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SCUTTLEBUTT 2885 - Tuesday, July 14, 2009Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors,providing a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Twitter updates: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Today's sponsors are Morris Yachts, Camet, and LaserPerformance. STATUTE MILES VERSUS NAUTICAL MILES What is going on at the Great Lakes? This weekend on Lake Michigan, 350 boats will start the 101st Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, the 333 statute mile event that calls itself the "The world's longest annual freshwater distance race." However, also this weekend, over to the east there will be 170 boats starting the 20th running of the Lake Ontario 300 (nautical mile), which similarly labels itself as "the longest annually held fresh water sailing race in the world." To their credit, both races are sold out, but is now a good time to mention how 1 statute mile equals .86897624 nautical miles? The scoop on the Lake Ontario 300 is that they have sponsorship from Bell BlackBerry, and have grown by more than 40% over last year, attracting competitors from over thirty different yacht clubs from both sides of the border. The course is a circumnavigation of the lake that starts at Port Credit Yacht Club (Mississauga, ONT), heads east and rounds Main Duck Island, then heads south to Oswego NY where it turns east along the south shore to the Niagara River mark before heading to the finish line at Port Credit Yacht Club. Regarding what race this year is the actual longest, freshwater race (though not annually held), the gauntlet has been thrown down with the return of the "Super Mac". Last run in 2000, this 564 statute mile race (or 490 nautical miles) starts with the Chi-Mac but rather than stopping at the top of Michigan after their finish, the 31 current entrants will continue on around the corner and head south in Lake Huron to the finish in Port Huron, Michigan, and serve as a feeder race for the 85th sailing of the 2009 Pure Michigan Bayview Mackinac Race, which will start on July 25, 2009. -- Scuttleblog, http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/blog/2009/07/mileage-counter.html Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac: http://www.cycracetomackinac.com Lake Ontario 300: http://www.lo300.org Pure Michigan Bayview Mackinac Race: http://www.byc.com/mack Mileage convertor: http://boatsafe.com/tools/scale.htm FUTURE OF THE VOLVO OCEAN RACE Knut Frostad, the Volvo Ocean Race CEO, reflects on the challenges and achievements of the ground-breaking 2008-09 race and provides an update of the outline plans for the next event: * What is the provisional entry list looking like? KNUT FROSTAD: "From a competitive sense we have close to 50 teams at various levels that are interested. There are a lot of names that I always wanted to see in this race that are now interested in getting on the start line. That includes competitors and sponsors and particularly the French. There is a real hope that we will have a French team in the race. "Among the present fleet, the majority is looking to participate again with the same sponsors. I can't recall that happening before. We had Ericsson returning from last time and you could argue that Telefonica is the same company coming back from 2005-06. Now we also have PUMA and Delta Lloyd working on getting on the start line. That is very positive. The race is a really a great opportunity right now." -- Full interview: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/article/2009/July/KNUT-QANDA1/index.aspx DON'T FORGET! MORRIS BOAT SHOW THIS WEEKEND! Morris Yachts invites you to the fifth annual Morris Boat Show at their Northeast Harbor yard, July 17-19. This is a once a year opportunity to board the largest variety of Morris yachts. The show will feature the full line up of M-Series yachts: the new flagship M52 and new M29, the M36 and M42 plus Morris 28s, Justine 36s, Morris 38s, a Hinckley 43, Alden 45 and more. Morris Service reps and Leisure Furl, Forespar, Atlantis Marine, and Navico reps will be on hand. For more information please call 207-244-5344 or check the website: http://www.morrisyachts.com/Morris-Yachts-Boat-Show TRANSPACIFIC YACHT RACE * (July 13, 2009) - The record for double-handing the 2,225-mileTranspacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu has been broken. At 4:38:35 am HST today, Philippe Kahn and Mark "Crusty" Christensen, crossed the Diamond Head finish line in the Open 50, Pegasus 50, in a record time of 7 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes and 35 seconds. They shaved over two and a half days off of the previous record set by Howard Gordon and Jay Crum in 2001 sailing the Open 50, Etranger. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/m2mwcn * (July 12, 2009) - For the overall race leader Samba Pa Ti, their strategy from the beginning, according to skipper John Kilroy Jr. and his tactician, Stu Bannatyne, was "to make as few maneuvers as possible throughout the race." The big gain for the team is when they continued north to a layline for Hawaii and split with Akela. Samba found pressure and speed up north and worked the boat hard to hunt down Akela. Ultimately, Samba arrived in Hawaii nearly four hours ahead of Akela. The Samba Pa Ti team tried to chase down Tim Fuller and Erik Shampain, who were doublehanding the One-Design 35, Relentless, to the finish line. Relentless finished at 18:16:50 and Samba Pa Ti crossed the line at 18:17:11 HST on Sunday. This is the closest finish in Transpac history. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/mpnbvy * (July 13, 2009) - Tom Akin had a lot to say about sailing Flash, a TP 52, to Hawaii. His initial comments were, "I found out what it's like to be in a TP52 for seven days. You sit in water, you eat in water, and you sleep in water. It's wet. The beast is not as luxurious as my Santa Cruz 52. I was looking for a creature comfort and couldn't find one." Akin, his crew and Jeff Thorpe, Criminal Mischief's navigator, worked non-stop over a very short period of time to get Flash into racing condition. From the time the boat arrived in Long Beach, two weeks before the start, until the evening before they took off, the deck was strewn with rigging materials, sealants and tools. The work that they did paid off. With more than half of the Transpac fleet safely docked in Honolulu, Flash sits second in class and second in fleet. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/noaftc * At the 0600 roll call on July 13, 2009, 13 boats had finished and two had retired from the 47-boat fleet. -- Standings: http://tinyurl.com/ntbe8s QUOTE / UNQUOTE "2000 miles of downwind sleigh riding. That is what the Transpac is. It is like skiing for 8 days and never needing a chair lift." -- Paul Cayard, sailing of the TP52 Flash, http://www.cayardsailing.com RAILEY LEADS EUROPEAN LASER RADIAL CHAMPIONSHIP (July 13, 2009; Day 3) - Just when you thought it was safe to go racing, the conditions for the 96-boat European Laser Radial Championship in Denmark, got even more difficult. With the wind shifting wildly off the Charlottenlund shore, varying in angle by up to 30 degrees and gusting and lulling almost at random, today was a day for keeping your head while all around you your rivals were losing theirs. Sarah Steyaert relinquished her overall lead in the regatta, after the reigning World Champion from France scored 21-9 from today's heats. American Paige Railey has now deposed Steyaert from the top of the leaderboard, but only by a single point. Railey, who is the only competitor to score all top ten races, said "I'm not going for glory, I'm not trying to win races, just stay in the hunt. It could be easy to give up out there. But if you keep fighting to the end you make huge gains, if you give up you make huge losses." -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=7807#7807 VOLVO YOUTH SAILING ISAF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP (July 13, 2009) - Seven nations continue to occupy the seven top spots after a testing second day of racing at the 2009 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship in Buzios, Brazil. After a frustrating day spent ashore as heavy winds forced the cancellation of all races on Sunday, the 280 plus sailors from 60 nations returned to the Bay of Buzios today to complete two races in the very tricky light wind conditions. Now with the lay day scheduled for Tuesday, only two crews managed to hold on to their overall lead. Top countries Great Britain, Singapore, New Zealand and France all still hold one top spot, joined now by Israel, Italy, and the host nation Brazil. Leading the charge from North America are fourth place Morgan Kiss/ Laura McKenna (USA) in the 420 Girls, fourth place Jeronimo Cervantes (MEX) in the Laser Radial Boys, and sixth place Isabella Bertold (CAN) in the Laser Radial Girls. -- Race website: http://www.isafyouthworlds.com/editions/2009/index.php THE BEST ON THE MARKET TODAY! 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However, the trickle down from the America's Cup has heightened the cost to compete with these "extra services". Perhaps the wake-up call has finally come to the TP52 AUDI MedCup series, which has dropped an entrant due to funding issues, and will likely be down to 10 teams for their next event in Cagliari, Italy, the third stop on their five event tour. According to VS, the MedCup made it clear last week that they would even modify the sailing instruction of the next events in other to put a lid on practices that increase costs and widen the gap between the haves and have-nots of the Med sailing circuit. An e-mail has been circulated to the teams effectively asking them to please behave, and realize how these extra services just becomes an extra cost for everyone. Anybody know how to put the genie back in the bottle? -- Scuttleblog, http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/blog/2009/07/costs-of-coaching.html * Here is the link Valencia Sailing story: http://tinyurl.com/VS-7-13-09 FROM THE VOR SKIFF TO THE 18-FOOT SKIFF Most of us would probably want a little time away from the water and boats after finishing the Volvo Ocean Race. Apparently this was not the case for PUMA watch leader Rob Greenhalgh, who had barely enough time to get dry at the finish in Russia before he headed off to France to win a major 18-foot Skiff Championship. Here Rob discusses his love for the Skiffs, the lessons from his second Volvo Ocean Race, and discover what lay ahead for him now: * Rob, had you not done enough sailing after finishing the Volvo Ocean Race? ROB GREENHALGH: "Well I had always planned to do the Skiff Worlds even before I signed up with Puma for the Volvo. The new boat had been sitting around for almost two years and I had used it only twice. We looked at the schedule for both events and the Volvo finished on the Saturday in Russia with the first race at the Skiff Worlds the next day in Brittany. So it was all pretty tight to be honest. I had been so excited about doing the event that for the last few months of the Volvo I had been flying home during the stopovers to get the boat ready. We had actually done quite a lot of development in preparation for the event." -- Offshore Rules, read on: http://www.offshorerules.com/articles/showArticle.aspx?id=295 => Curmudgeon's Comment: In this interview, the Skiff regatta is incorrectly referred to as the 'Skiff Worlds'. It was, in fact, a new event for the class (Mark Foy Trophy), but one that is intended to become one of its elite titles. As a means to prevent any event from calling itself a "World Championship", the WC label is limited to only those events that have fulfilled the obligations in Rule 18 of the ISAF Regulations: http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/2009ISAFRegsUpdatedMay-[7303].pdf MARITAL TACTICS (Whidbey Island, WA) - Stephenie Schwenk and her husband, Andy, have raced against each other in sailboats for years, all in good fun. Sometimes they'd make bets. If she won, he'd have to cook. If he beat her, she'd wear her lingerie. But they often raced together during Whidbey Island Race Week, and five days in the same boat got to be a bit much. "We just yapped at each other," Schwenk said. "If the two of us have a whole week of racing together, we might get on each other's nerves." So last year, the couple decided that Schwenk would take their Moore 24, Lowly Worm, out with her own crew while her husband raced on a friend's boat. When Schwenk's girlfriends heard she'd be skippering during Race Week, they clamored to come along, and Schwenk soon had one of the event's only all-female crews. -- Three Sheets Northwest, read on: http://tinyurl.com/TSN-7-13-09 LASERPERFORMANCE RECOGNIZES TOP DEALERS In recognition of performance and dedication to the Brand, LaserPerformance has awarded a small group of dealers "Platinum" status. These dealers offer a full line of LaserPerformance products and top-notch customer service. To find the Platinum dealer closest to you, check out the dealer locator at http://www.laserperformance.com - the Platinum dealers are the ones with the Platinum stars! SAILING SHORTS * The 2009 Vanguard 15 National Championship was hosted by Sayville Yacht Club, where 47 teams completed 12 races on July 11-12. Winning the title was Colin Merrick and Amanda Callahan, with Matt Allen/ Erin Collins in second and Danny Pletsch/Julia Southworth in third. -- Complete scores: http://www.v15.org/schedule09/V15Nationals2009.pdf * The Buffalo Canoe Club in Ontario, Canada hosted on July 11-12 the 2009 Lightning Canadian Open Championship, which were won by Ched Proctor, Jay Mueller, and Jim Barnash (Southport, CT). Mother Nature cooperated with two days of 10-20 kts and sunny skies, allowing for a total of six races to be sailed. David Starck, Jody Starck, and Ian Jones (Buffalo, NY) were second followed by Marcus Eagan, Marc Eagan, and Kippy Champerlin (New Orleans, LA). -- Complete results: http://www.lightningclass.org/racing/results/2009/canadianopen/coresults.asp * (Boston, MA) - As the tall ships prepared to pull up anchor and sail out of Boston on Monday, city officials and many waterfront businesses were calling Sail Boston 2009 an economic success. NewsCenter 5's Cheryl Fiandaca reported that about 1.8 million people traveled to Boston harbor this year to see the sailing vessels, despite estimates that crowds would be less than half that size. The ships couldn't have arrived sooner for area business owners, who said the event has boosted sales and brought new visitors to the waterfront. -- WCVB, read on: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/20033142/detail.html# * Marc Thiercelin at the helm of Open 60' DCNS 1000, on July 11th set a new singlehanded, IMOCA class 60-foot monohull record of 01:09:13:30 (subject to ratification) for the 458 mile Mediterranean crossing (Marseilles, France to Carthage, Tunisia). Thiercelin's crossing was at an average speed of 13.78 knots and over 12 hours faster than the previous record of 01:21:20:29 set by Kito de Pavant on Groupe Bel on June 4, 2009. Franck Cammas set a new crewed multihull record aboard his 105-foot maxi trimaran Groupama 3 on May 16, 2009 of 17:08:23. CATAMARANS VERSUS TRIMARANS Multihull designer Nigel Irens, who was responsible for the design of several record breaking trimarans such as Ellen MacArthur's B&Q-Castorama, Thomas Colville's Sodeb'O and Francis Joyon's solo Round the World record holder IDEC, comments on the multihull features of the America's Cup Deed of Gift entrants: Said Nigel Irens, "Essentially both boats take the loads on a central structure. On the Oracle boat that structure is a hull that floats in the water when the vessel is at rest; Alinghi has chosen not to put the envelope of a hull around that structure, so clearly it mustn't be allowed to touch the water, because that wouldn't do a lot for the speed, because of the drag from the tips of the struts that come down. So that's why the longitudinal vessel structure has to be held quite high in the air and the mast step, which is on it, is quite a bit higher than on the Oracle boat." -- BYM News, read on: http://www.bymnews.com/americas-cup-33/nigel-irens.php LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Please submit your comments to the Scuttlebutt editor (aka, 'The Curmudgeon'). Published letters must include writer's name and be no longer than 250 words (letter might be edited for clarity or simplicity). One letter per subject, and save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. As an alternative, a more open environment for discussion is available on the Scuttlebutt Forum. -- To submit a Letter: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com -- To post on the Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Jim Hayes: I am a long time resident of Annapolis as well as a sailor and I too have often questioned the self proclaimed moniker of "America's Sailing Capitol" having spent some time in Newport and other towns that are a bee hive of sailing activity in the summer months. Recently I raised this issue with a well regarded sailboat broker and a well known sailmaker, and it was explained to me that as Annapolis is the capital of Maryland and it has more sailing activity than any other state capital, it can rightly stake its claim as "America's Sailing Capitol". The sailmaker, who has sailed in regattas around the country as well as the world, pointed out that although Newport has a great deal of activity during the summer sailing season, there is little going on the rest of the year while Annapolis has a very active weekly winter frostbite series and hosts major regattas in the spring and fall. * From Chris Ericksen: I loved the piece on great places to sail ('Butt 2884). It reminded me of my first sail out of the Chicago Yacht Club on Lake Michigan. As a sailor born and raised in the salt water of Southern California, I expected to have to wash the boat off before sailing and again when we got back, so hopping off the shoreboat onto a perfectly clean deck and slipping the mooring lines practically before the engine had warmed up was a revelation only made better by not having to clean my glasses when we got back--they were wet but not caked with salt--or hose the boat down. And watching the sun set behind the skyline of the city as we reached back into the harbor was magical, something we on the West Coast never see. A wonderful place, indeed. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION "If the shoe fits, it's expensive," - Danny Greene, father of an 11 yr old boy Special thanks to Morris Yachts, Camet, and LaserPerformance. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
