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SCUTTLEBUTT 3190 - Monday, October 4, 2010Scuttlebutt 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. Website: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sailingscuttlebutt RSS: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/rss/index.xml Today's sponsors: Doyle Sails and Summit Yachts OLYMPIC SAILING DESTINED FOR ANOTHER MAJOR JOLT The Olympic shakeup by the world governing body, the International Sailing Federation, looks set to continue at its Annual Conference in just over a month’s time in Athens (Greece, Nov. 4-14). In a raft of changes the Olympic Commission and all-powerful; Executive Committee have recommended the creation of a core group of Olympic events which can only be changed on ten years notice, subjecting many classes to evaluation trials, and sweeping changes to the new sailing World Cup to make it a more regionalised event. Only three of the current ten Olympic classes are reasonably assured of a place in the start line for Brazil in 2016. The breadth of the changes will make it virtually impossible for the classes and vested interest groups to be able to thwart any one measure, as has been done in the past when self-interest has been placed ahead of the good of the sport. That attitude has placed Yachting at risk of being dropped from the 2016 Olympics - where two of the existing Olympic sports are expected to be removed as happened for the 2012 Olympics to make way for the introduction of Rugby and Golf. Proposals from the ISAF's Olympic Commission centre around the process by which Olympic Events are selected and recommend the extension of the change period from four years to six. In other words the Events for 2016 will be chosen in 2010, and finalised in May 2011, rather than immediately following the next Olympiad in November 2012. Equipment, a cute International Olympic Committee term which translates into ISAF-speak as the classes to be sailed will still be chosen fours years ahead of the Olympics, as at present. The objectives of the submission is to subject the Events to satisfying ten criteria including providing pathways, reduced costs and progress towards having an equal number of Mens and Womens events – an objective which may also be achieved through the use Mixed (one male and one female sailor) events. The submission also proposes the creation of a super Event known as a Core Event which may only be changed on 10 years notice and with the two thirds vote in favour by the ISAF Council. There are to be a maximum of eight Core Events on the ten event Olympic calendar, meaning that at least two Events can be rotated on six years notice and the classes (Equipment) within all events on four years notice. -- Sail-World, read on: http://tinyurl.com/Sail-World-100310 IRONY: There is a contention that the International Sailing Federation is not a well structured and forward thinking operation, and that their removal of the multihull from the 2012 Olympics is an example of ISAF’s ignorance. And now with a multihull in the America’s Cup, the pressure will be on ISAF to make amends at the 2010 Annual Meeting. “That’s what she said,” observed Michael Scott, The Office ACUPDATES Here are some of the recent America’s Cup updates: DELAY: Following a period of consultation with potential teams for the 34th America’s Cup, the release date of the AC72 Class Rule has been delayed by two weeks from the previously announced schedule of Sept. 30. An initial draft was released to prospective teams on Sept. 16. Based on their input, a second draft will be issued on or before Oct. 6, allowing potential teams an additional comment period before its formal release on to Oct. 15. FUNDING: So how does San Francisco go about finding $270 million in sponsorships being promised as part of the proposed bid to host the next America's Cup? You ask the city's philanthropic and business elite to do the heavy lifting. Officials announced Thursday the establishment of an America's Cup Organizing Committee to help lure the premier sailing regatta, which is worth about $1.4 billion to the Bay Area. The membership list is a who's who of moneyed Bay Area interests as well as figures from the world of sailing, real estate and accounting. Read more: http://tinyurl.com/SFGate-100310 TOKEN ENEMY: And speaking of the America's Cup, just when San Francisco’s political factions were playing nice and putting up a unified front, Supervisor Chris Daly announced last Thursday he was opposed to the proposal "just on general principle -- G.P., they call it on the street." Daly contends the economic benefits are being exaggerated, there is the potential for real-estate speculation during the run-up and that ultimately the city's poor won't benefit. Read more: http://tinyurl.com/SFGate-100310a PUBLIC SUPPORT: The public is invited to attend a meeting in San Francisco’s City Hall on Monday, October 4 at 1 p.m. (Room 263) in which the plan for the City to host the event will be discussed. Anyone eager to see the America's Cup in America encouraged to attend to show their support and testify why the 34th America's Cup should be staged on San Francisco Bay. Details: http://www.sfbos.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=36942 RUMORS: St. Francis Yacht Club may not be the oldest club on San Francisco Bay, but it is the most prestigious. However, its neighbor to the east by about 1000 feet - Golden Gate Yacht Club - holds the America’s Cup. And now there are whispers that these two clubs may merge. BRITS OUT: A shortage of both cash and time have persuaded the head of Team Origin (GBR), Sir Keith Mills, to abandon plans to challenge the current holder, the San Francisco-based BMW-Oracle, in 2013. Mills, who is also deputy chairman of the London Olympics organising group and a director of Tottenham Hotspur, said: "The proposed fixed wing catamaran, the timetable, rules and costs, [mean] that the 34th America's Cup is neither viable commercially nor an attractive sporting contest for Team Origin. After three years of waiting in the wings, I am bitterly disappointed that we will not be competing. The format and timetable decided by the defender is simply not viable." -- Stuart Alexander, The Independent, full story: http://tinyurl.com/The-Independent-100310 FRENCH IN: On Thursday, 30th September, at the seat of the FF Voile, Bertrand Pacé, Philippe Ligot, Jean-Michel Hieaux and Patrick Goddet presented ALEPH TEAM FRANCE, the French syndicate that will apply to become a challenger at the 34th America's Cup. Supported by the FF Voile, the project will be honoured with the status "The French Team for the 34th America's Cup" as soon as it becomes an official challenger. ALEPH TEAM FRANCE wants to crystallize French talent (architects, engineers, sailors) around the experienced Bertrand Pacé, a specialist in the America's Cup area with six participations, to build a competitive, accessible and popular project. The French skipper wants "to open" the project to the French specialists of multihull who want to build within the team. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/SailRaceWin-100310 FACEBOOK GENERATION SAILS Are your sails a product of the Facebook generation or the Flintstones generation? While there is still a place for panel structured sails built the traditional way, for the last decade Doyle Sailmakers has been at the forefront of advanced sail manufacturing techniques. Doyle Stratis sails are custom designed with each yarn carefully laid out in the precise place it needs to be address the loads on the sail, and then laminated under heat and extreme pressure to produce a state of the art laminated membrane. Watch the video: http://www.facebook.com/doylesails WHY THE NEXT AMERICA’S CUP WILL FAIL As the America’s Cup defender BMW Oracle formulated their plans for the 34th America’s Cup, they repeatedly stated that the next event would reflect the interests of the Cup community. But with the plans now revealed, one of the most vested teams, British TeamOrigin skippered by triple Olympic Gold Medallist Ben Ainslie, says the Defender has an unrealistic vision, and they are not going to participate. Team Principal Sir Keith Mills met with Yachting World’s Matthew Sheahan to describe why: "At the end of the day I had to take the decision on whether I thought the Challenge was viable. Because of the timetable, I had to make that decision very quickly because if we were going to have a chance, we had to start designing our boat right now. We have spent the last 3-4 weeks since getting the Protocol talking to other potential Challengers and the Defender, talking to designers, commercial partners as well as trawling through the details and looking at the racing format. It really wasn't one issue that was the problem, it was a combination of issues that caused real concern when you lined them all up. "I didn't like the class rule, I think that it has some serious issues with it. For instance, I don't know how you race something like that in 33 knots of wind. When we asked Oracle about that they really didn't have an answer. I don't know how you moor it up, or stick it on the dock and they don't have answers for that either. "So I had real concerns about the boat as well as the fact that there are very few sailors around the world that have sailed such boats and very few designers that have designed 40m wings. From our starting point the class has real viability question marks over it. "Having looked at the 2013 timetable and planned it in enormous detail, we concluded that there really is no time at all to design two multihulls and learn how to race them. It's OK if you're Oracle and two months ahead, but if you're a mere mortal, that's a big challenge. "When you look at the commercial aspects, the costs are around 20 percent more than those of AC32 in Valencia, but the cycle is over three years and not four. The result is that you have to raise 20 percent more money in 25 percent less time. In effect you only have two years of commercial rights to sell.” -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/YW-100310 THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES It has been a full-on week for the skippers of the VELUX 5 OCEANS as the countdown to race day continues. Four of the solo round the world race’s six ocean sailors have now gathered in the beautiful French port of La Rochelle, the home of the VELUX 5 OCEANS, ahead of start day on October 17. American ocean racer Brad Van Liew, the first skipper to arrive in La Rochelle, has spent eight days working on his Eco 60 Le Pingouin with his team. “The boat will definitely be ready,” he said. “We had a problem with rudder bearings so had to lift the boat out of the water. We’re juggling that with getting measured by the race organisers and getting back in the water. There’s a lot of logistics.” Brad, who has competed twice before in the race, winning the 2002/3 edition, added: “It’s all going to work out good. We’ve got the sails off and the guys in the sail loft are working at night on those and at day on the boat. The boat will be ready and I will be ready.” Canadian Derek Hatfield arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning with Active House and immediately hit the ground running. “As soon as we arrived on Sunday we took everything off the boat ready for scrutineering and the testing for the Eco 60 class,” he said. “That’s all done now so we’re very happy with that. We’re starting to put the boat back together now, the new sails arrive at the end of next week and everything’s going really well. We’re quite relaxed. My plan is to have everything done by the end of next week and then the final week will be spent sail testing and loading the boat with food.” The VELUX 5 OCEANS, run by Clipper Ventures PLC, is the longest running solo round the world race, and has 28 years of rich heritage as the BOC Challenge and then the Around Alone. This edition features five ocean sprints over nine months. After heading from La Rochelle to Cape Town, the race will then take in Wellington in New Zealand, Salvador in Brazil and Charleston in the US before returning back across the Atlantic to France. The VELUX 5 OCEANS will start at 4pm on October 17 from La Rochelle. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/V5O-100310 WHERE DO YOU GO IN THE U.S. TO FIND FREMANTLE? By Erik Storck, USSTAG 49er skipper There is a sea breeze in Fremantle, Australia that is world-renowned. Fremantle, a suburb just outside of Perth, Australia, will be the sight of the 2011 ISAF Combined World Championships, a very important event for us in two respects. The event will be the second of two international regattas the U.S. will use for its Olympic Team selections. Also, it is the country qualifier for the Olympic Games in 2012. In short, we want to be ready. The sea breeze in Fremantle is not just any sea breeze. It pumps in at up to and above 30 knots on a regular basis. Its nickname, fittingly for many reasons, is “The Doctor.” When presented with the task of finding a similar venue within the U.S. in order to prepare ourselves before heading down there, we chose Santa Cruz, CA. Sailing out of Santa Cruz is an otherworldly experience. We just finished a 10-day camp there, and we are so glad we did. The temperature on shore would be in the 80s and there would be little wind. However, sail a mile offshore into the Pacific, and the air temperature will have dropped to the 60s. Most importantly, however, the wind would have built to 15-20 an sometimes more. Also, there were waves! It was ideal. We can sail consistently in 15-20 now, but the waves make things far more interesting. The 49er is fast. Waves are not. Steep waves, like those in Santa Cruz, are similar to barricades in equestrian shows, or hurdles for a runner. We are going faster than them, and we have to get our bow over them without running into the next one. Of course, at some point we also have to gybe! In all, we learned an incredible amount, and we can’t wait to get to Perth in November of this year where we can really make sure we are ready for the combined Worlds there next December. -- Full report: http://tinyurl.com/SMS-100310 VIDEO: Here is an example of what happens when the bow plunges into the wave ahead: http://storckmooresailing.com/video/main/show/id/358042-Bow-Up MEET MARK MILLS AT THE ANNAPOLIS BOAT SHOW Come to the Annapolis Sailboat Show, inspect the new Summit 40 and the Summit 35, and meet with designer Mark Mills as a bonus. Mark is one of the most successful IRC sailboat designers in the world, and will be at the Summit Yachts display to answer your questions and fill you in on the great advantages of the Summit Yachts line of race winning boats. Check out our web site at http://www.summit-yachts.com BONUS: If you are at the show on Friday, come by the Summit Yachts booth at 2:00 pm to meet Mark Mills AND get a free classic cap from Scuttlebutt. Details: http://sailingscuttlebutt.blogspot.com/2010/10/free-hat.html GROUPS ANNOUNCED FOR ARGO GROUP GOLD CUP Hamilton, Bermuda (October 3, 2010) - The top three sailors on the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) head up three groups for the qualifying ‘round robin’ competition in the Argo Group Gold Cup. Group 1 top seed is #1 ranked Mathieu Richard (FRA) of the French Match Racing Team. In the #2 slot on the Tour, Adam Minoprio (NZL) Black Match Racing leads Group 2 and #3 ranked Torvar Mirsky (AUS) and his Mirsky Racing Team top off Group 3. The three won’t meet here until the quarterfinals… providing they can get past the tough field set for 2010 racing in Bermuda. The next three teams in the WMRT rankings are placed in the groups climbing back up the order. Ian Williams (GBR) Team GAC Pindar sponsored by Argo Group is ranked #4 and slots into Group 3, Ranked #5 Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin lands in Group 2 and ranked #8 Jesper Radich (DEN) goes into Group 1 with Richard. The rest of the selections for each group were decided by the Argo Group Gold Cup Organizing Committee, led by Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Commodore Peter Shrubb, and Craig Mitchell, the Director of the World Match Racing Tour. “After we placed the tour leaders by rank, we divided the rest of the competitors based on their ISAF rankings and performance in recent match racing regattas,” said Commodore Shrubb. “Craig Mitchell and I had long discussions over this and the groups as we have structured them are as balanced as possible. We have twenty-two teams instead of the usual twenty-four. It makes two of the groups have a ‘bye’ but we’ll work around that. The sailors in each group will match up against each other in the qualifying rounds, Tuesday to Thursday, sailing a scheduled round-robin format. After each team in the group has sailed each other team once, the top two teams move directly into the quarter-finals. The third and fourth place teams in each group enter the repechage sail another six boat round-robin with the top two going on into the quarterfinals. The finals are scheduled for Sunday, October 10. -- Full details: http://www.covarimail.com/view.lasso?id1=835&id2=562472 SAILING SHORTS * Norfolk, VA (October 3, 2010) - The Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) has recognized 19 outstanding scholar athletes by their selection to the 2010 ICSA All Academic Sailing Team. The honor acknowledges the success at the highest levels - both on the water and in the classroom - of these men and women who were nominated by their respective schools for academic and athletic performance during the 2009-2010 academic year. -- Full story: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/10/1003/ * Porto Rotondo, Italy (October 3, 2010) - 2010 is clearly Nerone's year: although the Farr 40 owned by Antonio Sodo Migliori and Massimo Mezzaroma has won both European and World Championships in the class several times, never has she claimed both titles in the same year. That changed today as the Italian crew, with tactician Vasco Vascotto, added the Farr 40 European Championship 2010 to their long list of achievements which includes winning the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship in April of this year. Second place went to three-time Farr 40 World Champion Jim Richardson (USA) with his Barking Mad while Wolfgang Schaefer took third place with his Struntje Light (GER). -- Full story: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=10599 * The 2010 Canadian Yachting Association Annual General Meeting Weekend will take place in Vancouver, BC October 29th, and 30th. The Annual General Meeting will commence at 1:30pm on Saturday, October 30th. All meetings will be held at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. Details here: http://www.sailing.ca/features/cya_annual_general_meeting_october_29_30_2010 SO EASY A ‘BUTTHEAD CAN DO IT Posting free ads in the Scuttlebutt classifieds is so easy a ‘butthead can do it. Here are some of the ads now posted: FOR SALE: Laser Radial, AC34.com domain name, Dana 80 outdrive, 505, J/24 paraphernalia, Ockam LCDs WANTED: Tacktick micro compass, 420s, experienced skipper, used sails JOBS: Coaching, sailmaking, and other BOATS: ACC USA 87 and 98, X 34, Beneteau 423, Capri 22, Laser Radial, Foiling Moth View and post ads here: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/CLASSIFIED_ADS_-_FREE_C8/ GUEST COMMENTARY Scuttlebutt strongly encourages feedback from the Scuttlebutt community. Either submit comments by email or post them on the Forum. Submitted comments chosen to be published in the newsletter are limited to 250 words. Authors may have one published submission per subject, and should save their bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. Email: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Bill Spalding Skaneateles, NY: There seem to be very few letters supporting the AC Multihull choice. Those of us that sail multis know why they made the choice. If you don't know why they chose the multi, go sail a performance multi for a season or just a series. You will know. "People sail for fun and no one has yet convinced me that it's more fun to go slow than it is to go fast." - Dick Newick * From Noel Sterrett: Multihulls are much faster (and hence much more exciting) than monohulls, right? Here are the stats: - The "AC34 Monohull Class Rule Concept Document" lists target boat speed at 1.0x TWS upwind, and 1.4x TWS downwind. - The "AC34 Multihull Class Rule Concept Document" lists target boat speed at 1.2x TWS upwind, and 1.6x TWS downwind. The difference is only 20% upwind and 11% downwind! On TV, that's much ado about nothing. But a lead of several years in wing development, now that's something. Here are some comparable videos to show what we have, and what we could have had: Stuck with this: http://www.extremesailingseries.com/video/trapani Could have had this: http://tinyurl.com/2eusu5k CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION If you are looking for something quick to read, perhaps consider the book ‘THINGS I CANNOT AFFORD’ by Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO/Founder Special thanks to Doyle Sails and Summit Yachts. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
