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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 943 - November 13, 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, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere.
VOLVO OCEAN RACE Team News Corp navigator Ross Field, who has competed in three Whitbread races, winning two, described the conditions as, "my worst first night at sea for a long time. Big seas, on the wind, bashing and crashing into a 38-knot southeasterly, crew sea sick, no one eating, inside of the boat a shambles. Horrible.... ". While a few crews will enter the Southern Ocean bruised and battered after their opening night experience, the yacht illbruck momentarily looked to be the first casualty of the leg as the crew discovered hundreds of litres of water had poured into the forward section of the hull, causing the bow to submarine. Skipper John Kostecki' s apprehension was all too apparent in the email he sent back from the German boat early this morning. "The fleet was all in sight as we all were heading south past the Cape of Good Hope. We were changing to our smaller heavy air jib as the wind built to 30-35 knots. "Then, all of sudden, we noticed that boat was not going very well and felt sluggish. The bow seemed to be lower than normal and started taking waves more frequently. Rosco [Ross Halcrow] went to check the bow hatch, to see if we had a water problem. He came back on deck with a fright. He could not open the hatch because of amount of water in the forward tank ahead of the watertight bulkhead. "The boat got slower and slower and then we could not keep her going anymore. We went into irons as we were trying to figure out why the bow was sinking so fast. We eventually found out an inspection port on the bow just behind the headstay came off somehow. The entire forward tank was full of water and we had to stop racing." "We dropped the jib, moved all of our gear below and above deck as far aft as possible to stop the bow from sinking further. After trying several different modes of sailing we eventually found that backing down was the best to keep the bow area out of the waves. We started the emergency pump and start getting the water out and bailed with buckets from on deck. It took nearly two hours to control the situation before we could start racing again. This all took place at night in 30-35 knots as our competitors sailed away." -- volvooceanrace.org
Positions at 1600 GMT November 12:
ISAF ANNUAL CONFERENCE The one single issue that will probably have the biggest impact on grass roots sailors world wide in the long term revolves around the so-called ORC. At last November's ISAF meetings the ORC became the Offshore Racing Committee, in effect a wholly owned subsidiary of the ISAF and as such directly answerable to the ISAF Executive and General Assembly. The problem is that some people, ISAF President Paul Henderson amongst them, don't like the answers they are getting. To the surprise of no one, the ORC has remained exactly what it has always been, a single focus user group administering the IMS Rule. The ISAF executive are now proposing that the existing ORC should in become in name what it has always been ... the IMS class association. A new and more representative ORC will then be established to represent the combined interests of all offshore sailors. The existing ORC has also offered its vision of the future. And the picture is not a pretty one. Their submission is complex, but careful reading reveals a thinly disguised plot to ensure the perpetual supremacy of the IMS rule. The ORC submission also sets out to limit who could administer handicap rules and where in the world they could do it. Josef Stalin would have been proud of some of their wackier proposals. Equally highly billed and even more over-hyped is the ultimately simple decision on a crew-weight limit for the women in the Yngling class at the Olympics ... Pressure to procrastinate and 'seek more information' must be resisted at all costs. To put off a decision would make life very difficult for anyone (and there are more than a few) who is trying to get a full-on campaign up and running. As a potential skipper do you set off now to recruit looking some large ladies in the hope there will be no limit or sail with a sensible sized crew and hope reason will prevail? Complete article at www.madforsailing.com
COLD WEATHER SAILING
TRANSAT JACQUES VABRE Despite the unpredictable conditions, Groupama has not fallen into any major wind holes, but with a diminishing lead of now 13 miles over second placed Fujifilm, will their winning streak continue? These top two multihulls are on the favourable inside track, and theoretically well positioned in relation to the direct route to their East, which the fleet must follow to reach the Ascension islands 900m further south. Belgacom's Westerly position presupposes that they will be first to find the exit, but will it be enough of a head start for them in relation to the extra mileage they have to run? One must not forget the upwind conditions they will face on the other side. The monohull fleet has reached the more regular Trade winds as it approaches Cape Verde, but strategically now is the time to push hard on the boat speed, until they hit the Doldrums, which they should pass between 25 - 30 degrees West.
Multihull Positions at 1500hrs GMT
Open 60 Monohull Positions at 1245hrs GMT
Open 50 Monohull Positions at 1245hrs GMT Event site: www.jacques-vabre.com
THANKS DAVE LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net -- Guest Editor's note: Tom Leweck will be back at the helm tomorrow until Key West Race Week, thanks to all the 'buttheads who sent me news leads, unprintable jokes and insider letters -- David McCreary) 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. * From David Brayshaw: We are ready to resume routing/tactical analysis of the Volvo Race, and have posted our user "navigation" contest entry form for the leg at www.goflow.com/uroute.htm. Top "navigators" are posted on the site and the top 3 per leg get complimentary copies of our routing softare. The web address for our Volvo coverage is: www.goflow.com/volvoday.htm. * From John Standley: In Western Australia the mediation process has been taken one step further. The mediator is now allowed to take part in any hearing arising out of mediation. This at least helps to keep the game honest and any competitor who changes their story between mediation and the hearing could become subject to a rule 2 hearing or in extreme cases rule 69 could come into play. We have found mediation to be very successful at Club level as the sailors like the quick and immediate nature of the system and use it as a learning process. It does not work as well however between experienced sailors who know the rules. They areÊless unlikely to want to listen to the mediator and a hearing is usually the result. One important downside of the system is that there are now very few protest hearings. Finding suitable people to sit on protest panels is getting harder and the rules knowledge of those willing to sit is diminishing. * From Bill Dutcher: In reply to Gareth Evans's statement: "The Formula Windsurfing race fleet reckon they can plane in as little as 6 knots of wind" -- If you pump like heck in marginal conditions, to get them on a plane. [The new boards] represent Good News for those who wish to plane earlier. But they cannot be planed through, and out of, a jibe if the wind is below ~10kts. And their relatively high straight-line speed versus their relatively slow tacking speed will make tactics very secondary, just like with catamarans. Just blaze over near a layline and tack once. It's clear that you were never a windsurfing dealer, as I was. Unfortunately, the windsurfing industry (Mags & Mfgrs) chose to extol & deify the wonders of planing, when boards did need ~15kts to plane. NOW products are very much better (although twice as expensive), but most of the dealers and customers have fled. I do believe that windsurfing belongs in the Olympics even more than sailing does. It requires much more athletic ability, even more so when unlimited pumping is allowed. I just fear that if longboards (IMCO) are ditched in favor of planing boards, that a couple of poor-wind years (a likelihood in China, from what I hear) might give the ISAF President a good excuse to dump windsurfing from the Olympic agenda.
INTERVIEW WITH LARRY ELLISON LDM: Who will be driving during the Cup? LE: You'll see a few people driving. You' ll see Peter Holmberg and Chris Dickson driving the boat. You' ll even see me driving. LDM: Describe the difference between Holmberg and Dickson. LE: Peter is very focused on driving. When he's driving, he listens carefully to his tactician. Chris is also a fabulous driver, but Chris sometimes tries to be tactician and driver. He tries to do all of those things at once. If there's anyone in the world capable of doing everything at once it's probably Chris. Peter is much more specialized. He is probably the best match-race driver in the world today. He's very focused, very specialized, and very relaxed. It's amazing how focused he is and how under control he always is. LDM: How did you react when Sean Reeves, an ex-employee from One World, offered you design secrets? LE: They came to us, and I think they came to one other team, with "the secrets" about this other boat. We don' t want anyone' s secrets, so we immediately called Craig [McCaw] and the team in Seattle and said someone has approached with that information. We had a very interesting problem - whether it was appropriate for us to identify the person that approached us - but we immediately told them that we'd been approached, that we wouldn't accept the information, and that they should look very closely at the people they recently let go because someone is out there peddling their design to the other competitors. We wanted no part of it.
VAN DEN HEEDE AROUND CAPE HORN Official site: www.vdh.fr -- the English version link isn't all that apparent: www.vdh.fr/gb/
QUOTES FROM BOATS: VOLVO OCEAN RACE * From Richard Mason, ASSA ABLOY: Neal [McDonald] is settling well into his new role as skipper. He certainly took on the first 24 hours of this leg with a lot of character as we have battled our way back into third position. Neal quotes that "we have had a few ups and downs, we are on an up at the moment so let' s keep it that way". The crew seems very happy with that. From the crew on ASSA ABLOY, we would also like to thank our shore crew for a fantastic job done in Cape Town. The boat held together extremely well through her first battle last night. * From Knut Frostad, djuice dragons: To start a leg upwind is always pretty tough. It takes a bit longer to get used to the daily rhythm, as sleeping, eating and getting dressed is quite a bit more difficult compared to downwind. Yesterday' s cod stew for dinner ended up in the bilge by accident and very few of us had a taste of it at all. * From John Kostecki, illbruck: We have had a few injuries because the boat is constantly pounding off of waves and being in the bow area [for repairs] is no easy thing in these conditions. Waffler [Stu Bettany] got tossed and hit his forehead on the underside of the deck...he now has a few stitches in his forehead. Jamie Hurt [Gale] hurt his back as he got flung to leeward on a bad wave. Everyone else is fine, just a little tried and beaten up from the ocean. We are now back racing around 20 miles behind the leaders. We are very lucky to come out of last night with only losing 20 miles. Hopefully we can stay in touch and get back into the race. * From Ross Field, News Corp: What a start... it would have to be my worst first night at sea for a long time. Big seas, on the wind, bashing and crashing into a 38-knot southeasterly, crew seasick, no one eating, inside of the boat a shambles. Horrible....
THE CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT |
