|
SCUTTLEBUTT 3704 - Wednesday, October 24, 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: IYRS and Pure Yachting. YOUTH IS RESHAPING A SPORT OF EXPERIENCE By Chris Museler, NY Times By the time Nathan Outteridge won a gold medal in sailing for Australia at the London Olympics this summer at 26, he was already flying high as a helmsman for Team Korea in the America's Cup World Series. When he considered his options this fall, at least three teams were pursuing him, with salary offers reportedly reaching seven figures. Outteridge, who decided to join Artemis Racing last month, is a sailing superstar. He has won world championships in several classes; this week, he is aiming for another: the A-Class Catamaran World Championship in Islamorada, Fla. He has never before raced the A-Class catamaran, which is an ultralight, single-person racing boat, but they are considered perfect cross-training for an America's Cup helmsman because of their similarities with the two classes of catamarans being raced in the Cup. Outteridge is part of the cadre of 20-something skippers who are nipping at the heels of the old guard in the America's Cup. Professional sailing once had middle-aged, seasoned sailors as the top picks for Cup helmsmen. Now, young, champion sailors in one of today's modern racing dinghies and catamarans have what racing teams are looking for to win sailing's highest profile event: faster decision-making skills. The Artemis skipper Terry Hutchinson, 42, worked his way into the coveted lead spot to cap a 20-year path, paying his dues selling sails, racing with wealthy yacht owners and filling all the key roles in the afterguard of an America's Cup racer. But when the Cup defender, Larry Ellison, decided to change the racing from big, relatively slow keelboats to wing-sailed catamarans, the younger generation became valuable. Sailors like Outteridge and Peter Burling of New Zealand, a 21-year-old silver medalist at the Olympics, have grown up racing modern, ultrafast dinghies on short courses. Their background turns out to be good experience for racing in the World Series, where courses are right up against the shore. The big question before the America's Cup finals next September is, what will win: youth or experience? In a sport in which experience often dominates, the new Cup format has many teams hedging their bets. "We're all breaking new ground here," said Hutchison, whose Artemis A boat finished three places ahead of Outteridge's B boat for Artemis at the World Series event in San Francisco earlier this month. "The young, keen, passionate thing can take you a long way. When the pressure's on, who knows? That's the beauty of our sport. It's learned. There's a difference for sure." -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/NYT-102412 SCUTTLEBUTT TRIVIA For five America's Cups from 1992 to 2007, teams competed in the International America's Cup Class. This class has now been replaced by the AC72, but it is doubtful that this catamaran will have as successful a run. Of the 101 boats built, American teams had the most at 24 boats. Which country was next? IYRS HEADS TO FT. LAUDERDALE Scuttlebutt readers heading to the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show this week will see a wide range of watercraft - from small skiffs to luxury superyachts. But one exhibitor will feature something beyond boats: IYRS will head to Lauderdale to showcase the technology behind these watercraft and the career opportunities that fuel the fleet's creation. IYRS's six-month-long Marine Systems and Composites Technology programs begin in March, and both programs have been a fast track into the job market for many individuals - from military veterans to professional crews migrating back to working on land. For more information: http://www.iyrs.org FORWARD LOOKING AND RELEVANT FOR YEARS TO COME Patrick Shaughnessy, President, Farr Yacht Design, discusses the one design VO65 his firm designed which will be used in the 2014-15 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "One of the components, especially in the industry that we felt from the previous (Volvo Ocean) Races, is some competition between various designers and builders and suppliers and things like that, and as industry fans we've lived this part of the race. That's not going to be present with one-design boats as the designers and builders are obviously the same. Instead we'll have much more focus on the teams and sailors, and ultimately that's the side that the sponsors really value. Our side where we like it is of questionable end-value to the sponsors. Instead what we will have will be a people's race and by itself that's going to be really fantastic to watch. "To win the next one-design Volvo Ocean Race what you're gonna have to do is use the boat better than the other people. "Conceptually, the new boat has a lot of similar features and is going to be a very high performance offshore racing boat. What separates it a little bit from the Volvo Open 70 is that it is trying to address the cost issue associated with the hardware in the event so the boat is a little smaller in many of its parameters are scaled to try to address cost. The hardware when you reach the starting line represents a third of the technical budget so the other two thirds of your technical budget we address with shared spares and shared support schemes. The design itself, beyond those conceptual things, tries to address a couple of key components and those are safety and reliability. As we do all those things we're also trying to make a boat a that is a little more manageable for less skilled teams so we can combine these goals with the performance and costs and reliability and try to address them all in one-design package that speaks to all those. "People are going to see a lay-out of boat that makes it easier to move sails around because of some of the grinder pedestal orientations, those sorts of things, but the overwhelming impression will be of a top level Grand Prix racing boat. So we tried to be pretty smart in how we address a couple of key little things but at the same time produce an image of a boat that's very forward thinking has a unique look in its stem profile, its cabin shape and some of these things that'll make the boat we think a little bit iconic in the industry. It'll be something that looks special, and look special for a while and styling-wise it's advanced like that enough to be quite keeping. "When you come down the dock you're gonna see a boat that's really cool. The stem shape has been styled to be emotional, forward looking and be relevant for years to come so it's a boat that's exciting and modern and it's gonna be iconic." -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14675 RULE CHANGES AND CONGRESS MINUTES Following the IRC Congress meeting held in Windsor, London on October 13-14, the Minutes and the IRC 2013 Rule changes are now available on the IRC website. Here are some excerpts from Minutes: * The IRC Technical Committee has concerns that publishing more data will enable designers to better 'optimise' boats and therefore does not intend to generally increase the data publically available. * It was reported that RORC had declined to get involved in the management of HPR. Dan Nowlan reported that a relationship between RORC and HPR would be welcomed and that it would be continue to be offered. No evidence has been seen of any significant take-up in HPR to date. The Technical Committee continues to monitor the development of HPR and agrees that it might in due course serve as an appropriate rule for wholly race oriented boats potentially relieving pressure on IRC in this respect. * The Technical Committee remains unsure of the value of a World Championship for IRC rated boats. The subject was also intertwined with ISAF policy on World Championships. In practice nothing had changed in the last 12 months and was unlikely to in the immediate future. * Mike Urwin (IRC Technical Committee) made a presentation on behalf of the RORC Rating Office to set the tone for discussions. Included within this were the Technical Committee's concerns at the falling numbers of new applications and new boats. Attention was also drawn to the survey aimed primarily at non IRC users conducted by the RORC Rating Office and to the primary findings of this. In initial discussion of this, it was noted that in a number of cases, the presence of professional sailors competing in IRC events was resented. The direct link to the Minutes and the IRC 2013 Rule changes: http://tinyurl.com/IRC-102412 SAILING SHORTS * US Sailing will hold its annual election for its Board of Directors, with the voting period closing at midnight October 24. The nominating committee has named three candidates to fill two slots on the Board. The nominees are Charlie Arms, John Craig, and JJ Fetter. All current US Sailing adult and family members are entitled to vote. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/BOD-080712 * Port Washington, NY (October 21, 2012) - The weather for the 34th Annual Manhasset Bay Fall Series was atypical but the competition was not. Sunny and warm conditions for all four days of racing were a bonus to the racers (Oct 13-14, 20-21). IRC was topped by Steve and Heidi Benjamin's new Carkeek HP 40 Spookie with finishes of (3)-2-1-2-3-1-1-3-1. Sundari, Barry Gold & Scott Florio's Farr 400 beat out Adam Lorry's Custom 40 Soulmate in PHRFA, while Joerg Esdorn / Duncan Hennes took top honors in the J/105. -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14672 * Islamorada, FL (October 23, 2012) - Racing was abandoned on day two the 2012 Ronstan A-Class Catamaran World Championship when winds of 22+ knots prevailed. With conditions expected to worsen this week, racing has been moved up to 9:00am start time on day three in hopes of getting races in before conditions become un-sailable. Forecasts predict winds up to 30 knots later in the week. A minimum of five races are required for an official World Championship. Racing continues through Friday with Saturday as a reserve day. -- Current results: http://tinyurl.com/ACat-2012-results * Organizers said Strictly Sail Long Beach, Southern California's only all-sail boat show, attracted 4,369 people this weekend, an increase of 130 percent from last year when the event was known as the Long Beach Yacht & Boat Show. Partnering with the American Sailing Association, US Sailing and Blue Water Sailing magazine, organizers were able to broaden the scope of the event, providing sailing enthusiasts with a rare opportunity to learn from the industry's top pros. -- Soundings, full report: http://tinyurl.com/TOT-102412 TRIVIA ANSWER For five America's Cups from 1992 to 2007, teams competed in the International America's Cup Class. This class has now been replaced by the AC72, but it is doubtful that this catamaran will have as successful a run. Of the 101 boats built, American teams had the most at 24 boats, followed by Italy (15) and New Zealand (13). Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IACC_yachts FANCY 1980'S HOT TUBS? RIB'S are meant to be purpose built workhorses. Ready to take punishment from anyone. If you're tired of older rubber boats with one-size-fits-all swooshy bathtub interiors, PURE YACHTING is building an all new line of custom RIB's in the USA to suit your exact requirements. From Barack to Larry, we've got you covered. Yacht Club Race Committee & Launches. Coach boats for prams, high school, college, or grand prix. Tenders for Gunboats, Oysters, Swans, Wallys, and other Superyachts. Harbormasters. Police & Fire. Call RIB legend Whitey Russell now at 401-338-7457 to discuss your needs. http://www.pureyachting.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 Morgan Larson: Regarding Michael Roth's letter in Scuttlebutt 3703, he's right, Waikiki Yacht Club was the pioneer of deep water mark setting and they did great work. In my early days of sailing the Kenwood Cup, the club used monofilament line produced from a petroleum based product by a small company called Exxon. It was tied to a couple cinder blocks made basically from sand, gravel and water along with a few toxic chemicals called "add mixture". The blocks were dumped over the side at the precise position of the mark and lowered into thousands of feet of water until they hit the bottom and a mark was tied on. The RC did their best to weaken the line at the bottom so at the end of the day they could pull off the left over plastic line and leave the block on the bottom; sometimes they just cut the line and left it out there to decompose (imagine that). The Yacht Club de Nice uses a similar technique but has developed a properly biodegradable line. Still can you imagine the amount of stuff we are leaving behind? As sailors and race organizers with today's technology, can't we do better? The new AC doesn't set marks and it seems to be working? Just saying... * From Phil Lawrence, Extreme Sailing Series, Race Director: Thanks to your correspondent Michael Roth for his kind offer of advice on deep water mark laying (S'butt 3703), but my excellent local mark laying team in Nice, France had no problem at all laying marks in 1,000ft of water. Every day they laid and recovered a constellation of 15 race and exclusion zone marks in deep water. We did have a few minor issues within 75 metres of the shore where the steeply shelving sea floor (it's 300m deep at 500m offshore) and the building shore break would occasionally cause the anchoring bricks to tumble down the bottom and the marks to move, but the mark setters were able to replace them quickly, so we could keep the racing rolling. Extreme Sailing Series courses are now more tightly packaged and closer to the shore than ever to bring the action to the spectators (I run local cadet racing over larger courses than I use for the Extreme 40s). It is a testament to the skill of the crews that they are able to race in such a confined space in very high speed 40ft Cats. Contrary to some reports, the primary reason we cancelled racing on Day 1 in Nice was due to the sea state with the short 2 metre breaking waves giving a risk of very high speed collisions and when these boats collide at speed it's a big hit as evidenced in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDyKaZH9Gxs I loved sailing in the Kenwood Cup all those years ago, but I don't recall racing in the Waikiki shore break! * From Bill Lynn: One of the benefits of being a part of Eastern YC in Marblehead is that, three weeks ago, I (and a packed house of fellow EYC members) had the pleasure of hearing Rich Wilson give a presentation on his Vendee Globe adventure. Do yourself a favor and read the book, and if you ever get the opportunity to hear Rich talk about his experience, DO NOT miss it. It's a very cool story told by a pretty amazing guy Rich's book, 'Race France To France: Leave Antarctica to Starboard', is available at Amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/Rich-Wilson-0809VG * From James S. Leopold: I enjoyed reading the piece in 'butt 3703 about the Vendee Globe and Rich Wilson. We were very fortunate to have Rich be the featured speaker at the Regatta for Lake Champlain's Spring Ice Breaker in March 2010. Rich did a fantastic job of speaking to our audience, and captivated the crowd. His story is one of commitment, seamanship, perseverance, and incredible adventure. I highly recommend Rich as a speaker to entertain, motivate, and inspire a group of sailors, and even non sailors alike. * From Angelo Lavranos: Regarding Tim Zimmermann's piece in Scuttlebutt 3703 (Is SpeedDream Just a Dream?), I too have seen this project being "floated" for some years now. What Tim says is dead right. Fundamentally, multihulls provide a large righting moment through having a very long righting arm, without adding ANY ballast, while at the same time having the slimmest lowest drag hulls possible. SpeedDream designer Vladimir Murnikov has never explained how he can achieve building a similar length monohull (with a ballast keel, tilting or otherwise) at a similar (or less) weight to a multihull and at the same time providing similar or better righting moments. Without a righting moment, any boat will go "nowhere" (other than to fall over and lie there quietly). For there to be a velocity interchange between air and water, the rig has to remain upright against the wind. The stiffer it is, the more thrust it can produce. Comparing the best oceanic monohulls, say an Open 60, they weigh more than 8 tons with less than 3 tons ballast, and have a righting moment of 20,000 kg/m at around 20 degrees compared to an Orma 60 weighing 5 tons without any ballast and a righting moment of 45,000 kg/m. If we presume we make the Open 60 keel cant out to weather the way Murnikov suggests, it would need to have a righting arm similar to the Orma 60 (say an 8m+ arm) AND have maybe 4 tons of ballast sitting on the end to get a similar righting moment. How can it be faster? Open 60 Virbac did 506 nm in 24 hr (two up), while best Orma 60 Banque Populair in 2007 managed 667 nm in 24 hr = 30% faster. Even the VO70 Ericsson 4 only managed 603 nm in 2008. * From Stu McNay, NYYC Team Extreme helm: I am writing about the article on the US Team Racing Championship in Scuttlebutt 3702. Our winning team name was listed as Team Extreme, but we are also NYYC members (all helms and two of three crews) and we are called NYYC Team Extreme. We would really appreciate it, if there could be a correction that we hail from New York YC, because NYYC makes it possible for us to continue to compete in team racing and we are proud to carry the NYYC burgee. COMMENT: The problem stemmed from an event requirement that team names must include a yacht or sailing club name too. From the list of registrants, it was clear there were teams that registered under a club name but their team members (or at least helms) were not all members of that club. To avoid the appearance that teams were comprised of club members, it was our decision to remove club names to avoid confusion. However, NYYC Team Extreme appears to be legit. - Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt FREE CLASSIFIED ADS The Scuttlebutt Classified Ads provide a marketplace for private parties to buy and sell, or for businesses to post job openings. Here are recent ads: For Sale - * Martin 242 * Etchells Hull 437 Now Hiring - * US Sailing's High Performance Director Search Closes November 1 * Association Manager for Sail America View/post ads here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum/classified_ads CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. SPONSORS THIS WEEK International Rolex Regatta - Allen Insurance and Financial - North U North Sails - IYRS - Pure Yachting - Melges Performance Sailboats Ullman Sails - Doyle Sails - MyBoatsGear.com Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
