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SCUTTLEBUTT 3319 - Wednesday, April 13, 2011Scuttlebutt is published each weekday with the support of its sponsors,providing a digest of major sailing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Website: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sailingscuttlebutt RSS: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/rss/index.xml Today's sponsors: Atlantis WeatherGear, Doyle Sails, and Samson. COACHES EJECTED FROM REGATTA By Chris Love, SailGroove It's not the least bit uncommon for a baseball umpire to stand toe to toe with a manager, mask in hand, shoulders relaxed, stoically taking an earful of harsh words and a fateful of spit as the coach reams him out for a call he doesn't like, only to burst to life, dramatically point to the dugout and yell "you're out of here!" It's generally part of the ceremony for the coach to kick some dirt, insult the man's mother, saunter back down the steps to the boos or cheers (or both) from the crowd and hand off the clipboard to the assistant manager so the game may continue. Not uncommon at all - in fact, it's one of the sport's great traditions. But compared to the barbaric sport of flying balls and dirty mitts, sailing is a gentleman's game. Coaches and sailing officials would never interact in such a crude and brutish way. A combination of complicated litigation and cocktails at the bar is enough to solve our differences. No need to shout or make a scene by kicking someone off the water, right? Well, in collegiate sailing this weekend, a scene was made. Two coaches were asked to leave and/or not return on the second day, per a sailing instruction that has been on the books at MIT for some time. It basically says that if a coach says something negative to an umpire, they may be banned from the premises for the rest of the regatta. This was the first time it has been utilized. Without getting into the unpleasant business of who said what to whom (and I honestly don't know as I wasn't there myself) I think this incident opens up an interesting and potentially positive discussion for collegiate sailing. Is this a good rule and should it be implemented more widely? Is it necessary and is it effective in its goal to protect Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association's staff of volunteer umpires? You can't argue the fact that being a sports official is hard - no matter what you're going to piss people off, even if you're right all the time (which isn't possible either given the limitations of powerboats as vantage points for the complex game of team racing.) There should be some level of shielding for these kind souls who give their weekends away accepting this thankless job for no compensation. But is removing a coach a necessary measure in our sport? What must someone do to need to be removed from the premises? Have your say, but please don't turn this thread into a firing range on those who were involved in this particular incident. Post your comments here: http://tinyurl.com/SG-041211 ANOTHER NON-ANNOUNCEMENT By Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt (April 12, 2011) - Team Telefonica announced today their participation in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 that begins this October. The company will sponsor Pedro Campos' team for the third consecutive time. The latest generation Volvo Open 70, to be called "Telefonica", is under construction at a shipyard in Valencia, Spain. The only problem with this announcement is that all this information was already known. Just like several of the recent America's Cup team challenges, the details are not too detailed. Yachting journalist Mark Chisnell tweeted, "So much for the Telefonica announcement for the #VOR - not a single crewman named in the release... doh!" The Daily Sail editor James Boyd added on Twitter, "Telefonica announce their A-boat (a new Juan K design) but name no names, nor details of their B-boat." Boyd later posted this comment on The Daily Sail website: "Snail's pace. This is an unbelievably lame announcement. We know that Telefonica is doing a two boat campaign. The new boat is a Juan K-designed sistership to Puma and Groupama. It will probably be skippered by Iker Martinez (an announcement formally is due next week). A modified Telefonica Blue is going again with a youth crew. Having learned their lessons from last time when they were based in Alicante, the crew has been training out of Vigo on the Atlantic coast where there are some waves." The reality is that events like the Volvo Ocean Race and the America's Cup are now attracting teams not necessarily organized by the rock stars of the sport, but instead by management groups who are piecing together programs for profit. And when the details are not ready, such as with the Telefonica announcement, it begs the question whether the team is really in the race to race. Mark Chisnell: http://twitter.com/markchisnell The Daily Sail: http://tinyurl.com/DS-041211 Volvo Ocean Race: http://tinyurl.com/VOR-041211 DISCOVER: ATLANTIS WEATHERGEAR AT J/WORLD SAN FRANCISCO If you're heading to the Strictly Sail show in Oakland, CA this week, check out J/World's expanded new digs at Jack London Square. Sailing Pro Shop at J/World is stocked with the latest gear from Atlantis, and Deckware from our friends, Spinlock. Stop by the grand opening this weekend to get boat show specials, and mention this ad to get an additional discount on an Aegis Spray top, the most versatile piece of gear on the planet. Discover life on the water. Discover your Atlantis. MORE DISCOUNT: Your first boat show special comes from Scuttlebutt with a $5 discount on your ticket to Strictly Sail Pacific boat show on April 14-17. Click through on this link to save: https://v2.interactiveticketing.com/TUF6440149B3 THE NEW RULES The Atlantis WeatherGear blog "Under The Crane" posted the following suggestions to consider this season: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- We hate it when people tell us what to do and how to think. And while we are 110% in favor of all initiatives geared to make our world a better place to live and our oceans better places to sail, we try to stop short of preaching to our customers. That said, however, we spend a lot of time around the sport of sailing, and we thought it might be interesting to share a list of the basic rules that we try to live by. It's certainly not a complete list, and we welcome additions to it if you think we're missing things. Herewith, in no particular order, the New Rules: - Make your competitors glad you're there - even when you win - Take your kids sailing - and let them fish if they'd rather do that - Teach them how to take care of their boats - Sail when you can (even if it's upwind) - motor when you can't - Wear your life jacket - Learn the rules - Try team racing - Do your turns - Compliment the winner - Learn to catch a striper - Help out with your local junior sailing program - Go to the party and pick up your award - the sponsors appreciate it, and you might just meet someone new - Thank the sponsors - Play fair & have fun Anything we missed? Add your comments here: http://atlantisweathergear.com/underthecrane/?p=514 SO YOU WANT TO BE A SINGLEHANDED SAILOR? Canadian Andrew Evans is a single handed sailor who has spent a bundle of tiller time alone, and has now written a book about singlehanded sailing which takes in almost every nuance and sheds light on subject matter others have neglected. The 146 page book can be downloaded for free... here is tease: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Over the past nine years I've gone singlehanded sailing more than seven hundred times. I started just four days after getting my first boat and have rarely looked back. Included in this are more than 200 individual races. In total, it adds up to perhaps 3,000 hours of singlehanded sailing - a reasonable start. With all of these times that I have left the dock, I have never - not even once - had a bad day on the water. I've had days when things went wrong; difficult things, expensive things. I've had days when the wind blew more than most could handle, and I've had days when it didn't blow at all. But I have never had a day that didn't live up to its full potential, when I wished I had been somewhere else. I am certain that very few sailors in the world can make the same claim. Sailing gives me a sense of joy that is quite rare. I imagine it is the same sense that the monks in Tibet achieve. It is certainly the sense that the Dalai Lama seems to show every time he laughs. But not all sailing gives me this feeling, only single-handing. I have raced many times with a full crew, but found myself frustrated more often than not. Why is this? I've had some great crewmates; friendly people who were fantastic to spend time with. Perhaps I found it too exhausting, as skipper, to be responsible for not only my own actions, but the actions of every other person on the boat. When I'm alone, I rarely need to consider what I'm doing. The boat just reacts to my desires - automatically. One day I was sailing alongside another yacht and the skipper told me that I "wear my boat like a glove." So I guess it could be said that for me, sailing alone is like putting on a comfortable body suit that reacts to my every whim; but sailing with a crew is like wearing a suit of armor, where every move must be considered, communicated, then performed. It's just too much work. I do know that if singlehanded sailing was not possible, I wouldn't sail at all; I'd take up some other hobby - perhaps jigsaw puzzles. -- Read on: http://sfbaysss.org/tipsbook/SinglehandedTips.pdf THANKS FOR THE COLLEGE EDUCATION, BUT I'M GOING SAILING By Dawn Riley, Oakcliff Sailing Center Executive Director I hear this all the time from young people, and from older people, "I think I might want to change careers", "You are so lucky you are a professional sailor," or "What a lifestyle!" The reality is that being a professional sailor is a lot of hard work, without a lot of monetary compensation. You have about a 15% chance of ending up wealthy. if you already started out wealthy. If you also dream of a home with 2.3 children and a significant other having dinner on the table each night after you come home from a day of sailing. keep dreaming. However, if you have a burning desire to take a risk and can't explain exactly why, but just know that you have to try or you will spend the rest of your life disappointed, then you need a plan. You need a serious plan that has to-do lists, and project maps and budgets. Your budgets need a lot of contingencies. You need to be flexible as in, "Yes I'll be on the plane to Abu Dabi in the morning." But that flexibility doesn't go two ways, because when you make a commitment you need to honor that commitment. You need to learn to sleep on a couch, a pipe berth, in a trailer and if necessary in the back of a van. Understand what it truly means to be a nipper (translation, youngest, most inexperienced grunt in a big boat program). Be quiet, listen and don't complain, and you will learn. If you are a mainsail trimmer you need to know how to do the mast. If you are a grinder you need to know how to trim a sail as well as how to fix a winch. -- Read on: http://www.oakcliffsailing.org/today-at-oakcliff/college-match-racing/ NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER? Make your sailing easier and more enjoyable without breaking the bank. Convert to a Doyle StackPack. StackPacks can be added to any main - doesn't have to be new, doesn't have to be Doyle. To upgrade to the original, patented Doyle StackPack contact your local Doyle Loft or visit: http://www.doylesails.com/stackpack SAILING SHORTS * Entries are already being received for the 30th edition of the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta yacht race, to be held March 1-10, 2012, which includes a multi-hull class for the first time. The conclusion of the 1000 mile race is on the picturesque beaches of Nuevo Vallarta, just minutes north of Puerto Vallarta. The 22nd edition of the MEXORC (Mexican Ocean Racing Circuit) regatta and the Regatta Copa Mexico will follow the 2012 San Diego to Puerto Vallarta race. PV race entries received before May 31, 2011 receive an early entry discount of $200. Details: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=11694 * The U.S. Snipe class is in full recruiting mode looking for women to participate in its 2011 Women's National Championship at the Jubilee Yacht Club in Beverly, MA on July 16-17. The availability of boats is unprecedented plus the event organizers are planning on awarding youth oriented trophies as well as Snipe class novice trophies. Additionally, a reduced entry fee is available for younger participants. Details: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=11693 * For any junior sailors who are on the fence about coming to the T293 World Championships this summer in San Francisco, act quickly as there are only 20 of the 150 charter boards left. April 15 is the last date for National Teams to reserve charters and then it opens up to individuals on first come/first serve basis. There is also the option to purchase new gear at discounted price delivered to StFYC. More information is available at http://www.techno293.org/page0143v01.htm * The organizers of the 473 nm Annapolis to Newport Race and the 363 nm Marblehead-to-Halifax Ocean Race have announced a new competition for boats competing in both events - the Chelsea Clock Mariner Trophy. The competition will be for boats that race in the IRC, PHRF, PHRF Cruising Canvas and Double-handed Divisions in both races. The 2011 races will begin June 3rd and July 10th, respectively. Details: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/11/0412/ * The Extreme Sailing Series is in Qingdao, China this week for the second stop of the nine event tour that will travel through Europe, Asia, and North America this year. Eleven teams competing in the Extreme 40 catamaran event include America's Cup teams Artemis Racing (SWE) and Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL), which finished 2nd and 4th respectively at the first event in Oman. Argentinean Santiago Lange, who is skippering Artemis Racing in place of Terry Hutchinson (USA) for Act 2, secured the Olympic bronze medal in the catamaran event when Qingdao hosted the 2008 Olympic sailing events. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/ESS-041211 * (April 12, 2011; Day 17; 18:55 UTC) - Velux 5 Oceans skipper Zbigniew 'Gutek' Gutkowski (POL), who was forced to the Brazilian port of Fortaleza on Sunday after a string of problems on his ECO 60 which culminated in breaking his forestay, will remain in port for the time being on doctor's orders after being diagnosed with a broken rib. American Brad Van Liew, who leads the fourth leg from Punta del Este in Uruguay to Charleston in the USA, is 1575 nm from the finish, with a margin of 153 nm over second place Derek Hatfield (CAN). -- http://www.velux5oceans.com/ ATTENTION MARINE INDUSTRY: "GET GUARANTEED EXPOSURE" Scuttlebutt World Headquarters is on every mailing list, so we get all forms of email press releases about marine industry updates. Most go in the trash. The Marine Industry News category of the Scuttlebutt Forum was created so companies could get guaranteed exposure by posting their own personnel, product and service updates online. In addition to website traffic, Scuttlebutt editors randomly select updates each week to include in the Thursday edition of the Scuttlebutt newsletter. Here is the link to post Industry News updates: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum/industry_news GET YOUR HANDS ON MLX AT STRICTLY SAIL PACIFIC Designed for the club racer, but also suitable for the performance-oriented cruiser, MLX is a double braid construction that incorporates a first-of-its-kind core with a polyester cover. The core is a blend of InnegraTM-S an exclusive a high modulus polypropylene (HMPP) fiber, and Dyneema, a high modulus polyethylene (HMPE), bridging the performance characteristics and price tags of traditional and high-performance synthetic fibers. Get your hands on Samson MLX when you stop by the Samson booth #620 at Strictly Sail Pacific in Oakland, Calif., 14-17 April, 2011. http://www.samsonrope.com BOAT SHOW SPECIAL: Scuttlebutt is offering a $5 discount on your entrance ticket to the Strictly Sail Pacific boat show on April 14-17. Click through on this link to save: https://v2.interactiveticketing.com/TUF6440149B3 GUEST COMMENTARY Scuttlebutt strongly encourages feedback from the Scuttlebutt community. Either submit comments by email or post them on the Forum. Submitted comments chosen to be published in the newsletter may be limited to 250 words. Authors may have one published submission per subject, and should save their bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. Email: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Jim Champ: Quoted from the US SAILING appeal in Scuttlebutt 3318: "When the sailing instructions do not identify which marks are rounding marks as required by the rules, boats are not required to treat any marks as rounding marks. When this omission results in some boats sailing farther than others, those boats may be entitled to redress." Does anyone else think that the decision to give redress is a very strange one and not a good precedent? I hope that one doesn't get to the ISAF case book so the rest of us have to pay attention to it... The whole business of port/starboard rounding/passing marks and the string rule is a source of confusion, and could do with tidying up. It's all too easy for a stressed RC, faced with a major wind change or some other problem at the last minute, to create a contradictory course. I for one would like to see an amendment to the string rule so that loops round a mark like that can never be legitimate because of the collision potential - no mark rounding should ever be significantly more than 180 degrees, but I don't know I can figure out quite how to do it and keep nominating Port and starboard roundings which is also desirable. * From Robert Wilkes: With reference to Ari Barshi's suggestion in Butt 3318 that Optimists might race in weight divisions this could be an interesting idea as a training exercise. However, data collected at IODA Worlds over many years suggests that top level sailors between 40 and 55kg (90-125 lb) can compete on level terms. Examples on the IODA website are at http://www.optiworld.org/top10-07.html and http://www.optiworld.org/idealsize.pdf I don't see much mention on the Cabarete website of the Laser 4.7 or any 2-person dinghy. Why not move sailors between boats according to the wind forecast? There is some evidence that "cross-training", sailing a different boat sometimes, is beneficial in developing sailing skills. And no one denies that there are sailors who really do get too heavy for the Optimist at 13 and should move on. Finally there may be some risk that Under-16s might indulge in the sort of weight adjustment by diet common in some adult classes. I am not sure weigh-ins at this age is a good idea. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION People who complain about the way the ball bounces usually dropped it. SPONSORS THIS WEEK Summit Yachts - Kaenon Polarized - North Sails Atlantis WeatherGear - The Pirates Lair - Doyle Sails - Samson Rope Ullman Sails - LaserPerformance - Mount Gay Rum - Team One Newport Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
