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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 819 - May 21, 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.
RACING RULES OF SAILING US Sailing's leaders noted that over the past few years several events had begun to charge competitors fees for lodging protests and requests for redress. They believed this to be an unhealthy development for our sport - hence the new prohibition of such fees. One of the unique features of sailboat racing is that, unlike baseball, basketball, football and a host of other sports, sailing is generally conducted without umpires or referees. Instead, sailing relies on a basic principle, "Sportsmanship and the Rules," that appears prominently, right in the front of our rulebook. It states that competitors in the sport of sailing are expected to follow the rules and enforce them. Clearly, when fees are charged for protests we discourage the enforcement of our rules, an activity that is critical if our basic principle of sportsmanship is to be a success. - Dick Rose, Chair, US Sailing Racing Rules Committee
WORRELL 1000 - Zack Leonard The fleet beat upwind to the finish today with the windward hulls just out of the water while the crews sat on the windward hull. Brian Lambert and Jamie Livingston of Alexander's on the Bay put the finishing touches on a dominating performance, winning the leg by one minute and 37 seconds over Team Guidant, sailed by Rod Waterhouse and Katie Pettibone. Today's leg was another shifty affair. The day started with a westerly wind blowing off the beach at 12 knots. The boats reached along the beach in flat water for nearly half of the 60 mile leg, but around the Virginia border the wind shifted north and then the fog came in. Later the North wind strengthened to 20 knots. For several miles the fleet went upwind towards the finish in the fresh breeze, but it slowly tapered until the sailors were unable to trapeze near the finish. "It was definitely a day where it didn't pay to be the leader early," noted Katie Pettibone of team Guidant, "we were well ahead, but then the fleet caught up when the wind shifted and the fog came in." In 3rd place at the finish of today's leg was Tommy Bahama, sailed by Nigel Pitt and Alex Shafer. Pitt and Shafer improved dramatically during the race. The duo are catamaran veterans and the new boat took them a little while to sort out, but they will be back next year. "Our sponsor really loved the race," said a tired but jubilant Shafer. Rounding out the top ten were Sail for Sight, sailed by Carl Roberts and David Lennard, in 4th, Castrol in 5th, Team Tybee in 6th, Earnyourpotential.com in 7th, Dinghy Shop in 8th, Lexis Nexis in 9th and Team Outer Banks in 10th. Lambert and Livingston mounted a professional effort that drew on 5 years of groundwork that Beatle Bailey has been laying with Team Alexander's. "The nucleus of the team and the shore crew have been together for 5 years and Jamie and Brian have been with us for 4 years," explained Bailey. When asked how many years of work went into this effort Lambert replied, "my whole sailing career." The final margin of victory was 3 hours, 8 minutes and 18 seconds. Guidant took a 1/2 hour penalty earlier in the race for a crew substitution and lost critical time with a major rudder breakdown that forced them to the beach between Jensen Beach and Cocoa Beach. But Alexander's would have won comfortably even if Guidant were given all that time back. Rod Waterhouse sailed with 3 different crews in this race, but he sailed the majority of the legs with professional sailor Katie Pettibone. It was Pettibone's first try at the Worrell 1000 and she ranked it as challenging as the Volvo Ocean race. Asked how to prepare best for the race she replied, "Train Hard." Waterhouse was effusive in his praise of Pettibone, but he missed his partner Brett Dryland who was unable to sail this year due to business commitments. "I really missed [Brett], but we had a good time sailing together," said the modest Waterhouse. He and Dryland have won this race twice previously. To finish the Worrell 1000 is no easy feat. This year the fleet eroded slowly. Four sailors sustained major, race-ending injuries in the strong winds and huge surf of the first 4 legs. At the finish of the first leg, Sandra Tartaglino of team Guidant shattered her leg in 2 places when the boat stopped abruptly on the sand at the finish of the leg. Tom Weaver of Pyacht broke his ankle minutes later as his boat crashed down on top of him in the surf. Glenn Ross and Richard Pleasants of team Bay Wind suffered bruised ribs and a demolished boat in the surf at Cocoa Beach. Kirk Newkirk and Glenn Holmes of Key Sailing and Brad Cavanaugh and Suzette Cruz of Red Hook dropped out in the infuriatingly light winds off Cape Hatteras, just one leg from the finish. Racing a small catamaran in survival conditions on the open ocean and suffering 16 hours of exposure in drifting conditions can test a sailor, physically and mentally. Event website: www.worrell1000.com
A DIFFERENT ASPECT ON SAILCLOTH?
WAAS Up? - by Don Casey The sailing press is abuzz with a new acronym-WAAS. It stands for Wide Area Augmentation System. If WAAS isn't already familiar to you, it soon will be. Before this year ends, it's not likely that you'll see much advertising for GPS units that doesn't also proclaim WAAS. What is WAAS? It is a bit of high-tech wizardry that improves GPS accuracy to around five feet. In principle it is not unlike DGPS (Differential GPS) in that the position based on GPS satellite transmissions is compared to a known position. However, DGPS simply calculates the amount and direction of the error at that location at that moment and notifies all "local" DGPS receivers. The DGPS system uses pre-existing radio beacon towers-the old RDF system-as the reference locations, and transmits a correction factor from each tower. DGPS receivers within range assume that applying the same correction will better reflect the actual position of the receiver and they shift their read-out positions accordingly. WAAS is much more sophisticated. It doesn't just measure the position error and send it out as a kind of electronic "local knowledge." It actually identifies various causes of GPS inaccuracy and broadcasts a stream of data that lets the software in a WAAS-capable GPS receiver calculate an extremely accurate local position. WAAS transmits this data from an array of geostationary satellites (not the GPS satellites). This allows virtually worldwide coverage (when fully operational)-in contrast with the near-coast coverage of DGPS. - Don Casey, SailNet website Full story: www.sailnet.com
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * Butch Ulmer, USNA '61: From For the benefit of Mr. Charles J. Doane and the rest of your readers, the U. S. Naval Academy doesn't have any cadets. The student body is made up of "Midshipmen". Hornblower readers will recognize the term "Midshipman" as an officer in training. * From Em Black: I wonder how many of the "Traditionalists" who insist on carrying a sextant for that day when all things electronic will fail also rely on a battery powered chronometer and/or a radio time tick for determining the celestial fix? As one who has "sun-lined his way across the ocean", my hat is off the anyone who, in today's GPS world, religiously winds the old chronometer in its spring balanced box and keeps an accurate log of the seconds gained or lost. * Stan Honey: I think it makes sense for the Transpac and other trans-oceanic races to require that competitors be able to use celestial navigation. I understand GPS very well, and have lead the technology development of GPS-based vehicle navigation systems, and the current GPS-derived positioning system introduced in NASCAR races this year. In my view, the risk is not that all of the GPS receivers on a vessel will fail, but instead that the GPS constellation itself will be disabled. While that is a low probability, there HAVE been GPS outages. The Air Force has the capability to suspend service for perceived national security reasons, and has the ability to make mistakes and screw it up. I bring my sextant and tables on trans-oceanic races, and generally take a fix or two at some point during each race. My fellow navigators and I (including the Curmudgeon himself) used celestial alone for Transpacs, Mexico, and Bermuda races prior to 1983. Imagine that the GPS constellation was disabled for some reason during a Transpac and much of the fleet needed help finding Oahu. Our sport would be the laughing stock of the country. Heck, celestial is easy to learn and besides, nothing is wrong with tradition. CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT: What better way to end this thread than with these comments from navigator-supreme, Stan Honey? This thread is now officially dead.
AMERICA'S CUP In March 2000 the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron appointed the Italian Yacht Club Punta Ala the task of selecting the best challenger for the America's Cup (Challenger of record). Accordingly, three of the board members represent this club that was first to launch a challenge, and the Prada America's Cup Challenge. They are Marco Piccinini (ITA) - Chairman, Pierpaolo Gardella (ITA) - General Secretary and Francesco Longanesi (ITA). The five other board members are Julia Harrison-Lee (GBR), representing the RORC and the GBR Challenge, Doug Smith (USA), representing the Golden Gate Yacht Club and the Oracle Racing syndicate, David Elwell (USA), representing the New York Yacht Club and Team Dennis Conner, Glenn Bourke (GER), representing the Dusseldorf Yacht Club and the Illbruck Challenge and Brad Butterworth (SUI), representing the SociŽtŽ Nautique de Geneve and the Alinghi Swiss Challenge for the America's Cup. Amongst the issues debated by the challengers at the recent meeting was the subject of the mandatory performance bonds to be paid by the syndicates between now and the next event. The idea behind the performance bond is to try to estimate a firm number of challengers participating in the Louis Vuitton Cup. It is a key element with regard to course management and media information. CORM and the challengers will be holding regular meetings between now and the start of the next America's Cup season. The next meeting will be held in June where important marketing issues relating to the Cup will be dealt with. CORM (Marco Piccinini) and Louis Vuitton officially signed the partnership agreement for the next Louis Vuitton Cup in Paris last week in front of all of the Challengers' representatives present. Website: www.louisvuittoncup.com
FOR THE RECORD To follow the action: www.sail-world.com
QUOTE / UNQUOTE - Garry Hoyt
RED, WHITE AND BLUE
LESSON LEARNED Rudiger learned a great sailing with Paul Cayard. "Paul used to lead by example. He would be up on the foredeck. He would grind. He would help put a reef in." Some of the other 'name' skippers in the race he says are not so willing to take part in such menial tasks. A lesson he learned from both Cayard and Chris Dickson, with whom he has sailed extensively on Larry Ellison's maxi Sayonara, is not to treat long races as a whole. "On the long legs you've got to break it down into little legs. You have to be the first boat to a certain point. It is a step-by-step process." For the first leg from Southampton this might be aiming to be the first boat out of the Solent, the first out of the Channel, the first past Finisterre, and so on. - James Boyd, Madforsailing website. Full interview: www.madforsailing.com
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS
MORE AMERICA'S CUP Peter Harrison has already shelled out over £7 million for the British America's Cup campaign -- Harrison, however, wants to see more British people and companies involved. "I need other people to support me. I don't want to do this on my own," he says. "I can do it on my own, but that's not the objective if we want to come back a second or third time and have a reasonable chance." A team of marketing experts is working on ways of developing sponsorship partnerships, a task held up because Harrison needed to know what he could offer, particularly in terms of television coverage of the racing which starts on the Hauraki Gulf in October, 2002. - Stuart Alexander Full story: sport.telegraph.co.uk
CAL CUP Sixteen Farr 40s sailed an eight-race series for the Cal Cup this year, and after two days of windward-leeward racing, Deneen and John Demoukas' Grovederci held a commanding 12-point lead over the fleet. To that point, tactician Dee Smith had been spot-on, building a 1-5-1-4-4-1 series in the regatta that had been sailed in the 7-10 knot wind range. There was a bit more breeze for the final two races on Sunday. Although Grovederci had an OCS in the seventh race, they were able to scramble back to an 11th place finish. That gave them a five-point edge going into the finale. However, a foul at the weather mark in that last race caused Grovederci to take a 20 percent penalty, which was all the help Crocodile Rock and its tactician Robbie Haines needed. FINAL RESULTS: 1. Crocodile Rock, Scott Harris & Geremia Alexandra (tactician Robbie Haines), 34, 2. Grovederci, Deneen and John Demoukas (Dee Smith), 37, 3. Quintessence, Don Hughes (Dave Ullman) 37, 4. Revolution, Brack Ducker (Terry Hutchinson) 5. Samba Pa Ti, John Kilroy (Brian Ledbedder) 57. Complete results: www.calyachtclub.com
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
