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SCUTTLEBUTT 3721 - Friday, November 16, 2012Scuttlebutt 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: Henri Lloyd and Hall Spars & Rigging. RIDING SHOTGUN Richard Gladwell (Sail-World.com) spent three hours perched on the after beam of Emirates Team NZ's AC72 for a training session on the Hauraki Gulf. Sailing in winds of up to 25kts, the AC72 hit an amazing 43.6kts and didn't even feel like she was breaking into a sweat. Here's his report: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine you are standing on top of an Emirates jet on that final mad charge down the runway before takeoff. The engines are screaming and every imperfection in the runway is magnified into the jolting that reverberates through the plane just before it leaves the ground. Next, take that mental snapshot and overlay it on to a boat the dimensions of a tennis court (well three metres wider), flying down the harbour, a couple of metres above the sea, travelling at a speed of more than 40kts. This is the surreal world of the AC72 catamaran and the 34th America's Cup. Today Emirates Team New Zealand's skipper Dean Barker is putting his crew through a seven-hour programme of race practice and testing on Auckland's Hauraki Gulf, venue for the 2000 and 2003 America's Cups. The AC72 is a boat like you've never seen or experienced before. New Zealand has just emerged from her hangar, where she has been modified to incorporate changes from her first 16 days of trialling. The America's Cup rules allow just 30 days of test sailing before January 31, 2013 We came across the black hulled, red bowed catamaran flying upwind in a stiff 15kt offshore breeze, as she finished her race practice session. She's setting a very short hoist jib, the smallest in her inventory. The 40metre tall wingsail, longer than an Emirates A380 wing, is doing all the work. The first impression is of a very stiff platform (multihull-speak for the combination of hulls, beams, deck and supporting truss underneath the 40metre tall wingsail). There was no twisting. The whole boat is a single locked unit, as she charges into the moderate sea. Next take is the body language of the crew, almost motionless in the boat, only occasionally moving the pump (winch) handles to adjust the sheet on the wingsail, or pressure up the hydraulics. Dean Barker guides rather than steers with minimal wheel movement. The AC72 sails smooth and fast - like the flying machine she is. The crew have been on the water since just after 8am. This is the tail end of the day's racing phase where Emirates Team NZ simulates an America's Cup course, complete with marks, and run through a race scenario complete with pre-start, fast reach and then the beats to windward and downwind legs, all within the constraints of the America's Cup course boundaries. 'It's a test of crew-work,' explains team boss Grant Dalton, as we clamber aboard. 'It went very well this morning.' Aboard, our roller coaster phobia kicks in. We don't like roller coasters - too much of the hang on, trust it knows where it is going, and won't fly off the rails. The AC72 initially feels like that. Does man control the machine, or will the machine control man? We'll soon find out.... read on: http://tinyurl.com/S-W-111512 IT'S TIME TO WALK THE WALK A feature of next summer's America's Cup calendar is the Red Bull Youth America's Cup, scheduled Sept. 1-4, 2013. The Red Bull Youth America's Cup has been created to give youth sailors, aged 19-24, an opportunity to compete in America's Cup-style racing and to identify the next stars of the sport. The first hurdle for each prospective team is financial. A deposit of $5,000 was required to apply for consideration. If the entry is accepted, an entry fee of $35,000 is required (plus a damage deposit bond of $25,000). Six U.S. teams found the bank to take the next step...screening. The six teams will be engaged in a two-day training program developed by Oracle Team USA during the period of November 12-20. At the close of this training period, one of four verdicts will befall the teams... 1) One team will be selected to represent the U.S. 2) One team will be selected to represent San Francisco. 3) Team(s) will be selected to advance to the Selection Series Trials. 4) Team(s) will be determined to have insufficient skills and be excused. Either of the first two options means the teams will advance directly to the Red Bull Youth America's Cup finals on September 1-4, 2013. The third options means the team(s) is sufficiently qualified to advance to the Selection Series Trials on February 9-24, 2013, where an as of yet undetermined number of teams will advance to the Red Bull Youth America's Cup finals. And if a team is asked to be excused, there remains one final option... they can buy their own AC45, which were selling new a year ago for nearly one million dollars. The six teams participating in the team selection trials: American Youth Sailing Force; Ocius Racing; Team City Front; Team America Racing; Quest for the Cup; Winged Victory. Details: http://tinyurl.com/YAC-111512 HENRI LLOYD - JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS Christmas comes early at Henri Lloyd and our participating dealers. Shop now to receive extraordinary value on exceptional Henri Lloyd products. Take advantage of generous savings on both technical marine and lifestyle products. Shop now at http://www.henrilloydonline.com/web/categories2.php?cat=holiday_styles01 WHO WILL BE THE LEADER ON FRIDAY? (November 15, 2012; Day 6) - The first week of the Vendee Globe would be simpler if it wasn't for everything. Collisions and keel breakages have already afflicted fifteen percent of the fleet, with an assortment of boat issues always lurking. And then there are the weather patterns of the North Atlantic. The jackal nickname of Armel Cleac'h (FRA) proved most fitting today as he hunted down the golden boy, race leader Francois Gabart (FRA). At the final ranking of the day Cleac'h was just two miles behind Gabart and set to pass him shortly. Gabart, who has led since the night of the start day on Saturday, has been forced to bear almost due west as he stalled this afternoon. The furthest east of the lead group, Gabart finally hit the predicted high pressure ridge that had led his opponents to burn miles to the west to avoid. Now Gabart must do the same. In the starboard reaching conditions, Gabart has been bleeding miles to the westerly pack, and king of that high lane is 2004-5 Vendee Globe winner Vincent Riou (FRA) in fifth position. While the forecast shows stronger winds to the west, it also calls for the direction to clock. Whether Riou rolls over the group to leeward will depend on... the weather. With the front pack now past the Canary Islands and approaching Cape Verde island off the western tip of Africa, who leads the fleet will depend on if the winds are sufficiently stronger to the west to pull that group forward, or if the clocking breeze puts the westerly group on the wrong side of the lift. Tracking: http://tracking2012.vendeeglobe.org/en/ Top 5 of 20 - Rankings as of Thursday 15 November 2012, 20h00 (FR) 1. François Gabart (FRA), Macif: 22834.0 nm Distance to Finish (289.3 nm) 2. Armel Le Cleac'h (FRA), Banque Populaire: 2.0 nm Distance to Lead 3. Bernard Stamm (SUI), Cheminees Poujoulat: 8.21 nm DTL 4. Alex Thomson (GBR), Hugo Boss: 85.9 nm DTL 5. Vincent Riou (FRA), PRB: 86.0 nm DTL Full rankings: http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ranking.html DISMASTED: At 1945hrs (French time), on Thursday, November 15th, Samantha Davies contacted the race office of the Vendee Globe to report that her boat had dismasted. Davies is not injured. She is safe inside the boat with all the watertight doors closed. She is monitoring the situation and does not require assistance. She is wearing her survival suit and has safety equipment at hand. Winds were 40 knots at the time but are expected to decrease. Davies is the third boat forced out of the race. -- http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/article/3357/saveol-dismasted.html WHO IS THIS GUY: So what does it take to be the leader of the Vendee Globe, at the helm of a brand new IMOCA 60 sponsored by a major publically traded insurance company? It turns out that for Francois Gabart, it all began when he won the French Optimist Nationals. Joe Cooper reveals the tale of Gabart: http://joecoopersailing.com/vendee-globe-why-francois-gabart/ BACKGROUND: Twenty skippers began the 7th edition of the Vendee Globe, a solo, non-stop around the world race in the IMOCA Open 60 class. Starting in Les Sables d'Olonne, France on November 10, the west to east course passes the three major capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin and the Horn before returning to Les Sables d'Olonne. In the 2008-9 edition, Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) set a new race record by completing the course in 84 days. -- http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ VENDEE GLOBE: CATASTROPHIC RISKS IGNORED By Elaine Bunting, Yachting World "We've already lost one keel in this race, and it's quite possibly not the only one that's going to go." So says one of the leading yacht designers for the Vendee Globe, a race that has been blighted with a disastrous series of keel and mast failures. Designers involved despair that the class - executive and skippers - has not listened to their suggestions of a solution and are vulnerable to repeated failures that risk lives, cost a fortune and are putting off sponsors. While the Volvo Ocean Race has had no keel failures in the last three editions, the Vendee Globe has continued for well over a decade racking up calamitous breakages and perilous mid-ocean rescues. Admittedly, the loss of Safran's keel is a special case. It features the first ever titanium fin, and you can see in photos from Thierry Martinez that it broke off about a half metre below the axle. This massively expensive item was specially made by the sponsor, a huge French defence contractor (not an illustrious showcase of their expertise, it must be said). But the point is that Safran's keel failure is the latest in a very long line of major failures, and few involved are confident that the problems have been properly tackled. Why is this class not learning? Why is the Vendee Globe starting again with such little prospect of the boats being more reliable, or safer, than in the past? To understand the scale of the problem, you need only look at the statistics. Since the 1996/7 race when Thierry Dubois, Tony Bullimore and Raphael Dinelli were rescued from their upturned boats in the Southern Ocean with hours to spare, there have been 17 keel failures in the class. Rig losses, not always so serious, have been even worse. In the last five years, 20 boats have been dismasted. The worst part of all this is that designers have been proposing a possible solution for years, but the class organisation and skippers who make the rule can't agree among themselves and have simply not taken heed. Last week I spoke to Xavier Guilbaud and Quentin Lucet from VPLP/Verdier, the design team responsible for five of the six newest designs in the fleet. They were clear that, as the class contemplates the possibility of a move to a one-design, one of the options they favour is for a one-design fin with different bulb weight options. "That would allow teams to have different hull shape, ballast and sail area, and choose how to drive the boat," says Guilbaud. He adds that it would also help reduce costs. British designer Merfyn Owen of Owen Clarke Design Group (responsible for Mike Golding's Gamesa, Dominique Wavre's Mirabaud and Javier Sanso's Acciona) is outspoken on the subject. "That [a one-design keel] was my suggestion back in 2008. All the European designers and Farr, without exception, are in favour of it. Let someone else design it, no-one cares. We've all swallowed our egos and said it's a good idea. "Keel and rig failures are by far the main reasons why people are leaving the race, but IMOCA are crap, they are just not listening to us. Maybe we could have sorted this out some years ago, but they have not addressed these problems. Not one iota, right up to the present." - Read on: http://tinyurl.com/YW-111512 PHOTOS OF THE WEEK Some of the random photos from the sport received this week at Scuttlebutt include kids and boards, rating rules, Cali kings, over parenting, visual test, dog-friendly, name game, teamwork and boat picnic. Here are this week's photos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/12/1116/ SEND US YOUR PHOTOS: If you have images to share for the Photos of the Week, send them to the Scuttlebutt editor: mailto:editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com FROM THE SEA TO THE SKY Hall Spars & Rigging manufactures premier carbon masts, booms and rigging for sailing yachts of all sizes. In addition to seafaring ventures, Hall creates aerospace-quality custom carbon components for projects on land and in the air! Congratulations to the Pegase Project from the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada on the construction of a human-powered aircraft. The team chose Hall to supply optimized carbon tubes to help keep the weight of the aircraft at only 35kg, and introduce students to fabrication of composite materials. The goal is to cover 200 meters in flight before December 2012! For photos, visit http://www.facebook.com/HallSpars http://www.hallspars.com VIDEO OF THE WEEK What do you get when you mix the beautiful island of Cres in Croatia with the 2012 International One Meter European Championship? You get a pretty sweet place to host a radio control regatta. Click here for this week's video: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/12/1116/ Bonus Videos: * This week on America's Cup Discovered we talk all things AC72. We are onboard with Emirates Team New Zealand as their impressive preparations are making news headlines. We have an exclusive interview with Oracle Team USA's CEO Russell Coutts for an update after last month's catastrophic capsize. We then catch up with Artemis Racing in advance of their first sail on their newly launched AC72. Tune in on Saturday November 10 approx 0800 PST 1100 EST: http://www.youtube.com/americascup * The "World on Water" show celebrates the start of the 2012-13 Vendee Globe Single Handed Round the World Race and checks in with TP52's Niklas Zennstrom, the China Cup, the ISAF Rolex Sailor of the Year and the sickening crash of the mast slowly falling on a China Cup yacht. Log on to http://youtu.be/W_ThBGCeLWs * This week Chalk Talk goes way in depth for the College Match Race Nationals in Texas this weekend, reviews a Women's ACC's that ended in a tiebreaker and checks in with one of the winningest women's sailors of the season: http://youtu.be/_lnSszqxH-I SEND US YOUR VIDEOS: If you have clips to share for the Video of the Week, send them to the Scuttlebutt editor: mailto:editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com 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 may be 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 Canfield, St. Thomas: I was chatting with a well known international sailor about the mess called ISAF and he in turn mentioned that on a recent European trip he had been with a group of his peers, and their unanimous feeling was ISAF no longer represented the active sailors of today. He mentioned that the group as a whole were challenging each other to approach their respective national authorities as they were finally ready to get involved and make the changes to this stale, old, politically-driven organization that it desperately needed. I hope this is true. At this year's ISAF annual meeting, at least one of the new young energetic future leaders already threw in the towel when he saw the political machine chew up the presidential candidates and return to the status quo of past control. As Steve Pyatt mentioned in Scuttlebutt 3718, one committee un-does what other committees put in place. ISAF seems to not understand its own procedures and the sailors lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on votes traded for political favors. The Match Racing Event was the same; two cycle guaranteed, political decisions and investment lost. I really wonder how the IOC puts up with sailing's incompetence. If it was swimming or gymnastics, there would be outrage and heads would roll if decisions like the one's ISAF has made occurred in those sports. Change 40% of your disciplines each 4 years and leave your athletes in a state of absolute frustration? Only ISAF could accomplish that. I'm embarrassed for our sport. How about you? * From Mark Bergin, Publisher, Boating OZ If your faith in ISAF was already shaken, it will have crumbled completely after Saturday night in Ireland when against all good sense, logic and reason, David Kellett was not voted in as ISAF president. It is very telling. He was by far the more experienced of the three candidates (check out the ISAF site www.sailing.org for the three bios) and spoke of the need for change - it should have been his crowning glory, but it appears it was his downfall - honesty. Were voters too afraid to rock an already unstable boat? Nevertheless, we wish Carlo Croce all the best in his new role as president and hope he 'mans' up' to the big task ahead and makes some of those much needed changes - among them,, transparency. -- www.boatingoz.com.au * From Arturo Delgado, past President, Spanish Sailing Federation: On the comments of Adrian Morgan in Scuttlebutt 3720, we definitively need ISAF in order to coordinate our sport around the world, but I agree with Adrian that ISAF must change its structure as the organization is becoming too big and obsolete. There are too many nonsense Committees and at the end is the Council which is composed of many ignorant members and others just making or doing lobbies in their only private interests and not respecting the advice from the expert Committees. I saw this all firsthand as a past Vice President of IYRU (ISAF). Like other Sports and according with the IOC recommendations, ISAF must help to improve Continental Federations under its umbrella and to cede (not transfer) some jurisdiction. It's impossible to control the sailing activity around the World from just Southampton. There are many easy ways to do that without destroying ISAF. Sorry but my lack of English prevents me to extend my comments. * From Gregory Scott: While I watch the Boat US video (http://youtu.be/TGoCBe6ObpA) in great sadness, and have empathy for everyone who has lost their cherished vessel, having run boat yards and dealerships, I can't help but see a few positive things emerge once every one is properly attended to. It is evident everyone's marine insurance is going up for sure and that isn't good. However, anyone who has the slightest clue about boats along the affected area will have a job for months ahead, winterized and general handling of vessels. There will be the qualified repair person who won't see their family much as the work rolls in - empty space will get rented to become repair sheds etc. Brokers will be busy as the sales of used boats sitting idle in brokerage yards and dealerships that will be purchased with insurance money. Then all the new outboard engine and boat sales could see full shifts at manufacturing facilities. Hurricane Sandy could be the biggest boost to a limping marine economy I have seen. The estimate that over 65,000 recreational boats were damaged or lost as a result is a big number. Finding enough skilled people to work on that many boats will be quite a challenge. SCUTTLEBUTT ADVERTISING IN 2013 Scuttlebutt provides a limited amount of text ad slots in each newsletter, and we are now taking ad reservations for 2013. Most of these ad slots will be booked by November 30, so if you are interested in advertising, contact us for details: 619-299-5678 or advertising@sailingscuttlebutt.com CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION I was always taught to respect my elders. The crowd is thinning. SPONSORS THIS WEEK Southern Spars - Melges Performance Sailboats - North Sails - North U Ultimate Sailing - Point Loma Outfitting - JK3 Nautical Enterprises US Sailing - Ullman Sails - APS - Henri Lloyd - Hall Spars & Rigging Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
