|
SCUTTLEBUTT No. 855 - July 12 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.
OFFSHORE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP The Steering Group will finalize, under the supervision of ISAF Executive Committee, the general parameters for the first edition of this biannual event. Borrowing from the experience of the Admirals, Sardinia and Kenwood Cups, National Authorities will nominate teams consisting of three yachts from the following classes:- an IMS rating band encompassing the International 50ft Class; a popular one design yacht and a production yacht of the newly created IMS 600 Class. The ORC is targeting a late summer date in 2003 at Porto Cervo incorporating the Sardinia Cup and hopefully other major trophies into the event. Subsequent venues will most probably rotate, to be announced, two events in advance. There will be format continuity so as to ensure the validity of investing in the construction or purchase of new yachts for multiple participation. It is anticipated that financial support will be available for the competing teams as well as extreme media coverage with live technical commentary of all phases of the regatta. The intent is to make the regatta as sponsor friendly as possible. - www.orc.org
TRANSPAC Bull, built in Australia, was a boat right out of the box when the race started but seized the lead in Division 4 from the start by boldly starting on port tack, without right of way, and crossing the entire fleet. Radow, a 37-year-old investment counselor, was met at the dock in Waikiki by his wife Stacey and their six-week-old daughter Leah. "I got the boat on the 26th [of May] and the baby on the 29th," Radow said. Once it arrived, he said, "We had shipwrights working 14 to 16 hours a day to get it ready. We were working up until the time we left for the start." Bull is the smallest boat to win Transpac overall since Notorious, an Olson 40, in 1989. It sailed with a crew of seven: Radow, navigator Steve Steiner, Lee Lewis, Rick Valdes, Vince Valdes, Joe Dervin and Mark van Gessel. Their most serious problem was a shattered mast track where the spinnaker pole is mounted. "We lost the mast track hard-reaching in 25 knots of breeze about a thousand miles out," Radow said. "A 12-inch section blew out in the middle. Rick Valdes repaired it twice. We started pulling parts from everything else on the boat that we weren't using and rebuilt the mast track. It broke again 200 miles later. We lashed the car and track to the mast with Spectra. That held up until Koko Head [off Oahu], then that blew up. We had 30s [wind velocity] for a while, doing 17-18 knots of boat speed. At that point we said, 'We gotta get to the finish line. We don't have time to rebuild anything else." - Rich Roberts TRANSPAC RESULTS:
Division 1:
Division 2:
Divison 3:
Division 4:
Aloha A:
Aloha B:
BIG BARGAIN?
EXTREME SAILING ON TV Twenty-four of the world's top sailing talent from New Zealand, Australia, USA and Europe (including Team New Zealand member, Dan Slater, Olympic 49er Gold Medal winning coach and World Champion Emmett Lazich and Sydney to Hobart skipper David Witt) will compete in the Wellington event. With the extreme levels of speed, power and excitement involved in the racing, World Series GP Skiffs produces some of the finest sailing television pictures in the world. The coverage makes heavy use of head-cams which are mounted to the crews' helmets and thereby taking viewers right into the action including frequent crashes. The regatta television coverage has been further reinforced by an agreement reached with the world's largest independent sports television group, Transworld International (TWI). This agreement has the potential to take the World Series GP Skiffs to sailing's largest ever general audience worldwide. A potential audience of 400 million households in 50 countries will receive coverage of the Wellington regatta. Five 20-minute episodes of the Wellington event will be filmed. World Series GP Skiffs Director, Mark Harris says they hope to extend the World Series to take in events in USA, England and Italy. Over $100,000 dollars in prize money and sailing incentives along with prestige associated with winning the World Series events will ensure the competition is fierce, aggressive and highly motivated.
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From D.D. McNicoll, Sydney: I believe the expression "Blowing like stink" had its origins in Sydney, Australia, early this century. A sewerage outfall breather stack was built on the cliffs north of Bondi. When the big nor'easter started to blow on summer afternoons you could smell the breeze on Sydney Harbour before it built up to its final 25-30 knots. * From Dallas Johnson (re 'blowing like stink'): Having to pay for the broken gear, boat owners sometimes overlook a windy racecourse and say "Oh Shit". Upon hearing this, crew members who like to break boats on windy days think that must be what shit smells like. * From Nancy Samovar: Even though I have been known for my liberal use of less than lady-like comments, I find the two sailing statements, 'blowing like stink', and 'blowing like snot' infantile and thoroughly disgusting. I won't use them and wish that they would be banished from the sailing lexicon. I would welcome someone coming up with a more creative saying to match the pleasure and excitement of a very windy day. * From Andy Rose: Perhaps the Transpac finishers are still recovering from their arrival parties (even pro sailors still have at least one mai tai, or do they?) to catch up with the 'Butt, but I would be interested to hear some comments on what Transpac veterans on Chance, Pyewacket and Pegasus thought of the two a day reporting as opposed to the once a day of the old days, at least as it applies to boats which are basically equal. While it sounds like it was fun to pretty much always be able to get back "in touch", and match race the whole way, did that significantly diminish the importance of understanding the weather in order to do well in Transpac? Ability to sneak away and gain "leverage" used to be fun, too and required a considerable amount of skill in picking the right route (and a lot of tension for at least 24 hours waiting to see if it worked). And, as for luck, yes there is always some of that, and perhaps more if the boats are more widely separated but anyone who has sailed out there knows that there is often luck involved even when boats are close together---for example, opening up a bunch of miles based on whether you happen to be close enough to get to the right side of a squall or not.
AMERICA'S CUP (Paul) Cayard has a vision that could bring sailing into prime time. It's a long way off, but if Larry Ellison's team wins back the Cup in 2003, in about 2006 the Golden Gate Yacht Club will defend it on San Francisco Bay, a natural arena for spectators. "That will really change the stature of the America's Cup and sailing in the United States," Cayard said. "You'd start off Pier 39, kind of between Alcatraz and Pier 39, and just go right up to the Golden Gate Bridge. The course fits in there. It's 3 1/2 miles from Alcatraz to the Golden Gate Bridge. My vision is you go up, you go back and just do one-lap races and you do two-out-of-three instead of one long three-lap race. More starts, more action. "You have all that Pier 39 area for spectators, then you come up along the Marina Green and out to the buoy just inside the bridge. You could even be on the bridge checking it out." Wind would not be a problem.The prevailing breeze blows directly in through the Golden Gate. "Always," Cayard said, "and it's on. You wouldn't have all these race delays. It just blows every day there." The current can be fierce, both ebb and flood, which will make strategy and tactics difficult. But the America's Cup is supposed to be difficult. "Each guy has the chance to get the favored side of the current at the start," Cayard said. "Good teams will figure it out. Good teams will still win." The boats? "They probably would be somewhat different," Cayard said. "It's basically flat water and strong winds." - Rich Roberts, The Log Full story: thelog.com/columnists/richroberts.htm
MARBLEHEAD TO HALIFAX OCEAN RACE Early finishers completed the course in near-record time, but light air, pockets of no wind and heavy fog have made it slow-going for the back of the fleet. "There were a lot of holes out there last night," Bill Barton of Manchester, MA, skipper of the Sabre 36 Tazzarin, reported by satellite phone Wednesday morning. At 10 a.m. his boat, which he is sailing doublehanded (with just one other crew member), was in heavy fog about four miles from the finish line. "We spent four or five hours last night with the sails slatting, moving forward at less than one knot," he said. "It was very frustrating." By contrast, the first boat to finish, Bright Star, a 75-foot Reichel/Pugh monohull skippered by Richard Breeden out of the New York Yacht Club, made the second fastest crossing since the event was first staged in 1905. Her elapsed time was 34.55:55, Starlight Express, a monohull, set the record in 1989 with a 33.29:57 trip. - Keith Taylor A complete list of race finish times and unofficial standings can be seen at www.bostonyc.org and www.rnsys.com
SOG STAINLESS STEEL POWERLOCK MULTI TOOL
SWAN AMERICAN REGATTA Overall positions (after four races with no discard): 1. Lolita - 1,1,2,2 - 6 points 2. Sotto Voce - 4,2,1,5 - 12 points 3. Redoubtable - 6,3,4,1 - 14 points 4. Noonmark VI - 15,5,3,4 - 27 points 5. Vixen - 3,8,11,6 - 28 points www.swanregattas.com
SNIPE NATIONALS PRO Stan Betts record of 5 clean starts with no recalls (is this a record?) was broken in the 2nd race with everyone a little anxious. Stan had announced he would not call OCS', which may be why the previous 5 starts were clean.... But race 2 caught 6 over including favorites Szabo/Wilcox, Hardesty/Wheeler (finishing 1st & 2nd in the race), as well as 4 others. Puffs to 20 were recorded and a "barge watch" was in effect, trying to keep the competitors out of the shipping channel. At the finish Randy Lake/Ken Redler got the gun (with Szabo & Hardesty OCS) followed by Diaz/Janney, Filter/Stout & Brown/Krebs. Standings after two races: 1. Augie Diaz & Brian Janney, 5; 2. Randy Lake & Ken Redler, 5.75 3. Doug Hart & Jeff Baker, 7; 4. Rick Arneson & Bridget Hallawell, 10; 5. 03 Carolyn Brown & Eric Krebs, 11. - www.snipe.org
MAJOR MEDIA
BIG WIND At the back of the fleet the conditions were no better. "It has been blowing between 42 and 48 knots for the last 12 hours," said Swedish born, Helena Darvelid aboard Alphagraphics. "The waves are huge, the kind you would expect to see in an Atlantic gale, not in this area. It's soaking wet on deck and down below." During the night the life raft, which is normally stowed in the transom of Alphagraphics, broke loose. "We had to heave-to and sail backwards to get to it, and I had to stab a few holes in it to deflate it. If it's not one thing it's another." said Darvelid, an edge of despair in her voice. Aboard the Italian yacht Fila, Stefano Pelizza succinctly commented on the weather. "The wind has blown our wind instruments off the top of our mast." They did not comment on the third place position change where Gartmore displaced Fila overnight. It was not possible to reach Gartmore skipper Josh Hall for comment, but he did send a short email: "Yee-hah it's lively out here!" it read. - Meaghan Van Liew At 10:40 GMT, on a distance to finish (DTF) reading, the positions were as follows:
1st Sill Plein Fruit (Roland Jourdain - FR) DTF - 102 miles
OUTTA HERE
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
