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SCUTTLEBUTT 3755 - Wednesday, January 16, 2013Scuttlebutt 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, US Sailing, and UsedBoatEquipment.com. PAY TO PLAY: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW CLIPPER 70 By Matthew Sheahan, Yachting World Clipper Ventures turned heads at the London Boat Show last year when its founder Sir Robin Knox-Johnston unveiled plans for a new boat - it wasn't what many were expecting for a design that would carry 600 fare paying amateurs around a 40,000 mile course. Before signing up for the longest global race of them all - the Clipper 13-14 Round the World Yacht Race - with a course that has two long downwind Southern Ocean legs, around 40 percent of the crew will be newcomers to sailing. So is a boat with a fixed bowsprit, a slender fine entry and chined stern sections that look like they had been taken off the lines plan of a Volvo 70 or an Open 60, really the right tool for the job? Knox Johnston is adamant that it is. "I think the penny really dropped for me when I sailed my own Open 60 in the Velux 5 Oceans Race," he told me. "While Open 60s look pretty extreme, most of the time they're not difficult to handle and they clearly perform well which left me asking why couldn't our crews experience the same? Many of them will have seen the modern offshore racers and are clearly aware of what's out there and quite rightly want to have a go themselves." But while there are similarities to the 'Open' style, the new Clipper boats are a different beast under the skin. For starters, at 34 tonnes they are more than double the weight. (A VOR70 weighs just 14 tonnes.) The Clipper boats are significantly shallower as they need to be to get into some of the harbours around the world and draw just 3.00m and have fixed non-canting keels. At a full complement of 22 the Clipper 70s carry more than double the number of crew as well which doesn't come cheap when it comes to weight saving. Plus the boats are robustly built using conventional composite materials. Nevertheless, the new boat is around 3-4 tonnes lighter than the previous 68 footers and carries more sail area which is certain to make this new generation significantly quicker than the previous boats. Her open/trench style cockpit with twin pedestals and wheels along with her flush racing deck are further fundamental details that set her apart from the more conservative layouts of the previous two generations. So too is the move to asymmetric spinnakers flown from the fixed bowsprit. But the move towards this sleeker more racy layout is not simply about looks, but more about a deck that is easier, more efficient and more comfortable to work. Below decks the accommodation is spartan but functional and reflects the basic fact that only two things other than the sailing will matter when the crews are racing - food and sleep. Here a giant galley occupies the midship area of the boat straddling the centreline, with the rest of the boat dedicated to bunks, two heads, a nav station aft and sail stowage forward. But for me, the really impressive thing about this boat and the company is when you look at how Clipper Ventures is outperforming the professional scene. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/YW-011513 BACKGROUND The Clipper 2013-14 Round the World Yacht Race starts in August and is all but sold out, with 12 professionally skippered Clipper 70s competing (up from 10 boats in the 2011-12 race). A total of 600 fare paying crew will take part, up on the previous event which saw 400 compete. If the race follows previous trends, 40 percent of the sailors will be women. Race website: http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/ BETTER ENGINEERED DOWNWIND SAILS For 20 years now Doyle Sailmakers has been producing the easy to use APC (Asymmetrical Power Cruiser) for cruising sailors who deserve the same innovation in their sail inventory as racing sailors. The easy to trim APC, with its extra-long luff length, rounder entry and flatter leech, is an example of trickle-down effect from our Grand-Prix sail development. Whether you race or cruise, see how you can make better engineered sails work for you. Contact your local Doyle loft and put an asymmetrical spinnaker on your boat this year. http://www.doylesails.com/downwind or 1-800-94-DOYLE COMING TO AMERICA While the Clipper 13-14 Round the World Yacht Race opens the door for amateur sailors, the Volvo Ocean Race remains the domain of the elite professional ocean racer. Here's what we know so far about the 2014-15 VOR: * It will be sailed in 65-foot one design boats * The goal is for there to be eight teams * The race will start in Alicante, Spain The race route is to be announced in January, with one of the stopovers to be somewhere in the U.S. For the 2011-12 edition, Miami was chosen over Newport, RI. While this decision supported the commercial interests of team sponsors, the South Florida city failed to garner sufficient fan interest. So where will the 2014-15 race be headed? This week Volvo Ocean Race officials are visiting their two options: Baltimore, MD and Newport, RI. Baltimore has hosted the race three times (1997-98, 2001-2002 and 2005-2006) while Newport flexed its muscle last summer by hosting an America's Cup World Series event. The finances notwithstanding, the decision could again come down to local popularity versus commercial needs. "We (Newport) have a long and impressive history of hosting major sailing events. We have proven that we are pretty darn good at this stuff," said Brad Read, executive director of Sail Newport. "Considering our proximity to the ocean and record of serving as a start point for trans-Atlantic races, I think it's a very good fit." "This (Baltimore) is one of the largest metro areas in terms of population and one of the largest media markets," said Ocean Racing USA Executive Director Rob Housman.. "I think there are more corporate sponsorship opportunities in the Baltimore-Annapolis-Washington corridor than in Newport." Both Boston (2005-6 race) and Miami struggled to attract sponsorship funds to cover the costs of hosting the Volvo Ocean Race stopover, and neither city chose to bid again. Source: http://tinyurl.com/CG-011513 LOOKING UNDER THE HOOD Sail-World caught up with Mike Drummond, who recently left the Oracle Racing design team, for his impression of the four designs currently working up towards the 2013 America's Cup regatta. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "From the design point of view there are three and a half groups," he counters. "Emirates Team NZ and Prada look like they have identical hulls and wingsails, but with different foils. "Overall I think Emirates Team NZ has a good, straight forward, conservative boat with lots of volume, and a well proven structural arrangement. The wingsail is straight out of a C-class evolution. They have correctly focused on foil over wing development. "Although they have added fairings, it looks like Emirates Team NZ still have a high windage platform - with their centre spine and rigging and so forth. That is not critical at this stage, but it's a safe assumption their second boat will be similar, so there is a limit to the amount of drag reduction they can achieve. "The flip side is they've had a good robust package where they have been able to go sailing from Day 1 and learn about this new class of yacht which they can then feed into their second boat eventually. "These boats are very high speed and high on apparent windspeeds. Their windage as a proportion of their total drag is much higher than in monohulls and so it needs to be a higher priority in the design." He expands to say that the windage issue is not just turbulence around the rigging and the platform (multihull-speak for the combination of hulls, beams and decking) but also relates to aerodynamic efficiency. There is a very large gap between the Emirates Team NZ wing and the surface of the water (which Oracle Team USA have resolved somewhat with their central pod structure which forms an 'extension' to their wingsail and improves the effective span below the platform.) "In light airs that drag and inefficiency is very large - of the order of 5% compared with a perfect seal - which is close to 5% of boat speed. The drag percentage reduces in strong winds but there is still a gap," he adds. Hence Oracle's solution with a centre pod doing double duty as a structural member and forming a solid aero barrier, together with a horizontal deck surface. The effect is that Oracle is able to carry the lift from the wingsail much closer to the water surface. Beyond that Drummond wouldn't discuss further specifics of the pod or how it was designed to work. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/SW-011513 ARRIVEDERCI: "The 34th America's Cup will be the only one in which we will see these (AC72) catamarans. The question is not what is more just: for the America's Cup to be in multihulls or monohulls. Catamarans are attractive. It is that the AC72 is a folly to put it in water. It takes 40 people each time. The America's Cup must not only be popular, but also accessible." - Patrizio Bertelli, owner of Luna Rossa, America's Cup challenger, http://tinyurl.com/LR-011513 NEW RECORD APPEARS IMMINENT (January 15, 2013; Day 67) - The apparently unstoppable Francois Gabart (MACIF) continues to break records and today set a new Vendee Globe race mark for the return to the equator when he crossed at 13:41 UTC on Tuesday. The 29-year-old's time of 66 days 1 hour and 39 minutes, broke another of the records of his mentor, Michel Desjoyeaux, the 71 days 17 hours and 12 minutes, set when he won in 2008-9. The forecast for the finish keeps changing with the evolution of the Azores High ahead of the leaders, but one thing seems certain, barring multiple failures in all of the first four boats, the record will be broken. The long range forecast and routing suggested it might between January 26 and 28. "January 26 would be 77 days and that would be significant for two reasons," said race director Denis Horeau. "First of all because of Jules Verne (author of the famous French adventure book 80 Days Around the World) and because that was what multihulls were doing just 15 years ago. Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) set the current course record of 84 days in the 2008-9 edition. "It is a big difference for the fleet to be so compact," Horeau said. "Previously the adventurers were satisfied to make it around the world, now everyone is sailing very fast." When Desjoyeaux set the record, he finished 42 days in front of second place. Tracking: http://tracking2012.vendeeglobe.org/en/ Top 5 of 20 - Rankings as of Tuesday, January 15, 2013, 20h00 (FR) 1. Francois Gabart (FRA), Macif: 3135.7 nm Distance to Finish 2. Armel Le Cleac'h (FRA), Banque Populaire: 191.2 nm Distance to Lead 3. Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA), Virbac Paprec 3: 630.9 nm DTL 4. Alex Thomson (GBR), Hugo Boss: 875.9 nm DTL 5. Jean Le Cam (FRA), SynerCiel: 1979.6 nm DTL Full rankings: http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ranking.html BACKGROUND: Twenty skippers began the 24,000-nm Vendee Globe, a solo, non-stop around the world race in the IMOCA Open 60 class. Starting in Les Sables d'Olonne, France on November 10, the west to east course passes the three major capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin and the Horn before returning to Les Sables d'Olonne. Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) set the course record of 84 days in the 2008-9 edition. -- http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ US SAILING MEMBERSHIP MATTERS Thanks to the support from US Sailing members and volunteers, The Racing Rules of Sailing for 2013-2016 are more practical and accessible than ever. The new waterproof edition allows sailors to take the rulebook with them sailing without the concern of damage. Your contributions as a member of US Sailing allows us to improve your experience on the water and around the race course. Your membership includes a copy of the Racing Rules of Sailing for 2013-2016. Join today, so you can learn about the new rules that go into effect this year! http://membership.ussailing.org QUOTE / UNQUOTE "On Monday I had a shave, the beard came off. And it was raining so hard in the end I bit the bullet, got my Ecover washing up liquid and had a full body wash. I'll tell you what, it was cold, but once you get over the initial shock it was OK. Then I had a full change of clothes, new boots, new sleeping bag. And I had a good meal, Thai green curry, and Christmas pudding with custard. It is lovely to be clean!" - Mike Golding, Vendee Globe competitor YACHTING...YES... JUST NOT PROPER YACHTING By Kimball Livingston, Blue Planet Times Five years ago it was exciting just to see the first-ever world championship for course racing with kites become a reality. And a hit. The coolest new thing in ages. A year ago it was a breakthrough to see Johnny Heineken nominated (we knew he wouldn't win) as a candidate for US Sailing's Rolex Yachtsman of the Year. I can still remember when the question about kites was, do you think we could race these things? They wouldn't go upwind for diddly. Ebb tide (against the seabreeze of San Francisco Bay, which is where the experiments were going on) was the best assurance of completing a course. Now, with board development and kite development and heaps of new savvy, there is nothing that costs under a million smackers that kites can't outrun, and of those who can outspeed a kite, there are very few sailors qualified to be aboard. And by the way, if you're still on the 'it's-too-dangerous' page you're out of date. And Johnny Heineken, third at the 2009 worlds, a crushing first at the 2011 worlds and first again big time in 2012 . . . Previously a collegiate and North American 29er champion . . . And duly famed as the brother of Women's Kite World Champion Erika . . . Is US Sailing's 2012 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year. So it must be yachting. But I'll grant you, for it to be proper yachting, Johnny will have to find a way to fly his St. Francis Yacht Club burgee from a proper pig stick. Good luck with that. -- http://blueplanettimes.com/?p=10277 THIRTY-THREE YEARS OF SERVICE Wayne Bretsch, a U.S. Sailing senior judge and national race officer, is celebrating 33 years of race committee service, with at least half of those including RC stints at Quantum Key West Race Week (KWRW), 14 of them as a principal race officer. When racing starts next week in Key West (Jan 21-25), Wayne will be the PRO on the Division 3 course for the J/80 and PHRF classes. "My goal is to go out and run races and have the competitors scratching their heads at the party about who the RC members are. I like to use the analogy that if you don't remember who the basketball official was, then nothing went wrong during the game." * Best advice to a racer: The most admirable thing a racer can do is to walk up to the RC volunteers and say, "Thank you," and offer positive, constructive criticism. * Little known facts about race committee: The communication between the mark and signal boats is constant. We talk about wind, timing, mark roundings... Also, how intense and focused the team is at the start. * Gear that you depend on at KWRW: Steiner binoculars, Gill foul weather gear, and an Eberhard Faber #2 pencil with yarn taped to it. * Favorite Key West restaurants: Turtle Kraals Restaurant & Bar and Kelly's Caribbean Bar, Grill, & Brewery. Source: SpinSheet, full interview: http://issuu.com/cdeere/docs/jan_ss_2013/67 FIND THE BEST EQUIPMENT DEALS HERE There is a ton of unused equipment out there - our goal is to get it online. That way when you need something it's there or if you have something to sell you can make some MONEY. See our easily searched inventory at http://www.UsedBoatEquipment.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 Scott Diamond: Over the past few months in Scuttlebutt, I have read Glenn McCarthy's post and the replies about the loss of the "fun in sailing". I respect Glenn and his commitment to the sport and think he opens up a lot of good conversation. Having been sailing for close to 40 years I have been heavily involved in many aspects of the sport both competitively and organizationally and having seen the changes Glenn talks about I have tried to figure out the cause and a solution. All I can really come up with is that the times they are a changing, both for the sport and the athlete. Personally I have two little girls under 5 and the best day of sailing is no match for time spent with them. I even sailed off the course at the Sunfish Nationals to take them to a neighborhood carnival, just when the wind picked up and it would have been my kind of sailing. It's all about personal choices. The "fun sailing" exists out there; you just have to find it or create it. When I want competitive "ISAF" type sailing I pull the Laser out of the garage; when I want to have fun I bring my 1972 Sunfish down to the beach. I don't know if I'll ever race a boat with a keel again, because that just doesn't fit with my definition of "fun sailing" anymore. All I really know is sailing has and will always be a fun part of my life, I just don't let the Olympics, the Americas Cup or the media determine what fun is for me. 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: Flying Tiger 10 - San Diego FOR SALE: Olin Stevens Design #59 "Santana" - San Francisco HIRING: Head Instructor - Barrington YC, Sail Training Program HIRING: Sailing Instructor - Southampton YC New York ----------------------- View/post ads here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum/classified_ads CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION When all else fails, try the boss's suggestion. SPONSORS THIS WEEK New York Yacht Club - Harken - North Sails - North U KO Sailing - Doyle Sailmakers - US Sailing UsedBoatEquipment.com - Block Island Race Week Ullman Sails - Hall Spars & Rigging - Mount Gay Rum Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
