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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 879 - August 15, 2001Scuttlebutt 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.
ROLEX FASTNET RACE At 03.58.58 AM the 92-foot Stealth crept slowly out of the gloom and a muffled cannon signalled she had taken line honours. The carbon fibre black super maxi with its slate grey sails had made painfully slow progress in the last few hours as the wind in the English Channel died. Her elapsed time for the 608 miles was 2 days 10 hrs 58 mins 58 secs, over five hours outside the record after it took six hours to complete the last 10 to 12 miles according to watch leader Paul Standbridge. Racing skipper Ken Read, Dennis Conner's nominated helmsman for next year's America's Cup challenge in Stars & Stripes, said: "If we had kept any semblance of a breeze we would have broken the record. This is my third Fastnet and I'll tell you what, at times it was really, really fun. There was hardly any time to sleep, there was always another tactical decision. I think the trend is leaning back to distance races. The windward/leeward scene is all burned out." The next two boats are expected to be Hasso Plattner's 80-foot Morning Glory, with Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker leading a squad from the America's Cup defence, and Ludde Ingvall's 79-foot Nicorette, with guest helmsman Shirley Robertson, the Europe dinghy gold medallist in Sydney last year. The quartet of Volvo 60s were also making slow progress and, with 35 miles to go, were fighting an adverse tide and occasionally picking up speed only to slow again as the patchy wind failed to settle. Out at the Fastnet Rock, 240 miles from the finish, over a quarter of the 233 starters had turned for home. The fog horn had been turned off as visibility improved and the breeze was back up to 12 to 15 knots from the south-west. - www.rorc.org
TEAM NEW ZEALAND Designers are secretive - there's not much they will reveal at this stage. Drummond admits, though, that they are quietly happy with what they had learned after a year's training in the old boats, with a few tweaks. "But if we don't improve enough on NZL60, then we've failed," he says. It is not getting any easier to make the next generation of international America's Cup class boats that bit faster. "The design space is being narrowed down. Everyone has tended towards the heavy displacement, long-length end of the rule. So the differences we are looking for in testing are getting much smaller," Drummond says. And the challengers are slowly making up ground on the New Zealanders. In 1995, the average margin between Team New Zealand and Stars 'n' Stripes was 2 min 15s. In 2000, Prada had cut that down to about 1m 40s. Those who departed Team NZ - designers and some key sailors - obviously took invaluable knowledge with them. "But I think they're in the same boat as we are. They've got a bunch of new people, too," Drummond says. "When they start arriving here next month it will be hard for us not to watch them because it will be so in-our-face. But as soon as you start looking over your shoulder, it gives them the opportunity to catch up." - Suzanne McFadden, New Zealand Herald - www.nzherald.co.nz/sports/
NOMINATIONS INVITED As in past years, two Awards will be presented, one for a male and one for a female sailor, in recognition of outstanding achievement in the sport during the twelve-month period from 1 September 2000 to 31 August 2001. However, this will exclude achievements at the 2000 Olympic Games which were honoured in 2000 (Shirley Robertson and Mark Reynolds). In early September, a Shortlist Panel will consider the nominations received and finalise the shortlist of male and female sailors to contend for the World Sailor of the Year Awards 2001. If you wish to nominate a sailor for outstanding achievement during this period, complete the online Nomination Form and return it to the ISAF Secretariat by 31 August 2001. www.sailing.org/worldsailor/nominationform.asp A history of the World Sailor of the Year Awards and details of past winners are available on the ISAF Website at www.sailing.org/worldsailor
CARBON SAILCLOTH
TESTING YOUR SAIL TRIM KNOWLEDGE Q: As you ease down onto a reach, you should move the genoa lead aft, true or false?
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From Chris Ericksen: Gareth Evans says in 'Butt 878 that, "Correctly, or incorrectly, the terms GBR and UK seem to be used interchangeably." Under ISAF rules, GBR is correct when referring to sailing as ISAF standardized three-character national codes two or three rule books ago. Some of us are old enough to remember when sailors from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland sailed with a "K" on their sails, the French with "F," the Italians with "I" and the United States with "US;" in those days, Commonwealth sails bore a code starting with "K" that honored their attachment to the mother country, such as "KA" for Australia and "KC" for Canada. I remember well the struggles that the RYC made both against the three-letter codes and for keeping the "K" in all Commonwealth codes; when it was apparent that the three-letter code for sailors from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would be "KGB," they relented. * From Malcolm McKeag, in Merrie England (concerning the origins of the United Kingdom and edited to our 250-word limit): It begins with the joining together of England and Wales in 1563, follows with the union of the Scottish and Englsih crowns in 1603 after the death of Elizabeth Tudor and the acsecession to the English throne of the Scottish James VI and ends with the Act of Union of 1707 under Queen Anne which formally created a United Kingdom of Great Britain. The term Great Britain was essentially a geographical one, United Kingdom a political one. The difference between the term 'America' and the term 'United States' is exactly similar. Until a few years ago, sailboat national identifying letters were a matter for each national authority, and had been since the concept was invented: the Brits used K, the Americans US, the Japanese J, the French F and so on. Sailors were very happy with this and understood. Then along comes ISAF and without so much as a by-your-leave announces we shall have three-letter acronyms on our sails and - insult added to injury - tells those Brits who aren't English they no longer sail for the United Kingdom but for Great Britain. In fairness to ISAF, I believe they were given no choice in the matter and were themselves dictated to by the IOC who without doubt were in turn dictated to by The Great God Television. If memory serves, the change was made leading up to the Atlanta Games. Incidentally - I have an infallible cure for your heat exhaustion problems. Come and sail over here. * From Charlie Clifton: Sailors who brazenly and repeatedly violate Rules 5 and 6 of the International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea should be ostracized, not idolized. They are a danger to all of us with whom they share navigable waters. The media does a disservice to the sport bestowing accolades upon them. It's not heroic to put the lives of others at risk. * From: Rich Matzinger: I enjoyed Peter Isler's insight on sailing a Volvo 60. Based on the primary emphasis of moving sails, kitchens, gearbags and toothbrushes nonstop from side to side the skippers might consider recruiting crew members from the airlines. Sure the baggage handlers might lose a sail or two, now and then, but they almost eventually turn up. They might want to try United Airlines, as they have a main hub in Chicago and I have seen them working in the winter in conditions similar to the Southern Ocean. Sure sounds fun!
EDS ATLANTIC CHALLENGE Current cumulative points for the race: 1st Kingfisher (Nick Moloney - UK) 30 points 2nd Sill Plein Fruit (Roland Jourdain - FR) 24 points 3rd ECOVER (Mike Golding - UK) 24 points 4th Gartmore (Josh Hall - UK) 22 points 5th AlphaGraphics (Helena Darvelid - SWE) 14 points 6th FILA (Andrea Scarabelli - IT) 9 points. - www.edsatlanticchallenge.com
JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE * Fastnet Rock bearing 308, 18 miles Well it's been a tough leg for us from Lands End to here. We fought hard to hold off illbruck rounding the buoy but their reacher and better stability seemed to give them a slight edge for a while. Then the wind picked up to 20 knots and we seemed to gain some back after reefing. Just when we had pulled to within half a mile, we suddenly felt something on the rudder and slowed down 3 knots. I ran back and looking through the inspection window for the rudder, it was deja vu for me from the last Whitbread; we had had snagged a large shark square on the rudder! All hands on deck!! Reacher down, dump ballast, clear runner, tacking sheet on staysail, secure the stack, back down and cross your fingers! Guillermo did it perfectly and shark went by-by with major headache. Back staysail to get bow down, reacher back up, ballast up, etc... Radar showed us loosing 2 miles to illbruck and SEB now showing up on Radar a few miles astern. Not even an hour later, as we were shaking the reef, BANG!!, the main halyard breaks! All hands on deck!! Rig new halyard, get main up and on lock. Get everything trimmed again. Another mile and a half lost. AAARRGGG! Good thing we're sorting this out now. - Mark "Rudi" Rudiger, co-skipper / navigator ASSA ABLOY. * It's like we're two-boat testing across the Irish Sea. Right now they [News Corp] are holding us aft as we try to pass. We're reaching and it's hard to go around them. It's predicted to get light and tricky this evening which will open up plenty of opportunities. Last night we were just faster and maybe had a better sail for that condition. We were able to make up a big distance. We saw them ahead of us and we were able to surf right by them. Now they have passed us back. - John Kostecki, skipper, illbruck Challenge.
THE RIGHT STUFF
ENTHUSIASM Full story: www.madforsailing.com
VOLVO OCEAN RACE
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS * September 20-23: J35 North Americans, Bayview YC. www.byc.com/
INDUSTRY NEWS
T-10 NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
LIGHTING NAs
UP, UP AND AWAY "The immediate challenge in crossing the Andes is getting there," said Rice. "We've been drifting along for what seems like forever. But we'll get there. Flying a balloon over large mountains is not a trivial matter. You have to come into them as high as you can afford, in this case, 29,000 feet." Rice said that Fossett probably will come down in altitude due to both the oxygen situation and to pick up a different path and try to find favorable wind. Fossett started with 14 to 15 days of oxygen, but is now down to just four or five days. This will change the strategy to allow him to achieve his quest. He will now have to fly Solo Spirit at lower altitudes. He has become acclimatized to do without oxygen at 19,000 feet, a little better than mission control expected, according to Joe Ritchie, mission control director. Fossett's team earlier had expressed concern about hypoxia, or lack of oxygen. They said that they will be monitoring his e-mails for indications that he may be experiencing symptoms of insufficient oxygen. According to Rice, Fossett still can go around the world flying at 17,000 to 18,000 feet, but that low of an altitude will mean that he cannot take advantage of faster winds that he would find at higher altitudes. Flying lower also presents thunderstorm risks. - solospirit.wustl.edu/news.asp
ANSWER TO SAIL TEST QUIZ
THE CURMUDGEON'S CONUNDRUM |
