SCUTTLEBUTT No. 712 - December 18, 2000
EMAIL
With enormous help from a 'green' Tech Rep from Earthlink, the curmudgeon
lost 44 email messages last Friday. So if you sent me something important,
you may want to dig it up and resend it. Sorry!
VENDEE GLOBE - By Philippe Jeantot
Yves Parlier (Aquitaine Innovations) and also Dominique Wavre (Union
Bancaire Privee) may have consecutively set new 24-hour speed records,
however these conditions are not a regularity and the average speeds have
settled a little lower now. Parlier had a whole day in the bag at the
Equator compared to his leading position four years ago, and yet at the
passage of the Kerguelen Islands he now has around 100 miles advance, which
is just about 7 hours. Admittedly the conditions of late have not been
favourable in pushing up the average speeds, however, now that the weather
systems are behaving more to the norm, we could see these increased.
Michel Desjoyeaux (PRB) is still leading, but he can see the figures of
Roland Jourdain (Sill Matines La Potagere) and Yves Parlier getting bigger
on the horizon behind his boat. Jourdain is but 70 miles away, albeit 2
degrees further South. Parlier has been whipping his boat like a jockey in
order to reduce his gap to 133 miles from the leader now.
This situation should stabilise, only then to invert itself. If Parlier has
been consistently the fastest in the fleet for the last two days, the
current low pressure carrying him along will overtake him and favourise
then Michel Desjoyeaux. So then it will be the leader who will accelerate
off and his pursuers who will slow down, waiting then for the incoming
depression to start this concertina game again. It1s certainly an art for
the skippers to manage this routine in terms of navigation and weather
analysis, the constant anticipation using up every ounce of their worth.
Ellen MacArthur (Kingfisher) and Thomas Coville (Sodebo) are framing Marc
Thiercelin (Active Wear) to the North and South respectively, just 20 miles
in it between them, despite the first two suffering ripped sails in the
last 24 hours. For Coville it was just the bottom edge of the small
gennaker, his first sail damage. For Ellen, however, it was firstly the
tack of the staysail, then an involuntary gybe, followed by broken battens
and a jammed mainsail, which forced her to climb the mast and get the sail
down manually in big seas. She has recovered without too much of a loss in
the rankings, but the experience has certainly exhausted her. -
http://www.vendeeglobe.com
Standings: 1. PRB. Michel Desjoyeaux. 2. Sill Matines & La Potagere, Roland
Jourdain (+69 miles) 3. Aquitaine Innovations, Yves Parlier (+133 miles) 4.
Sodebo Savourons la Vie, Thomas Coville (+327 miles) 5. Kingfisher, Ellen
MacArthur (+337 miles)
VENDEE GLOBE SIDEBAR
AT a low ebb in high latitudes, Vendee Globe singlehander Ellen MacArthur
said a weekend's wrestling with sail troubles aboard Kingfisher had brought
her "the closest to death I've come".
MacArthur had no option but to climb Kingfisher's mast in the full fury of
the Southern Ocean after her boat did an involuntary gybe while surfing
hard at 30 knots in 40 knots of wind on Saturday.
Struggling on the near-vertical deck, MacArthur managed to release the
running backstay so that Kingfisher got back on her feet. But in doing so,
one of the mainsail battens poked out of its pocket and over the second
spreader, effectively making the sail impossible to drop in a rising wind.
"Going up the rig is generally the solo sailor's nightmare," said
MacArthur, "but going up in 40 knots just doesn't bear thinking about."
If the final two feet "were the hardest two feet of my life," then the
descent was vastly more difficult; over an hour to come down 15 metres. "I
was quite cold and shaking with the effort. It took me closer to the edge
than I wished to go," said MacArthur.
MacArthur has extraordinary reserves in her 5ft frame and lowered the
mainsail once back on deck, replaced the batten, sewed it in and re-hoisted
the main before resting. "I barely had the energy to put the sail back up
again, then collapsed in the cockpit." - Tim Jeffery, daily Telegraph, UK
Full story: http://sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/
FARR 40 AUSTRALIAN CHAMPS
World champion Farr 40 One Design yachtsman John Calvert-Jones today
clinched victory in the 2000 Australian championship and the Telstra Cup,
maintaining his remarkable consistency in the highly competitive
'owner-driver' class. Southern Star's scoreboard read 5-8-4-2-2-2-3-4 for a
total of 30 points, with second place going to American yachtsman Philippe
Kahn who won both races today, the first sailed in an 8-10 knot easterly
seabreeze, the wind freshening to 12 to 15 knots for the second and backing
to the north-east.
Kahn, sailing his Malaysian-built, Sydney-based brand new Farr 40 OD,
Pegasus, won five of the eight races to finish with a scoreboard of
6-1-17-1-7-1-1-1 for 35 points. Kahn's tactician was Mark Reynolds, back in
Sydney where he won the Gold Medal in the Star class at the recent Sydney
Olympic Games.
The Americans won five of the eight races and might well have won the no
drop-race series but for missing race three after breaking the mast crane
before the start and then being recalled in race five.However, they would
not have completed the regatta but the generosity of John Calvert-Jones who
made available his spare mast to Kahn - who later said it was a faster mast
than their production model. - Peter Campbell
Final results: 1. Southern Star (John Calvert-Jones, Vic) 30 points, 2.
Pegasus (Philippe Kahn, USA 35 points, 3. Smile (Simon Whiston, NSW), 41
points 4. Buon Giorno (Steve Ellis, NSW), 43 points. 5. Corinthian Doors
(Richard Perini, NSW), 43 points.
EVERYWHERE
They are absolutely everywhere. They're in Norway, Japan, Spain, the UK and
Canada. There are two each in Australia and Mexico. Italy has three and
there are 10 in the USA. That's 22 in all, and every one of these Ullman
sail lofts will give a quote on a new sail to show you just how affordable
improved performance can be for your boats:
http://www.ullmansails.com/
THE RACE
* December 16 - For the first time Loick Peyron's maxi catamaran
Innovation Explorer went head-to-head with Club Med, co-skippered by Grant
Dalton and Frank Proffit. On, Saturday, Dec 16th, the two giant catamarans
came face to face for the very first time off Antibes in the Mediterranean.
Innovation Explorer was ready and waiting in Antibes as Club Med came to
join her from Monaco. "There won't be an official race." announced
Innovation Explorer's skipper Loick Peyron before putting to sea this
morning. For all that, the crews couldn't resist a long beat, racing along
side by side against the backdrop of the Massif de l'Esterel cliffs.
The northeasterly that was blowing this morning eased off after midday,
gradually giving way to the stiffening local mistral wind which increased
rapidly from 8 to 15 knots. This provided a great opportunity for these
giant cats to show what they can do. As they thundered along in the
distance, side by side, the two cats simultaneously lifted a hull as they
turned towards Barcelona. "We are going to take an indirect route in order
to fulfill the qualifying criteria."
* Off Portugal: PlayStation was this morning 140 miles NW of Cape St
Vincent. All is well on board. When the boat was located, she was sailing
at 16 knots on a heading of 190 .
Warta Polpharma, stopped over in Gijon after being caught in an enormous
squall in the Bay of Biscay. A complete check-up of the sails, rigging and
the new mast revealed nothing untoward and the Polish crew skippered by
Roman Paszke headed back to sea this morning offering themselves two surfs
at 33 knots. Pure pleasure if you could hear them! Team Legato (Tony
Bullimore), was located last night along the Portuguese coast, and is
continuing on her way to the Catalonian capital. - http://www.therace.org
* The big American catamaran Team Adventure entered the Mediterranean on
Saturday afternoon, and tonight local time was sailing at 14 knots 16 miles
south of Cartegena, Spain. Skipper Cam Lewis reported that his entry in The
Race of the Millennium, was about 280 miles from port in Barcelona.
At daybreak Saturday, Team Adventure was roaring past Cadiz on the
southwest corner of the Atlantic coast of Spain after a fast and furious
passage from La Coruna. Spirits were soaring along with the boat speed.
The weather had improved so much since stage one of this delivery and
qualification passage from Cherbourg that finally Team Adventure was able
to find her stride and tick off the miles. Co-navigator Larry Rosenfeld was
so enthusiastic about the speed that he suggested bypassing Gibraltar in an
attempt to set a new 24-hour distance record.
Fortunately cooler head prevailed knowing that in the next two months there
will be many opportunities to set records. Team Adventure's short-term
objective is to get to Barcelona and the start of The Race, and with that
in mind they turned the corner and headed for the Straits of Gibraltar.
Shortly after lunch the mega-catamaran steamed through one of the busiest
shipping lanes in the world and without incident entered the Mediterranean.
A very upbeat Cam Lewis checked in via satellite phone. "We have ideal
sailing conditions and have had a very exciting day gybing downwind in 16
to 20 knots of wind," he reported. "We are on course averaging a shade
under 20 knots. Our next rendezvous will be a fly-by of Palma de Mallorca."
- Keith Taylor, http://www.TeamAdventure.org
MATCH RACING
In a superb display of sailing New Zealander Gavin Brady, who is sailing
for the Prada America's Cup Challenge, defeated Murray Jones, who is with
the Swiss America's Cup Challenge, 2 - 0 in the final of the Fremantle
International Regatta. Brady and his crew were masterful on the starting
line, in the 20 knot winds, and rarely threatened thereafter, in sharp
contrast to their form early in the regatta.
Brady had scraped into the semi-finals on a count back with another ex-pat
Kiwi, Chris Dickson, after only winning three races on the first day, then
losing half a point for causing damage to another boat. This was his first
match racing event since March, having been concentrating on an Olympic
campaign in the Start class, "I'm a bit rusty," he commented at the
beginning of the regatta.
The battle for third place went all the way to the wire, with local
skippers Sebastien Destremau and Simon Sutherland slugging it out through
three races, before Destremau got the upper hand. - John Roberson
RESULTS: 1. Gavin Brady, Italy, Prada Challenge 2. Murray Jones,
Switzerland, Swiss Challenge 3. Sebastien Destremau, Australia 4. Simon
Sutheland, Australia 5. Chris Dickson, U.S.A., Oracle Racing 6. Xavier
Destremau, Denmark 7. Ben Dunstan, Australia 8. Luca Antonini, Italy
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net)
(Letters selected to be printed may be edited for clarity, space (250 words
max) or to exclude unfounded speculation or personal attacks. This is not a
bulletin board or a chat room - you only get one letter per subject, so
give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree. We don't publish
anonymous letters, but will withhold your e-mail address on request.)
From Malcolm McKeag 100527.3303@compuserve.com The arguments about
making the rescued pay for rescue if their journey wasn't wholly necessary
seem to come up every time there is a high profile rescue of a high profile
yachtsman or crew. They are well-rehearsed, as are their rebuttals. As Robo
and others suggest, it is dangerous territory at the top of a slippery
slope: once we start to make laws based on (vaguely defined)
value-judgements of the moral merits of one seafarer over another the lower
reaches of that slope take us quickly into the realm of different fuel
prices for different sorts of boat user and right-of-way rules that require
all recreational craft to keep out of the way of all 'commercial' craft. In
fact in UK the former has recently been advanced by the present Government
(and for the moment at least successfully rebutted by the RYA), while many
years ago I recall as a member of the Harbour Board on one of the UK's most
popular recreational rivers having to argue - happily successfully -
against the latter. (Many ports, of course, have rules that require
manoeuvrable boats to keep out of the way of less manoeuvrable boats - that
is a different matter to defining rights-of-way on the criterion of why the
boat and its mariner is there in the first place.)
From: Tom Moulds MouldsTE@navair.navy.mil In reference to John Alofsin's
suggestion to only save the cautious, I for once have to agree with the
NRA. Once you agree that AN act of sailing is dangerous, you are risking
that others will declare that ALL acts of sailing are dangerous. If we are
going to not to save the leading edge adventures than maybe we should leave
some of the idiots out there too. Like it our not society protects the weak
and the daring equally, that is just the way it is. Maybe like those we
leave stranded, this thread should also be left to die.
From: "Hansen, Charles" HANSECH@tc.gc.ca I am appalled that some readers
think that the high seas has a free tow truck/taxi service! You should be
aware that under international agreements, the worlds oceans are divided up
into search and rescue zones. These zones are allocated to various nations
who agree to provide and fund a given level of service under certain
conditions. With limited resources and risk management philosophies ruling
the day, some of these nations may begin to prohibit high risk activities
(high performances sail racing) in their zones during historically heavy
work load seasons... which likely coincide with good sailing conditions.
In Newfoundland, trans-Atlantic rowers are regulated. (bad record of
survival?) In New Zealand, you require an inspection and a permit before
you can leave the country on a vessel under a certain size. (SAR resource
risk management?) Consider a recent trans-Atlantic Windsurfing program. It
included an extensive self funded event assistance capability. (marketing?)
How about we propose that anyone making use of a publicly funded marine
assistance service be prohibited form sanctioned events for 5 years or
until they realize that they should be dead? (modified Darwinian theory?)
We owe it to our sport to look after ourselves while we push the limits. We
owe it to the rescuers to not call upon their services while we play on the
edge. (How can someone get a good rant going in less than 250 words?)
From Romey, Dustin Dustin_Romey@sra.com [Heavily edited to our 250-word
limit] - While I know John Alofsin to be an experienced and knowledgeable
sailor, he betrays a number of the misconceptions many sailors have about
the Search and Rescue (SAR) system in place in this and many other
countries. The case that brought up his discussion, the rescue of the Team
Phillips crew, cost very little to complete. It was almost assuredly
completed using a system called the Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel
Rescue System (AMVER).
Basically most countries and shipping lines agree to put a daily position
report into a database. If an EPIRB is detected, or a distress call
received, the SAR agency can call up the names and positions of vessels
closest to the victim and contact the ship via SSB or INMARSAT. The Team
Phillips crew was most likely helped by a vessel in this system.
Secondly, our own SAR experts, the US Coast Guard, have come out strongly
against charging anyone for a rescue. After Steve Fossett's balloon went
down off Hawaii, there was a similar suggestion to John's in the national
press. The Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Loy, responded in the
Washington Post. He basically pointed out that once anyone is charged for a
rescue, the first rescue that is not performed or suspended for legitimate
reasons (too dangerous for the searching crew, been searching longer than
it is possible for the crew to have survived, etc.) will be questioned on
monetary motivation.
SAILING JOBS
The US SAILING Job Bank, previously open only to US SAILING certified
instructors, is now an online member benefit. Any current US SAILING member
looking for a job-sailing instructor, program director, race
administration, or otherwise-can visit the job bank site and post their
"position wanted" listing. They in turn view a list of clubs and schools
that have positions open. This service for individuals is free of charge.
Those who possess US SAILING certification will have their listing posted
in bold face type.
Member clubs or other organizations may visit the site, and for a $15 fee,
may post their "help wanted" listing. They then view a list of individuals
searching for jobs. This listing, which can be edited at any time, will
remain posted on the job bank web site for six months. Once an instructor
or club enters their ad in the system, they are free to check listings any
time.
In order participate in the Job Bank, a US SAILING Member number is
required. Instructors need their individual numbers, and the clubs need the
club's Member number. - Penny Piva Rego
For more information: http://www.ussailing.org/jobbank
LEARNING
(Betsy Alison discussed the Rolex Women's Match Racing Worlds at length on
the SailNet website. Her story concluded with the following summary.)
Learning is a part of any activity, but it's especially important for
sailboat racers since there are so many things to understand about this
sport. Here's a few of the lessons we took away from this year's World
Championship:
* It is critical to make time to practice prior to the event, regardless
of how busy your schedule is. Relying on time at the event is poor
management of an important schedule.
* If it means taking the time to go to another match-racing event before
the worlds, even if you have to travel abroad, do it.
* You cannot rely on what you know, you have to rely on how you apply
that knowledge.
* Stay positive and upbeat. Be proactive in situations, not reactive. If
you feel that you are in control of the situation, it's more likely that
you will be in control.
* If you make a mistake, learn from it and move on. The next race is just
around the corner.
Full story:
http://www.sailnet.com/collections/racing/index.cfm?articleid=alison0006&tfr=fp
BIG
A record number of more than 300 contestants will be competing at the
Yachting Key West Race Week 2001 - Jan. 15-19. The boats will come from
five continents, 32 states and 20 nations. It also includes 18 entries from
Chicago, by no coincidence the city hit hardest by recent storms.
The entry list has soared well past the record of 271 boats in 1999. Peter
Craig and his staff are still recording a flood of late filings that
cleared the Dec. 8 deadline.
Competition in the Farr 40 class, which currently numbers 34, will be
intensified by infighting for an American berth in next summer's Admiral's
Cup in England. Key West will be the second and last phase of trials,
following this month's Miami Regatta won by Philippe Kahn's Honolulu entry
Pegasus.
Other notable class turnouts include the Melges 24 (53), Mumm 30 (27), J/80
(25), J/105 (24), 1D35 (20), J/29 (17), along with nearly 100 PHRF
competitors and a dozen grand prix IMS entries. - Jeanne Kleene,
www.Premiere-Racing.com
THE CURMUDGEON'S QUOTATIONS
"Each day, do a little more than is expected of you. Soon, more will be
expected of you." - Alan Cundall
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