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SCUTTLEBUTT 2973 - Monday, November 16, 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. Scuttlebutt on Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Scuttlebutt on Facebook: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/facebook Today’s sponsors are MyBoatsGear.com, New England Ropes, and Newport Shipyard. TULLOCH WINS 2009 U.S. WOMEN’S MATCH RACING CHAMPIONSHIP St. Thomas, USVI (November 15, 2009) - Light winds worked to the benefit of US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG) member Genny Tulloch (San Francisco, Calif.) on the final day of US SAILING's 2009 U.S. Women's Match Racing Championship (USWMRC), hosted by the St. Thomas Yacht Club and sailed in Cowpet Bay. Tulloch was joined by crew Chafee Emory (Newport, R.I.), Elizabeth Hall (Chevy Chase, Md.) and Elizabeth Kratzig (Miami Beach, Fla.). Tulloch upset fellow USSTAG teammate, Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, Fla.), and her crew of Molly O'Bryan Vandemoer (Redwood City, Calif.), Liz Bower (Rochester, N.Y.), and Alice Manard (Charleston, S.C.) in the finals. Manard and Vandemoer are both members of USSTAG. Team Tunnicliffe had dominated the first three days of the championship, losing just one match. Shifty conditions and a breeze barely reaching six knots set the scene for the final two matches of the semifinals and for the four match finals. In the semifinals, Tunnicliffe, the 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist in the Laser Radial, defeated Annie Gardner-Nelson (San Diego, Calif.) in three matches. Tulloch bested USSTAG member, Katie Pilley-Lovell (New Orleans, La.), in three matches to force a Tunnicliffe-Tulloch face off in the finals. Team Tunnicliffe had gone 3-0 against Team Tulloch in their first three round robin matches. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/yj7695t MONDAY MORNING TACTICIAN By Andrew Campbell After spending a weekend back on the college circuit, helping Coach Callahan and Georgetown Sailors Chris Barnard and Charlie Buckingham at the Singlehanded Nationals in Corpus Christi, one glaring question still sticks in our minds: Can somebody please define the term: starting line? Sailors who appeared to be winning the pin end at starts were called OCS throughout the regatta leaving many, including the coaches frustrated and scratching their heads. With only 18 Lasers, the line could afford to be quite short, and the college procedures allow for the race committee to be aggressive about calling boats over the line (the committee boat was a 30-foot power boat and an 5-foot-wide orange tetrahedron for the pin-end). But, when the pin-most boat in each and every race was being called over the line, there was clearly a miscommunication about where the line was being sighted. It took some sweet talking but one of the sailors finally got the interpretation from the committee boat: “If you’re bow is overlapped at all with the tetrahedron at the gun, you’re OCS.” This prompted some serious groans from the coach boat where the general interpretation was that boats are usually allowed to overlap the pin (especially if the pin is five feet wide), so long as they don’t make the pin disappear at the gun. Basically, if the pin disappears, the boat is OCS. After about ten minutes of discussion and rule-book flipping we were shocked that our interpretation could not be justified by a rule or definition. Usually the description of the starting line is somewhere in the sailing instructions, but it simply said it would be “between an orange flag on a staff attached the committee boat and an orange tetrahedron.” There was no distinction between the front of the buoy or the back of the buoy. Can the starting line really be that fuzzy? Is it as thick as the pin mark? Is the starting line five feet wide? -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/yjchg29 LAYING UP FOR THE WINTER Now the season is over, most of us have to pack up our boats and make sure they will survive the winter. The winterizing process can be quite involved, so to make the process easier we have outlined the major and not so major tasks. Antifreeze needs to be added to cooling systems at a minimum, and there are many more essential and recommended tasks. For the full article click here: http://www.myboatsgear.com/newsletter/20091111.asp RSS feeds are available at http://www.Myboatsgear.com GROUPAMA 3 SCHUSSING ALONG (November 15, 2009; 17:15 UTC) - The calm conditions colouring the past 48 hours are definitively over: with the arrival of a Brazilian depression system the acceleration has been instant and is set to last for several days. Evidence of this comes with the 70 miles gained on Orange 2 in the space of seven hours this Sunday morning. Saturday was probably the worst day that Franck Cammas and his crew will have to experience as they sail around the world, with the advantage amassed in the North Atlantic reduced by nearly half - 220 miles in 24 hours, which equates to half the distance on a calm day and three times less than on a normal day. The balance in accounting terms is a terrible one: 300 miles lost. Indeed making headway at less than five knots on a thirty metre trimaran is surreal! And the situation lasted for more than half a day before the N'ly wind finally filled midway through Saturday afternoon. By Saturday night, Groupama 3 found her wings again and is powering away at an average of thirty knots this Sunday afternoon! This is all thanks to a gust of tropical heat originating in Rio de Janeiro, which is dropping down to the Furious Fifties, passing beneath South Africa, before continuing its voyage at least as far as the Kerguelen archipelago, if not further. -- Team website: http://www.cammas-groupama.com/en Current position as of November 15, 2009 (23:00 UTC): Ahead/behind record: +330.9 nm Speed over past 24 hours: 23.5 knots Distance over past 24 hours: 564.9 nm Tracking: http://cammas-groupama.geovoile.com/julesverne2009/?lg=en BACKGROUND: The 105-foot trimaran Groupama 3 is seeking to win the Jules Verne Trophy, a fully crewed round the world record attempt under sail. Skipper Franck Cammas and his 9 crew began their attempt Nov. 5 and must cross the finish line off Ushant, France before December 26th at 08:09:26 (UT) to break the record (50d:16h:20m:04s). SEATTLE CREW SAILS AWAY WITH NOOD CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE Tortola, British Virgin Islands (November 13, 2009) - Nine crews from throughout North America hit the waters of the British Virgin Islands on Nov. 6-11 to compete in the Sperry Top-Sider Caribbean NOOD Regatta Championship. All nine crews earned invitations to the Caribbean NOOD Championship by winning their individual NOOD Regatta earlier this year. Each crew competed in a Beneteau 393, provided by Sunsail, for the Championship race. Emerging as the overall winner of the Caribbean NOOD Championship was Dan Kaseler of Port Angeles, Wash., and his Seattle NOOD Regatta-winning crew, which included his wife Jacqueline Kaseler, Sean Halberg, Josh Larsen, and Mike Montagne. Kaseler, a professional sail designer and Melges 24 skipper, and crew claimed the overall title after winning the last leg of the eight-race regatta. Teams from Larchmont (N.Y.) and Annapolis (Md.) rounded out the top-three finishers. The Sperry Top-Sider National Offshore One Design (NOOD) Regatta series has added to its 2010 schedule of nine regattas a stop in San Francisco, CA to be hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club in late June. This marks the return of the NOOD series to the Bay area after a six-year absence, where it had been held previously from 1990-2003. While this year’s Houston event has been removed from the schedule, the series will return to St. Petersburg, Fla., Annapolis, Md., Detroit, Mich., Chicago, Ill., Marblehead, Mass. and Larchmont, N.Y, with the overall winner from each event being invited to the Caribbean NOOD in November. -- Details: http://www.sailingworld.com/nood_regatta.jsp AC LITIGATION IS BACK -- WEIRDER THAN EVER By Cory E. Friedman, America’s Cup legal analyst (November 15, 2009) -- Just when everyone thought the Cup was moving from the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court of New York on 60 Centre Street in Manhattan to Valencia for a showdown on the water, it turns out that the ACup litigation is back -- weirder than ever. So here is the Golden Jubilee 50th Report on the Cup litigation that is the gift that keeps giving. Société Nautique De Geneve (SNG) filed its opening brief on its appeal of Justice Kornreich’s decision ruling out RAK as the Match venue, along with a motion for an expedited appeal and a request for a stay of the RAK decision on November 4, 2009. Justice Helen Freedman denied the request for a stay and granted the motion for expedition. The denial of the stay looked like the end of the ball game. On November 10, 2009, SNG announced that the Match would be held in Valencia -- without any qualification or reservation. That seemed to be confirmation that the appeal and the game was over. Then it started to get really squirrely. It seems that SNG thought it could love and leave RAK, just like it had loved and left Team New Zealand (TNZ) after TNZ jumped in the sack for bucks it never got to bolster the aborted CNEV version of AC 33. What SNG did not seem to expect was that hell hath no fury like an Emirate scorned. It seemed that there was the little matter of the $120 million that RAK invested, based upon SNG’s representations that the Match would be held there. Apparently the Sheik of RAK cannot take a joke, as one of the Gulf media published a report that RAK was “considering its options.” That is U.S. lawyer speak for “we are not taking this lying down.” -- Read on: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/cf/#p50 LARSON AND TEAM CRUISE TO VICTORY Congratulations to Chris Larson and his team in winning the Melges 24 Worlds. For New England Ropes, it is the close collaboration with riggers and leading sailors like Larson that has been instrumental in developing the most comprehensive line of marine cordage worldwide. Endura Braid, Flight Line, Finish Line and Poly-Tec are now synonymous with performance. Constant feedback and continuous improvement result in ultimate performance at the highest level. For more information, or if you want to join the New England Ropes development network, contact us anytime at http://www.neropes.com Others make rope - we make rope perform. KIWIS SCORE TWO WINS TO MOVE INTO SEMI-FINALS Nice, France, (November 15, 2009) - Synergy skipper Karol Jablonski and tactician Rod Dawson were wearing huge smiles dockside and expressing their pleasure over a job well done when Philippe Mourniac from All4One approached. “Great job, guys. It was awesome to watch on TV,” said Mourniac, the Franco-German team’s navigator. Synergy had recently completed a wire-to-wire win over TeamOrigin, restructuring the order at the Louis Vuitton Trophy Nice Côte d’Azur as perestroika revamped Russian politics in the 1980s. Synergy today won two races and now occupies fourth place on the leaderboard with a 5-4 record, 1 point behind third-placed Azzurra. Synergy has two matches remaining in Round 2 and a victory in at least one would ensure advancement to the semi-finals. “That would be an accomplishment. But we still have to win it,” said Jablonski, the 47-year-old skipper from Poland. “Today we had a good day and we’re happy with our performance in this event. Before the start, who would’ve counted on us going forward?” The semi-finalists took shape today with Emirates Team New Zealand wrapping up the round robins. Kiwi skipper Dean Barker came out victorious over BMW Oracle Racing and TFS - PagesJaunes and leads the event with a 9-1 record. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/ygbn83e Current Standings Competing teams - Country - Skipper - Record Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) - Dean Barker, 9-1 TeamOrigin (GBR) - Ben Ainslie, 7-3 Azzurra (ITA) - Francesco Bruni, 6-3 Synergy Russian Sailing Team (RUS) - Karol Jablonski, 5-4 Artemis (SWE) - Paul Cayard, 4-5 BMW ORACLE Racing (USA) - Russell Coutts, 3-6 ALL4ONE (FRA/GER) - Jochen Schuemann, 3-7 Team French Spirit (FRA) - Bertrand Pacé, 1-9 Round 2 of the Louis Vuitton Trophy began on Saturday afternoon, after Emirates Team New Zealand comfortably concluded Round 1 in first place. With the light winds in the area and the semifinals and knockout round scheduled to start Thursday, November 17th, event organizers amended Round 2, dividing the eight teams into two halves based on their placing in Round 1, with the top four teams racing each of the bottom four teams once. Event website: http://www.louisvuittontrophy.com/home/ Video interviews: http://www.youtube.com/user/btsbroadcast BACKGROUND: The Louis Vuitton Trophy Nice Cote d’Azur is the inaugural event of the World Sailing Teams Association. The WSTA event is designed to be a cost-effective format for the teams, with the four America’s Cup class boats being used in Nice on loan from three teams: ALL4ONE (FRA-93), Mascalzone Latino (ITA-90, ITA-99) and TeamOrigin (GBR-75). The boats have been equalised as much as possible to create a level playing field. JACQUES VABRE BT SKIPPERS SAFE AND SOUND (November 13, 2009) - Just before 1800 GMT, BT Team Ellen skippers Sébastien Josse and Jean-François Cuzon, who were competing in the Transat Jacques Vabre, were confirmed safe and sound, and in a helicopter heading back to Terceira (Azores). The helicopter was aboard the Ocean Explorer scientific vessel, which came to the crew's rescue. This episode has put an end to an extremely stressful and anguishing day. Aboard a yacht two thirds full of water following significant damage to the coachroof, the two BT skippers, Sébastien Josse and Jean-François Cuzon, had activated their EPIRB distress beacon this morning at 1020 GMT. The rescue operation was immediately kick started by the MRCC (Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre), in conjunction with the BT technical team and the Transat Jacques Vabre Race Direction. A tugboat is now on standby in the Azores, and all efforts will now be made to salvage the BT yacht. The BT sailing team extend their deepest thanks to the rescue services for all their remarkable efforts in finding and bringing assistance to Seb and Jean-François. -- http://www.btsebjosse.com/news.asp?sid=22595 * The ninth edition of the 4800-mile doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre race from France to Costa Rica began on November 8th with 14 Open 60 monohulls and 6 Open 50 multihulls. A third of the multihulls are now on the sidelines, with a wicked storm toward the end of last week having played havoc to the Open 60 fleet, bringing fierce seas and winds reaching 60 knots at times. Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier Benac on Safran are currently in the lead of the remaining 11 boat Open 60 fleet. -- Event website: http://www.jacques-vabre.com/en SCUTTLEBUTT SAILING CALENDAR Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar SAILING SHORTS * Busan, Korea (November 14, 2009) - The Council of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) concluded their meeting in Busan, Korea today, with the final decisions made at this year's ISAF Annual Conference. Full details of all the decisions made at the ISAF Annual Conference will be published in the minutes of the meetings for the ISAF Council and all ISAF Committees, which will be published on the ISAF Meetings microsite in the coming weeks. -- Full report: http://www.sailing.org/news/30280.php * Cape Town, South Africa (November 15, 2009) - In hurricane force winds, California, the American entry in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race, arrived in Cape Town at the end of an extremely challenging race across the South Atlantic. Two thousand miles into the 3,300-mile race from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Cape Town, California’s steering wheel sheared off. The crew sailed the last third of the race using the emergency steering system. The event restarts on 22 November for the race from Cape Town to Geraldton-Greenough, Western Australia. -- Details: http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/index.php/race_news * Longer courses, new deep-water marks, one day of sailing dedicated to an Ocean Race and an extended South Coast Ocean Triangle herald change and a fresh format for the 2010 Grenada Sailing Festival. The annual event, run in association with the Grenada Board of Tourism on January 29 - February 2, is putting the changes in place to attract bigger yachts and the strongly competitive crews based in the Region, and provide challenging top quality racing and an early Sailing Season 'Tune-Up' to the international yachts visiting the Caribbean for the Winter. -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=8579 * The inaugural La Solidaire du Chocolat, a new double-handed, non-stop 5,000-mile transatlantic race from France to Mexico, saw twenty-four doublehanded Class40 teams start on October 18th. With ten boats having so far dropped out, event winner Initiatives - Novedia, sailed by Tanguy De Lamotte and Adrien Hardy, finished November 13th at 15:00:00(TU). -- Event website: http://www.lasolidaireduchocolat.com/en THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES Newport Bucket, BBQs, live bands dockside, acrobats in the rigging... memories linger. Weather windows slamming shut day by day. We will miss you. http://www.newportshipyard.com LETTERS AND FORUM Please email your comments to the Scuttlebutt editor (aka, ‘The Curmudgeon’). Published letters must include writer's name and be no longer than 250 words (letter might be edited for clarity or simplicity). 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 Barry Demak, J/World, the Performance Sailing School & Club: (Regarding the J/120 collision with a whale in the Baja Ha-Ha that led to its sinking), I can with conviction say that the crunching and tearing of fiberglass - particularly when caused by Cetaceans - is extraneous noise; the sound signature of a HH-60J Jayhawk is symphonic! I would like to say Thank You to my shipmates: Eugenie, Judy, Mark and Ray. You were - and are - amazing! I hope we'll sail together soon. * From Mike Johnson: I am looking for help in the Chicagoland area to build an International Moth. Looking for a project partner over the next 6 months for the build. I will fund the project but am looking for somewhere to set up shop. If you have any experience building a moth or any other information that you think might be helpful, please feel free to let me know. Life is too short to sit around and wait for things to happen. Since I was a kid I have wanted to build one of these sailboats. The time is now! -- Forum, http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=8594 * From Bud Thompson: There must be a few thousand other guys like myself who would love to be able to buy a DVD that someone has put together during all of this America’s Cup boat action in San Diego and the middle east. Properly done, it would turn all eyes once again to the sport of sailing and with unbelievably fantastic changes in thinking design and materials and a need for only the best talent. * From Bob Johnston, Singlehanded TransPac 2010 Co-Chair: You may have missed a big part of the significance of that video (in Scuttlebutt 2972). The middle part of the video was taken while Chris Humann was sailing his qualifier for the 2006 Singlehanded TransPac (San Francisco to Kauai) and the last part, taken while sailing with the twin headsails, was during the race itself - and this on a Dana 24! Skippers (possibly including Chris) are again focused on preparations for next summer’s SH TransPac, which starts June 19, 2010. Entries will start to be taken after the first of the year. * Here is the video again: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/09/1113/ CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet? Special thanks to MyBoatsGear.com, New England Ropes, and Newport Shipyard. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
