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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 816 - May 16, 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.
WORRELL 1000 - By Zack Leonard The wind shifted all over the compass rose and adaptability was the watchword of the day. Early in the leg the top 10 boats split into two groups. Alexander's on the Bay was determined to shadow Guidant to protect their lead, so when Guidant sailed away from the beach, Alexander's and several others were close behind. Todd Hart and Randy Williamson had an adventure as they ran up onto a sand shoal just off Cape Fear. Remarkably, Hart was able to keep his footing on the trapeze as the boat stopped. "We saw it coming, we had about 10 inches of board down and we should have had none," relayed Hart, "we pulled the boards up and skated right off with no damage." The wind was fairly light at 7 knots when the incident occurred, and Hart is hoping he was able to capture the action on his on-board video camera. This section of the Atlantic coast has some interesting characteristics. For several of the legs of the race we've described the beach as crescent shaped. That's because the long barrier beach that makes up the coastline is subtly scalloped in many places. Capes jut out into the ocean and the beach recedes around them on both sides. Many of the legs of this race run from a point in the middle of one of the scallops, around a cape, and then on to another point in the middle of a scallop. The result is a race in which rhumb line takes the boats away from the curved beach, causing difficult decisions. In sea-breezes coming from the East quadrant it seems to be a safer bet to stay as close to the beach as possible. Standing: 1. Alexander's on the Bay, 2. Guidant, 03:07:14 (Behind Leader) 3. Tommy Bahama, 05:34:12 (BL) 4. Sail For Sight, 05:52:23 (BL) 5. Tybee Island, 6:20:54 (BL). Complete standing: www.worrell1000.com
GBR CHALLENGE * Yesterday was a mini-milestone in British America's Cup sailing. For only the second time, the GBR Challenge had both of its recently acquired Japanese training boats in action on the Solent, a small step towards ending Britain's absence from the event since 1987. The £2 million purchase of the boats, plus one other, and all the paraphernalia needed to start a Cup team from scratch is part of £7 million spent by internet entrepreneur Peter Harrison to guarantee that the false dawns of three previous bids in the 1990s are not repeated. * "We've given ourselves a massive mountain to climb but I'm happy with the progress we've made," said Harrison. "The problem in Britain for the past 14 years is that there have been plenty of opinions about the Cup but nobody's been prepared to put their money where their mouth is. My view has been that I'd put in the first £7 million or so of an £18 million campaign and say to sponsors, here's the evidence, we're viable, come along and back us." Such commercial support is about to be sought and if forthcoming, Harrison is prepared to prime the pump for a second and third campaign after the 2003 series in Auckland, providing the very continuity that successful Cup campaigns demand. - Tim Jeffery Full story: sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/
PROVEN SUCCESS
CHALLENGE MONDIAL ASSISTANCE The skippers have reported about the tough and tricky conditions they've been encountering since the start but have kept pushing these demanding boats. This morning, they were finally resting before the next front arrives. Marc Guillemot and his five crewmembers will remain aboard the navy frigate "Surcouf" as she is carrying media and will therefore escort the fleet until the finish. Banque Populaire of Lalou Roucayrol is being repaired and should resume racing on Tuesday night. The four leading boats should round Sao Miguel during the night and start heading for Gibraltar which is 975 miles away from the Azores. Yvan Bourgnon's Bayer is still in the lead but Foncia-Kingfisher of Alain Gautier is following hot on her heels. She only lies 8.6 miles behind. The exhausted crews were resting today before the next depressions arrives. "It has been another tough night with many sail changes and every one is really tired as we didn't get much sleep since the start. Last night, the wind picked up to 40 knots. The conditions were fantastic. The boat was flying above the water. We're glad to have a reliable boat", reports Yvan Bourgnon. Ellen MacArthur is still amazed by the speed of these flying boats. "As the depression passed away to the east, and we made southerly progress the wind picked up to about 30-knots, boat speed was amazing, though it was hard to see the screen. I did see a sustained 33 knots though.... It was incredible sailing. Even this morning my eyes are still stinging. We were piling through the waves. Solid water flying up through the trampoline. It was almost impossible to look forwards as the spray drove at us at 30 knots... Foncia-Kingfisher was off, and loving every minute of it", reported the young British sailor. Event website: www.challenge-mondialassistance.com
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From Brad VanLiew: I respect the fact that no activity as bold spirited as single-handed passage making will be without critics, however there are points in Mr. McNair's e-mail that demand rebuttal. The debate of collision avoidance has been beaten to death. Ironically, the country of England is where the conversations get the most heated. In the meantime England is home to national heroes like Sir Francis Chichester, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, and Ellen MacArthur, just to mention a few. The debate has simply toned down because it is widely accepted that technology has diminished the need for a human to be staring into the horizon. Let's face the fact that every commercial vessel at sea relies on radar while the on-deck watch reads a book and drinks coffee. A modern single-handed racer is equipped with redundancy in the form of transponders and radar watch devices. The fact that it is hard to find an incident of fatality is because most people who venture offshore alone are confident and experienced in avoidance skills with a heightened awareness of their surroundings. Maybe it is only a matter of time until an accident occurs. However, the same can be said of space travel. Should we shut down NASA in fear? Sponsors become involved in this rapidly expanding sport because it is one of the few simple adventures of self-discovery that exist in modern society and it peaks the interest of onlookers. We should embrace these bold companies who use our sport as a creative alternative to traditional advertising. * From CDR Eric Wallischeck, US Merchant Marine Academy: As an educator involved in training both sailors and merchant/naval ship officers, I too echo Don McNair's concerns. It is challenging to explain to a 20-year novice sailor the need to be alert and watchful at all times, when many of their role models, the most highly regarded heroes of our sport, have cut their own teeth as solo voyagers. Rule 5 of the COLREGS (vice the RRS) require: "Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision." Clearly singlehanded sailors do not meet that requirement, and national maritime authorities have willingly turned a blind eye to the situation. Technology, particularly radar, can go a long way to alert sleeping soloists, but they are not 100% reliable. So, we rely on "the other guy" to keep watch and avoid collision. Singlehanded ocean sailing is one of a number of "extreme" pursuits where the rules are bent, if not out rightly broken, in order to feed the hungry appetites of the participants and the vicarious spectators. As long as the solo sailors confine themselves to the antipodes of the Earth, and stay out of Long Island Sound, the Chesapeake, the Solent or the Med, then this concern should remain somewhat moot. However, when I go to sea, I'll keep setting sea watches. * From John Riise: Never mind how you would write or enforce nationality restrictions in the America's Cup, just consider the concept. . . the Bill Gates of Iceland decides to throw his hat into the ring - but wait - with no good sailors in Iceland, they'll lose so what's the point? Meanwhile, down at Team New Zealand the final cut has been announced and, wow, look at all that wasted talent that didn't make it. Oh, and by the way, mates, those of you who did make it will have to go back to real jobs after it's all over because we can't pay you as much as those rich Italians are paying their guys. What's next, requiring Cleveland baseball players to actually BE Native Americans? Restricting Mel Gibson to playing only Australian characters? Dreaming up MORE rules to sue one another over in the America's Cup? The nationality requirement in the America's Cup is already the most stringent in sailing. Let's not fix what ain't broke. * From Rand Milton (edited to our 250-word limit): Yes, nationalism is a wonderful aspect of any sport and it certainly helps fuel the interest in the Olympics. BUT, the America's Cup has evolved and is now a professional sport featuring the world's best sailors while incorporating the latest in technology to produce superior racing machines. The benefits, both direct and indirect from the AC, that trickle down is enormous to practically all sailors! A short list of benefits includes the use of carbon fiber, Kevlar and other high tech fibers in sails, running rigging, and in hull construction; superior sail shape technology and construction; better electronics; asymmetrical spinnakers; and superior hull shapes to increase boat speed. I could go on, but I think it would be difficult to find a sailboat that has not received some benefit from the technologies developed from the AC. Plus, the AC has enabled many people to earn a living and has employed many thousands of people over the years. The modern day AC campaign is akin to starting up a mid-sized company. I can't blame the top echelon of sailors to seek the best financial deal for themselves - we see it in all the top professional sports as well as in industry. * From Stephen Wells: Both the Annapolis and the Coast Guard Academy have both dropped the celestial navigation requirement for their cadets. Instead of requiring it in the Transpac Race, I would suggest offering a trophy to the best corrected time for a boat using only celestial navigation. A few pickle dishes for first second and third might solve the problem. * From Jef d'Etiveaud, Captain Of Mari-Cha III: I've read a lot of messages on the adequacy of asking race crew to know how to navigate using what nature gave us eg. the sun and a few billions of stars... We have with Mari-Cha one of the most sophisticated yacht in history. So yes. we have GPSs. We also have one of the most experienced crew. But one thing is sure is that we would not leave port without the necessary celestial navigation tools and documents. Celestial navigation is easy! It takes two hours to a slow learner to know how to locate himself on the map of the world using the sun. I don't care if GPS is close to free. I think GPS is the greatest invention since Radar But it can fail. As easy as 1, 2, 3 you'll lose the main GPS at the chart table and find out that the batteries in your portable are dead. If you do not have a sextant you are lost! If you have one, it's business as usual. * From Douglas Johnstone (In response to Dick Kelton's comments on time allowances if only celestial navigation is used.): It would be very interesting to see what sort of time allowances Pyewacket, Chance, Pegasus and Zephyrus would get if they used only celestial navigation, a compass and a Windex for navigation. There is a somewhat enjoyable, anachronistic vision of Stan Honey taking a shot at twenty-eight knots. In order to be really current he would probably be taking them twice an hour! * From Stephen P. Washburn: The celestial navigation debate is similar to the Ham Radio License Morse Code requirement and what it took to get that dropped. It took a long time to phase out this totally antiquated form of communication. I think this requirement does add to the "flavor" to the onboard experience of sailing to Hawaii, but not much more.
THE RECONNAISSANCE GAME Racing sailors active in coastal regions have a slight advantage over those who sail inland when it come to understanding tidal currents and their effects on the racecourse. And sailors who compete in areas where there's greater current usually have a slightly better handle on such phenomenon than those who sail where the tidal range isn't quite as great. In Charleston Harbor, tidal currents can exceed three knots, regularly shifting the silty river bottom to create a mutable venue that is often tricky and always challenging. So what's traveling competitor to do? Conventional wisdom dictates that you gather as much information you can on the venue and its peculiarities in advance of racing, and get this information from as many sources as possible to average out the error. Remember, everyone's got a theory, but much of what you collect can be drivel-well-intended, but drivel just the same. Usually the best sources for information regarding current behavior are the people who work on the water-harbor pilots, fishermen, and commercial captains. Even recreational fishermen can be good sources of information if they're regulars in the given area. And don't overlook the sailors who call the region home, it's likely that the most senior of them have had a chance to observe the area's tidal activity over a long period of time. - Dan Dickison, SailNet website. Full story: www.sailnet.com
QUOTE / UNQUOTE
GREAT FATHER'S DAY GIFTS! $20 AND UNDER
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS * June 22-24: North Sails Race Week, Long Beach, CA. One-design, PHRF and Americap II. www.premiere-racing.com.
PENFOLD'S POINTERS Diet Cola drinks have a fantastic ability to remove this deckborne hazard. Simply rinse heavily with coke or pepsi, scrub well with a brush, rinse with loads MORE cola, then rinse and scrub away whats left with simple (cheap) detergent. For the same price as one litre of deck cleaner, you can by gallons and gallons of cola... By Penfold, BOATmagic website, www.boatmagic.com
DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ "The team, skippered by Russell Coutts and financed by Swiss biotech executive Ernesto Bertarelli, revealed the boat's name and its red and grey colours at the Societe Nautique de Geneve, its home port. The craft, formerly a catamaran registered as Be Happy by Swiss Marc Pajot in his America's Cup bid, has been overhauled." CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT: Huh? To my knowledge, only one catamaran has ever raced for the America's Cup, but it was not Marc Pajot's IACC boat, 'Be Happy.'
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
