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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 837 - June 15 2001Scuttlebutt is a digest of yacht racing news of major significance; commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American emphasis. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere.
AMERICA'S CUP JUBILEE
Yachting World magazine will sponsor the America's Cup Jubilee's Concours d'Elegance. The judging panel will choose winners for the following categories:
- Vintage (up to 31 December 1949) Media are invited to reply to us if they are interested in witnessing this the first of many unusual sites during the America's Cup Jubilee. The event will be covered by the Louis Vuitton Media Centre so that photographs and details can be collected later if required. The America's Cup Jubilee, being staged in August, celebrates the 150th Anniversary of the America's Cup. This International Sailing Event will take place in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, the venue of the first America's Cup Challenge in 1851, from Saturday 18th August through to Saturday 25th August. This will be a week of racing, nostalgia and future America's Cup preparation. The event organisers, The Royal Yacht Squadron together with the New York Yacht Club set a maximum entry of 200 boats. - Maria Ryan, www.americascupjubilee.com
BIG Known as the 'London Marathon of Sailing' for its sheer size and pitting elite professional sailors against 'fun-sailors', Hoya Round the Island Race is the biggest and most popular race of its kind in the world. Amongst the 1,735 strong fleet will be:
- Royle Family and Heartbeat star Geoff Hughes competing on his own yacht 'Wayward' The 50 nautical mile race, anticlockwise around the Isle of Wight, is held in high esteem within yachting circles and appeals to yachtsmen of hugely differing abilities and experience. At one end of the spectrum are the grand prix high-tech boats crewed by professional yachtsmen and women of international standings. At the other, are the many small cruisers, often crewed by family and friends, for whom this is their only race of the year. In between, there are a multitude of classes and individual boats of all shapes and sizes. With at least 40 other classes and around 84 identifiable competitions within the overall race, there are over 50 prizes and trophies to be won. - Loretta Spridgeon
VALUABLE DECK REAL ESTATE
OFFSHORE RACING An accomplishment shared by Hall, Van Liew, Auguin, and Mouligne, is their solo journeys around the globe. Now, they will join forces to challenge an international fleet of the world's best offshore teams, including Kingfisher, FILA, and Sill among others. Hall and Van Liew became good chums during the trials and tribulations of the Around Alone 1998-99 race. Their friendship developed as they traversed the first 14,000 miles of the grueling racecourse, until Hall's boat, Gartmore, was dismasted off the coast of New Zealand. Van Liew diverted from the racecourse to ensure Hall suffered nothing more than a devastated spirit, considering his race was over. Brad Van Liew won a third place in class II of Around Alone 1998-99 aboard his Open-50 Balance Bar. He intends to complete the build of his new Open-60 for next year's Around Alone, a solo race around the world. Event website: www.edsatlanticchallenge.com
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From George H. Peet: Right on to Aaron Kuriloff on his reply to yesterdays article regarding college sailing and schools recruiting power. Yes, scholarships don't exist but big budgets, "turn key programs" and "Ivy" status do. The yacht racing community is rather small and homogenous with respect to financial backgrounds. Therefore, when it comes time to choose a college it is likely that you either have a lot of money or not much at all. Furthermore, if you did not have the cash to participate in a junior program during high school it is likely that you will definitely not have the cash to pay to sail on a club team while in college let alone be able to foot the bill for out of state tuition or attendance at an Ivy. Oh yes, don't forget about the recruiting from the junior programs either, this can make or break your admission to a tough to get into school. Don't get me wrong though, there are less costly more accessable schools with funded programs and personally to attend one of these few schools I would have sacrificed a much better and lower cost education. I know we all need to make sacrifices, but should others and myself really have to think about and do this at the ages of 17 and 18? * From Rob Grant (edited to our 250-word limit): The total prohibition against sailing scholarships in ICSA sailing is absolutely necessary for the vitality of the sport. The playing field is indeed uneven, but it's because schools that have sailing as a varsity program usually can exercise pull to get sailors into their schools. While not all varsity programs are like that, there a more than a handful which are. This is a natural outgrowth of a well-developed program. All "pull" issues aside, it seems to me that very many of the people who go to really good schools with the intent of sailing, were good students in high school, had high SAT scores, and perform well enough in college to stay there, which allows them to sail (which incidentally requires tremendous effort). Many of these students don't need the pull in the first place. The ICSA prohibition does not prohibit students from receiving academic scholarships. There is no reason that an economically and/ or academically qualified student receiving scholarships or financial aid would be prohibited from sailing in college! The type of bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to make sailing scholarships a reality is something that does not exist in college sailing - thank god. The system works really well and its because sailors are the ones making the decisions about the sport and not overstepping the bounds of the powers conferred on them by the organization's member schools. * From Solomon Marini: I think there are a couple of things that should be clarified about the prohibition of scholarships for sailing. First, sailor are not prohibited for getting scholarships for other things (need, academics, etc.). Second, looking at the schools in the top 20 of the College Rankings there are at least 5 schools that very reasonable in cost, including #1 ranked ODU. www.collegesailing.org/00docs/latest_rankings.shtml * From Gail M. Turluck: College sailing is NOT an NCAA sport. Comparing college sailing to football and the rest is an unjust comparison. The majority of organizations in ICSA want to maintain their independence from NCAA. The infrastructure to oversee scholarship distribution and administration for sailing does not exist and many colleges and universities are reluctant to open their door to a presentation to add any sport, even a co-ed one such as sailing is. Sailing is primarily set up as a club sport and the overall administration of these sports is on a different system which precludes awarding scholarships for the prescribed skill. Should the day come that a firehose of money be directed to ICSA, its districts and its schools there is the possibility the system could change. Yes, what is in place right now is not perfect and is not necessarily fair, but it's about as fair as a club system can be. And not all scholarships are prohibited: the student who earns a scholarship for merit and/or service is fully entitled to take advantage of their award and still be a member of their college's or university's sailing team. Unlike basketball, football and the rest, we have sports participants who are working to come out of their experience with an education. * From: Susan Reilly: I keep hearing pro's and con's about the new starting series. I have participated in races as well as run races this year using the new starting sequence, in big boats as well as dingies. Yes it take extra hands on the committee boat and seems to work very well with great flexibility. I think the confusion everyone is having in regard to any extra time and/or flags being included would be eliminated if people would just read the Sailing Instructions prior to racing. The more races I run the more I am amazed with the amount of people who come to the boat prior to the start and ask what a certain flag means or which starting sequence is being used. Reading the sailing instructions is just as important as choosing the side of the course that's favored or which headsail to use. * From Peter Wenzler: For smaller boats on relatively short staring lines the new starting system works very well. However, when starting a large single class regatta on a very long starting line, such as a 70 boat Lightning fleet, I do not see the need for the added flexibility of Rule 26 and its correspondingly short Warning Signal. Big fleets on long starting lines need a longer warning period just to traverse the length of the starting line. * From Phil Pape: If you could stand for another opinion on the new starting sequence, this time from the Race Committee side of things. In a recent weekend regatta the RC had a fleet of spinnaker, non spinnaker, and J105's racing one design. With light wind conditions the new sequence allowed us to start the entire fleet, finish the J105's and start the J105's again before the other divisions finished. Then once we finished the other fleets restart them and pause between starts so we could finish the J105's. Without the ease of the new sequence we could have never ran as many races in the conditions we faced. The AP flag never came out of the bag. All we did as a courtesy to the racers was announce the pause in the sequence so we could finish the J105's. I will admit we used a few more shotgun shells and for some organizations the increased cost might be a factor. But having the ability to run races basically back to back keeps the RC on there toes and the competitors racing. * From Richard Squire: I don't know what "Constitution" the Park Service was speaking of. The Constitution that lies in Boston Harbor on display, and is still a commissioned ship of the U. S. Navy, was started construction in 1794 in response to a threat from Barbary Pirates. Construction was suspended when a tenuous peace with the Algerian Government was achieved, but the ship was finally commissioned in 1797. She carried a crew of 450 when she engaged in a successful war against Tripolitan pirates (1801-1805). She was decommissioned in 1828 and was to be broken up, but the poem "Old Ironsides" by Oliver Wendell Holms rallied the public and she was saved. * From Peter Brechter: It seems clear that the venerable old ship wasn't named after the venerable new document, but for the demeanor of her crew. I too would have a pleasant constitution if I were stewed all the time.
FOR THE RECORD The next two days are another matter. "It looks as though Monday and Tuesday go through a period of light and variable winds over the Kalgoorlie/Southern Australia area," Rice says. "So we're marking those days as Code Red. But later in the week there are hints of much higher wind speeds, a trend we'll be watching closely. If favorable launch conditions continue to develop on Sunday, perhaps we'll be faced with the dilemma of deciding whether '30 knots in hand is better than 60 knots in the proverbial bush.'" - solospirit.wustl.edu/news.asp
INDUSTRY NEWS
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OCEANS OF INFORMATION
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS * Sept. 24-29: Farr 40 North American Championship, Chicago YC. www.chicagoyachtclub.org * November 3-10: Annual Meeting of the Scuttlebutt Sailing Club, held concurrently with the Pro-Am regatta at the Bitter End YC on Virgin Gorda in the BVI. SSC members will race for the SSC Club Championship, plus have the opportunity to crew for Ken Read, Russell Coutts, Ed Baird, Peter & J.J. Isler, Keith Musto, Butch Ulmer, Rod Johnstone, Lowell North and/ or the curmudgeon. - www.beyc.com
WEEKEND TV VIEWING
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
