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SCUTTLEBUTT 3174 - Friday, September 10, 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: Doyle Sailmakers and e Sailing Yachts WHAT WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON MONDAY? The organizers for the 34th America’s Cup plan on Monday, September 13th (1300 CET / 0700 ET) to host a press conference in Valencia, Spain to reveal three of the four cornerstones of the next competition: 1) The year in which it will be held 2) The new Class of Boat for the competition 3) The competition rules (The Protocol) So what will be revealed? Well, the venue will not be revealed, though organizers have said that announcement will come before the end of the year. As for the rest, here are the Scuttlebutt predictions: 1) The 34th Match will be in 2014. We hope we are wrong (and it’s in 2013), but time will be needed to build the venue, particularly if it is San Francisco, and to adjust to the new class of boat. Also, the desire to create interest in the event, which is now at an all time low, might take that long. Remember, the American defender has promised the next America’s Cup will be like Happy New Year, Mardi Gras, and the Rio Carnival combined. 2) The boat used will be a wing powered 70+ foot multihull design. Defender BMW Oracle Racing is enamored by their higher performance over monohulls, which they believe to be vital to create interest. Maybe the camera loves them more too. Think Red Bull Air Racing. It probably helps that the defender is most experienced with this technology, but what about the Challenger of Record that is supposed to be representing the interests of challenging teams? Hmm . . . 3) We have no clue about the competition rules, though expect there to be plenty of pre-events, likely in a smaller test multihull design (40-50 foot) built specifically for the 2011-12 events. Don’t expect there to be a minimal nationality requirement, though defender BMW Oracle Racing CEO Russell Coutts said he supports the idea but interested challengers don’t. This seems a bit disingenuous considering the only two committed teams a nationality rule would most affect are the defender BMW Oracle Racing and Challenger of Record Mascalzone Latino. Sadly this seems like self interest over public interest. Clearly, the BMW Oracle Racing team has a vision that will take the America’s Cup further from its roots than ever before. While their objective is for it to be the fairest-ever competition, they also find it now to be their duty to create a platform that can make money, or at least not bleed it. This means turning it into an entertainment event, perhaps with significant deviations from traditional yacht racing so as to achieve this goal. While the America’s Cup was once at the summit of sailing’s mountain, it would seem like this new ideal is moving the event now to a new, artificially created mountain, which will likely spawn smaller events to support it. Will this new plan be the beginning of a complete separation of amateur and professional sailing? Time will tell. -- Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Forum: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=10495#10495 LIVE COVERAGE: If you want to watch the announcement on Monday (1300 CET / 0700 ET), the Scuttlebutt website is hosting a Viewing Player that will carry the coverage here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/10/0909/ ADAPTING THE RULES TO THE GAME Richard Slater is an authority on the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS). He is an ISAF International Judge and Umpire, and is a member of an ISAF advisory board to assist nations and ISAF International Judges, Umpires, Race Officials and Measurers in the consistent application of the RRS. From his experience as an America’s Cup team rules advisor for the past four Matches, the last two with BMW Oracle Racing, Slater comments on the possible ramifications that a change from monohull to multihulls for the America's Cup might mean, and whether there are any areas of the rules that might not be well suited to the match race game when played at high speed: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a long history of the America's Cup community making changes to the ISAF Racing Rules to better suit the event and the boats that are raced. The World Sailing Team Association (under the guidance of Bill Edgerton) have continued to look at how the rules best worked for the Louis Vuitton Trophy events. Improvements have been made in this area and better racing has resulted. Russell Coutts and Vincenzo Onorato recognised the benefits of tailoring the ISAF rules for the event when they announced that we will have the Racing Rules for the next Cup published by 31 December 2010. This process is gathering momentum with the Cup community working with ISAF to create an America's Cup version of the ISAF Racing Rules. The aim is to create rules to produce more exciting racing and make the sport easier to understand, irrespective of the choice of boat. We want to review the rules to make the America's Cup event better, not just in response to a new type of yacht. The standard ISAF rules are designed to apply to an Opti race as well as an offshore race. One area that is an exciting change is to give the officials the ability to tap into the "TV data" coming off the yachts. Overlaps and the relative state of each yacht should be able to be transmitted to the officials for them to simply then apply the rules. This will have major changes to the need for Umpire wing boats or observers as well as umpire boat positioning. This may be a new world of high speed match racing, however, one thing I can say is that we should look back in history as to what will really change. I can remember discussions in 1999 about match racing the ACC yachts and how certain manoeuvres could "never be done" in those yachts because they were too big and powerful. Then within two Cup cycles we had ACC yachts doing such manoeuvres. So while the game may change with the new yachts, the fact is that an AC Match race is still a match of cunning and skills of two of the worlds best sailing teams. We will assist the umpires by providing simple rules and the ability to make consistent calls so that the real attention can be on the spectacular racing. -- Scuttlebutt Forum, http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=10497#10497 PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT While there is plenty of great sailing left in the season, now is the time to start planning to service your sails during winter lay-up. Bring your sails in to your local Doyle loft for a wash and check over - and extend the life and performance of your sails. Doyle Sailmakers offers the most experienced sail maintenance and repair services available. The sooner any chafe, mildew or rigging problem is detected, the easier and less expensive the solution. Let Doyle help protect your investment! See us at the Newport Boat Show or visit http://www.doylesails.com/service BRAGGING RIGHTS Newport, RI (September 9, 2010) - It has been two challenging and fast-paced days for 24 of the nation’s foremost yacht clubs who are on the waters of Narragansett Bay competing in the New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup U.S. Qualifying Series, sponsored by Sperry Top-Sider and Jaguar North America. Split equally into fleets designated Red or Blue, the competitors have spent half of each day’s races in either NYYC’s Sonars or Sail Newport’s J/22s. Eight races were sailed on the opening day of the series, with an additional six completed today to determine who still has a chance to convert a top-three finish in the overall standings into a ticket to the NYYC Invitational Cup presented by Rolex to be held in September 2011. “Today was a little more challenging and dicey than yesterday,” said Bora Gulari the 2009 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year who is the skipper of Bayview Yacht Club’s team which includes John Van Tol, Sarah Somes, and incoming Rear Commodore Kent Colpaert (all of Detroit). “The wind shifts were a little bigger, and the pressure differentiation was quite a bit bigger, and added to the strong cross-course current it was tactically interesting. It’s challenging here [in Newport] especially when it’s not a seabreeze situation, when the winds and tide don’t line up. It was northwest today, and we were fighting the tide all day.” “There are a lot of good sailors here, and I am very happy to even do well,” concluded Gulari who acknowledged making some “bone-head mistakes” in the Sonar. “It’s a whole new regatta tomorrow.” For the final two days of racing, the top-six teams qualifying from the Blue Fleet (Bayview, San Francisco, Carolina, Newport Harbor, American and Pequot Yacht Clubs) will meet the top six that qualified from the Red Fleet (Annapolis, Larchmont, Eastern, Fort Worth, Fishing Bay and Indian Harbor Yacht Clubs) in Sonars. -- Read on: http://nyyc.org/archives_public/article_874/ BUDDY MELGES CHALLENGE Fifteen of the world’s best women’s match racing teams, representing nine countries, are competing this week in the ISAF Grade 1 Buddy Melges Challenge in Sheboygan, Wisconsin USA. Hosted by the US Sailing Center Sheboygan in their fleet Elliott 6m boats, here is a report after the first day of racing on Thursday, September 9th by top seeded American skipper Anna Tunnicliffe: “Racing got underway very early today at the Buddy Melges Challenge, with the first race just after 9am. The temperature was in the low 50's but the wind was steady, blowing around 6kts. We had a great morning with some good racing. We finished the day 3-1 in our group, and we have two more races tomorrow (Friday) to finish the round robin off. “After we finish the round robin, the top four teams in each group (A and B) will go into the quarter-finals and the bottom four teams in each group go into a round robin for 9th-15th place. You can check the regatta results on the regatta website. There is also live video and tracking so you can follow along live too.” -- Full report: http://www.annatunnicliffe.com/content/view/403/1/ WORLD MATCH RACING TOUR Bornholm, Denmark (September 9, 2010) - In an action-packed day Mike Buckley (USA) MB Sailing landed the biggest shock of the year when he delivered a hammer blow to ISAF World Match Racing Tour leader Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team in the opening race of this year’s Danish Open earlier today. The Danish Open is the seventh stage of the nine-round ISAF World Match Racing Tour. The tour has a reputation for unearthing great new talent - this was seen again when Buckley, placed 665th in the world rankings, showed no regard for reputation to lead Richard from start to finish for the biggest victory of his career. Buckley then looked on course for an incredible second victory of the day, when in his very next race he led reigning World Match Racing Tour Champion Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing until the very last moment. With the 28 year old American on course to spring the second major shock of the day, Minoprio showed all the guts and determination that led him to be World Champion, to mug Buckley on the finish line in a move that was crowned play of the day. “This is just my third match race so to win first up was amazing. Although Mathieu is ranked number one and a great sailor we try and treat all the boats the same. Our aim was to get a clean start and not get drawn into over match racing. We had another great race against Adam but unfortunately the wind dropped on the final leg and he just got us on the line.” said Buckley. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/33wml6n Standings after Day 1 of Qualifications Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing 3-0 Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team 4-1 Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team 2-1 Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing 2-1 Ben Ainslie (GBR) TEAMORIGIN 3-2 Björn Hansen (SWE) Hansen Global Team 3-2 Francesco Bruni (ITA) Azzurra 3-2 Bertrand Pace (FRA) Aleph Sailing Team 2-3 Mads Ebler (DEN) Ebler Matchracing 1-2 Michael Buckley (USA) MB Sailing 1-2 William Tiller (NZL) Full Metal Jacket Racing 0-3 Suzanne Ward (DEN) Team Ward 0-5 BACKGROUND: The World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) is the leading professional sailing series, featuring 9 events across the globe, sanctioned by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) with "Special Event" status. Prize money is awarded for each event, with event points culminating in the crowning of the "ISAF Match Racing World Champion". e33 WINS PHRF NEW ENGLANDS Congratulations to Tyler Doyle and the crew of eclipse on their first place in the inaugural daysailer class of the PHRF New England Championship! eclipse was able to best the field of twelve daysailers that included two other e33’s, J Boats, Alerions, and a Sabre. eclipse sailed to victory with ease while other daysailers sported hiking crewmembers and large overlapping headsails. Designers Persak & Wurmfeld, builder Cabot Lyman, and e Sailing Yachts cofounder and America’s Cup winner Robbie Doyle will be showing off a 2010 e33 in Newport September 16-19 and offering test sails in Annapolis October 7-11. More at http://www.esailingyachts.com E SCOWS FLY EAST FOR NATIONALS By Sam Rogers Every 5 years, the NCESA (E Scow class association) packs up and makes way to Little Egg Harbor, NJ for its annual National Championship (Sept. 10-12). For those who have been to Little Egg Harbor, it might be the best natural venue possible for racing E Scows in the country; with is wide open waters, steady and reliable seabreeze and great social activities, there is a reason the class puts this venue on the calendar repeatedly. What will be most welcoming is that the sailors can almost certainly count on being able to stretch their legs and put the webbing in their hiking straps to use. When compared to this year’s variable and shifty E Scow ILYA Champs on Lake Geneva, the Nationals will be a full on drag race event, a true test of boatspeed as opposed to rolling the dice and hitting a shore. When the seabreeze comes in Little Egg, the boats in the front are tacking 2-3 times in 15-18 mph winds on 1.5 miles beats which usually draws groans from crew members who are doing the equivalent of a 11-12 minute wall sit during the upwind beats. During the 2005 Nationals when I had the opportunity to race with Vincent and Bri Porter, we decided to sail with three people and during one of the upwind legs on Day 2 with a fresh sea-breeze, our jib man Bri had a hard time taking the pain in his legs and quietly asked me to club him over the head so he could still be in the straps, but not be awake for the pain. When racing E Scow in Little Egg, you will need good boatspeed to succeed and some strong thighs as well. -- Read on: http://42marine.com/up-next-2010-e-scow-national-championships/ PHOTOS OF THE WEEK Some of the random photos from the sport received this week at Scuttlebutt include innovations in boat bottom application, what Brad Van Liew will be taking with him on the Velux 5 Oceans race, secrets for a good sleep, Little Puff teamwork, September computer monitor background, summer sunset, and what the water says at the blunt bow of a boat. Here are this week’s photos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/10/0910/ BONUS: The event name ‘Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup’ conjures up images of performance yachting and elegant evenings. Drop this scenario in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, Italy, and you have the makings for a memorable week. For the rest of us not there, we can only drool at the sailing images: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/10/0909/ SEND US YOUR PHOTOS: If you have images to share for the Photos of the Week, send them to the Scuttlebutt editor: mailto:editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com VIDEO OF THE WEEK Two of the most celebrated singlehanded classes - the Finn and the Laser - held their World Championship events last week. While the conditions were challenging, what kind of test did the sailors really experience? What if, instead of sailing a singlehanded boat, they were singlehanding a triplehanded boat . . . with a spinnaker? This week’s video profiles a dude that took on a fleet of 25 Lightnings by himself. Click here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/10/0910/ BONUS 1: Competing in San Francisco Bay requires more preparation than most venues. First, you must be able to physically handle the strong winds that typically glaze the bay. But there is a mental part too, as the changing currents significantly influence tactical decisions. This video provides a highly detailed 100m Hydrodynamic model of the tides and tidal streams that flow through the Bay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xliTnSYjHY BONUS 2: The Open 'Bic Un-Regatta tour came to the Cascade Locks at the Columbia River Gorge. Warning - this video shows junior sailors not sailing Optis AND having fun: http://www.vimeo.com/14600285 SEND US YOUR VIDEOS: If you have clips to share for the Video of the Week, send them to the Scuttlebutt editor: mailto:editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com GUEST COMMENTARY Scuttlebutt strongly encourages feedback from the Scuttlebutt community. Either submit your comments by email or post them on the Forum. Submitted comments chosen to be published in the newsletter are limited to 250 words. One published submission per subject, and save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. Email: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Angie Coen: (re, commentary in Scuttlebutt 3173) Craig, you have put to print what most of us are thinking, in this scuttlebutt, 3173. Couldn't have said it better myself. * From Bill Sandberg: (re, commentary in Scuttlebutt 3173) Boy, have you hit the nail on the head. If the America’s Cup isn't sailed in monohulls in San Francisco with national teams, the AC will be dead in the US. Why play to TV for multihulls to add a small number of non-sailors? Sailing will never be a sport for the masses on TV here. Go back to its roots and get the aficionados involved again. Not many chances left. * From Neil W. Humphrey: I really enjoyed your words in TIME TO TAKE A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION (in Scuttlebutt 3173) as there are many questions to be asked about what is being done. I see the changes much like you but my questions about them are quite different for just two reasons - 1. The Cup was donated as stated in the Deed "This Cup is donated upon the conditions that it shall be preserved as a perpetual Challenge Cup for friendly competition between foreign countries" In general one could read that it was donated to the sport. The Deed is probably the only entity that can claim ownership of The Cup and other AC Properties and etc. That would mean any events derived from the Deed and The Cup would be as well, one would think. Ideally the Deed, The Cup and their properties should be retained by a controlling AC Trust with a board of individuals who are at arm's length from the Defender, AC events and with a focus on AC tradition and history. By doing this the commercial side of AC events would be licensed out from the Trust. Not only would Defender get reimbursed for their event costs, all the teams could get some expenses covered but the AC Trust could and should be properly compensated for its properties and be accountable financially to the IRS, NYS and the sailing community. AC Trust revenues could be used to benefit the sport which takes us full circle back to the donation of the Deed, The Cup and its properties. -- Scuttlebutt Forum, read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=10494#10494 * From Scott MacLeod: (re, letter in Scuttlebutt 3173) My point about the trapezes (in Scuttlebutt 3172) had nothing to do with extra righting moment for the type of yacht which should be between 70-80 feet. It'll look cool, provide additional athleticism for the crew and talk about crash & burn!! Oh my god that could be dangerous . . . tell that to Michael Schumacher when he almost ran Barrichello into the wall at 200 mph. * From Jim Whistler: Since about the time Peter & Olaf Harken were beginning to build fiberglass boats and Alistair Murray (Ronstan) was searching for his green card, and back when Nicro-Fico, Merriman, Schaefer & Hood were the mainstays on every boat, there was Dave Anderson, an industry stalwart, a face to face legacy on both coasts. Dave told me last week that he will be retiring as president of Schaefer Marine this year and that Annapolis will be his final boat show. He eloquently and romantically said that he owes his wife a few vacation trips. In the industry, Dave has always been a low key gentleman with a sound hand on the tiller. If you're in Annapolis next month (at the US Sailboat Show, Oct 7-11), take the opportunity to shake his hand just one more time before he slides behind the genoa and enjoys the fruit of his life dedicated to the marine industry. * From John Potter: 'Cascade' raced in the SORC in the same era as the fabulous 'Imp.' Designed by Jerry Milgram, an MIT professor, 'Cascade' was a very radical cat-ketch that won just about every race. * From George McCroskey: (re, letter in Scuttlebutt 3173) I was fortunate enough to have sailed in that particular SORC which had both Imp and Sweet Okole as entries. The best part of sailing against Louie Wake's boat, Sweet Okole, was that someone told me what Okole meant in Hawaiian. (Hint - separate the compound word of this publication.) CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage? They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to store stuff there. Special thanks to Doyle Sailmakers and e Sailing Yachts. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
