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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 1204 - November 21, 2002Scuttlebutt is a digest of yacht racing news of major significance; commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American emphasis. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere.
THE CARNAGE RESUMES Ravussin was in the interior of the boat when a fierce squall lifted the boat. The leeward bow crashed into a bigger wave than the others. Ravussin tried to ease the sheets and let go of the sails, but in vain the boat flipped over. Of the 18 ORMA trimarans that started the race, only three are still on the racecourse. "I had less than 15 knots of wind, under gennaker and one reef when I went to have a rest. I was woken when I felt the boat accelerate in a squall. I pulled out the gennaker sheet which I had lead down below, but it was too late. The floats had already ploughed in. With the inertia of the mast, everything was going very quickly. The boat capsized stern over bow." TechnoMarine-Match TV (the previous Brocéliande and then Alain Gautier's Foncia), lost its starboard foil a few days earlier, which enabled the leeward float (the float on pressure) to lift higher, and not dive in the waves. Stève Ravussin is safe and sound onboard his boat. His shore crew is currently organising a rescue operation for him and his boat. The three remaining ORMA trimarans will try and sail as cautious as possible after the shocking news of last night's capsize. Ellen MacArthur's 60-foot monohull Kingfisher is now the closest boat to the finish, once again widening the gap over Ecover to 65 miles. This might mean that for the first time in the Route du Rhum's history a monohull will be first over the finish line! ETA Kingfisher: early Saturday morning. - Josefine Lemmel, www.routedurhum.org
THE LEADERS:
ROUTE DU RHUM QUESTIONS * Trimaran designer Nigel Irens believes that the (Route du Rhum) race organisers need to take a careful look at the weather for this time of year. "Basically it seems to me the thing turns around statistics - does this happen often? In terms of Route du Rhums - if you had weather like this once every 15 Route du Rhums that might be one thing, if you had it every three or four that might be another? So there needs to be some analysis done on that." The last severe weather seen in a Route du Rhum was in 1986 when once again a majority of the fleet retired and Loic Caradec, skipper of the maxi-cat Royale was lost. So is two races in five too much? It was only just over a month ago that in much the same area of water many of the boats in Around Alone ran for cover to avoid being hit by the tailend of Hurricane Kyle. Daily Sail website, full story: thedailysail.com/ism/articles.nsf
HERE COMES THE JUDGE Of the current total of 102 International Umpires, the terms of appointment of 24 had expired of whom 5 retired. 18 of the reapplications were recommended for approval. There were 9 new applicants for International Umpire status, of whom 8 were recommended for appointment. This brings the total ISAF approved International Umpires to 104. Approved Ius: www.sailing.org/raceofficials/ijapprovalsnov2002.asp
BREEZE READERS: MARK REYNOLDS, ANDREW CAMPBELL
NEWS BRIEFS * Devoti Sailing will become the official European Builder of the International Melges 24 Class. Headed by Olympic Finn sailor Luca Devoti and his partners Tim Tavinor and Roman Teply, Devoti Sailing Ltd has been building one-design boats since 1992. Their products currently include the Finn, 470, Star and Musto Skiff classes. Devoti will commence production of the Melges 24 immediately at their factory in Poland and anticipate launching the first new boats early in 2003. * Sail America, the U.S. sailing industry trade association, announced the shipment of its 10,000th Discover Sailing: The Ultimate Adventure video, just seven months after the major marketing initiative launch. Another 7,500 videos have been ordered for distribution to highly targeted sailing prospects. The findings of a brief survey to a random sampling of 1,000 of the video recipients will be presented to the Sail America board of directors in early 2003. * Vanguard Sailboats has been named the exclusive distributor of Magic Marine products in North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. Magic Marine makes a full range of technical clothing and accessories for the sailing market including wetsuits, dry suits, harnesses, spray tops and bottoms, hiking pants, gloves, boots and bags. These products will be available for sale by March and will be sold through Vanguard's existing dealer network.
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) * Larry Gotch (re Solo sailing): Back in the 70's I was seriously considering auto racing as a carrier. In am meeting with the Ferrari race team manager, Dick Fritz, he gave me these sage words of advice, "Cheating death is fun, but death only has to win once." Now I do my racing in a monohull (with a crew). * From Patrik Erlandson: I fully agree with Peter Huston in Scuttlebutt 1203: Wouldn't it be terrific for audience, media, sponsors, shore crews and sailors to have a more frequent race schedule? In between every America's Cup or Volvo Race, you can host either a large annual regatta or perhaps five or ten smaller regattas per year? I can often see the parallels to Formula 1, the Indy or the Cart motor series. I would love to see different formats of races for both types of boats, like fleet race, match race, 3-boat match race, short and long offshore races and perhaps even team racing. Keep the format of the AC and Volvo Race as it is for the conservatives and explore the other formats in regattas in between. Our sport is versatile and can be very exiting if produced right. I think all categories of people stated above will eventually loose their interest in the racing if it does not evolve. All categories are strongly linked together, and for many it is their livelihood. By making it more interesting for the audience, media and thereby the sponsors, more people can be sailing in the top level, and more youngsters will pick sailing as their sport. Change before you have to! * From George Backhus: While I find team New Zealand's "Loyal" campaign very touching and patriotic, I can't help but thinking past March of 2003 if, by chance, the America's Cup takes a trip back to the Northern Hemisphere. The "Loyal" will be the "unemployed." As professionals in the sailing business, many of these people, like so many Kiwis before them, will no doubt leave the green pastures of New Zealand for greener financial pastures of the cities and countries of the challengers and defenders for the next America's Cup. I say good on Russell, Brad, et. al. for not only being great sailors, but also for learning a bit about the economic law of "supply and demand."
THE DESIGN TEAM Farr, who spends about 50% of his time in Auckland and typically two to three days a week out sailing with the team, certainly does not seek to claim all the credit for the design programme. He reckons a good Cup programme should have the potential to improve a yacht's performance by about 10 seconds a mile through the course of the regatta. "Some teams will get 11 or 12 seconds, others only seven," he says. Tweaking the hydrodynamics - underwater appendages - might yield 2-3 seconds a mile. Aerodynamics - sails and rigs - should offer a bit more, say 3-4 seconds a mile. But, he says, sailing technique is the biggest potential area of gain. "The sailing side can be massive," he says. "When the sailors first get on the boat, they obviously know how to sail a big boat. But, they won't necessarily understand this particular boat. There is a big learning curve, which is obviously very steep in the initial stages, but carries on." * Of the changes that took place after Round Robin One, Farr says they were less than most observers seemed to believe. "There were a lot of small changes in that period. That is all part of a continuous process. We are always looking for improvements." He adds: "The notion that we made some kind of blind experiment in the first round was definitely not correct." His partner in Farr Yacht Design, Russell Bowler, chimes in with typical under-statement: "The biggest change (between rounds one and two) was the results." - Ivor Wilkins, Louis Vuitton Cup website. There is lots more to this story posted at: www.louisvuittoncup.yahoo.com/story1067.html
THEY'RE COMING On average, the superyachts will be 5m longer than those here for the cup three years ago and will stay on average a month longer. Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison's yacht, Katana, has for months occupied the equivalent of eight berths and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's massive yacht, Tatoosh, arrived recently. Just 17m shorter than the frigate Te Kaha, Tatoosh is anchored in the Waitemata Harbour. - NZ Herald, full story: www.nzherald.co.nz
THE HOLIDAYS ARE HERE, ARE YOU READY?
OLYMPICS There are two main issues on the agenda: first, and central to the IOC's function, is the intention of Dr Jacques Rogge, the president, to maintain the ban on visiting bidding cities prior to a host-city election and second, a proposal by the Programme Commission to remove baseball, modern pentathlon and softball and introduce rugby and golf by 2012. The stated objective of Rogge, Olympic sailor and former rugby international from Belgium, is to modernise the Games, to include contemporary widely-practised sports and to streamline the IOC's operation by reducing expenditure and tightening a proliferating administrative network. - David Miller, The Telegraph, UK, full story: sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/
AROUND ALONE
WEATHER ON THE HAURAKI GULF Even with increased wind limits for racing, 18 out of 30 race days have been disrupted since the Louis Vuitton challenger series began on October 1. There were also weather problems last cup, but Mrs Griffiths said one difference this spring was the switch in wind direction. "October and November 1999, 2000 and 2001 all had northerly or northeast, or easterly sector winds more than normal,"Mrs Griffiths said. "Then we've seen this big change to enhanced westerlies or southwesterlies which has made life tricky for them. Every year we get unsettled weather before Christmas, that's standard. We're just going for a little more sou'westerlies or westerlies than is the long-term normal. There's always a big change after Christmas." Mrs Griffiths said wind levels during the America's Cup races in February should be similar to those of three years ago, when Team New Zealand beat Prada 5-0 to hold the cup. Winds then tended to even out between northerly sea breezes and southwesters. "We would anticipate a lot more settled climate in the New Year, and the El Nino impact would be much, much reduced." - Helen Tunnah, NZ Herald, full story: www.nzherald.co.nz/americascup/
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS * February 7, 2003: Marina del Rey to Puerto Vallarta Race, Del Rey YC. Racing Divisions plus a Spinnaker and a non-spinnaker, three-stop Salsa (cruising) Division. www.dryc.org * July 12, 2003: CrossPac Race - A single and double handed race from San Francisco to Honolulu, Hawaii to Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. www.crosspac.org
THE CURMUDGEON'S CONUNDRUM |
