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SCUTTLEBUTT 3019 - Monday, February 1, 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. Scuttlebutt on Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Scuttlebutt on Facebook: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/facebook Today’s sponsors: APS and US SAILING Team AlphaGraphics. FOCUS SHIFTS FROM NY COURTS TO INTERNATIONAL JURY If you missed the Scuttlebutt Extra last Friday, Justice Kornreich of the New York Supreme Court informed the America's Cup defending yacht club, Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), and the challenging Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) on Friday via telephone conference that she will not hear the American challenger's complaint regarding the ‘constructed in country' requirement of the Deed of Gift before the 33rd America's Cup Match which is scheduled to begin on 8 February. -- Scuttlebutt Extra, complete report: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/archived_Detail.asp?key=4358 This week the focus shifts toward hearings to be held by the 33rd America’s Cup International Jury. Here is Scuttlebutt’s America’s Cup legal analyst, Cory E. Friedman, to provide the details: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Golden Gate Yacht Club’s (GGYC) reply papers on its Constructed in Country (CiC) motion to DSQ Société Nautique De Genève (SNG) and in opposition to SNG’s CiC Cross Motion to DSQ GGYC were very well done on the merits. Nevertheless it did not make any difference at this point, because, as I discussed in my last piece, SNG raised a series of procedural deficiencies that apparently convinced Justice Kornreich that the CiC issue could not be decided before the February 8, 2010 Match. Between bouts of trying to pound the principles and rules of civil procedure into our thick skulls, one of my law school civil procedure professors observed that, while anyone can learn the substantive law, which is essentially common sense, a real lawyer understands procedure and evidence. Rather than railing on Larry Ellison’s supposed attempt to use his billions to steal the Cup, Bob Giuffra skillfully used procedural issues raised by GGYC’s CiC motion to put the motion on hold. For SNG’s purposes, that was good enough. That is not to say that the CiC issue is dead, or that GGYC has lost or SNG has won. It simply means that Justice Kornreich is not going to conduct the awards ceremony in her courtroom at this time or delay the Match after spending so much time and effort making sure it goes off next Monday. If the time for a decision ever comes, GGYC’s papers show that it can make a very strong case that sails are an essential element of a sailboat (no surprise there) that have to be CiC, that Alinghi 5’s sails were probably built in three panels in Minden, Nevada, where between 91% and 98% of the work was done, with joining the three panels and minor finishing performed in Switzerland. GGYC successfully turned John Rousmaniere’s Report, submitted by SNG, back on SNG. On the cross motion, GGYC did a convincing job of demonstrating that the wing is a sail and that USA is sloop (no surprise there either). While GGYC had a detailed explanation of the U.S. construction of its hydraulic system, it completely ducked the national construction of its engine, which Andrew English writing for the Telegraph concluded, based upon “hints” in an interview with Stefan Neuberger of BMW Motorsport, is a BMW four cylinder turbodiesel. Perhaps. If the CiC motion and cross motion come back to life, discovery will be necessary to sort through exactly where all the respective pieces were actually built, but that is for another day – or never, depending on the outcome of the Match. The conventional wisdom in the general press is that further litigation will inevitably follow the Match. I am not convinced. While some Match outcomes might lead to litigation, others would probably make it unlikely. Only time will tell. -- Read on: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/cf/#p55 * EVENT WEBSITE: For the 32nd America’s Cup, the defender Alinghi team produced an extremely comprehensive website that included extensive event history. Look for the full release of the website for the 33rd Match on February 1st: http://33rd.americascup.com/en/ * SCUTTLEBUTT IN VALENCIA: It was announced last Friday that Scuttlebutt legal analyst Cory E. Friedman, who has submitted 55 reports (over 70,000 words) covering the legal proceedings of the 33rd Match, would be going to Valencia, Spain to follow the Match close-up and provide timely updates for 'buttheads around the world. Rather than strong arm the marine industry to help defray expenses for his Valencia reporting, Scuttlebutt is appealing to its readership to help with expenses. Details on how to contribute here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/store THE SALE CONTINUES The holidays and their parties are behind us so it's time to focus back on what's important, getting your boat race ready for next season! In an effort to help take the sting out of it we at APS, "The World Leaders in Outfitting Performance Sailors", encourage you to take advantage our Annual Rope and Rigging Sale. From now until the end of February save 15% off rigging services, 10% off one design packages, and 10% off cut lengths of cordage and wire. With these kinds of savings you really shouldn't feel bad about tying another one on! Details: http://tiny.cc/a3MNC HOME TEAM TOPS MEDAL COUNT Miami, FL (January 30, 2010) - It was “one race, one chance” on Saturday at US SAILING’s 2010 Rolex Miami OCR, the second of seven stops of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Sailing World Cup 2009-2010. After gold, silver and bronze medalists were determined on Friday in three Paralympic classes, it was now the turn for sailors in ten Olympic classes to claim podium positions, but the plot came with a twist. Just as will happen at the Olympics in 2012, only the top-ten finishers--determined after five days of fleet racing--earned the right to sail in the final single medal race for each class, except for in Women’s Match Racing. In that event, which makes its Olympic debut in 2012, sailors competed in finals and petit-finals to determine medalists. The Rolex Miami OCR, which this year hosted 448 teams (633 athletes) from 45 nations, is one of the world’s most competitive regattas for 2012 Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls. As such, each nation’s medal tally is closely watched; USA had the most medals with 10, followed by Great Britain with six, France with five and Spain with four. Friday report: http://tinyurl.com/Day-Five-2010 Saturday report: http://tinyurl.com/Day-Six-2010 Final Results Star (26 boats) - 11 races 1. Eivind Melleby/Petter Morland Pederson (NOR), 36 2. Andy Horton/James Lyne (USA), 37 3. Mark Mendelblatt/John Von Schwarz (USA), 55 49er (36 boats) - 16 races 1. Manu Dyen/Stephane Christidis (FRA), 93 2. Nico LM Delle Karth/Nikolaus Leopold Resch (AUT), 110 3. Simon Karstoft/Jonathon Bay (DEN), 118 9. Gordon Cook/ Hunter Lowden (CAN), 152 Laser Radial (57 boats) - 11 races 1. Paige Railey (USA), 35 2. Alicia Cebrian (ESP), 74 3. Alison Young (GBR), 112 Laser (104 boats) -11 races 1. Nick Thompson (GBR), 34 2. Jean-Baptiste Bernaz (FRA), 84 3. Kyle Rogachenko (USA), 86 470 Men (34 boats) - 11 races 1. Anton Dahlberg/Sebastian A-stling (SWE), 63 2. Mathew Belcher/Malcolm Page (AUS), 67 3. Gideon Kliger/Eran Sela (ISR), 70 5. Stuart McNay/Graham Biehl (USA), 86 470 Women (26 boats) - 11 races 1. Amanda Clark/Sarah Chin (USA), 44 2. Ingrid Petitjean/Nadege Douroux (FRA), 47 3. Henriette Koch/Lene Sommer (DEN), 50 Finn (37 boats) - 11 races 1. Edward Wright (GBR), 28 2. Giles Scott (GBR), 48 3. Gasper Vincec (SLO), 52 4. Zach Railey (USA), 53 Elliott 6m (24 boats) 1. Anna Tunnicliffe/Molly Vandemoer/Debbie Capozzi (USA) 2. Lucy Macgregor/Annie Lush/Ally Martin (GBR) 3. Claire Leroy/Marie Riou/Elodie Bertrand (FRA) RS:X Women (25 boats) - 9 races 1. Marina Alabau (ESP), 20 2. Blanca Manchon (ESP), 21 3. Laura Linares (ITA), 26 12. Dominique Vallee (CAN) RS:X Men (37 boats) - 9 races 1. Dorian Rijsselberghe (NED), 29 2. Ivan Pastor (ESP), 33 3. Julien Bontemps (FRA), 45 11. Kevin Stittle (CAN) 2.4mR (28 boats) - 10 races 1. Paul Tingley (CAN), 29 2. Thierry Schmitter (NED), 32 3. John Ruf (USA), 34 Sonar (9 boats) - 10 races 1. Aleksander Wang-Hansen/Per Eugen Kristiansen/Marie Solberg (NOR), 16 2. John Robertson/Hannah Stodel/Steve Thomas (GBR), 24 3. Rick Doerr/Brad Kendall/Hugh Freund (USA), 28 SKUD-18 (7 boats) - 10 races 1. Scott Whitman/Julia Dorsett (USA), 14 2. Jennifer French/Jean-Paul Creignou (USA), 21 3. John McRoberts/Brenda Hopkin (CAN), 26 Complete results: http://rmocr.ussailing.org/Results.htm Photos from each day: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/10/0131/ T2P.tv videos: http://www.t2p.tv/guide/ocr10.php Sailgroove videos: http://www.sailgroove.org/sc/miamiocr Offshore Rules videos: http://tinyurl.com/yd5stwl FOR THE RECORD (January 31, 2010; 13:55:53 UTC) - Franck Cammas and his nine crew on the 103-foot triamaran Groupama 3 set off today at over twenty knots, crossing the start line off the Créac'h lighthouse in Ushant, France in their attempt to establish a new time for the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by any type of yacht with no restrictions. They will need to finish off Ushant before March 23rd (06:14:57) to snatch the record from its current holder Bruno Peyron and crew, who in 2005 sailed Orange 2 to a time of 50 days, 16 hours, and 20 minutes at an average of 17.89 knots. This is Cammas’ third attempt, and the weather forecast appears to have less favourable conditions than those on the two previous attempts (January 2008 and November 2009). However the extremely tight timing for hooking onto the next weather system as they pass Cape Finisterre and then the Canaries remains positive nonetheless. Indeed the weather routing gives a rough time of five and a half to six and a half days for reaching the equator! This translates as a very acceptable time for maintaining sufficient room for manoeuvre with a view to Orange 2's trajectory in 2005... The most uncertain phase relates to the passage of Cape Finisterre as the weather window is a very short one, stretching to three hours tops according to the weather models! By setting off early, just after the passage of a fairly inactive cold front with rain, Groupama 3 is increasing her chances of making the Spanish headland on schedule and then skirting closely round it. By Monday morning the crew of Groupama 3 will have a better idea on the success of their plan. -- Full report: http://tinyurl.com/ydom9gs CONSTRUCTION: Groupama 3 was launched in June 2006, requiring 26,420 hours for design and research, and 100,000 hours for construction. This three minute video provides a look at the process: http://www.cammas-groupama.com/en/trimarans/groupama3/construction/ => Curmudgeon’s Comment: It is my understanding that the clock was ticking on this record attempt, as internal team priorities were getting very close to postponing it indefinitely. Look for Groupama 3 navigator Stan Honey to be submitting weekly reports to Scuttlebutt from the boat. “MY 16-YEAR-OLD IS SAILING AROUND THE WORLD SOLO” Sixteen-year-old Abby Sunderland is alone on a nonstop around-the-world trip aboard her sailboat, Wild Eyes. If she succeeds, she will be the youngest person to circumnavigate the world solo. Her brother, Zac Sunderland, was the youngest to sail around the world alone last year, at age 17. Marianne Sunderland, mom of 7 with one on the way, tells momlogic why she lets her kids follow their dreams: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * You must be very adventurous parents, to have two kids who wanted to sail the world solo. MARIANNE SUNDERLAND: We are pretty adventurous people for sure. We lived on boats and traveled a lot when Zac and Abby were younger. When we only had four kids, we lived on our own sailboat for three years in the islands of Mexico. Doing that with small kids got to be a little too stressful. We were worried that the kids would fall in the water. Being in poor countries, we were afraid they were going to get sick, or get bitten by a dog or something. That's when we decided to move back to California into a house. But my husband buys boats and fixes them up all the time as part of his business as a shipwright. I met my husband on Venice Beach, and the first thing he said was, "G'day!" He's British, but he'd been living in Australia. I knew this was someone I could travel the world with. We are opposites. Education was very important to my upbringing. My grandmother had a master's degree and everyone in my family was highly educated. My husband Laurence was raised in a free environment, very entrepreneurial, not very good at school. He was on his own at 16. I was more traditional, whereas he was more of a "follow your passions" type of person. But we clicked. * How do you raise kids who are so brave and adventurous? MARIANNE SUNDERLAND: Laurence is probably more responsible for that than I am. He has them take on responsibility at a young age. Laurence is not afraid to try things. He has spent so much time making it on his own. He was on his own at 16 in England in a depressed economy. He started his own businesses. He was so independent, and has kind of shown them that way. We raise our children to be self-sufficient, but give them a net to fall back on. Before his round-the-world journey, we told Zac: "If you don't like this, you can stop ... don't feel like you have to continue. We can sell the boat, and we can get back the majority of the money. It would be fine.' But Zac said, 'I like this and I want to do this.'" He had our full support. Complete interview: http://tinyurl.com/yar2ztq PIT STOP: After departing from Marina del Rey, CA on January 23rd, Abby has been having problems with her onboard power, and is heading to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to get a new battery or two and add more fuel. In her quest for a non-stop circumnavigation, she will need to re-start her effort there. -- Full details: http://soloround.blogspot.com/2010/01/one-week-out.html ALPHAGRAPHICS HAILS HUGE REGATTA FOR US SAILING TEAM AlphaGraphics, title sponsor of the US SAILING Team AlphaGraphics, is proud of the entire team especially the podium performances by so many athletes at US SAILING’s Rolex Miami OCR. 470 Women Amanda Clark/Sarah Chin (Gold), Laser Radial Paige Railey (Gold), SKUD-18 Scott Whitman/Julia Dorsett (Gold) and Jennifer French/Jean-Paul Creignou (Silver), Women’s Match Racing Anna Tunnicliffe/ Molly Vandemoer/ Debbie Capozzi (Gold), Star Andy Horton/ James Lyne (Silver) and Mark Mendelblatt / John Von Schwarz (Bronze), 2.4mR John Ruf (Bronze), Sonar Rick Doerr/ Brad Kendall/ Hugh Freund (Bronze) and Laser Kyle Rogachenko (Bronze). Well done Team USA! -- http://www.alphagraphics.com/ SAILING SHORTS * The Farr 30 Class Association has announced that the 2010 Farr 30 World Championship will be held at Hyeres, France October 23-31. -- Details: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=9018 * California yacht brokers Clay and Teresa Prescott of ABC Yachts in Sausalito/San Rafael pleaded guilty last Thursday to charges that they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from their clients. According to the Marin IJ, Clay took some of the pressure off his wife by copping to two embezzlement charges, which could earn him more than five years in prison. Teresa pleaded guilty to grand theft, which could be punishable by up to four years in prison. -- Latitude 38, full story: http://tinyurl.com/ybqc8j4 * American Brad Van Liew’s effort to compete in his third solo round-the-world race, the Velux 5 Oceans Race, got a step closer when he announced his acquisition of the Open 60 Pro-Form (ex-Whirlpool, ex-Tiscali). -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/yadrj92 * A private salvor hired has recovered two containers Friday that fell overboard from the 544-foot container ship Intrepid 30 miles south of Key West, Fla., on Monday, January 25th. About 30 containers were reported to have been lost to the sea in the incident. -- http://coastguardnews.com SCUTTLEBUTT SAILING CALENDAR Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar 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 Eric Sharp, Detroit Free Press Here's something that might fit into your recent tributes to Buddy Melges. During the 1987 America's Cup at Fremantle, Australia, I was about the leave the media center one afternoon when a group of 8-12 year old kids wandered in. It turned out they were disadvantaged children whose teachers had brought them down to see the America's Cup facilities, but it was a day when not much was happening and they were disappointed because there was nothing to see. I walked with them down the row of AC camps, and when I got to the Chicago club's compound I had them wait while I went in and found Buddy and explained what was going on. He brought the kids in and gave them a personal tour of the compound and boat and spent an hour explaining what it was all about. They went away as happy as clams, and one of the teachers told me, "I have been told that the American teams are very arrogant, but if the rest of them are like Mr. Melges then you must have a lovely country, indeed." * From John Longley: It is interesting to reflect on how Michael Fay’s Deed of Gift challenge in 1987 changed the powers or assumed powers of the Defender. I competed in five consecutive America’s Cups from 1974 to 1987, four with the NYYC as Defender and one with RPYC. In all of those Matches it was the Defender who interpreted the intent of the original authors of the Deed by issuing a number of Interpretive Resolutions. These Resolutions were not put up for discussion, they were simply the “Conditions” (read “Rules”) for the next match. If a Challenger did not like them – simple don’t come. Each Challenger was required to sign off on these Conditions before they got to play. It is this signing off on the conditions that Tom Ehman claims was Mutual Consent but there was nothing Mutual about it. Sir James Hardy famously described the process as “Complaining to the NYYC about the Rules is like complaining about your wife to your Mother in Law”. Along came Michael Fay in 1987 and because SDYC/Dennis Connor could not make their/his mind up about venue or conditions Michael did his own interpretation of the Deed and hence started the whole sorry mess of dragging our wonderful event into the Civil Courts. It might not have been fair in the old days of the NYYC but it was never meant to be a fair competition. Personally I preferred it when it was left to the Defender to interpret the Deed rather than a bunch of New York lawyers and judges. * From Michael Schaumburg: (re, story in Scuttlebutt 3017) While sleeping feet forward, when surfing in the breezy trades towards Hawaii, once again brings to mind that recurring nightmare of hitting a semi-submerged container at night. What if some are filled with floatable materials and didn't sink? * From George Sechrist: I'm concerned about the recent container loss from a ship obviously not seaworthy. We are already faced with an unbelievable amount of "space junk", and now an unbelievable amount of "underwater junk"! My question is this: Is there a law that requires the ship owner to recover every one of those containers from the bottom? We can do lots of deep sea recovery, so this shouldn't be hard, but only if they are forced to do it. Considering all of the toxic chemicals that ship inside these containers, this is getting to be scary based on the frequency of these incidents. Locally in NC, we recently had a PETB container accident at MHC port but not related to a lost container, and the cleaning up of hundreds of thousands of pieces of styrofoam off of our beaches from lost containers offshore. I think a hazard to navigation is the very least of our worries, if there is no system in place to clean up our waters after an accident. Loads are stacked higher and higher for purely economic reasons, but does anyone know what the penalties are for lost containers and the subsequent damage to our ecosystem? CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship: "I apologize" and "You are right.” Special thanks to APS and US SAILING Team AlphaGraphics. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
