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SCUTTLEBUTT 2871 - Tuesday, June 23, 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 North Sails, Melges Performance Sailboats, and Aquidneck Custom Composites. PREPARING FOR THE FARR 40 WORLDS (June 22, 2009) When the Farr 40 class gathers this week in Porto Cervo, Sardinia for the 2009 Rolex Farr 40 World Championship, there will be two predominant story lines: Will Vincenzo Onorato and his Mascalzone Latino team win a fourth straight title, and can the class avoid the controversy that ended the 2008 event. At last year’s Worlds in Miami, FL, the pivotal moment between leaders Mascalzone Latino (ITA) and Giovanni Maspero's Joe Fly (ITA) came on the final day when Joe Fly closely leebowed Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad (USA). Mascalzone Latino witnessed what they believed to be a foul, but when Barking Mad did not protest, ML did, with the judges ruling against the Joe Fly team, thus ending their title hopes. What followed were hard feelings and strong words, with Maspero claiming a jury conspiracy and a threat to leave the class. A year later, all three teams have returned, and Scuttlebutt checked in with Barking Mad tactician Terry Hutchinson about the incident last year, and what he expects for this year’s championship: SBUTT: A year later, what lessons have been learned from that 2008 Worlds incident that have helped you as a competitor? TERRY HUTCHINSON: “Not to over simplify it, but if you foul somebody do your penalty turns. Now in defense of Joe Fly there were no whistles blown at the time as discussed by the jury but that simply meant they did not see the situation - not that the situation did not happen. At a 2009 Worlds meeting, we have been reminded that just because there is no whistle does not mean there was not a foul. I go back to if you think you fouled - don't wait for the whistle - just do the penalty turn.” -- Read on: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/09/0622 => Curmudgeon’s Comment: If you are wondering why Barking Mad chose not to protest Joe Fly, here are Terry’s comments from a year ago: "From my perspective, we were fouled by Joe Fly at the top mark. We did not protest them because we did not want to be... It is tough racing, It's hard enough. You get into these situations and I think Mascalzone and Joe Fly were having a good regatta against each other. Mascalzone Latino witnessed the infringement (against Barking Mad) and they were within their rights to file a third party against them in the situation. That leaves the umpires to decide the decision." -- http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/archived_Detail.asp?key=3899 A REGATTA THEY’VE ALWAYS ASPIRED TO WIN By Michael Lovett, Sailing World When I spoke with the crew of the J/105 Vytis on Saturday night (of the Sperry Top-Sider Chicago NOOD), the team stood in fifth place, 8 points out of first. In the blare of the regatta tent, downing Mount Gays and chewing on a dinner roll, crewmember Keith Krause made a hopeful declaration. "We're still in the hunt," he said. "That's all that matters." I nodded my head and wished him luck, but I must admit I never expected Vytis to post two bullets on Sunday and vault to the top of the standings, unseating fellow Chicago boat and perennial rival, Messy Jessy, earning first place overall at the 2009 Sperry-Top Sider Chicago NOOD, and winning a trip to the British Virgin Islands to compete in the NOOD Championships this November. "This is huge for us," says owner Tomas Petkus. "This is a regatta we've always aspired to win, and we come to the NOOD every year." By every year, he means every year for the past 18. The 2009 event was Petkus' 15th in the J/105 class. And although the team's comeback victory took me by surprise, it shouldn't have. These veteran racers-- Petkus (skipper), Krause (main trimmer), Steven Druszicki (tactics), Andrew Saltys (jib trimmer), and Michael Collins (bow)-- have completed more than 100 Chicago to Mackinac races among them, and when they needed to perform on Sunday, they did. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/SW-6-22-09 THINK GREEN, BUY BLUE! Recycling isn’t just for bottles and cans. Now is your chance to save 25% off a new North sail by recycling your old sail. Simply fill out the Think Green, Buy Blue form on our Web site and we will email you a free UPS label so you can ship your old sail to North’s Recycling Center. Order a new sail by August 31 and you are entitled to a 25% savings certificate toward your new North sail. Available in NA only, restrictions apply. -- http://na.northsails.com/tabid/14313/Default.aspx TWO BOAT SAIL TESTING Ever hear sailmakers talk about their sail testing? This report by North Sails Snipe specialist Brian Bissell describes how they use GPS units, wind instruments, and masthead cameras to derive their two boat testing results: “We recently completed a week-long Snipe sail testing session with North Sails Japan. The goals for the trip were two-fold. First, pit our AP5+/BR1DH against the Japanese counterparts the PR2 and SW3 mainsails and the R2-LM jib; second, to learn how to build, use and analyze NS Japan’s “America’s Cup” style Two Boat Testing System. The following report combines our individual perspectives of the week, a brief analysis of the sails, and an explanation of system functions and advantages it will provide to North Sails One Design. “Upon arriving in Tokyo, (One Design Designer) Garth Reynolds and I were immediately inspected by quarantine officers to make sure we weren’t bringing in any diseases. They take this very seriously. I believe they escorted one guy off the plane because he started coughing. If you pass their series of questions, you get a facemask and a yellow card that I think said something like “disease-free”. So much for first impressions!” -- Read on: http://www.northsailsod.com/class/snipe/snipe_whatsnew.html#56 WILL TEAM RUSSIA BE DECLARED ELIGIBLE TO RACE? Stockholm, Sweden (June 22, 2009) - A familiar face is on the horizon. Team Russia are on their way to Stockholm with the intention of taking part in the leg 10 sprint to their home port of St Petersburg, Russia. The team suspended racing in Singapore after leg three as a consequence of insufficient funds, and have since been trying to source funding to resume. In the meantime, they have largely changed their management and crew - Stig Westergaard has taken over from Andreas Hanakamp as skipper and, along with founder Oleg Zherebtsov, is the only returning member of the sailing team - and they now face a difficult task in being declared eligible to race. Race Director Jack Lloyd said: "We haven't seen the boat since Christmas time when they left Singapore so we have no idea of the state of the electronics or the measurement condition of the boat. She just has to comply with the rules, like any other boat. All other boats have to maintain the boat in measurement trim and their crew have to qualify. They just have to go through that process. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/VOR-6-22-09 * SCOREBOARD - REVISED: The race for second overall between PUMA and Telefonica Blue would get a little muddled if Team Russia are able to compete. Their inclusion would increase the leg to eight boats, so if Telefonica Blue won the leg, PUMA would need to finish seventh or better to claim the second rung on the podium, as opposed to just finishing the leg when it was a seven boat fleet. -- Overall scores: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/rdc/#tab4 * VOLVO OCEAN RACE 2011/12: The revised Volvo Open 70 design rule, along with the Notice of Race for the VOR 2011/12, is to be released on September 25th. A list of possible stopover cities for the next edition has been winnowed from 82 to 34, with the final list to be announced beginning in March 2010. -- http://tinyurl.com/VOR-11-12 * VOLVO OCEAN RACE 2008/9: Began in Alicante, Spain on Oct. 4, 2008, crewed around the world race in VO 70’s, with ten distance legs and seven In-Port races. The final event will be Leg 10 from Stockholm, Sweden to St Petersburg, Russia (400 nm), starting on June 25th with the finish expected to be on June 27th. -- http://www.volvooceanrace.org/schedule Event website: http://www.volvooceanrace.org Race tracking: http://volvooceanrace.geovoile.com MEDIA CREW MEMBER SCOREBOARD (June 22, 2009) - The Inmarsat Media Prize began as a prize to recognise the potential misery of mopping out a boat, cooking and not being allowed to participate in the individual’s true passion - sailing. In Stockholm tonight, the Inmarsat Media Prize for Leg 9 (Marstrand to Stockholm) was won by Gabri Olivo, the media crew member (MCM) on Telefoníca Blue, with nominations for Rick Deppe (PUMA) and Gustav Morin (Ericsson 3). Deppe’s lead over Morin is now down to one point, but Morin can still win a share of the 10,000 euro ($13,880 US) Overall Winner Media Prize if he secures a win or nomination and Deppe is shut out on the final leg from Stockholm to St Petersburg leg. The Inmarsat Overall Winner prize recognises the consistent delivery of excellence throughout the whole race. -- Full report and scoreboard, plus the nominated and winning videos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/News/08/Inmarsat/leg9.asp * A photo gallery from the final In-Port race of the VOR 08/09 is posted on the Scuttlebutt website with contributions from Oskar Kihlborg, David Branigan, and Amory Ross: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/09/0622 MELGES 32’S RACING WEST The International Melges 32 Class is racing west for many championship events this summer and fall. The Melges 32 National Championship will be at the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey (Los Angeles) this coming July. Then the Melges 32 fleet heads up to San Francisco Bay for the North American Championship in early September with Sausalito Yacht Club hosting this prestigious event. Then the fleet will race out of St. Francis for the Rolex Big Boat Series later that month. Great West Coast Racing! For more information please go to http://www.melges32.com ISAF SAILING WORLD CUP Kiel, Germany (June 22, 2009; Day 3) - Another day of light winds has upset the schedule of the 127th Kieler Woche, the sixth event of the 2008-09 ISAF Sailing World Cup. “The wind did not increase in the way we hoped it would this morning, but we look forward to a better weather forecast tomorrow (Tuesday). It is very sad, especially for the Star and the Finn, which have only sailed one race so far,” said Jobst Richter, Chairman of the Kieler Woche Race Committee. Fortunately, the Women’s Match Racing event was able to complete their round robin program so that the quarter-finals can begin on Tuesday, with American Genny Tulloch having qualified to be among the final eight competitors. The 49er and the 2.4 mR, with two and three races respectively, were the only other Classes which could sail today. For new 49er campaigners Erik Stork/ Trevor Moore (USA), they are reveling in the conditions, scoring three top five finishes so far to currently sit in sixth place out of 50 competitors. Their previous European Olympic event was in April at the Princesa Sofia Mapfre Trophy in Mallorca, Spain, the third event in the ISAF Sailing World Cup, where they finished 21st overall. -- http://www.kielerwoche.de/eng/englishdefault.php * ISAF International Judge/Umpire Jos M Spijkerman (NED) provides his early observations on the Elliot 6m, which is making its debut as the 2012 Olympic Women’s Match Race boat at Kieler Woche: “Athletic, lots of trim, and very fast accelerating, when there's a little more breeze. The speed difference between 6 and 8 knots is remarkable. Dinghy sailors would be right at home in these boats. We saw a lot of matches decided on pure boat speed. You have to let the boat get some speed before you start sheeting in. The apparent wind angle for these Kevlar sails is quite important. Combined with a narrow "AC"-like keel, the sailors have their hands full. The ones who figured this out sooner rather than later were the ones who won their matches.” -- http://rrsstudy.blogspot.com/2009/06/kiel-2009-part-2.html 2010 AND BEYOND PLAN During the US SAILING Board of Directors monthly meeting in May 2009, a plan was revealed to review all the national championships hosted by US SAILING: “Championships Committee Proposal: Gary Jobson, with Steve Wrigley and Liz Walker, shared a vision of where our championships can and should evolve. They shared a matrix that was discussed for 2010 and beyond. The goal is to ensure that each of our championships is relevant and is seen by an outside observer as a ‘true championship of our nation.’” During the meeting, the BOD endorsed the principles engendered in the “2010 and Beyond Plan”. Details of the plan can be seen in the meeting minutes, beginning on Page 3: http://www2.ussailing.org/Assets/BOD/BOD+Minutes+2009_05_18.pdf WELCOME TO BIRW - WE’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU Block Island, R.I., USA (June 22, 2009; Day 1) - Usually it’s the sailors who get an eyeful of majestic scenery while racing around the island during the Storm Trysail Club’s biennial Block Island Race Week presented by Rolex, but today, spectators ashore oohed and aahed at the magnificent site of 153 boats trying to hold it together in raging winds on the Atlantic Ocean. The spectacle was best viewed from Southeast Lighthouse, perched on a 150-foot cliff at the southern-most tip of tiny Block Island, which for these five week days is serving as the epicenter of sailing in the Northeast. A mass of colorful spinnakers paralleled the shore -- some of them flailing wildly during broaches and a few becoming unwanted anchors when waves rose like jaws to snag them. The Solent-like conditions (surely a nod from Neptune to Race Week’s origins as a take-off on Cowes Week) led to several mishaps, including a man overboard (and safely recovered) on Steve and Heidi Benjamin’s (Norwalk, Conn.) Tripp 41 high Noon in IRC 40A class and some hull damage (fixable by tomorrow’s racing) when Chuck Townsend’s (New York, N.Y./Newport, R.I.) NYYC Swan 42 Blazer apparently tried to duck Gary Jobson’s (Annapolis, Md.) Mustang in a port-starboard crossing situation. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/BIRW-6-22-09 * WindCheck is publishing the Race Week News and they’re making the entire on-site daily newspaper (with preliminary results, race reports and outstanding photographs) available online each day. Read here: http://tinyurl.com/WC-BIRW VISIT AQUIDNECK CUSTOM COMPOSITES’ NEW WEBSITE Aquidneck Custom Composites has recently launched their first website and would like to invite the readers of Scuttlebutt to check it out. ACC has been building custom boats for eight years now. Finally it has built a website. Check it out at http://www.aquidneckcustom.com SAILING SHORTS * Gianfranco Tortolani's "Citta di Salerno” capsized early Sunday while participating in the Original Single Handed Trans-Atlantic Race (OSTAR). Following the news of his EPIRB signal, a Cormorant helicopter and C-130 Hercules aircraft had been dispatched, but the Cormorant didn’t make it to the scene, about 420 kilometres from Halifax, because of high winds and low visibility, and landed on Sable Island. The Hercules did get to area, and Tortolani was eventually rescued by the U.S. container ship Maersk Missouri on Sunday afternoon. The race to Newport, Rhode Island, started in Plymouth, England, on May 25 with 31 competitors. -- Full story: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/1128585.html * (June 22, 2009) - At 08:40:29 this morning, Dee Caffari, the British yachtswoman who made history by becoming the first woman to sail solo, nonstop both ways around the world, set a new record for sailing around Britain and Ireland. Caffari and her all female crew, including fellow British yachtswoman and Vendée Globe race rival Samantha Davies, completed the 2500 mile course in 6 days, 11 hours, 30 minutes and 53 seconds - 17 hours and 16 minutes ahead of the previous record set in May 2004 onboard Solune. -- Read on: http://www.avivaoceanracing.com/index.asp?pageid=45&newsid=284 * The Pirates of the Buccaneer 18 Class descended on San Diego and Mission Bay Yacht Club for the 39th Annual Buccaneer North American Championship (BNAC) June 23-26. Competitors include 8-time BNAC Champions, Father and Son team Duane and Greg Cole, that are returning to their first BNAC in 11 years following their last Championship victory in 1998. -- Event website: http://BNAC2009.com WHAT IS YOUR ‘MUST DO’ EVENT? Each sailing region has its “must do” events, and Scuttlebutt wants to hear about the highlight events in your area. All the event submissions qualify for a raffle, including this one: “In Oriental, the sailing capitol of North Carolina, a lot of the major regattas have declined to dusty trophies left on the shelves and memories of the community. The JOWI and Michelob Cup to name a few. However, there remains the Oriental Cup, an annual event that draws as many tourists, non-racers and cruisers as the dedicated racers! “The event is billed as three days of parties, with a sailboat race in between. The weekend starts on Friday with registration, entertainment and getting together with old acquaintances. Saturday brings late registration, brunch and a skippers meeting. Post race events include silent auctions, one of the best event dinner spreads you can imagine, and more entertainment. Sunday is reserved for Trophy award brunch. “The entire community shares in the event since it is a charity event to raise funds for a college scholarship for a Pamlico county resident. Land passes are available for the non-racer. This make the entire weekend enjoyable for anyone attending or visiting the area!” => Post your event here: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=7675 LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Reader commentary is encouraged, with letters to be submitted to the Scuttlebutt editor, aka, ‘The Curmudgeon’. Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name, and be no longer than 250 words (letter might be edited for clarity or simplicity). You only get 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 Richard Jepsen, Chair US SAILING Education Division: (re, story in Scuttlebutt 2867 - Behind The Club Gates) While I'll admit I'm less sure of the culture of sailing in Canada, I'm quite knowledgeable about the culture of sailing and its level of openness in the US. There are several HUNDRED, if not over a thousand, community sailing organizations serving the working, middle and upper middle classes around the country. In my marina alone there are three options for those three demographics alone to participate, socialize and influence the culture of their program. One is a member owned collective (it is Berkeley, afterall), another 'open to the public' program sponsored by UC Berkeley and a commercial outfit (mine). We are not the exception.. Go to Long Beach, Seattle, Annapolis, St Pete, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Newport, etc., there are inexpensive, well marketed, inclusive organizations dotting those landscapes. There are hundreds of non-profits reaching out to women, to disabled sailors, to underprivileged kids, to minorities (ever hear of the huge event in the Caribbean called the Black Boaters' Summit?) And, there are very 'middle class' yacht clubs around the country as well. BTW, according to CYA (Canadian Yachting Association) Canada has a robust network of schools and community programs as well, despite the shorter sailing season. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/mukgu4 CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” - Martin Luther King Jr. Special thanks to North Sails, Melges Performance Sailboats, and Aquidneck Custom Composites. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
