|
SCUTTLEBUTT 1373 - July 17, 2003Powered by SAIC (www.saic.com), an employee-owned company. Scuttlebutt is adigest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. TRANSPAC Chris Busch from San Diego, won Division 4 on his 1D35, Wild Thing, which some might consider a dubious boat of choice for a 2,225-nautical mile race. I knew what I was getting into," he said. "The hard part was talking four other guys into it." David Kory, who runs Tradewinds Sailing in Point Richmond, Calif., led a crew that the sailing magazine Latitude 38 called "the jolly band of Transpac virgins." They sailed a Catalina 38 called Barking Spider. "Everybody was a rookie," Kory, 40, said. "Our goal was just to cross the finish line." They not only accomplished that but won the Aloha B class, and now his racer-cruiser sits on Transpac Row amid the higher-tech crowd of Pegasus 77, Pyewacket and Alta Vita There are different kinds of winners in the Transpacific Yacht Race, some measured by their boats' performances, others by triumphs of the human spirit and a few by a combination of those qualities. The men on B'Quest, a Tripp 40 sailed by Transpac's first team of disabled sailors, also had earned their thrills by the time they finished Monday afternoon. They were met at the Hawaii Yacht Club by video teams and reporters from four local TV stations, one of which also did a live remote telecast---a possible first for Transpac. "The end was pretty heavy," said Sam Gloor, a paraplegic who plays rugby. "We blew out our three-quarter-ounce spinnaker, and Sunday night we blew our topping lift when it was blowing 25 knots steady, with gusts." Would he do it again? "Absolutely," Gloor said. "Doublehanded next time. It's revived my bluewater dream." Skipper Joshua Ross, the only able-bodied member of the six-man crew, said, "In one word, we rocked. When we blew out the chute we didn't miss a beat. We were surfing at 11 knots coming in here." As for hardships, Ross said, "All they complained about was the food---and I'm responsible for that." Paraplegic Bob Hettiger, co-founder of Challenged America with Urban Miyares, a blind watch captain, said, "We were 100 yards from the finish line and Urban said, 'Twelve years.' How short that distance was from the dream we had 12 years ago." B'Quest finished last in the four-boat racing Division 5, won by Paul Edwards' Catalina 42, Wind , from Wilmington, Del., but was competitive at only eight hours behind third-place Masquerade, Timothy Coker's Choate 40 from San Diego. "We tried our hardest," Hettiger said. "We didn't slough off. When things started to hurt we just fought through it." - Rich Roberts Transpac website: www.transpacificyc.org ADMIRAL'S CUP Another safe performance by the Australian team has kept them at the top of the Admiral's Cup leaderboard, with their big boat Wild Oats taking second place in the IRC big boat class while Aftershock won the IMS 600 small boat class. Mark Richards, the helmsman of Wild Oats, brought the boat home some 40 minutes ahead of closest rival Spain's Bribon Telefonica Movistar, but this was still close enough for the King of Spain's boat to beat the Australians by nearly three minutes on corrected time. It was a long and tedious day on the water for the crews, sailing under a leaden grey sky, that spilt over onto them from time to time, driven by an unexciting wind that fluctuated between 6 and 12 knots, and clocked from south east, through south, and on towards south west. - Susan McKeag Standings: 1. Royal Price Alfred Team, AUS, 27 points 2. Telefonica Movistar Sailing Team, ESP, 33 3. Sailability RORC Team, GBR, 46 4. Team Royal Southern, GBR, 64 5. Team Paprec Recyclage - UNCL, FRA, 79 6. Team Bear - RTYC, GBR, 82 7. Sailability CCYC Team, GBR, 85 8. Estrella Galicia Sailing Team, ESP, 90 Event Website: www.rorc.org HALL LEAVES YOU NO CHOICE Skip Sheldon's R/P 66 Zaraffa stepped a Hall carbon mast in the spring of 2000. That June, Zaraffa won the St. David's Lighthouse Trophy in the Newport to Bermuda Race. And they did it again in 2002. In between, they won the Fastnet Race Super Zero class. In 2003, they were first-to-finish in the DaimlerChrysler Transatlantic Race. With a Hall Spars & Rigging carbon spar, you don't have to choose between reliability and high-performance. We deliver both. http://www.hallspars.com GAVIN BRADY Gavin Brady is relishing the chance to work alongside his old skipper Chris Dickson and Oracle BMW Racing head Larry Ellison in the next America's Cup. The 29-year-old New Zealand-born helmsman said the team would not only be based on yachting talent, but also team spirit, drawing on the successful experiences of Oracle BMW Racing's 2003 effort. "The chemistry needs to be right, for the whole team," Brady stressed. "It's something we will seriously consider when we're selecting people for this campaign. There's a lot of work to do from here - our 'to do' list is pretty big." Brady, who has been involved in three America's Cup campaigns until now, says he's thrilled at the chance to steer for a team of Oracle BMW Racing's calibre. "This is a huge step in my career," he says. Brady sailed as a tactician for Dickson in his 1995 America's Cup campaign, TAG Heuer Challenge, which made the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series. He hasn't forgotten the chance that Dickson gave him as an enthusiastic 21-year-old, an opportunity that launched his professional yachting career. "If it wasn't for that chance, I certainly wouldn't be Oracle BMW Racing's helmsman today," Brady says. "We'll work well together - we know each other well, especially our strengths and weaknesses. - Excerpts from a story on the Oracle BMW website, full story: http://www.oraclebmwracing.com/session:69qopiiwx1/segeln/en/1_news/11_racenews/200306/0630_brady_inter.4ml J/24 SILVER ANNIVERSARY REGATTA Brad Read, a two-time winner of the J/24 World Championship, won the J/24 Legends Regatta today. The four-race series kicked off the week-long J/24 Silver Anniversary Regatta. Read (Middletown, RI), sailing with crewmembers Randy Borges, Moose McClintock, John Mollicone and Gordon Borges, finished 3-1-2-2 for the low score of 8 points. Read, who won the Worlds in 2000 (Kingston, Ontario) and 2002 (Newport, RI), defeated Chris Larson (Annapolis, MD), the 1996 Worlds winner, by 5 points. Read's older brother, Ken Read (Newport, RI), a six-time world champion, finished third with 15 points. The open regatta started on Wednesday with a building 12-knot southerly combined with an offshore swell and heavy current kept J/24 competitors guessing. A group of young guns from Canada and some old friends who raced J/24 Class events competitively 20 years ago were the big winners in the first race of the J/24 Silver Anniversary Regatta. Thomas Barbeau's Navtech.ca from Quebec City, Canada, won the first race in the Silver Fleet, for competitors with valid J/24 rating certificates and whose crew has weighed in. Barbeau, a 26-year-old designer of commercial ferries, outfoxed Brad Read and Tim Healy to claim the victory. In the Regatta Fleet, for competitors who didn't have to meet the crew weight requirements, Chris and Vicki Field (Noank, CT) found their old touch aboard Maybe to defeat Harry Lane's Fast Lane (Jamestown, RI). In the Anniversary Fleet, a non-spinnaker division, Robert Iriye (Middletown, RI) and Rich Haaku (Seawaren, NJ) guided their boats Tenacious and Peddler, respectively, around a six-mile course around buoys. - Sean McNeill Event website: http://www.j24silver.org/j24silver/m/_general/default.asp WOODEN BOATS "There's two kinds of people who own wooden boats. Crazy people with a lot of money and crazy people without any money." - Doug Shumpert Tucked away in a fold of Ventura Harbor (California), a school of wooden hulks lies beneath gray tarps, waiting for Doug Shumpert to bring them to life again. A shipwright, Shumpert has spent the past 36 years gutting rotted ghosts of the sea and rebuilding them to sail again. Today, wooden boats have become collectible antiques of sorts. And interest in fixing the old boats is intensifying, according to Bill Curry, managing director of the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Townsend, Wash. At least one wooden boat school has opened every year for the past seven in North America, Curry said. There are five on the West Coast alone. And boat buyers aren't the only ones returning to the ways of old. Second-career and retired woodworkers are among those taking courses at the Port Townsend school. "There's a group of 30- or 40-year-olds that are changing careers and want to work with their hands and with wood," said Curry, whose school has about 50 students enrolled in its two-year program. "They make up the bulk of our students." Of the 250 students he estimated will graduate from such programs around the country this year, only a fraction were under 25, Curry said. As for Shumpert, he has enough business to keep him busy for years. - Excerpts from a story by Andy Olsen in the Los Angeles Times. Full story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-woodenship13jul13,1,775054.story PADDED SAILING SHORTS & PANTS Sailing Angles trademarked Sailing Shorts and Longpants have padded rear and knee fender options and come with a rugged double Cordura seat and knees! You'll love their functional deep pockets, non- corroding zippers, waist adjustment straps, and double waist buttons, all designed to help you sail and play hard. Breathable, water resistant Supplex makes these quick drying clothes easy to pack and an absolute pleasure on the race course! Sizes: 26"-44"; 4- 14 in women's ; shorts come in two leg lengths. Colors: Aloha Silver, navy, khaki, red, black and khaki/navy combo. Now at APS, Layline and http://www.sailingangles.com NEWS BRIEFS * Ten US teams arrived on Hayling Island, England to compete in the International 420 Open Worlds, the Women's Worlds, and possibly the Worlds Team Racing. Seven men's/mixed teams and three women's teams are assembling and tuning their new charter boats. Qualification races for gold and silver fleet begin Saturday July 19. The Open Worlds begins July 22 with four days of racing scheduled. Zachary Leonard is leading the coaching effort. Larry Law and Jill Roberts are providing team support. www.420worlds.com * Novis Composites, Ltd., a newly formed manufacturer of carbon-fiber spars and components for the sailing market, has opened a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Conneaut, Ohio. Headed by veteran spar-builder David Hulse, the facility will house a 120-foot autoclave for pressure cure of over 100psi; custom CNC-controlled, automated fiber deployment equipment; a full machine shop with an automated machining center for all custom and production requirements; and all-female tooling with integrated luff groove. Novis Composites, Ltd. has purchased the assets of the former Hi-Tech Composites of North Carolina and will continue to provide component support for Hi-Tech and Sparcraft products. * Falmouth YC, Falmouth, Mass - Sixteen teams competed in a total of 232 races .the US Team Racing Associtation (USTRA) Mid-Summa's this past weekend. On Saturday a 16 team round robin was completed in 15-20 knot southwester. On Sunday the fleet was split into Gold and Silver and a double round robin was sailed in a 10 knot southwester. Gold Fleet Final Results: 1. Silver Panda, 27-2, (Pat Hogan, Carlos Lenz, Pete Levesque, John Cline, Colin Merrick, Amanda Callahan); 2. NYYC, 23-6, (Josh Adams, Brandon Prior, Mike Zani, Rich Feeney, Carl Ziegler, Chris Meussler); 3. Longfellows, 20-9 (Key, Bell, Baker, Dimmock, Doyle, Bonney) - www.ustra.org * Correction: The correct URL for Sails-Online.com is: http://www.sails-online.com/ SPECTATOR SPORT The second race of the Wells Fargo Challenge Series for International America's Cup Class (IACC) yachts will take place July 25-27 on San Francisco Bay. Six boats will race on a spectator-friendly racecourse for the Il Moro Trophy in an event hosted by the Sausalito Yacht Club: 1. ITA 1 Team Paul & Shark - Tom Thayer and Dick Watts 2. USA-11 Team Wells Fargo - John Sweeney and Tina Kleinjan 3. NZL 14 Team Archipel Wines - Mary Coleman 4. NZL 20 New Zealand - Karie and David Thomson 5. USA 61 ex-America One - Peter Stoneberg 6. USA 76 - ORACLE BMW Racing - Larry Ellison Event website: www.challenge-series.com CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS * August 30-31: Martin 242 North Americans, Royal Vancouver YC, Vancouver, British Columbia. - http://www.royalvan.com/ * July 18-20: Class A Scow ILYA Invitational Championship Regatta, Minnetonka YC, Minneapolis, Minn. - tbrowne@jgic.com VICTORY … AGAIN Pegasus 77, winner of Transpac 2003 (and 2001), is for sale. Launched in 2001, she has proven again to be the ultimate Turbo Sled. Designed by Reichel-Pugh, she remains the very best in every aspect and is immediately available for purchase. Additional details and photographs at http://www.pegasus.com/pegasus77 NEW FORMAT There have been subtle but significant changes in the format for the Musto Scuttlebutt Sailing Club Championship Regatta at the Bitter End Yacht Club. The small boat qualifications begins on Sunday, November 2 in Lasers (up to 12 skippers), and Hobies Waves (up to 6 skippers). On Sunday afternoon there will also be qualifications in Hunter 216s (up to 8 skippers/crews). Because the spots are limited, those wanting to race in the SSC Championship are advised to register when they check into the resort. Top placers in the preliminaries move on to Thursday's Finals, sailed in the Bitter End's new fleet of Hunter 216 Sportboats. On Monday, November 3, there is the Scuttlebutt Sailing Club Offshore Championships, as part of the Annual Defiance Day Race from the North Sound up to The Baths. Both of these SSC events are woven into the schedule of the BEYC's annual Pro-Am regatta where the guests of the resort get a chance to sail with Ed Baird, Paul Cayard, Russell Coutts, Dawn Riley, Lowell North, Keith Musto, Roy E Disney or even with the curmudgeon. To secure a spot in this year's event, call 800-872-2392. Special rates apply for SSC members (that's you), and further discounts for Team bookings of three rooms or more. - http://beyc.com/todo_act_regatta_proam.asp LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com) (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. This is not a chat room or a bulletin board - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.) * Chuck Riley: Kimball Livingston really missed the point of San Francisco Bay IACC Challenge Series. Those who participated, spectated and at least one sponsor I had dinner with, were absolutely thrilled with the event. On Sunday, the final day of the Sausalito Cup, the town of Sausalito saw perhaps more visitors than any day in history. Hats off to John Sweeney. * From Bob Afflerbach: I've been very interested in the discussion on rating class boats for racing and I'm reminded back when I was one of a group of Comet sailors at Island Heights YC in New Jersey quite a while ago, before Sputnick, and we wondered the same thing. But instead of offering to measure our boat, we decided to measure our boats, sails and skippers independently. So we set up a round of races where we rotated boats, sails and skippers each race and kept records accordingly. When all the data came in, we knew what the difference was … and it was not the boats. I suggest that more of that attitude take place today and not stick it to the boats and the sails, at least in the class boat sailing. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION God must love stupid people; he made so many. |
