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SCUTTLEBUTT 1984 -- December 9, 2005Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus.FAR FROM RADICAL (Following is an excerpt from a story by Andy Rice, Sailing Intelligence, posted on the Sail World website.) Juan Kouyoumdjian has always been known as a bit of a free-thinker and a radical in the world of yacht design, while Bruce Farr has been the benchmark designer for over 20 years, the designer against which all others are measured. However, the Argentine designer believes his creations for ABN Amro to be far from radical. 'I think of them as being quite conservative. In fact, when we came to conclusions about how to design the first boat, I was tempted to do something a lot wider, but common sense told us to take a more a conservative approach. If I were to do another Volvo 70 now, it would be quite a bit different'. Whereas in the last Volvo Ocean Race, the difference in beam measurement between the VO60s was a matter of a few millimetres, the variation in beam measurement of the VO70s is hundreds of millimetres difference. Kouyoumdjian says the Farr boats are the narrowest, at just over five metres wide, whereas he believes the broadest hull to be Sunergy. The ABN Amro boats are at the broad end of the spectrum, with ABN Amro Two around 5.45 metres and ABN Amro One a touch wider at 5.6 metres. One of the other clear distinctions in the fleet is between those who have a spinnaker pole and those who don't. The Pirates of the Caribbean is the only Farr boat not to have a pole, along with Sunergy and the ABN Amro sisterships. The VO70 rule is very strict about the maximum all-up weight of the boat, so any deck gear that can be dispensed with can be translated into additional weight into the lead bulb. Mike Sanderson reckons that by dispensing with the spinnaker pole and all its associated deck gear, he has been able to put another 75 kg into the bulb. 'We've gone for the full horsepower package, and I don't see why you would want anything else,' said Sanderson before the start in Vigo. Then again, movistar had done 20,000 sea miles and felt confident that the spinnaker pole was giving them options to sail different angles downwind in certain conditions. Kouyoumdjian remains unconvinced by this argument, and stands by the decision to go without a spinnaker pole. 'I don't see it as a compromise at all. For me it is as clear as water. Mike Sanderson also came into the team with the same view. For us it was a no-brainer. We hardly studied it because it was so obvious to us. -- Sail World website, complete story: http://www.sail-world.com/ THE SEASON ENDS A racing season which saw America's Cup competition between 12 teams from 10 countries take place in three venues across Europe came to a close this week after a 2005 racing calendar which saw 211 race starts, with 13 fleet races and 198 match races. Each team sailed nearly 500 nautical miles of racing over the course of the season. The purpose-built Port America's Cup in Valencia is growing in leaps and bounds with each passing week. The canal linking the Port directly to the northern race course will open shortly. Construction has started on the Chipperfield-designed building that will house the Foredeck Club, and more team bases are completed and occupied each month. Five new sail numbers have now been assigned among the teams (from 84 to 88), for new boats already under construction. The weighting of ranking points doubles in 2006 with Louis Vuitton Act 10 on May 11th. When the new marina in the Port America's Cup opens it will provide over 600 new berths for yachts just minutes from the race course. The first phase of the marina project, some 300 slips, will be open in time for the next Louis Vuitton Acts in Valencia in May 2006. This is in addition to the 50 or so Superyacht berths already built in the middle of the Port America's Cup. -- www.americascup.com GIPSY MOTH IV 24-HOUR RECORD A crew of six sailing Sir Francis Chichester's 40 year old ketch, Gipsy Moth IV, across the Atlantic has beaten the best day's run of the solo circumnavigator by four miles. The 53ft ketch logged 193 miles in 24 hours, helped by a strong North Equatorial Current. The crew includes three school children from Portsmouth with their teacher. Navigation is being done by stars and sun with sextant. The yacht is sailing round the world a second time (via the trade wind route) on a 22-month voyage as part of the Blue Water Rally, following a campaign by Yachting Monthly magazine to restore the boat which was rotting in dry dock at Greenwich, London. For daily logs and video clips of the voyage check the website: www.gipsymoth.org CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar BIG BOATS Two New Zealand contenders for the Sydney-Hobart yacht race line honours should get a feel for the challenge posed by a new Australian super maxi when the Rolex Big Boat challenge is held on Sydney Harbour on Tuesday. Konica Minolta, skippered by Wellington businessman Stewart Thwaites, will seek to defend the title after the boat made a trouble-free trans-Tasman crossing last weekend. Veteran New Zealand yachtsman Neville Crichton also has another opportunity to put his new $A10 million ($NZ10.74 million) high-tech Alfa Romeo through her paces before the blue water classic to Tasmania starts on Boxing Day. Apart from undertaking their own training regimes, the New Zealand duo will also keep a close eye on Australian Bob Oatley's 11th incarnation of Wild Oats - a sleek new 30m vessel complete with canting keel. Wild Oats 11 was launched last week and had her first outing on the harbour yesterday. However, Oatley has not confirmed he will compete on Tuesday and could instead compete in the Rolex Trophy Rating Series - which also involves the New Zealanders - on Thursday. Skandia, the fourth super maxi chasing line honours in the 61st edition of the Sydney-Hobart, will sit the Big Boat Challenge out as she is still in Melbourne while skipper Grant Wharington is competing in the Volvo Ocean Race. He returns to Australia on December 20. -- http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3505362a1823,00.html GET WHAT YOU WANT FOR THE HOLIDAYS With the holidays coming, you'll be doing a lot of shopping. Here's a way to make sure you get something you want: order a new sail from UK-Halsey. Many of our lofts are giving winter discounts to make this even better. If a new sail isn't in the cards, be sure to check out our on-line store for some essential gifts for your crew and yourself: the Rules Quiz CD, great duffels, apparel, and more. While you're at our site, take the latest racing rules quiz or download free software and read through tons of useful information. http://www.ukhalsey.com PIRATE SHIP TO SAIL NEXT WEEK Since November 14th, work on the Black Pearl has been non stop save for about four days to transport the boat to Cape Town. The repairs we had to make were extensive and subsequently, last Saturday, our designers have recommended additional reinforcements in the keel ram support structure, which have added to the list. Additional to these larger repairs, we had our own list of typical work like continuing to waterproof the boat, fine tuning the workings of the galley, improving the reliability of the instruments, reducing friction in sheaves, etc. We have to submit a list to the race committee of all work to be done during the stopovers and today we received the list of work being done by all boats. This is mostly just the major jobs but still the length of list is impressive. I think we are going to have to increase our maintenance budget. We are pushing hard to wind up the major work by Sunday and put the Pearl back in the water. Our plan is to go for a harbour sail on Monday to make sure everything works and then go for an offshore sail on Tuesday-Thursday. We want to put the boat through a thorough check out in all conditions before leaving for Melbourne. Yesterday the Ericsson guys gave us the lowdown on what happened with their keel during the leg. It is a bit more of problem than they thought originally and since we have the same hydraulic system, we will be doing a precautionary modification to our system as well. We have one new crew member joining the team here in Cape Town. Anthony Merrington (AUS) first joined the Pirates of the Caribbean shore crew in early October in Spain. Anthony has more than 120,000 offshore nautical miles of experience and is a veteran of the Volvo Ocean Race, having sailed with Team SEB in 2001-2002. Merrington is replacing Freddy Loof who decided to withdraw from the team. Freddy wants to continue to focus on Olympics Sailing and Match Racing. Freddy was a great contributor to the Pirates and we will miss him. -- Paul Cayard RAILEY IS VERY CLOSE Fortaleza, Brazil (Dec. 7) - Fortaleza, Brazil (Dec. 8) - American Paige Railey is very close to winning the Laser Radial World Championship. With a third and a fifth place on Thursday, she enters the last day of competition 17 points ahead runner-up Ana Tunnicliffe, also from the United States. The Radial Women rules sets a discard of the two worst results from each sailor. Because of that, Paige can finish this Friday´s first race down to the nineth position that still wins the trophy, even if Ana gets first place on both races. Brazilian Eduardo Couto has a ten point lead over American Brad Funk, but besides Brad´s shadow he has other things to concern him. He has already been punished twice by the arbitrage and if gets a third yellow flag from the commissioners he will be excluded. Standings - Men's Radial Gold Fleet: 1. Eduardo C. de Magalhães Couto (BRA) 19pts; 2. Brad Funk (USA) 29pts, 3. Blair Mclay (NZL) 37pts, 4. Andreas Reinisch Perdicaris (BRA) 44pts, 5. Martin Jenkins (ARG) 47pts. Women's' Radial Gold Fleet: 1. Paige Railey (USA) 35pts, 2. Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) 52pts, 3. Sophie de Turckheim (FRA) 55pts, 4. Petra Niemann (GER) 60pts, 5. Krystal Weir (AUS) 61pts. Full results: http://www.2005laserworlds.com.br/ STRANGE SIGHTS (Excerpt from a story posted on the Daily Sail subscription website.) One of the oddest sights on offer in Cape Town this week as the Volvo Open 70s have been coming out of the water has been Ericsson's rudder. This currently has a piece of spinnaker sheet stuck through the middle of it, the rope having neatly sawed its way through the non-structural trailing edge of the foil around 200mm down from the top, . This unusual piece of damage occurred on the breezy first night when their A3 spinnaker dropped over the side possibly due to a broken halyard and the boat ran over it. -- www.thedailysail.com NEWS BRIEFS * It's been said that Nathanael Herreshoff and his son, L. Francis Herreshoff, designed and built what are arguably the most beautiful and the most admired sailboats that ever carved a bow wave. If you agree with that statement you will certainly enjoy reading about those boats and admiring the hundreds of wonderful photos -- many in color -- in the new 'coffee table' book by Blue Water Sailing editor Gregory O. Jones, "Herreshoff Sailboats" published by MBI. It's a gorgeous book that will bring pleasure to readers each time the pages are turned. * As the majority of the Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race fleet have now passed the magical 2,000 mile to go mark, the race edges towards the 'home- stretch'. Durban is hanging on to a lead of over 20 miles from Victoria who in turn maintains her lead over double-leg winners westernaustralia.com. Jersey has moved up to 4th, overtaking Danny Watson and his Chinese sponsored boat, Qingdao. Uniquely Singapore and Glasgow have taken the most northerly positions with Cardiff following the Great Circle Route almost to the letter and the rest of the fleet south of this line. -- http://www.clipper-ventures.co.uk/2006/ * Super maxi skipper Neville Crichton has snared the talents of one of world sailing's biggest hitters - Australia America's Cup skipper James Spithill - for his assault on the Rolex Sydney to Hobart record. In a major coup, Crichton yesterday confirmed Spithill will jump aboard his 98-footer on Boxing Day as part of his star-studded Alfa Romeo crew. And in a further boast to his man-power, Crichton revealed top English sailor Ben Ainslie will also be at the helm of his yacht during the 628 nautical mile race south. Ainslie is a multiple Olympic gold medallist and world champion. -- The Daily Telegraph, AUS, http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,17507611-23218,00.html * With Leg one of the Volvo Ocean Race completed, Team ABN Amro has held a through 'debriefing session.' This meeting was to question performances, to obtain knowledge or intelligence gathered in the first leg. Everything was laid out, talked about, discussed when necessary and remembered with pleasure. Nothing was left untouched: maneuvers, watch system, navigation, sails, tools, spares, routines, competitors and new ideas were deeply ventilated. -- www.abnamro.com/team * Occasionally the photo gallery on the Scuttlebutt website gets away from sailing, but since boats are 'on the hard' in many of the winterized areas of the world, we figured that a lot of our readers are taking a break too. Here is a series of photos that we hope are not true, but if they are, we at least hope the circumstances are not as dire as they appear: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/05/lastphoto * The t2p website has two new video interviews online: Dennis Conner and Olin Stephens. -- www.t2p.tv BEHIND THE SCENES Geronimo's recently successful record-setting run from Los Angeles to Honolulu involved plenty of behind the scenes partners. Prominent amongst this group was Raider RIBs, which supported Gernoimo skipper Olivier de Kersauson and his crew with support boats at both ends of the passage. While Geronimo may have the legs for the open ocean, she required reliable Raider RIBs for all the logistical issues. Available in seven models - center console or spacious cabin - Raider RIBs are the ultimate boat for all imaginable conditions, taking you anywhere in comfort, safety and style. http://www.raiderboat.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. You only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree. And please save your bashing, and personal attacks for elsewhere. For those that prefer a Forum, you can post your thoughts at the Scuttlebutt website: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi) * From Adrian Morgan: At what point in the history of yacht racing did the vessel become more fragile than the crew? The old adage used to be that the crew would falter long before the ship foundered. The inference being that a well found ship - I stress well found - would always looks after you, long after physical exhaustion set in. Now we hear that boats "can be broken if driven too hard". Formula One cars do not break if simply "driven too hard". OK, so they break down due to mechanical failure, electronics malfunction and spin off if the driver's loses it, but they do not fall apart at the seams just by being driven too hard. That is unacceptably dangerous, surely? And yet racing sailors are being asked to accept the unpalatable truth that if they drive their yachts too hard, they will break. This is a fundamental change in attitude espoused in the first instance not by the sailors, but the designers. When did this start and why? * From Chris Ericksen: Adrian Blunt might be technically correct in saying in 'Butt 1983 that the first Olympic Regatta was held in 1900, but he did not clearly read or understand what Stuart Streuli said in 'Butt 1982. Streuli said it was an original modern-Olympic sport but that there was not enough wind for the boats there in Athens to sail, so I guess that makes the 1900 Games the site of the first Olympic Regatta. Interestingly enough, yachting has not been an event in every modern Olympiad: it was dropped in 1904 when the Games were held in St. Louis, MO. And bowling was an Olympic sport that year. Go figure. From Pat Healy: The IOC website shows the 1896 Athens Olympics with forty-three events in nine sports: Aquatics, Athletics, Cycling, Fencing, Gymnastics, Shooting, Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling. The ISAF simply says, "Sailing was not part of the 1896 Olympics". I was once told that NBC did a pre-Olympic survey to find out what sports US watches were interested in. Sailing came in second to last. How would you like to be the advertising executive in charge of that account? Bottom line, sell ads, sailing or gymnastics? Maybe the line-up is not too tough a decision after all. Curmudgeon's Comment; Stuart Streuli, who wrote the Sailing World magazine story, has provided us with the following information: A little further explanation on Olympic sailing history. According to the ISAF website, sailing wasn't part of the 1896 Games in Athens. However, according to a number of other sources, including US Sailing, sailing was on the docket for the 1896 Olympics, the regatta to be sailed in the Bay of Salamis, but the racing was cancelled due to poor weather. This would delay sailing's actual debut until the 1900 Games in Paris‹and there was no sailing at the 1904 Games in St. Louis. Nonetheless I feel comfortable calling sailing an original Olympic sport, if for no other reason that Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Games, included sailing among the sports to be contested in Athens in 1896. The following links can provide a little more information: www.library.thinkquest.org/25114/eng/sporten/zeilen.html www.olympics.org.uk/sports/summer/sailing.asp www.ussailing.org/olympics/sailingmedallist/03vol4/page2.htm * From Fred Schroth (edited to our 250-word limit): Brad Funk should be the Tiger Woods of sailing! In one year he won the US High School Nationals, the US Youth Nationals and the US Sailing Open Single handed nationals. Of course when Tiger Woods did that in golf his mug was pasted on the cover of every golfing magazine. Brad's only press for his accomplishments came in the form of a double interview published in Sailing World. He answered the same sailing questions as Dr Stuart Walker. It was something about the kid and the old campaigner. While golfing boomed with its new darling superstar, sailing made a joke or ignored its new hotshot. We all blew that one. Michelle Wie... Paige Railey? Aren't they both high school cuties who whump virtually all of the grown ups. Don't each of them beat most of the opposite sex except in the muscle matches? How hard can the similarity be to exploit? I do not expect the mags like Sports Illustrated to treat our sport equally as it treats golf. I do expect our sport to treat our our hot shots as the other sports treat their hotshots. Paige should be on the cover of Sailing World, Sailing, The Laser Sailor, Sail, and any publication US Sailing happens to put out. If anybody really wants to put sailing on TV the least we must do is follow the other sports and create some name recognition and celebrity so we can become fans. * From George Bailey (re kids in sailing): Have you seen the size of the average kid in France? Most are quite skinny, by U.S. standards. On the other hand, most kids in the U.S. are fat. Maybe our kids drop out because they are just too fat! Maybe what we need is a mini-Finn class designed for all our fat kids. With built-in video-games. * From John Rumsey: If the IOC want action for TV sailing the venue should be a place where there are reliable winds and beautiful backgrounds like tradewind locations or bays where afternoon winds always pipe up in the summer Frankly, it seems to me that the everything about the Olympics these days is about how much money can be raised from the sponsors. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATIONS "It isn't premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married." -- George Burns |
