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SCUTTLEBUTT 2098 - May 19, 2006Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus.TRAGEDY ON ABN AMRO TWO 18 May 2006—Portsmouth: Earlier this morning, Hans Horrevoets (NED) was washed overboard from the deck of ABN Amro Two as they raced across the North Atlantic on their way to Portsmouth, UK, in leg seven of the Volvo Ocean Race. The young crew, who have sailed this boat so well, are devastated. The boat was sailing downwind in 25 – 30 knots of wind under mainsail, fractional spinnaker and staysail. Sebastien Josse, skipper of ABN Amro Two, was at the helm, Hans was trimming the spinnaker sheet, Nick Bice, Andrew Lewis and Lucas Brun were also on deck. A wave washed back down the deck and when the water cleared Hans was no longer on deck. “We are all devastated by the events that took place this morning and all our thoughts are for Hans’ family,” said skipper Sebastien Josse. “I would like to stress that throughout the whole man overboard procedure, the crew handled themselves calmly, professionally and with the utmost maturity. It is with deep regret that we were unable to resuscitate Hans,” he commented. ABN Amro Two navigator Simon Fisher explains what happened: “Immediately Seb hailed ‘man overboard’ and called everyone on deck while I remained below to put in place our man overboard procedures and GPS positioning. The spinnaker was immediately dropped, the staysail furled and the starboard dagger board lowered. The engine was switched on and we attempted to motor-sail back on a reciprocal course. Due to the strong headwinds it was decided we drop the main, and go under motor alone as it was difficult to maintain a direct course to the man overboard position. “Once Hans was located, Simeon Tienpoint put on his dry-suit, harness and diving gear in order to assist in the recovery. Once back on board Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, UK was notified that we had a major medical emergency and asked to stand by. In the meantime Hans was moved downstairs. No pulse was found so CPR (cardio pulmonary resuscitation) was initiated by the crew’s medics George Peet and Nick Bice, assisted by Andrew Lewis, Lucas Brun and Luke Malloy, all of whom are medically trained for such emergencies. CPR was stopped at 0420 UTC.” 32 Year old Horrevoets was married and his wife is pregnant with the couple’s second child. The crew are no longer in racing mode but are making their way to Portsmouth as quickly as possible and will make a decision on further participation in the race during the Portsmouth stopover. If you wish to send condolences, please send your messages to http://team.abnamro.com/web/show/id=102854 THE DREAM ENDS Sailing around the world was Horrevoets’ dream. He loved this race. It had been an ambition towards which he had strived since he was a boy. On his website he wrote, “As a child, I just had one goal in my life: sailing regattas! My biggest dream was sailing the Whitbread Round the World Race. Racing around the world on a W60 was my largest passion.” “As a trimmer and a sail maker on board BrunelSunergy (Whitbread Round the World Race 1997-98) I sailed all legs. I was only 22 years old when the race began. This was an experience no one can ever take away from me!” To get that opportunity again this time round was, as he said, “Just magic.” Such passion didn’t dwindle during 32 years of a life that ended so abruptly this morning. He was never anything less than enthusiastic and happy. Even when performances were bad he could be found laughing in the bar or with his family, friends and crew mates, for sailing to Hans was so much more than a job. It was, like it is for so many who make a living from this sport, far more enriching than that. Sailing, for Hans, satisfied a need for adventure, a desire to be tested, and above all it allowed him to be close to the ocean. But beyond the loss, people are already beginning to realize the huge gain they made in their lives having met Hans. He will be missed, but also fondly remembered with a smile. REACTION * “There are no words worthy of expressing the magnitude of such a tragedy. I am finding it difficult to say much of value at this time. Ocean Racing is a hazardous activity, just like car racing. You take all the precautions you can, but accidents happen. Hans was unfortunate. I was feeling for him from the time I got word that there was a man overboard. I have always assumed that if you fall off one of these boats that will be the end. My thoughts are with his wife and family now. We had a very young death in my family few years back so I have seen how trying that is on everyone.” -- Paul Cayard, Pirates of the Caribbean * “We have backed off another level, we have gone with a fractional gennaker and a reef and we will just monitor the pace, for sure we need to be very careful onboard as emotions are very close to the surface. I feel the pressure more than ever to get the husbands, the dads, and the fiancés and boyfriends in to their families in one piece, and that's all good for Black Betty as well. We have to keep racing though, as otherwise all that Hans has worked for over the last couple of years will be wasted, and we know that he wouldn't want that. It's not really possible to deal with it personally out here, so that will have to wait a few days until we get in. We need to now get all the boats safely tied up to the dock after these next few days of windy running, and give ourselves time to grieve the loss of a very good friend. -- Mike, Stan, Mark, Brad, Sidney, Tony, Rob, Dave, Justin and Jan -- ABN Amro One THE VOLVO OCEAN RACE GOES ON From front to back, winds vary from 29 knots from 213 degrees to 18 degrees from 302 degrees. The big winds from the right direction are at the front of the fleet, the lighter conditions making the boats head in an uncomfortable south easterly direction are hitting the back of the fleet. ABN Amro One lead by 128 miles from Ericsson; the leader has just posted a 495 mile 24 hour run, Ericsson 447 miles. Movistar has been suffering with major damage to their mainsail, incurred when they gybed to head for ABN Amro Two after all boats were asked by Race Headquarters to alter course towards the location. “…the mainsail had split horizontal completely across, about five meters under the top,” skipper Bouwe Bekking said. “This had turned really bad for us, now we had a ripped mainsail, where the top was still on the lock. The tripping mechanism was jammed, so had to send Mikey up the rig, to trip the lock and painstaking slow we could lower the sail bit by bit on the deck. Once the main was secured on the deck we hoisted the trysail. One issue was that the main halyard had hooked behind the jumpers, so we had to clear that first. Not easy, in the howling wind and driving rain.” Movistar has probably finished their mainsail repair as they are back to 22 knots in about 23 knots of wind, but they are 367 miles astern of the leader. Volvo Ocean Race Positions at 2200 Thursday: 1. ABN Amro One, Mike Sanderson, 892 miles to finish 2. Ericsson Racing Team, Neal McDonald, +128 miles 3. Pirates of the Caribbean, Paul Cayard, +190 miles 4. Brasil 1, Torben Grael, +203 miles 5. movistar, Bouwe Bekking, +367 miles 6. ABN Amro Two, Sebastien Josse, +385 miles 7. Brunel, Matt Humphries, + 442 miles WHAT MAKES OCKAM DATA BETTER? Almost 30 years perfecting a scientific approach to solve the issue of instrument accuracy. Ockam is the leader in providing the most accurate real-time data available. The Pentium based Tryad processor combined with an available 3-axis rate stabilized compass paves the way in delivering a stable wind solution that takes the motion of the boat through the water into account. With performance and weight savings a priority, all sensors interface close to their location allowing the information to stream unimpeded through a high-speed single cable network eliminating heavy multiple cable runs and expensive junction boxes. Contact Ockam: mailto:lat@ockam.com DONE DEAL Yachtswoman Dee Caffari, 33, has triumphed over extreme isolation, lethal icebergs, mountainous waves, vicious storms and hurricane force winds to set a new world record as the first woman to sail round the world solo, non-stop against the prevailing winds and currents. Caffari’s record-breaking 29,100 mile voyage on the 72-foot Aviva lasted 178 days, 3 hours, 6 minutes and 15 seconds. She crossed the official finish line in sight of the observer from the World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC)** off Lizard Point, UK, and completed a passage which ensures her a place in maritime history. “When I crossed the line I was overwhelmed with emotion, it was the proudest moment of my life and becoming the first woman to complete this voyage is a great honour. I have been dreaming about this moment since the idea was first born, visualizing it when things got tough and thinking about how it would feel, and when I did it a huge wave of relief and happiness washed over me,” said Caffari. Caffari will now make her way to Ocean Village in Southampton, UK where HRH The Princess Royal, Patron of The Challenge Business International Limited, will welcome her back to dry land at the end of her marathon journey. HRH The Princess Royal was the first person to welcome home Dee’s mentor, Sir Chay Blyth, when he became the first person to complete this voyage back in 1971. Thousands of people are expected to celebrate her homecoming which is scheduled to be 12.00 noon (BST) Sunday 21 May 2006. -- http://www.avivachallenge.com * Commentary by international yachting journalist Tim Jeffery: While her time might be more than a 100 days greater than Ellen MacArthur took last year in a much faster multihull over the swifter downwind easterly route, this is a magnificent achievement for Caffari. The magnitude of handling a big, heavy, 72ft steel yacht cannot be overstated. The mental, physical and technical challenges do not diminish the longer the voyage takes - neither do the waves or wind. -- http://tinyurl.com/eac2x ANOTHER FIRST You have to search long and hard to find women among America's Cup sailing teams. Dawn Riley's all female Mighty Mary campaign in 1995 was, without doubt, the most famous female team to buck the trend. But the physical demands of America's Cup Class yachts means that there are few positions aboard these powerful machines where women can compete with men. None of this deterred Alicia Ageno, Spain's first female America's Cup crew member. Ageno joins Victory Challenge as a navigator and comes from the highly competitive Spanish IMS circuit. Racing alongside sailors such as Thierry Pepponet, Dee Smith and Santiago Lange was all valuable experience and earned her the respect from the same people who she now finds herself rubbing shoulders with in Cup circles. With the team fast approaching the point where it will be running a two-boat campaign, Ageno's main role will be as navigator aboard the second boat while working alongside main navigator Johan Barne. “My immediate task within Victory Challenge is to integrate with the team and learn,” she says. “I'm not sure yet whether I will race or not in the races as my main role is aboard the second boat during training and supporting Johan Barne ashore.” When it comes to her position as a female in a male dominated team, Ageno is pragmatic in her views. “It may well be that it's unusual to find a woman in an AC sailing team but it's not the gender that's necessarily a problem,” she says. “The issue is frequently more to do with weight for some crew positions such as the navigator where weighing less that 80kg (176 pounds) is more of a problem than being female.” -- Excerpts from a story on the BYM News website: http://www.bymnews.com/new/content/view/29389/48/ CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar SUPER-METAMORPHOSIS Pick up the latest street map of Valencia and the chances are it will already be out of date. Spain's third largest city, and the Mediterranean's fourth biggest port, is currently undergoing super-metamorphosis as a Euros 500 million spending spree turns a once dowdy waterfront into Port America's Cup. Port America's Cup is like a city within a city. It's a sort of instant, bolt-on Riviera. It's got its own road system, transport network, imported palm trees, shopping complexes, restaurants, a museum, sponsors' village, public park (with an maze in the shape of the America's Cup) and a 300-seater media centre feeding countless publications and 17 TV rights holders. There are three brand new marinas, one for superyachts over 30m, and two more for 700 smaller visiting yachts. The openness and willingness to embrace and involve the public, first seen in Auckland in 2003, is very much in evidence here. More than 50,000 spectators filed through the (free) turnstiles on the final Sunday of Act 10's match racing, which brings it to 1.2 million as the number of visitors to this Cup to date. Not a bad achievement, particularly for Valencia whose maritime heritage is virtually non-existent and whose population, unlike that of Auckland, is not at all America's Cup savvy. -- Excerpts from a story by David Glenn/Yachting World. Complete story: http://tinyurl.com/nkthd VIDEO OF THE WEEK This video was submitted by Bram on the Scuttlebutt Forums, and gives us a view of a new single-handed skiff called the Swift Solo. Taken during the Swift Solo North Americans, it shows what is now expected from the single-handed sailor: trapezing with main, jib, AND spinnaker. Good tunes, but you might want to take your Dramamine before watching. Also, if you have a video you like, please send us your suggestions for next week’s Video of the Week. Click here for the video: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/#media NEWPORT TO BERMUDA RACE 2006 A record number of entries have signed up for the 100th anniversary Newport to Bermuda Race. Safety and performance will be a key focus for yachts leading up to the start. The experienced service team at Rig Pro can help ensure your mast, rigging and all sail handling systems are up to the task of sailing to Bermuda as fast and safely as possible. Rig and rigging inspections, cordage and hardware supplies, complete hydraulic system inspections, and halyard locking systems are just some of the items we can help with. Located in Portsmouth RI, 401-683-6966, http://www.southernspars.com/rigpro ISAF WORLD SAILING GAMES The final series of the ISAF World Sailing Games is nearing its conclusion in Austria, with just one day to go before the top ten competitors in each fleet go forward to the decisive Medal Races this Saturday. Today saw a variety of conditions around Lake Neusiedl, with tricky winds meaning the trend across the fleets is towards a high scoring series, where consistency looks likely to be the key word. Paige Railey (USA) had a tough day taking a 17-12 in the 36-boat Laser Radial Gold Fleet and is now locked in a first place tie with France’s Sophie de Turckheim. The USA’s Anna Tunnicliffe fared better wIth a 8-5 to move into tenth place. In the men’s 470 class Mikee Anderson-Mitterling/ David Hughes (USA) moved into eighth place. Canada’s Oskar Johansson/ Kevin Stittle have now moved into third place in the Hobie Tiger class while Annie Nelson/ Susan Korzeniewski hold the same position in the women’s Hobie 16 fleet -- just two points out of the lead. No other North American teams are presently in the top ten of their respective classes. -- Complete results: http://www.worldsailinggames2006.at/results/index.html SAILING SHORTS * The US Sailor of the week is Jim Capron -- a certified Senior Judge and ISAF International Judge from Annapolis, MD. Just a week ago, he was part of the International Jury for the start of leg 6 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Annapolis to New York. Over the years, Jim has traveled across the globe as a sailing judge. Jim still finds time to sail his Etchells. Capron says there's nothing like taking your mind off work to focus on beating your competitors on the race course, and then meeting up with them at the club afterwards. * iBoattrack(TM) has become a contributing sponsor the 2006 West Marine Pacific Cup Race to Hawaii, and will provide an interactive mapping website to follow the progress of the competitors online during the race. -- http://www.pacificcup.org * Fleet racing starts on Friday for the twelve teams of the 32nd America's Cup. Five races are scheduled over the next three day with the final scheduled race on Sunday afternoon. All twelve teams have entered the same yachts they used in Act 10.-- http://www.americascup.com/en/ * After a 10-day stop-over in Honolulu to make emergency repairs, Adrian Flanagan left mooring at the Waikiki Yacht Club on Wednesday, and is sailing his 38-foot Barrabas in good trade winds on his solo circumnavigation that has already taken him around Cape Horn and is now heading towards the Bering Strait. A westward passage through the Arctic will lead to the final stage, south-westerly across the North Sea and back into the English Channel. Cowes Online (www.cowes.co.uk) has posted an interview that was done just hours before he resumed his attempt to complete the first single-handed north-south circumnavigation. -- http://www.alphaglobalex.com/?q=950 * There is now a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean Team’ 3D Virtual Spectator Raceviewer available for free download. Users can track four interactive camera angles, accurately depicted boats (right down to sail selection) and weather - including wind and boat speed and direction, isobars, rain, snow, and clouds. Virtual Spectator plans to launch more team versions of the 3D VS Raceviewer in the near future. -- http://www.blackpearlracing.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 Gary P. Joyce: The opening item in today's Scuttlebutt was about the reality of MOB procedures. I recently took a tactical operations course (for first responders) taught by Zodiac Maritime Academy. They taught a procedure for removing a - usually dead - person from the water that I'd never come across called parbuckling. Parbuckling is accomplished by holding the person’s head up as they lay prone in the water (we used this with the premise that the MOB was unconscious and unable to assist), looping the forward line around the chest area with the arms inside the line. The aft line is looped around the legs at approximately thigh level. The line starts at a fixed point, is wrapped around the MOB, then back up to the rescuer. With the person nearest the MOB’s head controlling the lift, both rescuers pull. What happens? The MOB simply rolls up onto and into the boat. The rescuer at the head controls the speed of the pull (the MOB’s head will go into the water if the leg area is pulled faster than the chest area), but this works remarkably well. It's a two- person trick, but it is as close to effortless as it can get when the subject is 200 pounds and soaking wet. I can visualize working up a rope-and-pole affair so this can be done by one person, but whether or not that’s workable is anybody’s guess. * From Jack Lockwood (re guest editorial about MOB procedures): Sea boots filled with water in water weigh the same as empty sea boots out of water. I once stumbled into a deep hole in a big river. I had no trouble swimming back to shallow water with my chest waders full of water, but immersed, and holding my fly rod with one hand. Drag yes, weight no. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION The cardiologist's diet: If it tastes good, spit it out. Special thanks to Ockam Instruments and Southern Spars. |
