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SCUTTLEBUTT 1759 - January 21, 2005Powered 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. RAGTIME It doesn't seem so very long ago that a syndicate of six Long Beach (California) sailors chucked in $5,000 each in 1973 to buy a 62-foot wooden boat built in New Zealand for the sole purpose of doing the Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii - just once. It was one of the best bargains in sailing history. That boat, dubbed simply Ragtime, stunned Bob Johnson's formidable Windward Passage by 4 minutes, 31 seconds - still the closest Barn Door finish in race history - and became an instant legend. Not only was Ragtime fast, but also anyone who ever saw her was taken by the beauty of her slim black hull, glossy wood cabin top, and gracefully low-raked lines. Under subsequent owners, she would win another Barn Door in '75 and share the record of a dozen Transpacs with Merlin, which will top that this year under the new ownership of Trisha Steele - who, incidentally, chartered Ragtime for the race in 2001. Now the saga of Ragtime has come to this: At 10 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 21, the day this issue of The Log hits the streets, the black beauty will be up for auction at a boat impound yard in West Long Beach. The owner Scott Zimmer moved his miniature blimp advertising enterprise from Orange County to Austin, Texas, after business reversals. He borrowed against the boat, and now the lender, a Newport Beach woman who asked to remain anonymous, is hoping to collect $172,000 in debt and costs. Rhonda Mehlman, a lawyer with Hart, King, and Coldren of Santa Ana, is handling the action. All sides seem to agree that an auction is the only way to go. "If the boat doesn't go for that amount, we would have a deficiency judgment against [Zimmer]," Mehlman said. "I don't know what it's going to go for, but we did not put a minimum bid on there." A $172,000 bid seems unlikely. In 1996, according to sources, Zimmer bought Ragtime for about $130,000 from Pat Farrah, who had spent more than a million restoring her to pristine condition. The lender said she is confident about a high bid because "it's the [100th] anniversary of Transpac, and it's a very historic boat." - Excerpts from a story by Rich Roberts in The Log, full story: www.thelog.com/columnists/columnistsview.asp?c=140610 ULTIMATE SAILING SPEED A lot has occurred in the past few months in the world of speedsailing. The inevitable happened and the sailboards reclaimed the title of being the outright fastest. It was only a matter of time until they beat the times laid down by Yellow Pages but the question was always would they be able to do it before the hurdle was raised. The interesting thing about the runs is some of the numbers that were recorded by GPS. Finian Maynard hit a top speed of 49.3 knots and maintained averages over 100s of meters over 48 knots! This hints at what we can expect if, and this is always a relative 'if' in this game, they can get the right conditions. It is still a quantum leap to 50 knots but then they know this more than anyone. I have no doubt that they have the skills, determination and support... but do they have the craft? We are all trying to push the envelope in a totally open field. This pushes everyone from all aspects of the project to the limits of their collective abilities. We are all in a race to be The Fastest and right now everyone is focusing hard on being the first to 50 knots. The designer can't build a boat that can't be sailed and the sailor can't make a boat defy physics. Shortcomings on either side can lead to lengthy in-house debates (just add alcohol or lack of performance as catalyst). - Brief excerpts from a story by Paul Larsen on The Daily Sail subscription website that provides updates on his SailRocket speedsailing campaign. - www.thedailysail.com BREAKING NEW GROUND The 32nd America's Cup will be seen live on German television stations ARD and ZDF in 2007. A landmark television rights agreement has been reached that will see programming from each of the opening Louis Vuitton Acts in 2005, 2006 and 2007 broadcast on ARD and ZDF, in addition to the live coverage of the Louis Vuitton Cup and the 32nd America's Cup Match itself in 2007. This marks the first time the America's Cup will be broadcast on national public terrestrial television in Germany. The stations will promote the America's Cup through news and existing sport programs, in addition to carrying 26-minute, daily highlight programs from each of the 10 remaining Louis Vuitton Acts leading up to 2007. Importantly, the arrangement also guarantees at least 60 hours of live programming during the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series and the 32nd America's Cup Match in 2007. LAST MAN STANDING Back before Christmas there were four big boats racing south to Hobart. The world saw the 2003 Sydney Hobart winner, the 30 metre Skandia, without her keel, and the 30 metre Konica Minolta almost broken in two after coming off an enormous wave. Ludde Ingvall's Nicorette survived the Bass Strait storm to become the 2004 Sydney Hobart winner, but was dismasted only two weeks ago on the Queensland coast. There is but one survivor of the big four, the 20-metre pocket maxi AAPT, and the second boat into Hobart.As the last man standing, at least for the moment, AAPT wears the mantle as the fastest monohull in Australia and she will be the fastest boat at Skandia Geelong Week. - www.geelongweek.com A POWERBOAT SAILORS LOVE TO BRAG ABOUT It takes a lot for hard-core sailors to admit they'd rather own a powerboat. For professional sailor Ken Read, it took a True North 38. "Everything about the True North design works. It has that same sense of efficiency that I demand when I'm racing." Inspired by the rugged, reliable New England lobster boats and built to the highest standards by the leader in composite technology, the True North 38 is converting the minds and souls of sailors everywhere. Learn more about the True North 38 or the new True North 33 at 619-224-6200 or http://www.pearsonyachts.com TRICKY WINDS BEDEVIL THE BEST Key West, Fla. -- Some of the smartest sailors in the world sailing some of the most high-tech machines found themselves at the mercy of fickle winds Thursday that bedeviled most of them on the next-to-last day of Key West 2005, presented by Nautica. The breeze, following blasts to 25 knots that overpowered some competitors early in the week, was a satisfying 14 knots for the 10 o'clock starts up and down the four courses along the south side of the island. But then it steadily dissolved into the day's second race until all the cool and calculating world-class minds were at their wits' ends. Chris Busch, a former Key West winner sailing his 1D35, Wild Thing, from San Diego, said, "It was frustrating for everybody. It's tough mentally when you have to keep trying to figure it out all the time. We're not used to that stuff at Key West." That said, Busch followed a fourth place in the first race with a win in the second to lead by two points with the ninth and final race scheduled Friday. His team's performance earned them Industry Partners Boat of the Day honors for the 295-boat fleet. Busch felt blessed. "The top four finished within 30 seconds," he said. "The only difference was that we got a little puff at the end. We would have been happy with fourth." Miami's Kevin Burnham, who with Texas' Paul Foerster won America's only Olympic sailing gold medal last summer, is sailing on Pegasus Racing's contending Melges 24, which went from a first to a 24th on the day. "It was worse than Athens," Burnham said. "There was a huge right shift on the last [upwind leg]. We were caught on the wrong side of that." But his boat is only one point behind Maspero Giovanni's frontrunning Joe Fly, of Canottieri Lecco, Italy. A new threat is Australia's James Spithill, sailing with double Olympic medalists Jonathan and Charlie McKee of Seattle. Spithill and the McKee brothers are members of Italy's Luna Rossa America's Cup team. They suddenly became contenders Thursday when they not only notched fifth- and seventh-place finishes but, after seven races, were allowed to discard their worst score: 59 points for starting over the line in the first race Monday. Germany's Hasso Plattner, steeled for a final Farr 40 dogfight Friday after a third and first Thursday, said, "Why we won over Mean Machine and Barking Mad, I don't know. In [only] 3½ knots of wind, with shifts and puffs, it was luck." Plattner, with Russell Coutts at his side, leads Holland's Peter de Ridder on Mean Machine by one point; current world champion Jim Richardson's Barking Mad of Newport, R.I., is another five points back. - Rich Roberts, Complete story and results: www.Premiere-Racing.com Thursday's weather: Wind 14k, NE-NW, dropping to 2. Friday's forecast: Wind W-NW, 5-10k. Check out the amazing regatta images: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/05/keywest MORE CARNAGE Thursday morning the headboard car on Ellen MacArthur's 75-foot trimaran B&Q ripped out and off of the mainsail track. She dropped the mainsail to check the headboard car but since then has managed to repair it (by replacing the missing slide rods that act as the bearing for the car to slide up and down the track) and get this car back onto the mainsail track. "I felt like a circus act trying to get this back on, it feels so heavy at the moment, everything does," commented MacArthur. After two trips up the mast, MacArthur finished the repair before midnight Thursday GMT. "I've drunk 4 litres of sports drink straight down, and cut my thumb while I was up there," She said. "Made me laugh - I thought to myself when I saw it bleeding, doc's advice would be to keep it elevated. At 25 metres up, I can't do better than that!" Ellen must now decide when to tack to try and stay in the wind as long as possible to get around and through the huge windless area from the St.Helena high that is expanding westwards all the time. Wind is already down to 15 knots, a sign that she should tack to the North West. The weekend ahead looks very slow indeed with winds forecast to be less than 10 knots. With Ellen exhausted and nursing a very bruised body, it could be a testing time. B&Q is still 2 days and 1 hour - 725 miles - ahead of Joyon's record setting global passage. - www.teamellen.com STRETCHING OUT Vincent Riou is stretching away from the competition on the other side of the Convergence Zone. All in all, the leaders have come off rather cleanly from the doldrums so far, but the situation for the chasing pack looking considerably more complex. Leaders at 1900 GMT January 20: 1. PRB, Vincent Riou, 2777 miles to finish 2. Bonduelle, Jean Le Cam, 140 miles to leader 3. Ecover, Mike Golding, 185 mtl 4. VMI, Sébastien Josse, 1117 mtl 5. Temenos, Dominique Wavre, 1154 mtl 6. Virbac-Paprec, Jean-Pierre Dick 2590 mtl 7. Skandia, Nick Moloney, 2895 mtl 8. Arcelor Dunkerque, Joé Seeten, 3233 mtl 9. Hellomoto, Conrad Humphreys, 3816 mtl 10. Ocean Planet, Bruce Schwab, 3995 mtl Complete standings: www.vendeeglobe.fr/uk/ QUOTE / UNQUOTE "I was just setting up to tack, when a huge wave swept across the boat and knocked it sideways ... cockpit full of water, and the boat knocked 100 degrees off track. I'm absolutely drenched. It's been a pretty amazing day, been saying to myself this is mad! But I knew it wasn't going to get life threatening. Here in the South Atlantic you know you are going to get these sh*tfights, but then they go away. In the south [Southern Ocean] you know there is another one behind." - Nick Maloney, Skandia, www.nickmoloney.com NEWS BRIEFS * The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the appointment of Barbara Kendall, Olympic medallist in sailing from New Zealand, to replace Susie O'Neill, who recently resigned from the IOC Athletes' Commission. Olympic champion in sailing at the Barcelona Games in 1992, Kendall has participated in a total of four Olympic Games, including the Athens Games last year. She has also won a silver medal in the Atlanta Games in 1996 and a bronze medal in the Sydney Games in 2000. - http://tinyurl.com/5rcb2 * After diverting to Chile to offload an injured crewmember, Team Stelmar has arrived in Wellington to complete Leg 2 of the Global Challenge - some two weeks behind the other competitors. Leg 3 from Wellington to Sydney begins on February 6. www.globalchallenge2004.com/ * Eric Baldwin, originally from Brunswick, Maine, has expanded his sailmaking business locally by opening a North Sails Sales and Service Loft in Brewer's South Freeport Marine located in South Freeport, Maine. Baldwin acquired the Quantum Sails business, which formerly occupied the 3,450 square-foot facility. Former owner Tom Sitzmann, who grew up spending summers in Freeport and who is currently head coach of the Bowdoin College sailing team, will stay on board with Baldwin and the rest of the North Sails team. * Bruno Peyron estimates that Orange II could leave for a round the world record attempt at the end of the week or early next week, if the weather conditions observed this morning prove stable. " We're observing the evolution of the weather pattern, and there seems to be a possible window, opening this Sunday and remaining satisfactory until the 27th ! We're switching to the 'Orange Code', since we have roughly 4 to 5 days of visibility. www.maxicatamaran-orange.com * A win in the seventh and final race by Sydney yachtsman Michael Coxon clinched victory in the 2005 International Etchells Australian Championship, conducted by Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. Coxon jumped into the overall lead in following the OCS disqualification from race five of early series leader Neville Wittey. Although Wittey was able to discard the OCS, he still faced an uphill battle to regain the overall lead. Thursday's placings of second and ninth were not sufficient to lift him above third overall in the 55-boat fleet. Second place went to current World champion Peter O'Neill. - Peter Campbell, Sail-World.com, full story: www.sail-world.com/ * The 2004 recipient of the Cruising Club of America's Rod Stephens Award is St. George's School (Middletown, R.I.), specifically the captain and crew of the school's 69' research/ training vessel Geronimo. The winners were cited for the January 30, 2004 rescue of a Polish seaman who had fallen overboard from the containership Pilica and had been treading water for 21 hours, 130 miles east of Palm Beach, Fla. The Award recognizes "an act of seamanship which significantly contributes to the safety of a yacht or one or more individuals at sea." - www.cruisingclub.org PROVING GROUNDS Key West 2005 is as good a place as any to test the performance of a new boat, and this week the Melges 32 has withstood the breezy conditions and competitive atmosphere to be leading its class (PHRF 3) through Thursday with seven races completed. The all new M32 is a super-sized Melges 24, providing a very simple yet quick performance boat for those that felt the M24 was too small for their liking. After Key West, you can see the M32 at the Strictly Sail Show in Chicago, February 3-6. For an immediate glimpse race to http://www.melges.com IN MEMORIAM Helen D. Bedford passed away Sunday evening, January 16, 2005, with her husband of 48 years at her side. Helen was a life member of Mission Bay Yacht Club in San Diego, CA, where she had made significant contributions both on the water and behind the scenes. After years of competing in the Snipe class with her husband Lew, she turned her focus toward race administration. When the Summer Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles in 1984, Helen became the first woman Principal Race Officer ever chosen by the Olympic Committee. Helen maintained her trend-busting course by becoming the first woman commodore at MBYC in 1987. Following her two children's rise through the ranks of junior sailing, she continued her involvement in youth sailing activities by supporting travel and educational programs. A memorial mass will be held on Wednesday, January 26th at 10:00 am at St. Charles Borromeo Church (619-225-8157). A reception at Mission Bay Yacht Club will be held following the mass. In lieu of flowers, her wish was for donations to go to the Junior foundation at Mission Bay Yacht Club (mailto:jsanchio@san.rr.com) or Sharp Hospice Care (619-667-1900). 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. 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 Ryan Hamm: Just look at the participation at Key West and you will see that PHRF is almost dead except for beer can racing. The talent level at Key West is remarkable but when you look at the list of the best of the best most are racing one Design. Out of almost 300 boats in Key West much less than 1/3 are sailing one design and upon further review it is obvious that some of them want to be one design but just don't have quite the numbers needed, ie, TP52, Olsen 30's, Evelyn 32s, J24s, etc. I think that there are about 40 boats that are happy they are PHRF down there (and that number declines every year). Next week over 300 will be racing One Design again at Miami OCR. No handicapping there. For those of you looking for the perfect handicapping system, it is already here. It is one design. The problem that has occurred in PHRF is that many one design sailors have had to improve their skills to compete so when they do race PHRF they dominate. That is how the handicapping is supposed to work. Better sailing gets better results. It is impossible to make those losing happy no matter what handicapping system you use. It is just a beer can race. You might not win but it is better than being at work or not on the water. * From Mark Turner, Offshore Challenges (re Christian Fevrier's comments in yesterdays' Scuttlebutt): We have often discussed these sometimes complex calculations with Christian, on this event, and other race and record events in the past. We greatly respect his opinion. However other than the genuine problem of English/ French translation, we are not sure what the confusion is on Christian's behalf on this occasion, as it seems quite clear that DAY 53, means we are in 53rd day, in other words the elapsed time is 52 days and X hours. The best example is the first 24 hours of any event, which we would refer to as Day 1, 1st day of event, elapsed time 0 days X hours. The Omega clock on teamellen.com shows live elapsed time as well, should there be any further doubt. We are always ready to listen to feedback, good and bad, and suggestions on the ongoing challenge of explaining our sometimes complicated (but potentially engaging) sport to a wide range of types of audience. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION Employment application blanks always ask who is to be notified in case of an emergency. I think you should write, "A Good Doctor!" |
