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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 1187 - October 29, 2002Scuttlebutt 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.
THE PREZ SAYS - Paul Henderson, ISAF President First USA Classes are against ISAF for endeavoring to put some order into chaos as in the USA they demand the autonomy of classes. The USA Classes even fight USSA having input into how the classes operate. Most countries have national classes designated by the Member National Authorities (MNA) but USA has always fought this concept. Then the next writer blames ISAF for not imposing scheduling restrictions on the classes so that the event organisers can set their plans. It is the classes who demand that they only must set the scheduling with no input or control from USSA or ISAF or co-ordinating their schedules with other classes. Result? Chaos! The 60 ISAF Classes demand all classes are the same and one rule must apply to all of them with regard to how they run their events. They do this for solidarity and sovereignty and that they believe they are the major organisers of Sailing. I believe Clubs and MNA's co-ordinated by ISAF are at least equal partners in the World of Sailing. The truth is that to compare the needs of the Olympic Classes or classes that control a broad spectrum of the sport like the Opti to classes like the Etchells, Taser, Lightning etc is ridiculous. The Age Limit proposal is to address the problem of the Olympic Classes, ISAF Events and those classes that endeavour to dominate a whole sector of the sailing world. It is encouraging to see that the Taser, Etchells, Mirror Dinghy, 5-0-5, Farr 40 are now realizing that the ISAF classes are not homogeneous and they do not want to be unduly legislated against by being lumped together as the ISAF Classes up to now have demanded. The proposed age limit regulations just do not fit their enjoyment of Sailing. The corollary of that is that when a class becomes Olympic or demands to be the class that the MNA's designate for an age group or an ISAF Event they become partners of ISAF and the MNA's and lose a portion of their autonomy and an age limit must be considered. In fact there has been for a long time an age limit for ISAF Events and for many classes. It is the classes who have challenged it not ISAF. ISAF is asking that the issue be addressed and it appears ISAF has succeeded in openly putting it on the table. Cyprus will be very interesting, - Paul Henderson, ISAF President
LOUIS VUITTON CUP SERIES Neither Prada, nor le Défi Areva was able to continue racing in the afternoon, which meant their matches against Alinghi and Wight Lightning respectively had to be postponed. Luna Rossa suffered unspecified winch damage, while le Défi had problems with their jumper struts. Just before the starting sequence for the race between Team Dennis Conner and Oracle BMW Racing, TDC reported damage. An umpire and chief measurer Ken McAlpine both went aboard USA-66 to inspect the problem, which appeared to be to the port-side genoa car system. Because the delay meant racing could not resume before the 4 PM deadline for starting, the race had to be abandoned. Oracle BMW Racing announced they were initiating a red-flag protest that will go before the jury. Because of their bye in the morning race and the abandonment of their afternoon race with TDC, Oracle BMW was idle on Monday. However, it was hard to ignore that syndicate boss, Larry Ellison, was not taking his usual place on board. Chris Dickson, the new skipper, was listed as tactician, while former skipper Peter Holmberg was back on the helm. A team spokesperson said Ellison would probably watch the race from his superyacht, Katana. "We have always had a policy of rotating crew and Mr. Ellison is not part of the team today," the spokesperson said. "Chris Dickson is the skipper and that is the crew he has selected." - www.louisvuittoncup.yahoo.com
MONDAY'S RESULTS
SCOREBOARD
AWESOME NEW STUFF
NEWS BRIEFS * The French Challenger to the America's Cup, Le Defi Areva, has joined in the Auckland Regional Council's (ARC's) Big Clean Up in an effort to help scour the harbour and neighbouring streams and give something back to its beautiful host city. The majority of the team comes to work on their bicycles and the syndicate rarely uses detergents to clean its boats, and then, makes sure that they are ecologically sound varieties they brought with them from France. Some members of the team are so keen to reduce air pollution in Auckland that they have given up smoking - an enormous feat for any smoker, but doubly so for the French for whom smokey bars and short blacks are a way of life. - www.ledefi.com * Samsung is the seventh member of The Olympic Partner (TOP) programme to renew it's agreement for the next quadrennium, joining Coca Cola, Kodak, John Hancock, Schlumberger, Swatch and Panasonic in their support. The position includes sponsorship of the 199 National Olympic Committees and puts Samsung as worldwide official partner in wireless communication equipment. - www.olympic.org
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net) * From Charles Allen: Ralph Taylor's view that the ISAF proposals represent is a cultural clash between European and American philosophies is such complete bigoted and xenophobic nonsense that it let me stunned and angry. The proposals for Age limits and limiting world championship events both are submitted by the Canadian ISAF president, the Age limit proposal by the Executive committee (CAN, GRE, ESP, ITA, AUS, SWE, IRL, USA, GBR, NOR). I would agree that the executive committee does have a European bias in membership, but the age limit proposal strikes me much more as an American inspired nannyish regulation. Perhaps the executive committee is worried about being sued by disappointed American parents whose kids have just lost their race? A more over-regulated society probably does exist but I have not experienced it. These regulations could just as easily be represented as a cultural clash between over-regulation US-style and the more free and easy European attitude. The US has no ownership of the don't-trust-the-government philosophy. As for 'aristocracy-centered' sailing, please tell me my experiences of East Coast yacht clubs are not representative of US sailing generally (note: rhetorical question). Don't get me wrong, I am very much pro-US. Sailors of all nations need to work together to ensure stupid regulations such as these do not get voted in. Chauvinistic views do not get us anywhere. * From Dan Hirsch: Hey ISAF! Do they intend for Farr 40's, Farr 395's, and Optimists to go 4-part main systems? Let's just enforce the rules we have now. Most of the one-design classes I mentioned don't have problems with pumping. Why should they be forced to modify their boats to solve a problem they don't have? New and more rules favor the sailor-attorneys and the cheaters, because the more words in a rule, the more holes there are between them. If a class doesn't want pumping they have three choices, live with it and continue whining, increase the penalties and enforcement, or change the rigging and hope that helps. They should remember: 1, 2 and 3-part mainsheets don't pump, cheaters do! This is an enforcement issue, not a hardware issue. Penalties are tools to modify behavior, if you want to modify behavior, use the tools you already have. You could fix this problem tomorrow without creating new problems... * From Andrew Thesingh, Como, Italy: I cannot agree more with the comments made by Mr. Chris Ericksen in Butt 1185 As a long time sailor, parenting a 9 year old sailing an optimist, my lower jaw sank to my knees when I read about the plans of the ISAF in disbelief! With all due respect it seems to me that the BoBo's try to rule again at the cost of the sailors they were supposed to be representing (BoBo standing for the typical blue blazer these people seem to wear as a second skin). I would support any effort to beam ISAF members back to earth and let them get re-acquainted with the afterguard they are supposed to serve. * From Tony Newberry: The proposals before ISAF - reported in 'Butt 1185 - must be resisted. Apart from being in the best traditions of "Nanny knows best" - or of Soviet-style centralization of authority - they actually create a real risk to our sport and to ISAF itself. If ISAF passes these measures, many of the most vibrant and active classes - are likely to go ahead and do their own thing anyway. No doubt this would goad ISAF into threatening or imposing all kinds of sanctions, and the most successful classes - which of course are the ones ISAF needs most - may consider that they have nothing to lose by simply breaking away completely, in which case they would be free to formulate their own racing rules, measurement protocols and so on. The inevitable result of this would be that ISAF itself will be seriously weakened and the sport of sailing would become no less fragmented than it was before the IYRU was formed. * From Stuart Hebb: I feel compelled to voice my opinion on the America's Cup. Having sailed for the Canadians in Australia in 1987 i can tell you that after circling your boat for 10 minutes, generally the faster boat sails away from the slower boat. To be fair there were some close races but this was the exception. By far the most exciting for the spectators and the sailors was the 12 meter worlds in Perth,1986 with 14 boats on the line and crowded markroundings. In short match racing coupled with the new AC boats limits on wind conditions is the most boring way I can think of to showcase our sport to the rest of the world. My suggestion is to switch to fleet racing (boatspeed will still be very important) and keep everyone involved to the end. Then maybe the sport will be worthy of a national television audience and the cup will not have to rely on billionaire's for it's future success. Am I alone on this one?
AROUND ALONE
Standings 2200 UTC October 28, 2002 - CLASS 1:
CLASS 2: Event website: www.aroundalone.com
GBR CHALLENGE A further delay to the progress of GBR 78 has been her mast. The team has been continually unfortunate with delays caused by the spar supplier. GBR Challenge shore boss Ed Danby said: "Our mast programme is one area that has let us down. It has been a big area of concern." The latest hiccup was a headstay fitting fabricated to the wrong dimension. When altered, the fitting came back out of alignment. The dimension error was only 35mm. "That's not small in the eyes of the class measurer," Danby observed wryly. - Tim Jeffery, The Telegraph, full story: sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/sport/
FORESPAR CARBON FIBER POLES DELIVER!
MATCH RACING RANKING
It appears that some components are missing from the system if these ratings are truly intended to rank skill and ability:
QUOTE/ UNQUOTE
OLYMPIC TRIALS
- October 31-November 3, 2002 - for Mistrals at the US Sailing Center-Martin County (Stuart, Florida.) The winners of the U.S. Olympic Sailing Pre-Trials will receive an entry to the Pre Olympic Regatta to be held in Athens, Greece, in August, 2003. In addition, the Pre-Trials Regattas will be ranking events counting toward the 2003 U.S. Sailing Team Ranking System, except in the Mistral class where the Pre-Trials will be the sole ranking event. The U.S. Olympic Sailing Pre-Trials are open to foreign and U.S. competitors, except in the Laser and Mistral classes, which are doubling as the Pan Am Games Trials - www.ussailing.org
ETCHELLS MID-ATLANTIC CHAMPIONSHIP
HIGH SCHOOL SINGLE-HANDED CHAMPIONSHIPS
Final results - Full rig:
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
