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SCUTTLEBUTT 1543 - March 19, 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 and personal attacks for elsewhere. A TALE OF TWO SAILORS - Rich Roberts Mark Reynolds has three Olympic medals---two golds and a silver, a rare feat in the sport of sailing. He is the only person who has won two Olympic gold medals in the Star class. But over two decades Paul Cayard has become better known and probably made more money because of his success in sailing's marquee events. He was the first American to lead a team to victory in the Whitbread Round the World Race (now the Volvo Ocean Race) and has been a major player in the world's premier sailing event, the America's Cup. Twice he has led teams into the challenger finals, once into the final match. Would Mark Reynolds trade places with Paul Cayard? Would Cayard swap with Reynolds? Reynolds notes, "I read what Paul said once: 'Everything else I sail I get paid. In Stars I pay, which shows how much I enjoy doing it.' " The separate sailing worlds of these two Californians are about to collide again in the U.S. Olympic Trials for the Star class at Miami starting Saturday. Only the winning boat will sail at Athens in August. It could be either or neither of them, the class is so strong. * Both grew up in sailing locales---Reynolds in San Diego, the cradle of great Star sailors, and Cayard in San Francisco---but charted separate courses. Reynolds has sailed mostly Stars and made his living selling sails. He runs the Quantum Sails loft in San Diego. Most of his rivals, including Cayard, are customers. Cayard went from Stars to make a good living sailing big, high-profile boats, but he keeps coming back to the Star, to his sailing roots. At 44, he is experiencing an unfulfilled mid-life crisis. "I'm not making any money off this," he said. "In fact, it's costing me quite a bit. When you get to be 44 you're not young anymore, and you're not old. You're in that transition zone, and it's nice to be able to step back into the past. There's a lot of ways you can do that. You can buy a Ferrari, get a new wife. This little thing I'm trying is to go to the Olympics." Reynolds, 48, has been to the last four from 1988. In context, that's a remarkable achievement for a sport that allows only one entry per country in each class and for a country where the competition in his class is so keen. Cayard would settle for one time. This time. He is giving it his absolute best shot. "On the pure sports side, winning a gold medal is something I'd still love to attain," Cayard said. "It's unique in awards because it needs no explanation. In sailing you can be a five-time world champion, but there are a hundred world championships a year. But you tell somebody that you won a gold medal at the Olympics . . . that's why I've put in so much effort." - Rich Roberts, The Log, full story: http://thelog.com/news/newsview.asp?c=100715 Curmudgeon's Comment: The US Olympic Trials officially began yesterday at the US Sailing Center in Coconut Grove with hull and rig measurements for twenty-two teams of Star sailors. The planned 16-race series begins Saturday, March 20, and will continue until Sunday, March 28, with a mandatory layday on Wednesday, March 24. The format for the U.S. Trials, with two races scheduled each day, is designed to replicate the Olympic Games as closely as possible. At the conclusion of racing, the winners will be named to the 2004 Olympic Team that will represent the U.S.A. in Athens, Greece, next August at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad. - http://www.ussailing.org/Olympics/OlympicTrials/2004/Star/ KIWI OLYMPIC TEAM Former world No 1 Hamish Pepper fears New Zealand's hopes of an Olympic medal have been dealt a blow by a decision to make him sail off for the Laser spot in Athens. Pepper was nominated for the New Zealand team after winning his class in the national trials off Auckland in January. However, the new Sports Disputes Tribunal on Wednesday upheld an appeal by fellow Olympic hopeful Andrew Murdoch against Pepper's nomination. The tribunal agreed that Pepper's results last year did not meet one of Yachting New Zealand's nomination criteria - that sailors had to prove they were capable of achieving a top-10 finish at Athens. It cancelled Pepper's nomination and directed that the top three place-getters at the trials - Pepper, runner-up Murdoch and former world champion Nik Burfoot - should sail at the world championships in May in Turkey. YNZ should reconsider the Laser nomination after that regatta. Pepper said he was "totally surprised" by the decision and believed that it called into question the need for selectors. "It would have been better to name someone, either me or Andrew," he added. "That way, New Zealand's chances of a medal would have been a lot higher. Right now, what's happened is detrimental to both of us." Pepper said he would need to revise his preparation, which previously had been geared towards peaking for the Olympics. - NZ Herald, http://tinyurl.com/2xunn QUOTE / UNQUOTE "The Olympic Trials were long. It was more mentally tiring than any other regatta I've ever raced in before. I expected the Trials to be close racing where we would have to win quite a few races and not make major mistakes, this turned out to be the case." - Pete Spaulding, who will represent the United States in the Olympics sailing with 49er skipper Tim Wadlow. http://www.ussailing.org/Olympics/SailingMedallist/04v3/page4.htm TRIVIA QUESTION What's the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon? (Answer below) PICK YOUR JAW UP Always big news in this sport, revolutions don't come often. Well, get ready to pick up your jaw. Introducing the new Foil foul weather gear by Henri-Lloyd. Using the revolutionary Henri-Lloyd Pixel 2.5 fabric with Gore-Tex technology, Henri-Lloyd has created the most state of the art gear since they pioneered breathable fabrics over a decade ago. Engineered to be the lightest, most durable foulies yet, the new Foil Jacket and Trousers are the ultimate in high performance foul weather protection. If it's jaw dropping revolutionary performance you seek, head to Annapolis Performance Sailing for more... http://www.apsltd.com/scuttlebutt MORE THAN JUST A PICKLE DISH To the victor belongs the spoils." If true, perpetual trophies in the Rolex Transatlantic Challenge 2005 yacht race, from New York to England to begin May 21, 2005, may well spoil the victors. The Rolex Transatlantic Challenge, hosted by the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) with the cooperation of England's Royal Yacht Squadron, is for monohull yachts of at least 70 feet (LOD), attempting to break the world's oldest yacht-racing record. The Commodore's Cup, left, donated by Commodore Elbridge T. Gerry in 1892, will symbolize the west-to-east transatlantic race record for monohull yachts on the traditional course between Ambrose Tower and Lizard Point. This will be the first time this trophy has been placed in competition since 1892. The Commodore's Cup stands 28 inches in height and is a classic ewer with a maiden sitting beneath the pouring spout. It was crafted by the silversmiths of the Whiting Co. for Commodore Gerry. Commodore James Gordon Bennett Jr. donated three magnificent silver trophies to the club in 1872. The trophy selected as the elapsed time (line-honors) trophy for the Classic Division from New York to the Needles is the Commodore's Challenge Cup for Schooners. This trophy is approximately two feet in height and, along with its two companions, was crafted by Tiffany's in New York. It is an amphora crowned with a sea nymph holding the reins of two wild horses emerging from a roiled sea. The second Bennett trophy, the Brenton Reef Challenge Cup shows a statue of Columbus standing beside a globe. It's for the elapsed-time trophy for the Performance Cruising Division. The third Bennett trophy, the Cape May Challenge Cup is the elapsed-time trophy for the Grand Prix Division. This piece is a striking example of a more modern design concept at the threshold of American artistic experimentation in the 1870s. Tiffany & Co. has cited the Cape May Challenge Cup as a groundbreaking example of its silver work during this time. These trophies and other perpetual trophies from the club's collection, including the Sayre Cup, awarded to the yacht to set the Fastest Elapsed time from New York to the Needles, will be presented at a prize-giving on the Royal Yacht Squadron grounds following the race. The winners' names and yachts will be suitably engraved on the perpetual trophies, and they will be on permanent display in the New York Yacht Club. The winners will receive Rolex timepieces as well as keeper trophies that will represent the perpetual trophies on display. - Media Pro Int'l, www.transatlanticchallenge.org/ FOR THE RECORD * Cheyenne skipper Steve Fossett and his RTW sailing record attempt crew are making their way along the East coast of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Thursday afternoon, maintaining a steady NE course in their drive back through the South Atlantic - and a 2-1/2 day lead (about 1200 miles) over the 2002 RTW record track of Orange. - http://www.fossettchallenge.com * The Cap Gemini and Schneider Electric trimaran completed Day 21 having covered a total of 542 nautical miles in the previous 24 hours at an average speed of 22.58 knots - her seventh day of over 500 sea miles since the start. Her average point-to-point speed since the stopwatch was triggered on the start line is 18.41 knots for a total distance covered of 9,280.63 nautical miles. In the last 7 days, Geronimo has covered 3,530 nautical miles (adding all the point-to-point distances together), which equates to an average of 504 sea miles a day for the week, at an average speed of 21.01 knots. Geronimo's lead over the current record is 927 nautical miles. - http://www.trimaran-geronimo.com * It may be over for the crew of the Polish VO 60 Bank BPH trying to establish a fully crewed, non-stop round the world record. According to a report on Sailhead.com: This afternoon the steering mechanism broke causing a momentary loss of control over the yacht. The mainsail boom broke as a result. "We are heading to Capestead where we will estimate our losses and decide what to do further. We're all OK, and that's what's most important. It won't be easy, as the weather forecast isn't the best," said Captain Roman Paszke. - www.bowmansunion.com/portal/news/anmviewer.asp?a=1561&z=1 MASSIVE PR CAMPAIGN Yesterday International Yachtsman and Adventurer Dom Mee joined the delivery crew aboard Tracey Edwards's World Record Breaking yacht Maiden II (Formerly Club Med) taking the maxi-catamaran to theGulf state of Qatar. Maiden II is to arrive in Doha as part of a massive PR drive to promote two new events in the sailing calendar: The Oryx Cup in 2005 and The Qatar Sports International Challenge in 2006. In January 2005, The Oryx Cup, a new non-stop global race for giant multihulls will start from the UK and end in the UK. The prize for first place in this race will be the biggest cash prize in sailing history - US$1 million. - Bang the Corner website, full story: http://www.bangthecorner.com/default.asp?m=displayarticle&id=11069 NEWS BRIEFS * Seeking to bring the excitement of college sailing competition to broadcast television, Windtopia and T2Productions, in partnership with the Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA), announced its first regatta to be produced for cable broadcast and video-on-demand distribution the weekend of March 20-21 at Navy. Competing teams in 420's, FJ's and Lasers from Navy, St. Mary's, Georgetown, Hobart/WmSmith, KP, ODU, Queen's University, Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin, Harvard, Tufts, Dartmouth, Brown, Boston College, USC, UC/Santa Barbara, South Florida, College of Charleston and Texas A&M Galveston are to be hosted at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. - www.windtopia.com * US sailor Kip Stone leaves the Falkand Islands on 6000 mile single handed qualifier, bound for Plymouth England and the Transat Race. After arriving in Port Stanley from Auckland NZ at the weekend, Kip Stone has left his crew from the last leg, Australian Alan Nebauer behind. He now carries on alone on his Owen Clarke designed fifty footer in order to gain singlehanded experience and qualify for this year's Transat Race. For daily reports: www.ksopen50.com * The Games in Athens will set a record for the number of participating NOCs, with 202 planning on being in the Greek capital this summer. Previously, Sydney 2000 held the record with 199 NOCs, as well as athletes from East Timor participating under the Olympic flag. The number of NOCs fell to 92 in 1976 in Montreal and to 80 in 1980 in Moscow - partially due to a political boycott. Since Moscow, the number of participating NOCs has risen continually to reach today's record figure. - ISAF website, www.sailing.org/Article_content.asp?ArticleID=6661 * Photographer Carlo Borlenghi captures the action and essence of Olympic sailing in this Scuttlebutt photo gallery from Lake Garda, Italy, where more than 40 nations are competing during a recent event of the Eurolymp circuit: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/04/0318olympic/ TRIVIA ANSWER Hurricanes and typhoons are alike in origin, structure, and features. The only difference is the area of the world they occur in. Hurricanes occur in the waters adjacent to North America; in the North Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and southeastern North Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, typhoons occur in waters of the western North Pacific Ocean. Due to the unlimited amount of warm water in the Western Pacific Ocean, typhoons occur more often than hurricanes and are often larger and more intense. PYEWACKET-HARKEN ENGINEERING BRIEF Roy Disney's next-generation Reichel/Pugh-designed MaxZ86 Pyewacket will compete on a global racing circuit in the new Super Maxi Class. Designed to the MaxZ86 rule, this groundbreaker has a number of interesting features not allowed under normal IMS or IRC rating regulations-for example, a water-ballasted canting keel. Check out the Harken website for the Mark Wiss article on hardware and winches developed for Pyewacket and for some great photos from Outside Images: http://www.harken.com/sailing/pyewacket.php CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS (Sponsored by West Marine) Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar 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 Les Smith: Congratulations to those nominated to the AC Hall of Fame, their fine efforts have received the recognition they deserve. However, I don't see the Hall of Fame having any real credibility with Bob Lexcen (Miller) being continually omitted. Maybe the selection panel should be confirmed into the AC Hall of Infamy, along with the other AC scoundrels. * From Damien Goddard: I believe that the US boycott of the Moscow Olympics was one of the worst decisions ever made in US sporting history for a multitude of reasons. However, I do believe that economic boycotts are an effective retaliation for foreign governments that make decisions that are not in the best interests of the citizens of the US. For that reason, I think that if Spain does not support the foreign policy of the United States in the upcoming year, the US teams should consider pulling out of the next America's Cup and US residents should not attend the festivities. Just my opinion. * From Eric E Johnson: Let the boat's design determine the weight limit. I frostbite a Laser and weight over 240 pounds suited up, I am not in first place for the series. A friend fully suited up barely makes 150 pounds, she is not in first either. I would prefer to be racing in Finns, she would prefer a Europe, but we race in Lasers. We have fun and the boats sail well. Let everyone sail and compete in whatever they choose. Sit on those who would set weight limits in order to protect their skinny egos. Record attempts, it is sailing and it is interesting, especially since I am not the one using icebergs as turning marks. If you don't find it interesting, this is a large newsletter, read something else. Olympic selections, any method that does not automatically give me a berth is fundamentally flawed. These are the rules, live with them. If you don't like them, volunteer to work on changing them. You will be cured of your madness within a couple of General Meetings. * From Keith Brown: Reasons that seem to have escaped George Sutherland (Scuttlebutt 1542 - March 18, 2004) and others at the StFYC include: the last two years the Big Boat Series was sailed under Americap 2 (cost to have boats re-rated), this year they want us to sail under IRC (cost to have boats re-rated), next year??? The fact is some of us are perfectly content to compete under the admittedly imperfect, but absolutely serviceable PHRF. Not all of us sail modern, super light, carbon hull whiz-bangs. A group of us have formed our own class on SF Bay for our old IOR "Warhorses". Fairly tight PHRF rating band, very close racing and have been given our own start by SFYC, CYC and YRA, racing under our PHRF numbers (even though some of the regattas have been basically Americap 2 regattas). One shoe doesn't fit all and no single rating system yet developed really does an effective job of fairly rating a 25 year old hull design and a modern hull design. We spend a lot of money on these fun old boats, why should we also have to add the expense to get our boats re-measured and re-rated every couple years in order to compete with boats that we can't compete with regardless? Come-on race committees, please recognize that sometimes a narrow rating band in another rating system, in similar boats is a perfectly reasonable way to let boats have fun with some really close racing. * From Clifford Bradford: IMHO, Yachting NZ dipped their own wicks into the hot wax if part of their selection criteria is "one of its new criteria for Olympic selection - their ability to finish in the top 10". Clearly that criteria is open to debate regardless of any trials results. For example if Team A is ranked #2 in the world in class but is beaten by Team B, ranked 35th in the trials. Team A can still say they are more likely to finish in the top 10 based on recent results or rankings etc and they only had a bad regatta or whatever. In general for New Zealand to have a tribunal that can overturn team selections can only lead to problems. Such tribunals can be valid if there's corruption or cheating involved but that doesn't seem to be the case here. In sailing there's no reason not to have a clear and unambiguous way of choosing athletes to national teams. * From Jack Dreyfuss (Regarding Hamish Pepper): 'Insufficient evidence' that Hamish could finish in the top ten? Now Olympic fundraising will have a new line item...legal fees! The real evidence is that Hamish is one of the few sailors in the world who has beaten Scheidt or Ainslie in their prime. Talk about a breach of sportsmanship... THE CURMUDGEON'S CONUNDRUM Why is there never time to do the job right, but always time to do it over? |
