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SCUTTLEBUTT 1595 - June 2, 2004Powered by SAIC (www.saic.com), an employee-owned company. Scuttlebutt is adigest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing, whining and personal attacks for elsewhere. WEATHER Every Time an Olympic host is chosen, every sailor with an interest in the Olympic Sailing Competition, be it athlete, team leader, coach, or spectator immediately asks the question, "What's the weather going to be like?" It's not unusual. Success in our sport, more so than many, is dictated by the weather, or more importantly wind and water conditions. The equipment chosen, the Athletes that each NOC choose to send, the tuning or selection of an individuals' equipment, even the way that equipment is sailed, can all be influenced by what is expected to happen on the field of play over the weeks that sailing medals will be contested. Some nations spend massive time and resources on weather forecasting, and some nations even send boats out onto the race courses months before the event in order to beef up their data on the area. The Athens Organizing Committee (ATHOC) will be providing a forecasting service throughout the months of July and August courtesy of the Hellenic National Meteorological Service. As well as this service, details of the weather and historical data on Athens and the sailing area are readily available from a number of sources. During the summer the Aegean Sea is influenced by strong Northern winds, called the Etesians. Although these local winds affect mainly the Aegean Sea and the islands, they also affect the Athens area. At the east part of Attica sea breeze blows from SE to NE directions, while at the West part the wind conditions are more complicated, as sea breeze generally blows from S-SW directions. Summer showers or thunderstorms can occur due to excessive ground heating, often in combination with upper level disturbances and poll of cold air. Comprehensive historic weather data from the Hellenic National Meteorological Service is available on the ISAF Athens 2004 Microsite, and via their website at: http://www.hnms.gr/hnms/english/index_html Full story: http://www.sailing.org/Article_content.asp?ArticleID=7237 THE RULES The US Sailing Appeals Committee has recently issued an unpublished decision which in effect says that if a competitor competes in a race contrary to the provisions of the Notice of Race and he can blame the volunteer at the registration desk for putting him in the wrong class, then the competitor should not be disqualified. As I served on the jury for this event, I have taken a particular interest in the decision. - Noel M. Field, Jr. The facts are as follows: The notice of race stated: "Division I sailors must not have reached their 15th birthday during the 2003 calendar year." The father of a 13 year old skipper filed the entry forms for the skipper and crew. The crew, while 14 at the time of the event, would reach the age of 15 before the end of the year. The volunteer, seeing the ages of both skipper and crew listed as 13 and 14, listed the crew in Division I. The entry forms did in fact show the dates of birth of the two crew members, and had the volunteer done the appropriate subtraction, she would have discovered that the crew would turn 15 before year end. The boats in each division flew streamers indicating which division they were sailing in. The scores were posted after the first day of racing. Both divisions started together, but were scored separately. These competitors should have seen that they were listed in Division I, the division in which they were ineligible. Nevertheless, they sailed the second day without notifying anyone that they had been scored as racing in the wrong division. This information was presented to the jury after the second day of racing. The jury after an appropriate hearing disqualified the crew for a violation of the Notice of Race in all the races previously sailed and from the races scheduled for the following day. The jury's decision to disqualify the boat in the races already held was upheld by the association appeals committee, and the father of the skipper who had originally filed the entry forms appealed to US Sailing Appeals Committee, blaming the volunteer for entering the team in the wrong division. The US Sailing Appeals Committee overturned the decisions of both the jury and the Association Appeals Committee, placing the blame on the race committee for failing to score the boat in the correct division. The decision relieves a competitor from the responsibility of complying with the notice of race, in my opinion a very questionable precedent. - Noel M. Field Jr., Senior US Sailing Judge, nfieldjr@worldnet.att.net COLLEGIATE NAs The Gorge - No regatta report, but final scores for the ICSA/Layline North American Team Race Championship are in: 1. St. Mary's College (11-6) 2. Hobart William Smith College (11-6) 3. Dartmouth (10-7) 4. USC (9-8) 5. Brown (6-8) Racing for the final event, the ICSA/Gill North American Dinghy Championship, will be June 2-4. - http://www.collegesailing.org/nwicsa/na/default.htm WHAT'S BLACK, GRAY OR WHITE BUT WON'T LEAVE YOU RED? With an SPF of 50 whether fully immersed or bone dry, the Dryshirt™ will protect you up to 2 ½ times more from the sun than a rash guard or cotton shirt and keep you thermoregulated like nothing else on the market today. Splash-proof and breathable, the Dryshirt™ is like no other top currently available. Maybe that is why many of the leading Max Z-86, Trans-Pac-52, FARR 40, J-109, J-105, and skiff crews are outfitting their boats with this revolutionary gear. Yacht clubs and large groups are eligible for special pricing. Now available in black, gray, white. 1(800)354-7245, http://www.sailingproshop.com/dryshirt.htm THE TRANSAT The first night at sea for The Transat entrants has been hard work in 20-knot headwinds with constant manoeuvring and frequent tacks within the tightly packed fleet. The boats will have been fully powered up overnight and with no reported problems the skippers will be settled into their routine. Typically they'll be pushing harder than usual for the first 48 hours to make the break on their competitors, get to the first shift as well as keeping an eye out for coastal traffic and fishing boats. Once passed The Lizard, sea conditions calmed slightly, but this did not allow any rest for the skippers. Early this morning Franck Cammas on ORMA 60 Groupama explained that he had spent all night on deck, strapped into his seat at the helm unwilling to go below. Cammas opted to carry two reefs and a staysail throughout the night to limit the risk of any early breakages. The daggerboard on Marc Guillemot's 60-foot Trimaran Gitana X snapped clean off at the point where it enters the hull and he is now making for La Trinité sur Mer and will not be re-joining the fleet in this race. Mike Golding's Ecover has a problem with the pump motor that moves the canting ballast. The result is that Golding has to manually tack the swinging keel each time he tacks the boat. To hand-pump the keel across would take even a very fit former fireman around 30 minutes of hard graft. He has minimized the effort on biceps and forearms by opting for an easier, if somewhat unsettling, alternative of laying Ecover over hard to leeward side before each tack, and letting gravity do most of the work. The result is that at its worst the Open 60 is lying at 80 degrees over to leeward, the mast and sails not far short of touching the water. The next 24 hours will see the fleet slowed by light airs prior to getting pummeled by an intense depression. It is unlikely that the skippers will have a good chance to rest before the effects of the gale force, southwesterly winds produced in the zone between the next low rolling across the North Atlantic. Images: We've just posted some really sensational photos of the fleet taking off in big breeze: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/04/0601transat/ Curmudgeon's Comment: Without question, The Transat race organizers have put up one of the most useful websites we've ever seen for an offshore race. It's very impressive! http://www.thetransat.com/ ONE MORE TIME A major player in the history of single-handed transatlantic racing sailed into Plymouth last weekend in the form of Canadian Mike Birch. While the majority of the competitors in The Transat this year have never sailed in the race before, Birch first sailed the single-handed race the 'wrong way' across the North Atlantic in 1976. Sailing his tiny Val 31 trimaran The Third Turtle in that race, Birch finished an impressive second over the line, a day after Eric Tabarly's 72ft maxi winner Pen Duick VI and almost two days ahead of Alain Colas' giant four-master Club Méditerranée. What remains consistent is the challenge of racing across the inhospitable North Atlantic single-handed and the lure of this is as great as it always has been for Birch. Despite his 72 years, Birch still looks exceptionally fit. At the start of the year his trimaran, Nootka, was 53ft long and had to be shortened to get into the 50ft size limit of The Transat's Class 2. "I came over in February and cut off the stern," Birch says. He also moved the staysail stay forward and added one of Fujicolor's old spinnaker poles. Unfortunately, unsponsored, funds are short and Birch says he could do with some new sails. At 1700 GMT (June 1), Birch was in placed fifth of six boats in his class, some 152 miles behind the class leader- http://www.thetransat.com CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar KEEP YOUR EYE OPEN Cost effective wireless instrument information and system control - Ockam introduces OS4 Eye. Load Eye software on your PDA (Pocket PC) and your Ockam connected WiFi PC. View multiple pages of instrument data, set cals, averaging and controller functions, track trends on stripcharts, all in your pocket. - hiking hard on the rail or monitoring performance from your bunk! OckamSoft's NMEA translator will even allow connection to a non-Ockam system. Contact Tom Davis (tom@ockam.com) or visit http://www.ockam.com WOMEN'S MATCH RACING WORLDS Sixteen of the world's top 25 ranked women match racers have accepted invitations to the BoatU.S. 2004 ISAF Women's Match Racing World Championship, which will be sailed in J/22s, June 5-12 on the Chesapeake Bay out of Eastport Yacht Club. Racing begins Sunday 6 June, with the first of two scheduled double round-robins and will continue daily, starting at 0900 hours. Finals and petit-final contests are set for Saturday 12 June, with the prize giving, where it is guaranteed to crown a new ISAF Women's Match Racing World Champion. The skippers and their world match racing rankings are: Nina Braestrup, DEN, ranked 3; Lotte Meldgaard Pedersen, DEN, 4; Liz Baylis, USA, 5; Marie Fauré, FRA, 6; Betsy Alison, USA, 7; Paula Lewin, BER, 8; Sabrina Gurioli, ITA, 9; Claire Leroy, FRA, 10; Christelle Philippe, FRA, 12; Katie Spithill, AUS, 14; Deb Willits, USA, 16; Carol Cronin, USA, 17; Jenny Axhede, SWE ,18; Elizabeth Kratzig, USA, 19; Sally Barkow, USA, 22; Linda Rahm, SWE, 23. - http://www.santamariacup.org/ NEWS BRIEFS * Leading sailing clothing manufacturer, Henri-Lloyd, has again been appointed as Official Technical Clothing Supplier to the Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race. All the participating crew in each of the ten rival teams will be supplied with Henri-Lloyd's award winning Gore-Tex® Ocean Racer range of foul weather gear. In addition to the Ocean Racer suits, crews will be given the option to purchase at a special rate the Henri Lloyd One Piece Suit. - http://www.clipper-ventures.com/ * Following the Olympic Games in Athens in August, the 2004 Paralympic Games will take place from the Agios Kosmas Sailing Centre in Athens. Sailed in two classes, the single-person keelboat and the three-person keelboat (2.4mR and the Sonar respectively), the event will be the first time that the organizing committee for the Olympic Games will also be the same organizing committee for the 2004 Paralympic Games. The Notice of Race for the 2004 Paralympic Sailing Competition is now available: http://ww.sailing.org/sc.asp?id=paralympics_2004 * Nearly 200 sailors are competing in the World Finn Masters Championship in Cannes, France, where those born after 1964 need not apply. Gus Miller informed Scuttlebutt that Canadian Larry Lemieux is leading the elimination rounds, "while everyone else has been distracted by the nude beach just below the club deck. If that had been on the brochure, a few more of you might have made it..." Event website- http://www.finn-france.com/eng/masters_eng QUOTE / UNQUOTE "I'm too old to take all these waves!" - Transat skipper Michel Desjoyeaux, 60-foot Trimaran Géant. "Survive, finish, win. In that order." - Transat skipper Joe Harris, Open 50, Wells Fargo/ American Pioneer. NAVY SEAL BOAT SHOE You may never get to shimmy down from a hovering 'copter into a snakepit of enemy fire, but you can wear the same shoe today's Navy SEALS wear to maximize traction and torque in extreme amphibious combat situations. It's the Figawi Zip, $69.99. For a list of stores, visit http://www.sperrytopsider.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com) (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. This is not a chat room nor a bulletin board - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.) * From Allan Johnson: Man! I just returned from the opening ceremony of the Advanced Racing Clinic Association (ORCA) for junior sailors in Seattle, WA. What a treat to see 60+ kids eager and excited to learn more from sailing's champions. Adam Deermount set the tone with his opening remarks and quickly Brian Ledbetter took the stage with a general overview on boat handling. The kids then broke into groups according to their classes, and there was Charlie Mckee with the 29ers, Emery Wager with the Lasers, Tine Moberg-Parker and Agustin Resano with the Optimists, and Jen Morgan with the 420s! With the wind blowing out of the south at about 14 knots, it was looking like a great day. Junior sailors are our future! * From Steve Gilbert: In the current issue of Sailing World there is a story by Jon Ziskind about 'Adopting a Professional Attitude.' I have had the pleasure of sailing with Jon on a few occasions, and I have to say that all of the suggestions that he makes in his article exactly represent the way Jon is. No matter if it is after 5 minutes or 500 miles, he is focused, polite, energetic and competitive. Sailing is a wonderful sport, it brings together young and old, experienced and novices and gives everyone the opportunity to enjoy the sun and wind (and rain and cold but we won't mention those). Somewhere out there I am sure there are people that have found the joys of sailing because of experiences with professionals, because of his hard work and attitude, Jon is one of them. Thanks to all of those professionals that have made sailing fun for me! * From Nick Kent: While I am sure a roomful of folks will attend the Storm Trysail Club's day long seminar on July 21 to evaluate rating rules currently in use and to explore alternative rules for handicap racing at their events, I have already marked that date on my calendar to do something else. If all goes well, my voicemail at work will say, "Sorry but Nick is unavailable today as he has gone… one-design racing." SCUTTLEBUTT SAILING CLUB LIBRARY Last month the 'Buttheads filled the library shelves with eleven new books for our pleasure. We will keep the May entries at the top of list for the rest of the week for easy reference before we catalogue them among the other 200+ titles. If you are a frequent library visitor, you might have also noticed that each week we try to highlight those books that have been popular sellers. Enjoy it all at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/books THE CURMUDGEON'S CONUNDRUM Have you ever seen a toad on a toadstool? |
