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SCUTTLEBUTT 3192 - Wednesday, October 6, 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: Melges Performance Sailboats, Mount Gay, and Lewmar ADDING DOCTOR TO THE SOLO SKILL SET It is not every day you are asked to cut open a pig’s trotter (foot) with a sharp knife then stitch it back together again. But that’s exactly how the VELUX 5 OCEANS skippers spent an afternoon as they learnt how to cope with medical emergencies at sea. Ocean racers Brad Van Liew, Derek Hatfield, Zbigniew Gutkowski and Chris Stanmore-Major were put through their paces by Dr Spike Briggs and Dr Mark “Tommo” Tomson from Medical Offshore Support (MSOS) in a day of hands on medical training. Preparing for the October 17th start, the VELUX 5 OCEANS skippers are adding doctor to a skill set that already includes navigator, engineer, sailmaker and cook. They are trained to recognise and treat any illness or ailment they might pick up during their epic 30,000 5-leg solo circumnavigation. Whether it is an illness such as a fever or an infection, or a physical injury such as a broken bone, the ocean racers have no choice but to deal with it themselves. “As a solo ocean sailor you never want to be in one of these situations where you have to deal with medical emergencies or even perform surgery on yourself,” said Canadian ocean racer Derek Hatfield, skipper of Active House. “This medical course is invaluable. You don’t want the first time you have to perform a procedure such as suturing to be when you are alone at sea.” Additionally, MSOS experts will be on hand around the clock during the race should something happen, and have designed medical kits for the skippers ensuring they will have all they need at sea. The ability to cope with medical emergencies offshore has come on in leaps and bounds since the early days of solo ocean racing. Back then, sailors had no medical support whatsoever, save from their copy of the Ships Captain's Medical Guide. The past 28 years of the VELUX 5 OCEANS are littered with examples of sailors who have had to deal with all manner of medical problems. In 1969, no-one was on the end of a phone to help British sailing legend Sir Robin Knox Johnston when he got battery acid in his left eye, or excruciating stomach pains that later turned out to be appendicitis. In the Vendée Globe in 1992, Bertrand de Broc was left with no option but to take needle and thread to his own tongue following an accident. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/2dhzy7n Medical training video: http://tinyurl.com/V5O-Medical DISMASTED: Belgian solo sailor Christophe Bullens was dismasted Tuesday morning off the coast of France en route to the start of the VELUX 5 OCEANS. The 49-year-old skipper had been sailing his Eco 60 class yacht Five Oceans of Smiles in 18-knot winds and choppy seas 15 miles from the Normandy coast when disaster struck. The dismasting caused serious damage to the starboard side of Five Oceans of Smiles including a hole in the hull by the ballast tanks. The sails are beyond repair. Christophe is now being aided by the VELUX 5 OCEANS race management team to ensure Christophe makes the start on October 17th. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/V5O-100510 AMERICA’S CLASS40 GRAND PRIX Manuka Sports Event Management has announced The Atlantic Cup presented by 11th Hour Racing. The Atlantic Cup is a new Class40 sailing race that will kick off from New York Harbor May 7, 2011. A $15,000 prize purse has been established for this shorthanded and crewed event, making it one of the largest purses for professional sailing in the United States. Commencing in New York, double-handed teams will sail the 240 mile route to Newport, Rhode Island, where entrants will then compete in a two-day, inshore series with a crew of six. The combined overall winner of both stages will be the very first Atlantic Cup Champion. “Our goal for 2011 is to create interest in this sort of professional racing, and then ideally expand upon the concept the following year with a schedule that stretches beyond the northeastern U.S.,” explains Julianna Barbieri of Manuka Sports Event Management. “There are currently nine Class40s in the U.S., plus another on order, with 102 Class40s in existence worldwide. For our inaugural event, we believe four to seven teams are realistic, and then we hope to grow from there.” A possible feeder for the 2011 Atlantic Cup could be the Route du Rhum, which starts October 31st in St. Malo (France), and takes a fleet of 40+ Class40s on the 3,550 mile route to Pointe-a-Pitre (Guadaloupe, French Caribbean). And in 2012, the 2,800 mile Transat from Plymouth to Boston will deliver the European Class40s again in June. Founder and Managing Partner of Manuka Sports Event Management, Hugh Piggin, stated, “The 2011 Atlantic Cup will be the first annual race Manuka plans to produce with the goal of promoting and growing the sport of professional offshore sailing in the United States. There is a terrific base of short-handed sailors right here and we want to give them an opportunity to showcase their skills.” Event website: http://atlanticcup.org Class40 website: http://www.class40.com FUN, FAST AND NO HIKING! Be sure to visit Melges Performance Sailboats at the Annapolis U.S. Boat Show, October 7-11. Two Audi Melges 20s will be on display at F Dock, one of which will be made available for test sails. The response and interest in this amazing 20-footer has been extremely positive. More than 35 participated at Gold Cup and over 20 raced the U.S. National Championship last August. For show attendees, this will be an excellent chance to see it up close and get a real taste of what simple, comfortable, yet sophisticated sailing is like - fun, fast and NO HIKING! Additional details at http://www.melges.com/ EMERGING TALENT PUTS TOP SEEDS ON THE ROPES Hamilton, Bermuda (October 5, 2010) - An adrenaline-filled First Qualifier Session at the Argo Group Gold Cup produced a host of upsets today with notable top seeds failing to assert dominance over their unfazed opponents. For added spice, eyes were also focused on newly-crowned ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Champion Lucy Macgregor (GBR) Match Race Girls to see how she would measure up to her male counterparts. Macgregor had a shaky start, losing her first two matches, the second against a young Kiwi skipper who’s starting to make big waves in match racing - Phil Robertson (NZL) Waka Racing. “The competition here is incredibly tough and Lucy fought really hard to tie us in knots, so it was fantastic to squeeze past her right at the finish.” However, the 24 year-old turned her game around in the most emphatic fashion to annihilate current World Match Racing Tour leader Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team in the next race. With the French skipper still smarting from an earlier defeat, the gutsy Macgregor crossed just ahead as they approached the first windward mark, then played the gusts to perfection downwind, extending her lead to five lengths at the leeward mark, which proved decisive. Rising star Rueben Corbett (NZL) Black Sheep Racing pulverised formidable opposition to take victory in all three of his races. Eric Monnin (SUI) Swiss Match Racing Team - winner of the Qualifying Rounds last year - was first to fall to the 23-year old Kiwi. Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team fared no better, and even last year’s Argo Group Gold Cup winner Ben Ainslie (GBR) TEAMORIGIN succumbed to Corbett’s onslaught. The qualifying rounds continue Wednesday with the finals scheduled for Sunday, October 10 (and not Monday as had been earlier reported). Full details, photos, and video: http://tinyurl.com/WMRT-100510 RUSSIAN TEAM LEAD FAVORITES AT TP52 WORLDS Valencia, Spain (October 5, 2010) - Two back to back wins sees the Russian boat Synergy leading the TP52 World Championships after the first day with three excellent races in a building sea breeze today. The team was joined for this event by top Russian match racer Eugeniy Neugodnikov steering his first ever top level TP52 Series races, having only had a couple of days practice. In a near perfect sea breeze which built from an early eight to 11 knots for the first race and peaked during an exciting third windward-leeward contest at 22 knots, the Russian crew which has a cosmopolitan afterguard in the shape of Kiwi regular tactician Rod Dawson and Italian navigator Francesco Mongelli opened with a modest fifth in the first race before their back to back bullets. Terry Hutchinson and the Quantum Racing crew, with Farr 40 world championship winning owner Jim Richardson riding shotgun, won the first race and then posted a pair of third places, leaving the 2008 World Champions locked on the same points aggregate as the Russian regatta leaders. -- Full report/results: http://tp52worldchampionship.org/news/?id=1365 FEROCIOUS NORTHEASTER BLITZES FLEET Newport, RI (October 5, 2010) - The start of the 2010 J/80 Worlds promised to be an epic day. The morning broke cool and windy from the northeast, exactly as forecasted. Not that anyone was expecting anything much different after sailing in northeasters practicing on Sunday and Monday in 15-30 knots and huge breaking seas from the east. The PRO Tom Duggan warned the fleet at the opening ceremonies on Monday evening that if conditions looked good, the fleet would go offshore off the fabled "R2" buoy off Castle Hill. Sure enough, at 0830 course signals went up on the signal halyard and the fleet proceeded to plane en'masse offshore to the starting area under spinnakers and white sails. With breezes on the course area in the 60-75 degree direction blowing 15-25 knots and ginormous waves with cross-chop from the east, everyone knew they were going to be in for a serious, physically demanding day. As they have in the previous three J/80 Worlds, the Spanish teams put on a text-book show of how to sail at least as fast as everyone else upwind, but simply "blow doors" off everyone else downwind. Often sailing upwards of 2-3 knots faster at times than their rivals flying downwind over and under other boats in front of them as if they were pylons in an obstacle course. It was a "schooling" like no one can imagine. Even Chuck Allen on Jeff Johnstone's boat LITTLE FEAT admitted, "We got to the weather mark in the top five in all three races today, but before we knew it, Spanish boats were flying by us like we were parked! It was like we were body-surfing and they were on surfboards!" Racing continues daily and concludes Friday. Event website: http://www.j80worlds2010.org/ Results after Day one (top 10 of 61) 1. ESP, Jose Maria Torcida - 5, 3, 2; 10 2. ESP, Carlos Martinez - 2, 2, 9; 13 3. USA, Scott Young/Flynn/Morran/Williamson - 8, 5, 1; 14 4. USA, Jay Lutz/Gary Kamins - 6, 6, 6; 18 5. USA, John Storck Jr - 11, 4, 4; 19 6. USA, Glenn Darden/Hillard - 3, 8, 10; 21 7. ESP, Rayco Tabares Alvarez - 17, 1, 5; 23 8. ESP, Ignacio Camino - 13, 7, 3; 23 9. USA, Benjamin Schwartz - 1, 13, 13; 27 10. USA, Brian Keane - 7, 12, 11; 30 Full results: http://tinyurl.com/2010-J80-Worlds-results GET ON BOARD. SPREAD THE WORD! Sailing. Not everyone gets it. But you do. For sailors like you, Mount Gay Rum has launched ‘Sailing Spoken Here’. Whether you're a casual cruiser or a competitive racer, this is a place where sailors can celebrate every facet of the sport. Connect with fellow sailors, acquire cruising information, find a great sailing bar, discuss a race, argue a protest, upload regatta pictures, or even find a crew. If it speaks to sailors, it's spoken here. All sailors need a home port, welcome home: http://www.sailingspokenhere.com MOORE-PHING INTO ANOTHER DECADE By Jeremy Leonard, Surf City Racing It’s a bright, sunny afternoon in early October 2010 and a fleet of 30 Moore 24s are sailing their North Americans out of Santa Cruz Yacht Club. I’m in the hills above Santa Cruz (CA) and I’m standing in a redwood grove on the spot where the plug for a boat named Grendel, the predecessor to the Moore 24, was almost destroyed. Grendel was designed and built by the legendary yacht designer George Olson with his friend Wayne Kocher in an effort to capitalize even further on the success they had had with a previous boat named Sopwith Camel. According to John Moore, one of the partners in Moore Sailboats at the time, “George got his inspiration for Grendel from a drawing that he saw in a Herreshoff book. You know how it is looking at the line drawings in a book? It’s to scale. They just eyeballed the drawings I think.” Grendel was designed by taking the mathematical data from the lines they drew from the book and plugging them into a computer that was the size of a house located at Cabrillo College, making Grendel one of the first sailboats to use a computer in the design. John’s brother Ron adds, “George was in love with this model boat that he had, it had these apple-cheek bows, and that’s what he put onto Grendel.” The center of Olson’s boat building empire at the time was near the Santa Cruz Harbor, and John recalls. “They made the Grendel plug right over on 5th ave. Those houses used to rent for fifty or a hundred bucks. And Grendel was out there in the driveway.” Now an area of multi-million dollar homes, it’s hard to imagine building a boat there. George and Wayne were each going to build a boat off of the male mold, but during the construction of Wayne’s hull, the barn where it was being stored burnt to the ground and the boat was reduced to cinders. John Moore recalls, “They built two fiberglass hulls and one of them, Wayne’s, was towed up to Bassano’s (the barn), and the mold was thrown over the bank… then the barn burnt down, and Wayne lost the boat.” Luckily, Grendel was safe and sound down in the Santa Cruz Harbor. Project development was on hold. Grendel was sailed enthusiastically almost every Wednesday night, and its intended purpose of being a fun and fast boat to sail was realized. John adds, “At that time, the interest for boats under 30 feet was called M-O-R-C, so George campaigned Grendel and it was a fairly successful boat, and he found the shortcomings. It needed a little more keel and a little more beam.” The male mold sat unused up under the redwoods in the hills above Santa Cruz. Ron Moore to the rescue! -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/26ufdfx ADD THIS TO YOUR VIEWING QUEUE “The regatta of the year”: this is how Team Aqua’s pro skipper Cameron Appleton describes the RC 44 World Championships Islas Canarias Puerto Calero Cup. The event will take place next week (October 11-16) in Lanzarote, on the Canary Islands. It will be the RC 44 Class’ first official World Championship, recognized by the International Sailing Federation, and it will be broadcast live on Internet. “We have been working hard with Virtual Eye and Technosound to produce an optimum viewing platform for enthusiasts with the aim of constantly improving the accessibility of this fantastic sport to a worldwide audience,” says Daniel Calero, the owner of the local team Puerto Calero Islas Canarias and organizer of the event. “There will be one camera on the water and another one on top of the highest hotel in Arrecife. Images will be mixed with 3D Virtual Eye and the footage will be available online in real time. There will also be an interactive element so that people who download the programme will be able to focus on the boats of their choice, opting for a specific viewpoint.” Live commentary will be available in both English and Spanish, with Dobbs Davis doing the live commentary in English. The RC 44 World Championship is the second-to-last stage of the RC 44 Championship Tour, which will see its conclusion on December 7-12 during the Oracle RC 44 Cup Miami. -- Full story: http://www.rc44.com/en/regattas/news/index.php?idContent=2523 SAILING SHORTS * Chicago, IL (October 5, 2010) - The two teams competing in next week’s 2010 International Championship Match Race Series for the Canada’s Cup - Grant Hood’s challenging Vincere team from Canada’s Port Credit YC and Don Wilson’s Team Chicago Match Race Center racing on Convexity - have announced their crew lists. The Canada’s Cup, a symbol of sailing supremacy on the Great Lakes since its inception by the Royal Canadian YC in 1896 as a challenge trophy between representative yachts clubs of the US and Canada, will be held in each team’s Farr 40 class yachts over October 15-17 at the Chicago Match Race Center (CMRC). -- Full report: http://www.chicagomatchrace.com/PressRelease/article.asp?p=10059 * San Francisco, CA (October 5, 2010) - The plan to draw the 34th America’s Cup to San Francisco is running out of hurdles. Following a public hearing on Monday in which it received the approval of the Land Use and Economic Development Committee, the plan today was endorsed by a 9-2 vote by the full San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The City can now submit its formal bid to the BMW Oracle Racing team, which has received competing bids from Spain and Italy. The team has scheduled its decision by December 31, 2010, but has indicated their decision may come this month. * On Tuesday, October 19, 2010 (6:30-8:30 pm), the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum/ExplorOcean in Newport Beach, CA will open its newest exhibit that celebrates "Extraordinary People" by honoring the life of local hero, the late Nick Scandone (March 4, 1966 - January 2, 2009), a Paralympic Gold Medalist in Sailing. Nick's story will take us on a journey that covers Newport Beach yachting, overcoming adversity and the path to Olympic Gold. Guest speaker for the event will be Gary Jobson, President of U.S. Sailing. -- http://www.nhnm.org/ LEWMAR TO LAUNCH EVO RANGE OF WINCHES Lewmar will be launching the EVO Range of winches at the forthcoming U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, MD. Featuring the trusted performance of a Lewmar winch, tool-free servicing, and ‘Fast Fit’ installation, Lewmar are so confident about the quality of the EVO winch that they are backing it up with a 7-year warranty. Available in multiple styles and finishes, the EVO winch will take pride of place on Land Space Stand #64. Come and meet the Lewmar Team for a preview, or click on http://www.lewmar.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 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 Rich Aaring, Eugene Oregon: I am beginning to like the America's Cup in shallow draft catamarans and in San Francisco Bay. Imagine a Start Line and Leeward Mark off the Berkeley Marina and a Finish Line and Windward Mark off Crissy Field. Alcatraz as an obstruction. Lots of terrific vantage points. This could be really good. * From R. Geoffrey Newbury: Noel Sterrett wrote: "Multihulls are much faster (and hence much more exciting) than monohull, right?” Faster, yes, but more exciting only when you do it. We should not conflate competing with spectating. If this America’s Cup is intended to be some sort of media 'must-see', I can predict 'Epic Fail' from here. Exciting match racing for the spectators is all about a close contest between the racers. Exciting match racing is where yachts are evenly matched with finishes mere seconds apart. As in AC32. Absolute speed is irrelevant when racers are competing for the inches of position which means the advantage, a safe leebow or inside line at the chicane. That makes for a contest. AC33 was actually decided by the designers, but no-one knew whose designers were right. Having the faster boat, Oracle had to avoid capsizing or breaking down. The best AC contests have been those where the designs and technology were mature and therefore almost equal. Then it became a battle of men not machines. We do not watch football for the technology; we watch to see teams compete physically and mentally against each other on a level playing field. It is clear that Oracle has chosen multis for its advantage, but in doing so it will hurt the contest for the Cup as disastrously as the last fiasco did. * From David Redfern: I thought the Ryder Cup was like a great match race. And I've never played golf, but couldn't stop watching every minute. Brilliant! CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION “The future depends on what we do in the present.” - Mahatma Gandhi Special thanks to Melges Performance Sailboats, Mount Gay, and Lewmar. 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