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SCUTTLEBUTT 2516 – January 22, 2008Scuttlebutt is a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions, featuresand dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors. ENOUGH HIRED GUNS TO FORM A SMALL ARMY by Dave Reed, Sailing World (January 21, 2008) At Key West's Galleon Resort and Marina, this week filled with millions of dollars worth of play toys, our ride is tucked between Glenn Darden's immaculate Swan 42, Hoss, on the one-side, and Hasso Plattner's Farr 40 Morning Glory on the other. Flanking Glory is Phillippe Kahn's Melges 32 Pegasus. In this one 50-foot stretch of dock there are enough hired guns to form a small army. There's plenty of elbow-rubbing opportunities in our sport - but there are few events equal to Key West Race Week in this regard. You can more than knock elbows here - you can share a hose. And with an entire generation of Cup sailors toeing the AC unemployment line, there is no better time to be here amongst them than now. They are literally all here, in such surplus that even supremely talented guys like Morgan Larson are in coaching mode. The best pros are getting in while the getting is good, and the fleet of Farr 40s assembled here will be the toughest racing its seen yet - once we get racing. With no shortage of talent available, and with the Worlds around the corner in Miami, it's all happening for these guys. But the beauty of being surrounded by such programs is what you learn simply by watching (OK, and a bit of eavesdropping) on a morning of an extended high-wind postponement. These guys have their programs down pat; they get to the boat, it's already prepped to go, there's maybe a bit of tweaking, but on the whole they're just kicking back, waiting for the AP to come down, which is promptly followed by the owner's arrival—let's say in this case, Kahn, who steps aboard, as lines are cast, and off they go with not a single frantic word spoken. That's Exhibit A. We're Exhibit B: a team collectively thrown together for the first time. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/33xkz7 * A storm front hitting Key West Sunday morning lingered, providing race officials on Monday with a fierce northeaster delivering consistent winds ranging 25-30 knots and routinely gusting higher. Event chairman Peter Craig huddled with his four principal race officers and the decision was made to postpone sending the 262-boat fleet out for two hours. Just after 11 a.m., the fleet was sent out to the four racing circles with the pronouncement that no racing would begin until 1 p.m. Regatta officials had hoped the wind would stabilize at a reasonable level in order to hold one race, but with the conditions clearly “on the edge” - and given that this was the first day of the event - the decision was made to abandon all racing. Forecasts call for winds to decrease to the high teens on Tuesday morning then ultimately drop to 8-10 knots by the afternoon. Craig said Premiere Racing will “work very hard” to complete two or three races on Tuesday. -- Complete report: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=5726#5726 NEVIN SAYRE – FLIPPING JUNIOR SAILING UPSIDE DOWN by Lynn Fitzpatrick (January 21, 2008) It’s been decades since Nevin Sayre spent time training in Miami as a member of the US Boardsailing Team. Nowadays, whether it be sailing, windsurfing, or kiteboarding, speedster Sayre knows how to have fun, and he is focused on bringing that attitude down to junior sailing. Nevin and his entourage were in town to host the O'Pen BIC Midwinters, and they put on a spectacle at sailing’s fun zone - Shake-a-Leg Miami - this past weekend. Nearly forty junior sailors from Key Biscayne, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Pierce, Clearwater, and New Orleans elevated Nevin’s and O’Pen Bic’s rule number one - Have Fun - to a new level. Camp Director Sayre, sporting a red T-shirt emblazoned with “bailing is prohibited,” launched his loosely competitive, unorthodox ‘unregatta’ from among the white sands and sea grapes of one of Miami’s restored spoil islands. Sayre paraded the group of eleven and unders and the oldsters around untraditional courses. As they planed from one hoppity-hop to another, Sayre instructed them to stand up, capsize, and do 360-degree turns. He gave them extra style points if they could sail with both feet on the rail of the 9-foot, open hulled O’Pen Bics. Smiles spread over the waterrats nearly as quickly as their boat-handling skills improved. In no time at all, some of the kids perfected the art of letting their mast tip hit the water and bounding up onto the daggerboard to right their boat almost instantaneously. Some were so good that they gained places during the legs in which everybody had to capsize. -- Read on: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/08/lf COMING SOON TO A TOWN NEAR YOU Dave Perry, David Dellenbaugh, and Brad Dellenbaugh are teaching Rules and Tactics Seminars in 18 locations this winter. Perhaps you could learn a thing or two... From fundamental principles to nuances highlighting the difference between right-of-way and control, these rules gurus teach the rules and the tactics rules dictate. The case-based curriculum teaches situations, not rule numbers. Enrollment is limited. Sign up now (risk free) and receive Perry’s Rules Quiz book and Dellebaugh’s Rules DVDs with the course. Learn more at NorthU. Call 800 347-2457 or http://www.northu.com DISABLED SAILING PROGRAM CATCHES SECOND WIND Last year was not a good one for Challenged America, San Diego's pioneering disabled sailing program. “We became something of a victim of our own success,” Challenged America co-founder and director Urban Miyares said recently. “Financially, we couldn't keep up with the demand we created.” The problems last summer forced Challenged America to withdraw before the start of its third Transpacific Yacht Race. Shortly after that, Challenged America sold its Tripp 40 flagship B'Quest and suspended operations. But by the end of the sailing season, Challenged America was racing again. And Miyares sees brighter days ahead. “We have other boats available to us,” Miyares said. “What we need to do is find a financially feasible permanent home and locate alternative funding. Our fundraising has been terrible.” Although Challenged America was one of the world's first disabled sailing programs when it was launched in 1978, most clubs that followed its lead have headed in other directions and had more financial success. -- SD Union-Tribune, read on: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/page2/20080121-9999-1s21boatcol.html BARCELONA WORLD RACE Open 60 doublehanded round the world race (started Nov 11; 25,000-miles) (Day 72 – January 21, 2008) While winds are 25 to 28 knots in the Southern Ocean for Educación sin Fronteras, race leaders are dealing with light and fickle conditions as they struggle to make progress towards the equator. "It's a bit better for us today, we have a bit more wind than we were supposed to have,” said Hugo Boss skipper Alex Thomson. “But the general trend is light and cruddy for us and downwind and trying to get across the front to the other side where Paprec-Virbac 2is. Although Damian and Jean-Pierre are in light conditions, they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, whereas for us, we have to get across the front first before we can see the light." -- http://www.barcelonaworldrace.com Positions at 18:00 GMT (+gain/-loss from leader since previous day) 1-Paprec-Virbac 2, Jean-Pierre Dick/ Damian Foxall, 4,179 nm DTF (+155) 2-Hugo Boss, Alex Thomson/ Andrew Cape, 541 nm DTL (+10) 3-Temenos II, Dominique Wavre/ Michéle Paret, 1,902 (+152) 4-Mutua Madrilena, Javier Sanso Windmann/ Pachi Rivero, 1,972 (+173) 5-Educación sin Fronteras, Servane Escoffier/ Albert Bargues, 2,959 (+206) Retired - PRB, Vincent Riou / Sébastien Josse (broken mast) Retired -Delta Dore, Jérémie Beyou/ Sidney Gavignet (broken mast) Retired - Estrella Damm, Guillermo Altadill/ Jonathan McKee, (rudder damage) Retired - Veolia Environnement, Roland Jourdain/Jean-Luc Nélias (broken mast) IF YOU DECLARE A FIASCO, THEY WILL COME by Kimball Livingston, SAIL There's no explaining the Three Bridge Fiasco to people who expect things to make sense. We're talking about a race sailed in the dead of winter, when you can't count on breeze on San Francisco Bay, but you can expect the currents to be running big-time. A bay, we call it, because the sea floods in, but the Golden Gate is also a drain spout for 16 rivers swollen with winter rain. And coming to the 2008 Fiasco this Saturday, we've had rain, baby, we've had rain. Racing the Three Bridge Fiasco, you have three marks to round. Each mark is at or under one of three bridges. The shortest-possible route (over the ground, not necessarily the shortest route through the water) is 21 miles, and it does not simplify things at all that going from a reverse-order, pursuit start, you may round these marks in any order or any direction at all. The likely turnout come Saturday? Try 255+ boats, once again the biggest fleet for any race of the year in Northern California. Which only goes to show, if you declare a fiasco, they will come. Darned if the name isn't a brilliant stroke of marketing. -- Read on: http://sailmag.com/ThreeBridgeFiasco WORLD CHAMPIONS IN ETCHELLS, FINN, 470, J/24, OPTIMIST… With a record like that, there is no question that North Sails One Design delivers the fastest one-design sails in the world. Building on more than 50 years of sailmaking success in over 100 one-design classes, North is backed by a specialized, 100% one-design dedicated team. For complete details about North’s one-design products, service, and tuning, visit http://www.onedesign.com FOR THE RECORD (January 21, 2008) The 110-ft catamaran Gitana 13 is blasting southeast down the Atlantic, five days into a nonstop record attempt at the 14,000-mile Route de l’Or: the ‘route of gold’ from New York to San Francisco. After a bumpy start - the boat was sailing double reefed for the first few days in shifty winds and choppy seas - G-13 is currently riding the tradewinds southeast under full sail, gobbling up the Atlantic ocean at the rate of 26+ knots for the last 24 hours. The record she is attempting to break is currently held by Yves Parlier, whose Open 60 Aquitaine Innovations covered the route in 1998’s The Gold Race in 57 days, 3 hours, 21 minutes. The multihull record, set in 1989 by Georgs Kolesnikov’s 60-ft trimaran Great American, is 76 days, 23 hours, 20 minutes. By the way, all these ‘gold’ references harken back to the days when sailing ships delivered gold seekers to California from the east. The best of the best back then was the 229-ft clipper Flying Cloud, whose 1851 mark of 89 days, 21 hours stood for more than 130 years. Assuming no breakage or other delays, G-13 and her 10-man crew should have no problems annihilating all these marks. If all goes as planned, the big cat and her 10-man crew are expected to arrived under the Golden Gate on or about February 20. -- Latitude 38, complete report: http://tinyurl.com/2o2nma SAILING SHORTS * NINJA Mobile, a leading developer and publisher of innovative mobile applications, and Tidelines announced the release of Mobile Tides, a new mobile application that offers user-friendly tide information for over 4,500 locations world wide. Powered by NINJA Mobile’s content distribution platform, Mobile Tides displays up to 30 one day graphed tide images, downloaded, and stored for quick access on a mobile phone. A default tide location can be chosen for the user’s local coastline. When traveling, destination tides can be substituted and carried on the phone with no need for network coverage anywhere worldwide. -- Complete announcement: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=5693 * The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has unveiled the names of the cities from which a final winner to host the first Summer Youth Olympic Games in 2010 will be voted on by the IOC membership. Moscow and Singapore were chosen by the Executive Board last week, and will now be submitted to a postal vote by the IOC members. The winning city will be announced by IOC President Jacques Rogge in a live web cast on olympic.org provisionally scheduled for February 21st. -- Full report: http://www.sailing.org/21972.php?PHPSESSID=2cb2068049625fbb942133bd45ab90f3 * An instructional seminar for interested participants of the Annapolis to Bermuda race will be on Saturday, February 9 at the Eastport Yacht Club from 10:00am to 1:00pm. For information, contact Eastport Yacht Club at 410-267-9549 or mailto:eyc-office@comcast.net WATERFRONT HOME AVAILABLE IN NEWPORT You need only to dock your boat at Newport Shipyard to be within walking distance of shops and restaurants. Newport's only full-service yachting facility, Newport Shipyard is the yachting hub for events like the 2008 Bermuda Race, spring and fall boat shows, Newport Bucket and more... and you'll love your neighbors! Make your dockage request online today: http://www.NewportShipyard.com LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name, and may be edited for clarity or simplicity (letters shall be no longer than 250 words). You only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot, don't whine if others disagree, and save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. As an alternative, a more open environment for discussion is available on the Scuttlebutt Forum. -- Scuttlebutt Letters: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com -- Scuttlebutt Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From John Rousmaniere: Since new books often take a while to be discovered, I’m writing to say that anybody seriously interested in boats and the sea should be aware of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MARITIME HISTORY, published by Oxford University Press and edited by John Hattendorf. The American Library Association recently named it the best reference book published in 2007. With four volumes and almost 1,000 entries, this is by far the largest and most authoritative publication available on this vast international subject. The topics are broad (naval architecture) and narrow (ballast). Naval warfare in all ages and places is covered, and so are oceanography, ancient Chinese voyagers, maritime art, shipwrecks, navigators, films, maritime law, literature, terrorism, religion, major ports. . . and on and on, from A to Z. The 12 entries on yachting (which I wrote as a consulting editor) concern the sport’s history and literature, the America's Cup, Joshua Slocum, four great yacht designers (Herreshoff, Watson, Stephens, and Farr), and 31 important classes over the past 125 years, including New Zealand’s P, Australia’s 18-foot skiff, Scandinavia’s Folkboat, and England’s X-OD, plus the A-Cat, Hobie 16, Lightning, Melges 24, E-Scow, J-105, and IACC. All this does not come cheap, of course. But here’s an acquisition that should be considered by yacht club librarians and students of our great pastime. => Curmudgeon’s Comment: The Encyclopedia of Maritime History is available at Amazon, and if you use this special link, the college fund for the Scuttlebutt publisher's kids gets a little bit fuller: http://tinyurl.com/2jcncf * From Paul Jacobs, Saunderstown, RI: As most sailors know, for years we have heard about the virtues of Corinthian sailing; good sportsmanship, honest competition between amateur sailors for the joy of the sport, etc., etc. However, I thought the Buttheads would appreciate this incredible bit of irony that I came across while doing some research on the Apostle Paul. I was reading a wonderful old book "The Story of St. Paul's Life and Letters" by one J. Patterson Smyth, published in 1917 (nothing like quoting from an obsure reference to make it difficult for others to check one's veracity!). I quote, "Thus Paul began his ministry in Corinth. His failure in Athens had evidently shaken him. I think he expected to fail in Corinth too. One hardly wonders. For Corinth was about the most wicked city of the world at that time. It's vice was so rampant and un-blushing that it became a proverb. 'A Corinthian drinker', 'a Corinthian banquet' were bywords for the lowest profligacy". The next time I hear about a yacht club with the word Corinthian in its title, or "the spirit of Corinthian yachting"...I will surely smile! * From Rich du Moulin, Larchmont, NY: I agree with Skip Allan (in Issue 2515) about leading the preventer to mid-boom, but have a further suggestion. On a trip home from Bermuda aboard my Express 37 LORA ANN years ago we used a normal three-ply 1/2 inch nylon dockline as a preventer. It worked so well that we have improved the system and leave it rigged 100% of the time for distance and day racing. Using a 70 foot nylon line, we clove hitch the center of the line around the boom just aft of the vang attachment, and lead the two tails forward port/starboard to snatch blocks on the rail just outboard of the shrouds and inboard of the lifelines, so a gybe doesn't bend the stanchions. Then the tails lead back to cockpit winches. When set up, we put moderate tension on the nylon. The modest stretch softens the motion, and when we have gybed, the stretch minimizes shock and allows the boom to swing about halfway to centerline. This stretch also reduces load on the boom when dragging in the water. By being lead aft, the crew can ease the preventer if the boat gets pinned, or shift port/starboard during a gybe without leaving the cockpit. Even for our windward-leeward day racing we use this rig, since it allows us to pull out the boom and get everyone on the windward side so we can roll our assym to windward (we have a sprit). On the Transpac we used this same rig with a 5/8 inch nylon three ply on FORTALEZA, a Santa Cruz 50, and it worked fine. * From Stuart Lochner, Seattle, WA: I inherited what I think is the ultimate boom preventer system when I took over as skipper of the old 75' maxi "Ondine" (now "Atalanta"). It consists of: two pendants attached to the boom end running down both sides of the boom snap shackled off near the gooseneck, a dedicated angled turning block on both port and starboard toe rails just aft of the bow pulpit, and two lines with snap shackles run through the turning blocks back to a spare winch (we use the lazy primary winch). When settled out on a jibe, a crew member unclips the leeward pendant at the gooseneck and clips it to the line through the leeward turning block (which leads outside the leeward shrouds). Then the line is tensioned preventing the boom. With the line is attached at the boom end and run to the bow the loads are reasonable and it is almost impossible to break the boom. The pendants on the boom could be a single line depending on how it is attached to the boom end and as long as it is re-run around the boom vang after a jibe. And the turning blocks on the bow can just be snatch blocks clipped to a strong point allowing a clear lead to the boom end. We have done some big rolls, dragging the boom in the water and gone by the lee enough to put the main aback and just straightened the old girl out and kept on racing. It did take me a while to figure out what those two big stainless turning blocks mounted on the bow at a funny angle were for. => Curmudgeon’s Comment: There have been some great submissions on the boom preventer subject, but far too many for us to print in the newsletter. We have, however, created a special file on the website, and have included them in the News index for anyone seeking information on the subject, either now or in the future. Link: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/08/preventer CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching somewhere...you may be dead. Special thanks to North U, North Sails, and Newport Shipyard. A complete list of Scuttlebutt’s preferred suppliers is at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
