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SCUTTLEBUTT 1771 - February 8, 2005Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions,features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing, whining and personal attacks for elsewhere. SHE'S DONE IT Ellen MacArthur has done it! She's broken the non-stop singlehanded round the world record set just a year ago by Francis Joyon. Ellen sailed her 75 foot trimaran B&Q across the finish line off Ushant at 22hrs 29mins 17 secs on Monday 7 February in a time of 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes and 33 seconds, shaving over 1 day 8 hours off Joyon's record. Immediately after finishing Ellen said, "I cannot believe it, I absolutely cannot believe it. It hasn't sunk in yet. I don't think until I see faces again that it's really going to sink in. It's been an absolutely unbelievable journey both physically and mentally. I'm absolutely overjoyed." B&Q sailed 27,354 miles through the water at an average speed of 15.9 knots. The new solo world speed record will need to be ratified by the World Speed Sailing Records Council. Conditions at the finish line were relatively calm with a moderate 12-16 knot south-easterly breeze propelling B&Q at speeds from 18 to 20 knots. The WSSRC observer, Claude Breton, based at the lighthouse in Ushant counted down the finish time as a number of helicopters hovered above the 75ft mulithull, B&Q, filming the final moments of MacArthur's record attempt. The Royal Navy's HMS Severn stood off the line prepared to escort her across the Channel and into Falmouth. MacArthur's shore team are onboard ready to board the trimaran as soon as possible to help MacArthur sail the 100 miles to Falmouth. The expected time of arrival off Falmouth is 1100 GMT Tuesday. Immediately after Ellen finished the previous record-holder, Francis Joyon said, "I always said that Ellen was a serious contender, and I can see today that she has decided to prove me right. The mere fact that she was able to sail around the world non-stop was quite an exploit, but to smash the record at the same time fully deserves my warmest congratulations. Ellen achieved this result through her concentrated efforts. Her team worked hard and backed her before and during her circumnavigation, and she did not ever lose her resolve. Being well supported is one thing, but when you find yourself in the middle of the southern lows in this type of boat, you really feel very alone." - www.teamellen.com HEROES WELCOME When MacArthur disembarks from her 70 foot trimaran B&Q as the world record holder for the most arduous journey in sailing regardless of age or gender, she will be in no doubt about which side of the Channel she has landed on, nor the warmth of the welcome. Falmouth is used to great seafaring moments, but there have surely been none in the modern age to match the reception planned for MacArthur today. A stage-managed return is anticipated, delivering value for money to the crowds who have made their way to Great Britain's most westerly corner to greet her, and the sponsors who have funded her remarkable voyage. Some time in the early hours a flotilla was to travel out to meet B&Q and will accompany her all the way into Falmouth, where her skipper will light two flares to signal her landfall. MacArthur's shore team were last night wary of putting a number on the crowds expected at quayside, but the town's hoteliers reported business more usually associated with August weekends than a dank Monday in February. The car parks were also full, many of the vehicles packed with sleeping bags and pillows. On the waterfront, a stage has been erected in anticipation of the arrival and at least 20 television trucks were standing by, along with more than 300 accredited journalists, to carry the pictures and her words around the world. - Paul Kelso, The Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1407815,00.html BURNING UP THE COURSE On his attempt at the round the world fully-crewed sailing record, Bruno Peyron and Team Orange set two new records off the Cape of Good Hope. The maxi-catamaran Orange II, which set out from Ushant on 24th January at 10.03 GMT crossed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope (20°East) Monday evening at 18h22 GMT: - Orange II will thus have taken 14 days, 8h and 19 mins to go from the tip of Brittany to the southernmost tip of South Africa (new absolute record). She has smashed the record held by Olivier de Kersauson (16 days 14h, 35mins - 2003) by 2 days, 06 h 16 mins. - Orange II will have taken 7 days 5h and 22mins to go from the Equator to the Cape of Good Hope (new absolute record). She has beaten the record held by Steve Fossett (9d 16h, 27mn, en 2004) by 2 days, 11 h 05 mins. As she passed the Cape of Good Hope Monday evening, Orange II had a lead of more than four days over Geronimo's time (Olivier de Kersauson) and Cheyenne's time (Steve Fossett) set in 2004. Orange II's two virtual opponents crossed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope last winter after 18 days of sailing. LEARN MORE AND SAVE $25 Get more out of your sailing in 2005. Start your season at a North U. Seminar. Nearly 70 Racing, Cruising and Weather Seminars are scheduled throughout North America. At North U Seminars you learn from expert instructors. Not just great sailors, North U seminar leaders combine outstanding sailing skills with years of teaching experience. The focus is on your sailing, not their sea stories. Bring your questions. Leave with answers. Call or add "Scuttlebutt Discount" to the comments when signing up on-line and save $25. To Learn More call 800-347-2457 or visit http://www.NorthU.com YET ANOTHER COURSE RECORD SHATTERED Nine boats have broken the record in the Pineapple Cup Montego Bay Race, but it will be Tom Hill's Puerto Rican entry Titan 12 that will go down in the books as the new record holder. The Reichel/Puch 75 shaved almost 13 hours off the previous record set in 2003 by Zephyrus V for a new benchmark of 2 days, 10 hours, 24 minutes and 42 seconds. Jointly hosted by the Storm Trysail, Lauderdale and Montego Bay Yacht Clubs, the race course was 810 miles from the Port Everglades inlet off Fort Lauderdale, Fla., across the Gulf Stream, through the Bahama Islands, past Cuba and on to the finish at Montego Bay, Jamaica. "That's some fast sailing!," said Race Chairman Ken Batzer about Titan 12's performance. "At the start, it was blowing 15-18 out of the north/northwest. Everyone started with either blast reachers or spinnakers, and it was pretty much reaching or downwind conditions the whole way." With six boats left to finish by tonight or early tomorrow morning, Makoto Uematsu's Japanese entrant Esmeralda, with multiple world champion Ken Read (Newport, R.I.) aboard, currently leads the fleet on corrected time. For race results and more information: www.montegobayrace.com VOLVO OCEAN RACE He has climbed Mount Everest, crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice and been involved in many adventure projects. Now Oskar Kihlborg is preparing for his second Volvo Ocean Race, this time as the official photographer. "My job is to show the world what the Volvo Ocean Race is all about. It's not just the competition between the boats; it's also about happiness and sorrow, sweat and tears, high tech and mother nature. I want to cover all of that," Kihlborg says. During the last Volvo Ocean Race, Oskar Kihlborg was involved with Sweden's SEB project, as their photographer during two years of preparation and racing. During the next race he will be responsible for covering all projects, and everything that surrounds the massive event. "I gained a lot of experience from working with the Volvo Baltic Race 2003 and 2004, especially when it comes to being an objective photographer," he says. "That's not as easy as it sounds, but it is extremely important. Even if the magazines and newspapers cry for pictures of the winning boat, the boat that loses its mast, the boat that runs aground or the all-female boat, you still have to take pictures of all boats, and all competitors." Being a sailing enthusiast, Oskar Kihlborg has always loved working with major sailing events. And the Volvo Ocean Race is, of course, a big challenge even if Oskar's not sailing it himself. As the official photographer Oskar Kihlborg will also count on the contribution from the crews onboard the boats. The Volvo Open 70s will not be able to carry any photographers onboard during the race, so it will be all up to the team members to contribute with pictures and video clips. "Their job is extremely important. They are the only ones who can show the world what is like to be racing in the Southern Ocean. They are there when things happen", Kihlborg says. - Full story: www.volvooceanrace.com/pages/news/news111.htm ICCT The Trustees of the International Catamaran Challenge Trophy, in conjunction with defender Southern Yacht Club, have accepted the bid submitted by Rimini, Italy, to host the celebratory 25th anniversary regatta on May 26-June 1, 2005. The BLURimini organization and the Vela Viva Sailing Club will coordinate the event as part of the 7th annual BLURimini Festival, a celebration of music, entertainment and sailing. Rimini officials say last year's festival, which featured 15 different regattas and 10 concerts, attracted an estimated 80,000 people. The event will be sailed in F18HTs, an 18-foot, high-performance catamaran. Americans John Lovell (New Orleans) and Charlie Ogletree (Houston, Texas), who have won the ICCT back-to-back, will be one of the U.S. defense teams, but they aren't assured of advancing to the Match. As many as 20 American and foreign entries will be considered either a defender or challenger, respectively, and both sides will sail a series of elimination rounds to determine the competitors for the 25th Match. THE NEW MELGES 32 AND MELGES 17 ARE SHOW STOPPERS Melges Performance Sailboats just completed the Strictly Sail Show in Chicago this past weekend with new boats being sold. "The attendance was amazing," said President Harry Melges. There were 6 Melges 32's sold and 14 Melges 17's sold right at the Melges Booth. "This was the first time the public saw these two new products up close and obviously they were very impressed with the concept and the quality," said Melges. For further review of these boats and the all star line up of Melges products please race to http://www.melges.com VENDEE GLOBE Not one of the ten competitors still at sea has a VMG in excess of 10 knots. That has to be a first in this Vendée Globe! Dominique Wavre on Temenos should still finish overnight though. He is expected from around midnight and has until 0600 GMT to enter the channel to Les Sables d'Olonne. After that time there will not be enough water to pass through until later in the afternoon. He is currently racking up speeds of around 9.5 knots, with 61.7 miles to go to the finish (distance calculated at 1830 GMT). The good news Sébastien Josse on VMI is that he has wind in his sails again and is on a direct course. Over the past half hour VMI has been making 8 knots, which is considerably better than the 4.2 knot average he clocked up over a four hour period! Latest News: At 23.00 (GMT) Monday, Dominique Wavre (Temenos) was 27 miles from the finish. His latest ETA is at 0500 Tuesday morning. Sébastien Josse (VMI) was 141 miles from the finish. His latest ETA is Tuesday afternoon. Leaders at 1900 GMT February 7: 1. PRB, Vincent Riou, Finished 2. Bonduelle, Jean Le Cam, Finished 3. Ecover, Mike Golding, finished 4. Temenos, Dominique Wavre, 62 mtf 5. VMI, Sébastien Josse, 182 mtf 6. Virbac-Paprec, Jean-Pierre Dick 1366 mtf 7. Hellomoto, Conrad Humphreys, 2245 mtf 8. Arcelor Dunkerque, Joé Seeten, 2261 mtf 9. Ocean Planet, Bruce Schwab, 2856 mtf Complete standings: www.vendeeglobe.fr/uk/ THE WINNER Vincent Riou and PRB's victory in what has been a highly competitive 2004-5 Vendee Globe marks the first occasion that the same boat has won a round the world race - singlehanded, non-stop or otherwise - twice in a row. But to say that PRB is the same boat as Michel Desjoyeaux sailed to victory in 2000-1 is some way from the truth. Both PRB and her stable mate, Sebastien Josse's VMI have undergone wholesale modifications since the last Vendee. Modifying an existing boat rather than building anew makes particular sense for singlehanded offshore races where the boat plays less of a crucial role than the crew in the overall performance package than it does in for example the Volvo Ocean Race. While in the Vendee the boat is responsible for perhaps 50% of the performance potential in the Volvo, where the boat is driven closer to the max, it represents perhaps 90%. Both VMI and PRB are Groupe Finot designs. Back in 1999-2000 Desjoyeaux' PRB was built using the same hull mould as VMI (known then as Sodebo), this mould producing a hull with slightly less volume than the other 2000 generation Finot designs such as Hellomoto, Arcelor Dunkerque and Gartmore. Unusually PRB's deck was taken from the mould of the Marc Lombard design Whirlpool (now Marc Thiercelin's ProForm). PRB was fitted with a canting keel (this was appropriate as Michel Desjoyeaux had been the first to try this in the Mini class). - Excerpt from a comprehensive story on The Daily Sail subscription website, www.thedailysail.com NEWS BRIEFS * The 2005 Congressional Cup will not be an event of the 2004-'05 Swedish Match Tour. Hosted by the Long Beach (Calif.) Yacht Club, the Congressional Cup reached a sponsorship deal that is in conflict with the Tour. Despite the loss of the Congressional Cup, Tour officials are in discussions with other events to join the Tour this year. American Ed Baird leads the Swedish Match Tour standings after four of eight stages. Stage 5 of the 2004-'05 Swedish Match Tour is scheduled May 1-8 in Porto Azzurro, Italy. - www.swedishmatchtour.com * The Open 60 Ecover will be departing Les Sables d'Olonne on Tuesday, February 8. Ecover will be towed to the UK by the crew who can begin the process of replacing the keel and preparing the boat ready for another season of campaigns. Mike Golding will be skippering they boat up the channel and his team has invited the people of Les Sables d'Olonne to the canal for a fond "au-revoir" between 5 and 6PM local time. * Bitter cold temperatures froze much of the lower Severn River and Annapolis Harbor area in the weeks leading up to the InterClub Midwinters. Twenty-three teams, sailing the trademark college-style regatta in two divisions, completed 14 races in total. The winning team of Jim Bowers, Bridget Murphy, Paul Adam, and Gaelen Phyfe from Winthrop, MA proved adept at sniffing out the puffy and shifty Northeasterly, winning by a comfortable margin. Runners up were collegiate stand-outs Anna Tunnicliffe, Mike Smith, Andrew Cambell, and Nick Deane, with Tunnicliffe and Cambell fresh off stellar performances at the Miami OCR. - Complete results: www.interclub.org * The northerly breeze has pushed all the Global Challenge teams below the rhumb line, but VAIO is the most northerly team, and leads the fleet. BG Spirit has held 2nd, 2nm behind and leading the main pack of 10 chasing teams who must all be able to see each other. Team Save the Children and Samsung are closest together, separated by a matter of metres in 7th and 8th respectively. The whole pack is spread across approximately 7nm of water from west to east and 10nm from north to south with average boat speeds of around 7 knots. - www.globalchallenge2004.com/en/ SORC RENAISSANCE Acura Miami Race Week 2005 is delivering on its promise of an SORC Renaissance. Melges 24, Etchells and Mumm 30 classes are headed to South Beach, joining Transpac 52s, Swan 45s, Farr 40s, J/105s and PHRF classes. Race dates are March 10-13. First entry deadline is February 11th. Information: http://www.premiere-racing.com ON THE BIG CATS After leaving Doha, Qatar, on Saturday (5th February), the four state-of-the-art yachts competing in Oryx Quest 2005 are heading in a south-easterly direction along the Gulf of Oman and will soon be out into the Arabian Sea. Local conditions are playing a big part in deciding which boats get the breeze, but the first major obstacle of the race will be a region of high pressure directly in the path of the yachts. Sailing through the centre of the high pressure is tactical suicide because wind travels at the slowest velocity and its direction is unpredictable. Instead the skippers and their weather routers aim to travel around the edges and cut across before they add too much distance to their journey. On board Geronimo the French skipper is also finding the conditions frustrating. "On a day without wind like today, you lose two kilos in sweat trying to get out of the calm," said De Kersauson. "If you're trying for the record! Here, however, we could see that the others had hardly enough wind to keep on their bearing, so that is some sort of relief to us. It gives us pleasure to see them stuck in the same mess as us. So we're pleased to be racing against each other!" Standings: 1. Geronimo, 2. Doha, 49 miles to leader; 3. Cheyenne, 53 mtl; 4. Daedalus, 98 mtl. - www.oryxquest.com BANG (Doha 2006 navigator Will Oxley discusses maxi-cat racing in a story posted on the Yachting World website. Here's a brief excerpt.) At 2100 while travelling at around 23 knots there was a large bang on the starboard rudder followed by the hideous sound of rushing water from the turbulence of whatever we had hit remaining wrapped around the rudder. My mind went straight back to the Sydney-Hobart where for the last two years onboard the maxi Skandia we had hit sunfish whilst traveling through Bass Strait. Torch light revealed a large shark wrapped firmly around the rudder. The crew tried to free the fish without success and we had to make the decision to drop the front sails, reef the main and then back the boat down. This is a big job on these boats.At 2133 Geronimo sailed close by on our port side as we wrestled the reacher to the deck. No doubt he thought we had sail damage as we had the deck lights on. Finally 45 minutes after the bang we freed the shark by backing down and then off we went again with a boat to catch. Unfortunately the backdown and sail changes left us high of course and we had to sail slow to avoid sailing into the shipping lanes. We passed close astern of a freighter and then wound her up. The port gybe was favoured but ahead lay a number of islands and rocks, all Iranian territory. With some trepidation we sped onwards as we struggled to get low enough on our course to miss the next island. The water depth came up to less than 20 meters and we cleared the island by about 0.9 nm blasting along at 25 knots. - Full story: http://tinyurl.com/3vdjb CURMUDGEON'S CONUNDRUM Does killing time damage eternity? - George Carlin |
