ran into difficulties. The transponders it placed on all the boats were going dead after about five days, meaning that all of the earlier starters were not transmitting their periodic positions to satellites, and the big boats that started last were feared to follow suit. Transpac has returned to its old system of an 8 a.m. PDT daily radio roll call to the boats for position reports. -- Read on for the complete update, which include blog reports from The Minnow (Bob Webster), Locomotion (Ed Feo), Psyche (Steve Calhoun), and Tango (Phil Rowe): http://www.transpacificyc.org/07/news/tp07-press-rel-34.html -- Latest positions: http://www.transpacificyc.org/07/tables/tp07-pr-d7.html YOUTH WORLDS Kingston, Ontario (Canada) – 18 July, 2007 – Weak and confused gradient winds were the order of the day on Lake Ontario as the fleet racing in the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship got back out on the water for day four of the regatta after having a well-earned day off yesterday. The windsurfer fleet returned to the dock for an hour in the absence of breeze, but, by mid afternoon, the breeze was up to 11 knots from the west south-west making for some good racing by all fleets and giving the lighter crews a chance to display their light airs technique and get back in contention. With the regatta now past the mid-way point, attention is turning towards the nation’s cup event, where, for the ninth time the stunning Waterford Crystal Volvo Trophy will be presented to the top nation’s overall score at the end of the event on Friday, in addition to gold, silver and bronze medals for the top three crews in each fleet. Australia is top of the Volvo Trophy table followed five points behind by Denmark and New Zealand. -- Complete class-by-class report: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/0718b Top Three plus Top North American 29er Girls (18 boats) 1. USA - Emily Dellenbaugh/ Briana Provancha, 1-(9)-3-1-5-2-(9)-3-1-1-1, 18 2. GBR - Sophie Weguelin/ Sophie Ainsworth, 8-5-2-3-2-(DSQ)-(11)-1-9-2-3, 35 3. AUS - Hannah Nattrass/ Michelle Muller, 2-(10)-8-2-3-5-5-2-6-(10)-2, 35 Laser Radial (34 boats) 1. AUS - Gabrielle King, 3- (25)-1-1- 2-2-(12)-4-2, 15 2. FIN - Tuula Tenkanen, (11)-1-9-4-(10)-7-6-1-5, 33 3. USA - Anne Haeger, 2-8-(12)-10-1-(OCS)-8-2-3, 34 29er Boys (23 boats) 1. DEN - Henrik Sagaard/ Soren Kristensen, 2-3-1-1-3-4-4-3-(6)-3-(9), 24 2. NZL - Paul Snow-Hansen/ Blair Tuke, 1-2-(10)-4-5-3-3-2-(8)-5-6, 31 3. GBR - James Ellis/ Robert Partridge, (17)-(13)-5-6-12-8-6-7-2-9-2, 57 5. USA - Oliver Tool/ William McBride, 7-11-(14)-2-4-11-13-6-9-(22)-5, 68 Windsurfer Boys (21 boards) 1. FRA - Pierre Le Coq, 3-3-3-(5)-2-3-1-1, 16 2. GRE - Dimitris Vlachakis, 4-7-1-3-3-7-(11)-5, 30 3. ISR - Ron Asulin, 2-2-8-(15)-1-12-6-4, 35 6. CAN - David Hayes, 11-11-2-1-6-2-9-(14), 42 Hobie 16 (15 cats) 1. GBR - Richard Glover/ Andrew Glover, 1-1-(4)-4-2-3-2-(7)-3, 16 2. DEN - Emil Landry/ Jacob Dannefer, 2-(4)-3-2-4-2-1-4-(7), 18 3. AUS - Jason Waterhouse/ Michael McCormick, 3-2-(8)-1-1-7-6-(9)-5, 25 6. USA - Eric Raybon/ Jason Bilow, 10-5-10-6-(RAF)-5-(12)-2-2, 40 Laser (38 boats) 1. CYP - Pavlos Kontides, 3-(6)-1-3-3-1-(24)-2-1, 14 2. NZL - Josh Junior 2-(18)-3-6-2-4-4-7-(13), 28 3. GER - Philipp Buhl,1- 7-5-(9)-1-6-11-(OCS)-5, 34 11. CAN - Robert Davis, 13-5-16-15-(19)-7-(33)-11-11, 77 Windsurfer Girls (15 boards) 1. ITA - Laura Linares, 1-1-(3)-3-2-1-3-1, 12 2. GER - Moana Delle, (RAF)-2-4-2-4-2-1-2, 17 3. POL - Nina SZYMCZYK, 3-4-5-4-3-4-(11)-5, 28 13. MEX - Mar Campos, 11-5-12-(DNC)-12-11-9-11, 71 Complete results: http://youthworlds2007.org/results.shtml ONE-DESIGN SAILING’S VIRTUAL MARKETPLACE: SAIL1DESIGN.COM From Optis to Farr 40's and everything in between, Sail1Design offers sailors a resource dedicated to selling and/ or finding boats, sails, gear, coaches, crew, and now sailing jobs! In fact, Sail1Design is the official job bank and classified ad supplier of the Intercollegiate Sailing Association. Ads are free, easy to post, and seen by a growing list of one-design sailors. We now have over 200 listings! This week’s S1D spotlights: the J/109 Mojo is for sale; a great job opportunity available in Northeast Harbor, ME; and a top Opti coach available on the east coast. Check them out! http://www.sail1design.com GEARING UP FOR RIO The XV Pan American Games begins this Sunday, July 22 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where racing will be held in nine disciplines, including four Olympic classes - Laser (Men), Laser Radial (Women) and RS:X (Men and Women) - and five non-Olympic, open classes - Hobie 16, J/24, Lightning, Snipe and Sunfish. Among the 16 American sailors is Chicagoan Bill Faude, who is part of the Lightning team along with Jody and David Starck. Before the Americans landed in Rio, they spent a couple days dealing with team processing in Washington, DC, where Faude provides this update: “The highlight today was gear outfitting. Now, I don't know how they did it, but some members of the US sailing team managed to remain blasé during this but I couldn't pull that off. We went into a large conference room in a student union building. They gave you a large plastic laundry tub and a clipboard complete with all your sizing information. You walked from table to table…'shopping'. At one station you got polo shirts. At one station you got work out shorts. Next came socks…then a pair of parade shoes and flip-flops. Next came the parade uniform. Then we were given a backpack with a pre-loaded cell phone so we can call home and home can call us free of international charges. Then we got a giant duffle bag. As we 'checked out', they took everything out of the boxes. Took off all the tags and packed everything into the giant duffle. I wish these would show up at home every time I need to pack for a regatta. Nike provides everything. Everything is incredible.” -- Full report: http://lightninginrio.blogspot.com/2007/07/process-process-process.html DELIVERING THE DRAMA The 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race has announced plans to produce 39 half-hour programs and nine one-hour monthly programs as part of the race’s broadcast output during the nine months of the event, which begins in October 2008. With seven cameras on board each boat, linked by satellite to a purpose-built studio and editing facilities at race headquarters near Portsmouth in the UK, onboard coverage hopes to show those key moments of the elite sailors dealing with the challenging race conditions. An innovation for this race will be the dedicated media crewmember on board each boat whose job it is to coordinate the coverage. Commenting on the media crewmember, Volvo Ocean Race Executive Editor Harold Anderson said, “Sure they will be tasked with managing the on-board camera systems but what we are seeking is more than just pictures of the boats. We want to capture the tensions and the celebrations, every ounce of human drama as it happens. We will demand compelling content from the media crewmembers to help us tell the story of the race from every angle. Their role will be critical.” The 2008-09 event will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain in mid-October 2008, it will for the first time, take in ports in Asia. Spanning some 39,000 nautical miles, stopping at around 11 ports and taking nine months to complete, the Volvo Ocean Race is the world’ s premier yacht race for professional racing crews. -- Complete announcement: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/article/2007/july/sandv/index.aspx VIDEO OF THE WEEK Every year in July, the Tour de France a la Voile (TFV) unfolds around the French and European shores from the Channel, into the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay and on along the Mediterranean. This year’s event extends from June 28th to July 28th, with 30 Mumm 30 teams stopping at 11 cities from the start at Dunkerque to the finish in Marseille, competing in a variety of offshore, coastal, and inshore windward/ leeward races. This video is from 2005, and gives a 2:18 minute look at some of the extreme days of the tour. 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/07/0716 ISAF WORLD SAILING RANKINGS (July 18, 2007) After Great Britain and Australia finished one and two respectively in the medal table at ISAF Sailing World Championship in Cascais, Portugal, it is no surprise to see these nations featured so strongly in the latest Ranking release. An outstanding performance from the Aussies gives them three #1 spots courtesy of newly crowned World Champions Tom Slingsby (AUS) in the Laser and Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page (AUS) in the Men’s 470, and 2006 World title winners Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby (AUS) in the Tornado (and finishing fourth in 2007). The Brits lose one top spot but gain one thanks to new 49er World Champions and now world #1s Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes (GBR). They also add one more #2 spot and one more #3 and are now level with Germany as the nation with the highest number of crews ranked in the world top three. Top ranked North Americans are: Laser Radial: 1. Anna Tunnicliffe (USA); 2. Tania Elias-Calles (MEX) Yngling: 1. Sally Barkow/ Carrie Howe/ Debbie Capozzi (USA) 470 Women: 5. Amanda Clark/ Sara Mergenthaler (USA) Laser: 6. Michael Leigh (CAN) 49er: 7. Morgan Larson/ Peter Spaulding (USA) Finn: 9 Chris Cook (CAN) Star: 9. John Dane/ Austin Sperry (USA) Tornado: 10. Oskar Johansson/ Kevin Stittle (CAN) 470 Men: 14. Michael Anderson Mitterling/ David Hughes (USA) RS:X Women: 25. Nikola Girke (CAN) RS:X Men: 45. Ben Barger (USA) Latest rankings: http://www.sailing.org/rankings DISCOVER THE BEST BOATING PRODUCTS MyBoatsGear.com is a free news & information site about boating products. Our aim is to promote boating products in an unbiased format. There is one truth inherent to boat ownership: Once you buy a boat, you’ll spend much of your free time looking for that important piece of equipment, be it electronics, anchoring, deck gear, rigging or safety gear. MyBoatsGear.com is a one-stop, boating gear resource for boaters. With gear organized into 20 easily accessible categories such as above-deck, electronics, safety, MyBoatsGear.com stores product information for access anytime, anywhere. http://www.MyBoatsGear.com ALL ABOUT TP 52 SAILS North Sails Spain’s Juan Meseguer, a key member of the sail design team on BMW Oracle, with Prada on the last Cup and also was main sail designer with the Movistar on the last Volvo race, has been the principal designer and trimmer on Caixa Galicia since it was launched and now also designs for Eamon Conneely’s Patches and Balearia. Home for Juan is the North Sails loft in Valencia by the Real Club Nautica Valencia. Here are his comments: “I think that now we are in racing mode. We have been testing offshore sails today. I think what we did well is that we have got up to racing mode. In Alicante I don’t think anyone was really in racing mode, not even Mean Machine. The biggest change this year is the sail limit, which is 25, and that is a good number. That makes all the teams have to think how they are going to use them around the five regattas. It is a good number where you can do some testing but have to actually plan where you have your whole sail inventory for the season. I think last year the rich teams could buy another sail any time, and now you have to plan how to use your cards.” “You can apply some concepts from the America’s Cup from many thousands of hours of work, but you cannot transfer straight over. Like how to tweak the gennaker shapes after many hours you can see how to transfer a bit, for example, upwind you learn how to tweak the mainsails but they are very, very different sails. For sure. These other mainsails are very high top roaches, and we have very narrow, thin heads. So there are some concepts you can carry over and others you cannot." -- Full report: http://2007.medcup.org/news/?idioma=2&id=749 * (July 18, 2007) Today was a the practice race for Thursday’s first race of the TP52 Regatta Breitling-Iles Balears in Mallorca, Spain, which is the second event of the Breitling MedCup TP52 Circuit. The war weary America’s Cup sailors are now in town, and after three or four intense months contesting the Cup in Valencia, followed by a couple of weeks to wind down, joining the 24 boat TP52 fleet is the perfect arena to resume hostilities. Comments Terry Hutchinson, “For me this is certainly good therapy. It is good to be back on the water and every you time you go on the water you learn something, and so it is just good to be back out there trading a few punches.” The tactician off the America’s Cup finalist Emirates Team New Zealand has been re-united with the Botin & Carkeek designed Windquest, the former Warpath that finished as last season’s runner-up. -- Full report: http://2007.medcup.org/news/?idioma=2&id=790 SAILING SHORTS * (July 18, 2007) After another hard fought day of racing in the NYYC Swan 42 fleet, Andrew Fisher's Bandit and the syndicate owned Tsunami have opened up a ten-point gap over the rest of the fleet in the quest to become Swan American Regatta champion. Jim Swartz' Swan 601 Moneypenny won all four races today in Class A, to retake the lead in the regatta from Leonardo Ferragamo's Pioneer Investments by Cuordileone. In Classes C and D the leaders and defending champions, Martin Jacobson's Crescendo and Joseph Huber's Reef Points, both have a perfect score line of four points after five races in the regatta. -- Complete report and results: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/0718 * The World Match Racing Tour has announced that print and electronic media company Pindar has joined the Tour as Official Sponsor. As part of the sponsorship, Pindar will assist the World Tour in producing a new range of promotional and print literature to promote the Tour to its worldwide audience. The sponsorship follows Pindar’s partnership with World number one match racer and regular Tour competitor Ian Williams (GBR). Ian competes as ‘Team Pindar’ on the World Match Racing Tour and is currently third in the Tour rankings. -- http://www.worldmatchracingtour.com * Peter Rebovich won the first Olin J. Stephens Ocean Racing Trophy for the top combined ORR performance in consecutive Newport Bermuda and Marblehead to Halifax races. Olin Stephens presented the trophy for the first time at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron in Halifax on Thursday July 12th at the awards ceremony. Rebovich sailed his vintage Cal 40 Sinn Fein to 3rd place in the ORR Division of the 2007 Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race. That performance matched with his 1st place finish in the ORR fleet of the St. David’s Lighthouse Division of 2006 Centennial Newport Bermuda Race earned him the new prize. -- Complete release: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/0718a * (July 18, 2007) The 99th running of the 2007 Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac began with a boom but ended in a whimper, with light winds plaguing much of the route. However, race official have finally been able to post closing scores, listing all entrants as either finished or retired. – Results: http://www.chicagoyachtclub.org/racetomackinac/results-scroll.cfm * Corona del Mar, CA (July 18, 2007) -- Top junior match racing sailors from the US and overseas are competing this week at the Governor's Cup, hosted by Balboa Yacht Club. Twelve teams of three junior sailors each are sailing the Governor's Cup 21 yachts, and at the close of the second day of racing have completed the first round robin series and are now beginning the second round robin. The current leader is Newport Harbor YC team of helmsman Michael Menninger, middle Cole Hatton, and bowman Christopher Segerblom. -- Daily reports and results: http://tinyurl.com/34utk4 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 John Harwood-Bee: What a disappointment. I and many other self-confessed skeptics were beginning to think that, towards the end, the AC participants had perhaps 'grown up' and adopted a more sportsmanlike attitude. How wrong we were. Here we go again, with some of the players having returned to the same old bitching, backbiting, self-interested nonsense that was AC three years and more ago. On behalf of the many who find the whole process incredibly boring and the unsportsmanlike behavior saddening, please may we be spared any further coverage of the circus until somebody comes to their senses, levels the playing field, and behaves in a manner more becoming yachtsman than second hand car dealers. One thing that has been proven beyond doub is money obviously cannot buy you class. No wonder then that Louis Vuitton no longer wished to be associated. Hopefully they will now place their considerable funding with sailors more deserving of such support. As for the next AC venue, judging on the current behavior, perhaps you should place your bets on Dubai or even Abu Dhabi, as both have enough funds to outbid anybody. * From Peter Bowker, Fort Lauderdale, FL: In regard to Pedro Vozone’s remarks on the weather conditions in Cascais (in Issue 2391), I have come to the conclusion that after many years of experience, wherever I go racing in the world the weather is invariably the same: “It’s very unusual for this time of the year-------- you should have been here last week.” * From Kenneth Haring: I wish to object to the politically incorrect term 'rail meat' as used recently in Scuttlebutt #2391. It shows that the user is both insensitive and unenlightened. The correct term is Corrective Lateral Righting Moment Specialist or CLRMS for short. Having spent many years on the rail of racing sailboats on the west coast, I feel that the term CLRMS more closely reflects the duties of the crewmenber charged with this most important job on the boat. A good CLRMS knows when to switch from the low side to high side when the winds pick up without being told, he has a feeling for just the right angle of heel to keep the boat moving at its optimum speed for the wind conditions. It is true that the boat drivers get the glory but it is those of us on the rail who deserve the credit. CURMUDGEON’S CONUNDRUM Why are you in a movie, but you're on TV? Special thanks to Sail1Design and MyBoatsGear.com. |
