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SCUTTLEBUTT #486 - January 20, 2000BOTYAtlantic City (New Jersey) January 19, 2000 - Tonight, Cruising World and Sailing World magazines revealed the winners of their prestigious Boat of the Year (BOTY) Awards at a gala ceremony held at the Ocean Life Center at Historic Gardner's Bay. The Amel Super Maramu 2000, a 53-foot cruising boat built in France, won overall honors as the standout cruising boat launched in the past year. The Inter 17, a 17-foot singlehanded catamaran built in California, won overall honors as the standout performance boat launched in the same period. Eleven other sailboats were recognized for excellence in sailboat design and construction at the BOTY gala. Winners are selected in each category by independent panels of experts who sea-trial and inspect new boats (or substantially redesigned boats), launched during the past year. This year, contenders ranged from 12 to 55 feet in overall length. The Amel Super Maramu 2000 was characterized by judges as a marvel of engineering, with a high level of refinement in design details that makes this vessel as "stately as a small ship," as one judge said. Every sailor could learn something from the cruising solutions this boat offers. Cruising World judges included Bill Lee, renowned for his use of composite structures and materials in the creation of his ground-breaking Santa Cruz designs; Ralph Naranjo, a former round-the-world cruiser and boatyard manager who now oversees the sailing program at the U.S. Naval Academy; Tom Neale, longtime cruiser and Cruising World contributor who coordinated BOTY logistics; and Skip Moyer, president of the American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC), the organization that sets the technical and engineering standards for how boats should be built and maintained. Sailing World editor John Burnham presented the Inter 17 as the 2000 Sailing World Overall Performance Boat of the Year. The Inter 17-a 295-pound, 17-foot singlehanded catamaran-is built by Performance Catamarans (Santa Ana, Calif.), a division of Catalina Yachts. Judges applauded the Inter 17 for its intelligent design-noting not only the efficiency of the hulls, foils, and rig, but a sail-handling system that allows singlehanded sailors to trim sails easily from the trapeze. Speed was of course a notable factor. Judges characterized this boat as a design that could have a lasting impact on sailing, with an appeal that could bring beach-cat sailing to the forefront of the sport again. The judges include Betsy Alison-the most accomplished of women racing sailors in the U.S. with 22 national and international titles - plus Jim Taylor, a yacht designer who has drafted successful Admiral's Cup contenders, IMS grand-prix racers, and America's Cup challengers; and Greg Fisher, a one-design champion with a string of titles in several classes. In addition to these two overall winners, eleven boats were recognized as standout designs. In addition to their selection of the Overall Cruising Boat of the Year, Cruising World judges issued awards in specific price and design categories. In addition to selecting the Overall Performance Boat of the Year, Sailing World judges named four additional boats they deemed as the best performers of the year. -- Gail Scott-Sleeman CRUISING WORLD WINNERS -- Catalina 310 - Best Pocket Cruiser (under $100,000), Catalina Yachts (Woodland Hills, Calif.) -- Tartan 3700 - Best Mid-Size Cruiser ($100,000 - $225,000), Fairport Yachts (Fairport, Ohio) -- Island Packet 420 - Best Full-Size Cruiser ($225,000 - $400,000), Island Packet Yachts (Largo, Fla.) -- Amel Super Maramu 2000 - Best Full-Size Cruiser (over $400,000), Chantiers Amel (La Rochelle, France) -- X-442 Mk II - Best Racer/Cruiser, X-Yachts (Haderslev, Denmark) -- Outremer 55 Light - Best Cruising Multihull, Atelier Outremer (La Grande Motte, France) -- Hunter 212 - Most Innovative, Hunter Marine Corp. (Alachua, Fla.) -- Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 37 - Best Value, Jeanneau (Les Herbiers, France) SAILING WORLD WINNERS -- Aerodyne 38, Aerodyne Marine (Strand, South Africa) -- J/46, J Boats (Newport, R.I.) Built by TPI, Inc. (Warren, R.I.) -- Mega Byte, Byte Boats (Dorval, Quebec, Canada) -- Synergy 1000, Timeless Marine (Seattle, Wash.) Full story: http://www.sailingworld.com KWRW Key West, Fla. January 19, 2000 - Some contenders at the 13th annual GMC Yukon Yachting Key West Race Week can start chilling the champagne. But for others, trophy determinations are still a huge question mark - and are likely to remain so until Friday's final race. Today's light-air conditions did not help their cause. After two races in 3- to 7-knot winds today, leaders in some classes have seen a new order emerge as this 261-boat fleet enters its last two days of racing. But leaders in other classes have not experienced a roller-coaster swing in standings: They started this regatta strong and stayed that way. This is a true feat in the schizophrenic wind conditions that began as heavy-air practice days and dwindled down to today's light and fickle southerly breeze. Two boats have sailed without a flaw in their standings, taking perfect strings of first-place finishes throughout the week, including John and Anthony Esposito's J/29 Hustler (City Island, N.Y.) and Jeff Sampson's S2 7.9 Rugger (Detroit, Mich.). "We've been very fortunate this year," said John Esposito. "We've had excellent corners and gained on every mark rounding - and we've won four out of five starts." But Esposito does not think any of his competitors are ready to hand him a class title; so far, Alan Townsley's C&C 34 (Palisades, N.Y.) has four seconds and a third to their credit, and they are only six points behind Hustler with three races remaining. Sampson and his crew on Rugger are also cleaning house in PHRF-8. Their four- and seven-minute wins in today's two races have established this Detroit, Mich., boat as a consistent winner in all conditions, even though their S2 7.9 is new to them. "Everything just kind of worked for us. We had good starts and hit all the right shifts," said Sampson. . But strings of bullets are far from a reality in the large one-design classes competing at Race Week. In the 26-boat Mumm 30 class, the only boat that has not yet added an individual finish outside the top 10 is class leader Bodo von der Wense and his crew on Turbo Duck. A record of 1-3 in today's races has established an eight-point lead for von der Wense and his Annapolis-based crew. "Turbo Duck is sailing an unbelievable regatta, they're really doing a nice job," says Scott Nixon, a competitor on Mumm 30 Prime Time. The Lake Geneva, Wisc.-based crew aboard Brian Porter's Melges 24 Full Throttle are on top of this ultra-competitive class with 46 boats. An 8-1-1-2-8 series puts this team in first overall, three points ahead of Harry Melges and the Zenda Express crew (Zenda, Wisc.). Dockside after the race, crewmember John Porter says, "Today we had tough, tough conditions. To succeed you had to be in the right spot going the right way all the time. If you weren't you were left behind." With finishes of 12 and 8 today, Farr 40 class leader Vincenzo Onorato (Savoia, Italy) has lost his lead in the Farr 40 class to George Andreadis' Atalanti XI from Greece, with Olympic medalist Robbie Haines calling tactics. But Andreadis and his crew have not taken their front-running position by default: this tiller-driver Farr 40 has come on strong in the light air, with a 1-1-2 in the last three races for a radical shift into the lead. In today's light winds, many classes stretched far apart by the time they reached the finish, with increments of minutes rather than seconds separating them. But that was not the case in the J/29 fleet, a one design (racing with a slight 6-second-a-mile PHRF spread) that dates back to the early 1980s. Wind conditions taxed tacticians' brains and every sailor who struggled in hot sun, current (estimated as strong as one knot on the Melges course), and fickle wind. It was not a day of choice conditions for racers - or for the committee running races. "Today was not a race manager's dream. . . It was light - and it got lighter," said Event Director Peter Craig after reaching the docks. But race managers on all three circles got two races in; Craig and his crew on the Division I course shortened the last race to three legs, as the single-digit breeze dwindled toward afternoon's end. -- Cynthia Goss Complete results and feature reports: http://www.Premiere-Racing.com TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE Thanks to new breathable fabrics, the discomfort formerly associated with certain aspects of racing has been greatly reduced. And now there's another breakthrough. Camet International has introduced a neo-thermal top so sailors (and others too) can wear breathable Neoprene close to the skin. As a result, trapped vapors (like sweat) disappears quickly. And almost magically, the action increases with higher levels of physical activity - responding to the exercise level of the user. As a result, racing sailors can now be more comfortable than was ever possible before. To learn more about the amazing new Camet neo-thermal top: http://www.camet.com MTN CAPE TO RIO RACE The end is in sight for the leaders in the MTN Cape to Rio 2000 yacht race as the Californian maxi, Zephyrus IV, makes the last miles to Rio de Janeiro on her way to a formidable record-breaking crossing. With only 255 miles to go before the finish line off the world-renowned Copacabana beach, race organisers are expecting her to arrive in the festive city tomorrow (Friday,21 January). However, members of the Zephyrus shore crew in Rio report that they are expecting them by midnight tonight or in the early hours of Friday morning. That would mean that the sleek American racer has slashed more than twenty-four hours off the 1996 record and she becomes the first yacht to finish the trans-Atlantic crossing in under fourteen days. Sagamore will be arriving little later this weekend. Portugal Brasil 500 reported today that the long-awaited north wind is finally pushing through and that their frustrating windless days are over. "It feels great to be on the move again. The big guys are long gone in winds that we never saw, but the possibility of us actually catching them from 550 miles behind, was always a long shot. Now we'll try to catch Greenwich Warrior and Maxtec Wizard to cross the line in third position," wrote Ingvall in his latest Captain Chaos report. Race website: http://www.capetorio.com ETCHELLS WORLDS Today, 20 January 2000, the top four boats in the Etchells Worlds were Australian. Ian Walker, Nick Williams and Matt Wenke lead the fleet at every mark after the first general recall for their second win in as many days. 66 starters today and two boats were OCS. Mr. Consistency, Cameron Miles with James Mayo and Andrew Palfrey commandingly lead the regatta with a second today. Two more races to go and with a finish of eighth or better in race five, this team will lock up the World Championship without sailing the last race. Mark Richards, Mick Hole and Bruce Wookey sailed very well today and came third to move into the top five overall. The southerly buster came in late last night and blew itself out as the system passed through the area. The winds were 11 - 15 knots from the ENE - NE for the 12.4 NM five leg course. The seas were 3 - 4 feet with the winds very consistent the whole race. Ben Altman from United States finished 5th and Nils Razmilovic from Great Britain 6th to break into the Australian top ten. Top finishers from other countries: New Zealand - Cameron Thorpe 13th, Bermuda - Tim Patton 28th and Hong Kong - John Elsden 51st. Top five after four of six races (including ties): AUS Cameron Miles (8), AUS Peter McNeill (32), AUS Ian Walker (35), AUS Michael Coxon (39), and AUS Mark Richards (39). Heavier winds are expected for tomorrow's Race Five. -- Mike Hein Regatta website: http://www.rpayc.com.au/etchells/ LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) Letters selected to be printed are routinely edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude personal attacks. But only one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if people disagree. -- From Jeff Borland (In response to Glenn McCarthy re: "speed up play") -- Here on the Chesapeake Bay we do this quite a bit. We use the "R" flag to indicate that another race will follow. It's written into the SIs to allow us to choose to run more than one race per day. Even without the "R" Flag, we write our SIs to state we plan on more than one race per day, then if we cannot, we use the "AP" over "A" to indicate we won't start another race. In a multiple race day, we use the 6-minute timing sequence quite a bit, it really speeds up the pre-start. The 6-minute start consists of a warning gun and class flag at 6 minutes, and then the blue shape and gun at 5 minutes, with the rest of the start the same. Another benefit of the 6-minute start is that we can more easily start multiple fleets on a second race, we don't have to wait around for all the fleets to get back to the starting area, as soon as one fleet is ready, start 'em! -- From Henry Moore (In response to Glenn McCarthy) -- There is an easy way to maximize sailing in good conditions. When you write the Notice of Race and the SI's, you schedule the maximum number of races for each day that you believe could be run under good to ideal conditions, multiply that times the number of days you have available and that determines the numbers of scheduled races in the regatta. Then you race whatever you can. For example, four races a day is the reasonable maximum and the regatta is three days means you have 12 races scheduled. Depending on weather, you might not be able to get them all. The problem comes when class rules have not only a minimum number of races for the regatta, but a maximum. This could lead to ending a regatta early. However, I do believe in running races when the weather is good and not sitting in the club. -- From Hugh Elliot -- I have written many Notices of Race and Sailing Instructions and have always "frontloaded" the schedule. So, if I have a three day, seven race series, the schedule of races will read 4-2-1. That way, if we have a beautiful first day we will sail late and get in four races: if Day 1 is marginal and we have to postpone, then there are holes in the schedule on Day 2 and 3 that can be filled. Put 'em in the bank when you can but let the competitors know how many races you are going to attempt each day. The answer "As many as possible" in response to the question "How many races will you attempt today?" is really poor race management. We should always remember that the competitors are the Race Committee's customers and not our laboratory rats. -- Bob McCutcheon -- I'm sure that Torben Grael does know the rules and was certainly aware that as windward boat he had to keep clear. What he didn't know, and no skipper could know, is what the umpire thinks should be his proper course. That was the point in this issue, not the fact that the windward boat had to keep clear. Perhaps if the umpire was on board they could inform the skipper that they were sailing above or below proper course, and perhaps the umpires themselves could read the true wind angle from the instruments and be more informed. This would clear up the grey area of proper course. I'm all for the umpires being on the boats, anything that clarifies these grey areas is good for the sport. LOUIS VUITTON CUP FINALS Prada has chosen its first boat ITA-45 to sail the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals and eventually the America's Cup, if they win the Finals. The two Italian boats (ITA-45 and ITA-48) are very similar and have shown good all round performance. The Syndicate used ITA-45, the first of the two Luna Rossa boats built and designed by the Prada Challenge Team, for the first two rounds. That first boat had an excellent score card with a total of 46 points (18 out of 20) and with that Prada was clearly leading the ranking at the end of Round Robin Two. For the third round Prada selected to use ITA-48. Laurent Esquier, Operations Manager of Team Prada, said then about ITA-48: "We have decided to use the second Luna Rossa for the third round because the races are the only real test. We have been training for a while with both boats (ITA-45 and ITA-48) matching up against each other, but in a certain sense it was like dancing with your sister." The most significant design difference between ITA-45 and ITA-48 is waterline beam. That is something the untrained eye will hardly detect, as the differences cannot be more than a few centimetres. Doug Peterson, designer of Luna Rossa, said: "ITA-48 is slightly narrower than the first boat but both are designed to go well in the same conditions; they are both all-round yachts which have a similar level of performance. However, they don't behave in exactly the same way." Paul Cayard's AmericaOne did what everybody expected. It selected USA-61, the most recent boat built for this America's Cup and the Louis Vuitton Cup, as the boat it will use for the finals and consequently for the America's Cup if they beat the Italians. It sounded as if Cayard always wanted to use the later boat for the final stages of the Louis Vuitton Cup. He told the press on the arrival of his second boat, "Having USA-61 here early definitely gave us some flexibility for two-boat testing, and to race it before the Semi-Finals." Again it is very hard to tell the difference between the boats. Maybe the most distinctive difference according to some observers is that USA-61 is a bit longer on the waterline. Theoretically that indicates better performance in light airs. AmericaOne crew was enthusiastic about their new rocket ship, as they liked to call it. In the Semis it proved to be quick to accelerate, fast under 11 knots of breeze and all-round in other conditions. -- Simon Keijzer, Louis Vuitton Cup website. Full story: http://www.louisvuittoncup.com/ INSIDE THE AMERICAONE COMPOUND Turns out the best weather of the day was between 6:30 AM and 8:00 AM. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to enjoy it at that hour - we were lifting weights, running hills, and sprinting in waist-high water with boxing gloves on our hands. Yep, just when we thought Billy's workouts couldn't look any stranger to the outsider, he took us to another level. We were at Parnell Pools (ten minutes' drive from our accommodation) for the first time and the grueling water work was actually a lot of fun. Billy has done a good job of mixing up our workouts, so that we are never bored and so that the intensity is always high. Just when we start learning exactly which side of the hill is advantageous to run up, he takes us to an outdoor pool where we have to learn that the green paint has less grip than the blue. We will never beat him. Basically, from there the weather got worse. We had another very useful crew meeting when we arrived at the base. We knew we were in for another good ol' New Zealand soaking when Coach Kevin Hall had to raise his voice to be heard over the rain landing on the roof of the Auditorium. We had some work to do on one of the boats in the morning and then we left the dock with 49 and 61 at 2:00 PM. The wind was very shifty and at times too light to test fairly. The rain and thick clouds were playing havoc with what wind there was. We were still able to run a few hours of tests, but when the breeze shut down to under two knots we decided it was time to hook-up a tow and head for home. The boats arrived at the base at 6:30 PM, and our 6:00 PM dinner has been delayed to 7:30 PM. We better feed some of the grinders before it gets ugly... -- Morgan Trubovich
HIGH PERFORMANCE
ADVANCED RACE MANAGEMENT SEMINAR |
