|
SCUTTLEBUTT 3207 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010Scuttlebutt 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: North Sails and Melges Performance Sailboats. TRICK OR TREAT By Kimball Livingston, sailing journalist So here we are in the final week of the month, and earlier this month Russell Coutts told an audience there would be an America's Cup venue announcement - "This month, I think." Which is a long way from a guarantee, but it does have me thinking sooner rather than later. San Francisco city officials have been in nose-to-nose, practical negotiations with Larry Ellison's team since the Board of Supervisors passed the term sheet, 9-2, on October 5, and I wouldn't pretend to know how many points of discussion are on the table. I do know that Coutts, as the featured speaker at the San Francisco Yacht Club's very successful Leukemia Cup regatta, got the crowd to feeling all smiley-like with the sense that he had, between the lines, encouraged them to expect to see the 2013 AC match sailed on San Francisco Bay. My pessimist friends will be rolling their eyes ("There he goes again") and of course they may be right. It could have been a dry tease. I had a girlfriend like that in high school. But I still see San Francisco working high and low to facilitate AC 34, and I still remember Mr. Ellison standing beside the Cup and declaring that he wants to race here, "if we can." I have a theory that, sometimes, things are what they seem, and professional sailors will follow the Cup even if they do pay more taxes here than in Europe. Or perhaps you can imagine a scene in which Larry Ellison sits down with his closest confidante, breathes a sad sigh and declares, "I hate it. I just hate it. But the boys wanted to sail the match in Rome, so what could I do?" -- Read on: http://kimballlivingston.com/?p=5111 NOTE: While Coutts had indicated a venue announcement before November, the official stance from the team is the announcement will come by the end of the year. Speaking of November, the entry period commences on the 1st and closes March 31st. If you are feeling giddy, an entry fee of $25,000 gets you into the party, but there better be a lot more in the bank if you want to dance. COMBINING THE OBJECTIVES Aspirations of an Olympic medal come with a price. The immense sacrifice to achieve the goal is immeasurable. With the odds long, the sage advice is to remain focused on the objective, but to not overlook the experience. In the case of American Clay Johnson, he may have figured out how best to combine all the objectives: "I've just returned from a seven day trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for some Laser training. This is my second time training at the International Sailing Academy this year, and once again, it was some of the best training I've done. "What makes the training so great at ISA is the setup that co-owners Vaughn Harrison and Chris Dold have. We all stay in a house on the beach. Shortly down the beach is PV Sailing, where Leah, the chef, prepares all of our meals and a snack for after racing. ISA has a handful of new Lasers and a coach boat, so the equipment is top notch. Finally the conditions are fabulous, with temperatures in the 90s, sun, warm water, and a building breeze every day. Training is easy at the International Sailing Academy, and that's the appeal. We can go, work hard, and have all of the details worked out for us. "Joining me for this camp were four other sailors. American Kyle Rogachenko, Chris Dold, Vaughn Harrison, and Alex Heinzemann from Canada. We also were fortunate to have the US SAILING Team Alphagraphics Laser coach, Kristian Kjaergaard, come over from Denmark to spend the week with us." Curmudgeon's Comment: I bet it took a lot of arm twisting to pull Kristian from Denmark in October. Full report with video here: http://www.claysails.com/node/271 FREE SAIL CARE AT NORTH SAILS North Sails is offering free sail care & repair on all new sails purchased in 2010. Honored anywhere in North's worldwide network of sales and service sites, racing AND cruising sails are included for 1 year from the sail delivery date. Some restrictions apply (but not many!) Log on today to read more: http://www.na.northsails.com/tabid/17678/Default.aspx YOU BREAK IT - YOU SAIL IT La Rochelle, France (October 26, 2010) - Day three is now complete and the Student Yachting World Cup is at the halfway point of the six day regatta. Both the American team and Canadian team, who were resting their hopes for success on the outcome of their respective redress hearings, learned Monday that the breakdowns they suffered in the event supplied boats did not qualify for an adjustment to the high scores they incurred when limping around the course. Their hopes now rely on the generous throw out provisions, which allow for 2 discards after 9 races and 3 discards after 12 races. With 1 score now discarded after 7 completed races, the Americans and Canadians are 5th and 8th overall, respectively. However, looming ahead is a questionable weather on Thursday and Friday - the final two days of the championship. Said Team USA, "Some forecasts call for strong winds and others call for really strong winds that could cancel racing. We'll just have to wait and see." Event website: http://WWW.sywoc.org/ Team USA: http://followteamusa.csum.edu/ Team Canada: http://qstsywoc2010.blogspot.com 'NOBODY SAID IT WOULD BE EASY' (October 26, 2010; Day 10) - On the first leg of the Velux 5 Oceans race from La Rochelle, France to Cape Town, South Africa (7500 nm), Brad Van Liew (USA) has widened his lead to 73 nm over Polish ocean racer Zbigniew 'Gutek' Gutkowski, who became the first skipper to sustain a notable injury after slicing his head open on the blade of his wind generator. In third is Canadian Derek Hatfield, who files this report after covering the first 2,000 miles: "Well the weekend has passed and I hope you all enjoyed a good break. For us at sea, it was as usual; race, sleep and eat. The weather is slowly turning warmer and I am now down to shorts and a tee shirt under the foulies when on deck. I'm trying desperately to get further west as I don't want to go thru the Cape Verde Islands. There is a huge wind shadow on the other side that shows lighter airs for many miles to the south. Seems always the way with islands, they are like huge magnets for sailboats, always in the path no matter what. "I've been sleeping in the cockpit since the start so I can be close to the autopilot. The true wind sensor continues to malfunction so I must use compass or apparent wind for the course computer. All said and done, because I'm trying to get down wind, the big waves kick the boat around and cause it to jibe every once in a while. I sleep next to the tiller to try and catch it before it completely crash jibes the boat. I look longingly thru the cabin door at the bunk which seems so inviting. Oh well, nobody said it would be easy." BACKGROUND: The Velux 5 Oceans is the longest running solo round the world race, and has 28 years of rich heritage as the BOC Challenge and then the Around Alone. This edition covers 30,000 miles and features five ocean sprints over nine months. After setting off on October 17 from La Rochelle to Cape Town, the race will then take in Wellington in New Zealand, Salvador in Brazil and Charleston in the U.S. before returning back across the Atlantic to France. -- http://www.velux5oceans.com/ Brad Van Liew (USA): http://www.oceanracing.org Derek Hatfield (CAN): http://spiritofcanada.net BOOK REVIEW: THE HARD WAY AROUND By G. Bruce Knecht, author of The Proving Ground Joshua Slocum is remembered for two things - being the first person to sail single-handedly around the world and writing a marvelous account of the journey. In his biography of Slocum, "The Hard Way Around," Geoffrey Wolff focuses less on the nautical and literary achievements than on what Slocum did before them. It is, for the most part, not a pretty picture. The New York Times called Slocum a barbarian after he was imprisoned for allegedly mistreating a sailor. On one of the vessels he commanded, in the 1880s, several crewmen contracted smallpox, and Slocum was arrested again, this time for killing a mutinous member of the crew. Although he eventually resumed command of that ship, it then went aground and was lost in Brazil. By age 45, two of the ships Slocum commanded had been wrecked, his first wife and three of his children had died, and he was unemployed and broke. I confess that, halfway into this tale of woe, I found myself thinking about bailing out. The early chapters seemed slow-moving, especially for anyone expecting an adventure story. There are also some odd change-ups in style, from carefully considered, grown-up prose to informal sentences such as this one: "It was a miracle the hulk didn't sink, though if you wait a bit, she will." But Mr. Woolf's writing was not my problem. I was troubled by his overall approach to his subject. Slocum's solo circumnavigation - he set out from Boston in April 1895 and arrived back in Newport, R.I., in June 1898 - was an extraordinary feat, and Slocum's book about it all, "Sailing Alone Around the World" (1899), is an intoxicating masterpiece. I saw no purpose in exposing the great man's failings more than a century after his death. But I kept reading, and so should you... click here: http://tinyurl.com/WSJ-102610 MELGES WINTER RACING Time for the Audi Melges 20, Melges 24 and Melges 32 to move to Florida. The Melges 32 Gold Cup is at the Lauderdale Yacht Club in December. The Audi Melges 20 kicks off their official series at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club in mid December and the Melges 24 will be strong in Key West. Special deals are available for all three boats right now. Contact Melges! http://www.melges.com BOOK REVIEW: LESSON PLANS AHOY! By Nicholas Hayes, author of Saving Sailing A few years ago, while pitching early drafts of my own book, I received a rejection noteworthy for its sincerity from a popular nautical imprint. "Interesting project, but we're only looking at 'how-tos' in the sailing category these days." It seemed logical at the time. The economy was in the can, and self-help books are an inexpensive and useful way to reach and enable aspiring sailors. I took note of the trend, jotting down recent titles, adapted here. I've seen "How-to sell everything and sail away forever," "How-to live aboard with a large puppy," and "How-to survive a sailing divorce (or two, or three)." I must admit, I'm not one to read how-to books. I don't even open the manual for my car to change the clock to spring forward and fall back. I adjust the time in my head six months out of the year. And faced with a sailing problem, I'm prone to give it a best guess first and think and apply later. But when the book Lesson Plans Ahoy!--Hands-On Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors, from Slavinski-Schweitzer Press, came in the mail along with a review request from Craig Leweck at Scuttlebutt, my interest was piqued. I daydream endlessly about casting off in a Deerfoot or a Swan to explore Patagonia or Alaska with my wife and kids. Besides small issues like not being able to afford a Deerfoot or a Swan, not having convinced my wife and kids, and needing to work to eat--the central thing holding me back is that I'm certain that I am vastly under-qualified to homeschool. I usually convince myself that we would return and the kids would be prepared for, well, nothing. And my daydream bubble bursts. -- Scuttleblog, read on: http://tinyurl.com/Scuttleblog-102610 SAILING SHORTS * Tampa, FL (October 26, 2010) - Jody Lutz of Brick, NJ, sailing with his brother Jay Lutz and Derek Gauger aboard hull number 15166 has won the Pan Am Trials to represent the United States in the Lightning at the Pan Am Games coming up in 2011 in Mexico. Finishing with 15 points in a 7-race series, Lutz had 3 bullets, and discarded a seventh-place finish. Second place went to Allan Terhune, Jr. of Annapolis, MD, who had 22 points. David Starck of Buffalo finished third with 23 points. -- Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=10718#10718 * (October 26, 2010) - With the 606 nm Rolex Middle Sea Race far from over, it is American Bryon Ehrhart's TP52 Lucky that crossed the finish line after 3 days, 3 hours, 16 minutes who currently sits on top of the leader board on corrected time. -- Full story: http://www.regattanews.com/pressrelease.asp?pid=100443&lang=1&eid=235 * Loick and Bruno Peyron are the leading multihull sailors in the world but for 30 years have raced against each other as fierce opponents. Now they are joining forces for discussions with various French parties to launch a bid to bring the America's Cup, which will be raced on multihulls in 2013, to France for the first time in its history. They are also talking with German yacht racing luminary Jochen Schumann and his partner Stephane Kandler about forming a Franco-German collaboration on the same lines as the All4One team, which has been campaigning the Louis Vuitton Trophy over the past year. -- The Telegraph, read on: http://tinyurl.com/Telegraph-102610 EIGHT BELLS Cliff Bare of St. Petersburg, FL died Wednesday, Oct. 13th, 2010. Cliff was the branch manager and senior instructor for Colgate's Offshore Sailing School's branch in St. Pete for over 10 years. He taught both the Learn to Sail and Bareboat Cruising (pre-charter) courses for the school. He was also the former Waterfront Director for the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus. There, he oversaw the maintenance of the boats used for the USF collegiate racing program as well as numerous boats used for student/faculty/administration recreational sailing. At the time of his death, Cliff was First Mate/Relief Captain on the Research Vessel "Weatherbird II," one of the primary craft involved in carrying scientists to the Gulf of Mexico for analysis of the recent BP "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill. Cliff also had a long and distinguished career as a Coast Guardsman, serving in the Coast Guard Reserve for over 20 years. Cliff was a joy to be around. He ALWAYS had a smile on his face. He LOVED sailing and devoted countless hours to teaching anyone who wanted to learn the intricacies of the art and science of sailing. Cliff was a true professional mariner. He will be missed by his friends and associates around Tampa Bay. Obituary IN St. Petersburg Times: http://tinyurl.com/Legacy-102610 YOUR BUSINESS UPDATES HERE The Industry News category of the Scuttlebutt Forum provides an opportunity for companies to announce new products and services, with recent postings included in the Thursday edition of the Scuttlebutt newsletter. Here is the link to post Industry News updates: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/INDUSTRY_NEWS_C15/ 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 are 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 Brian Hancock: (re, interview in SBUTT 3206) There are few that have done what Steve and Doris Colgate have done for sailing. For decades this amazing couple (phenomenon) has worked tirelessly to promote sailing with a sheer passion for the sport. Thanks you for giving them the space on Scuttlebutt! * From Justin Scott: (re, "Diverse Enough?" story in SBUTT 3206) Three directors were elected to the board of US SAILING this year. Two were women and one sits in a wheel chair. Diverse enough? * From Bill Sandberg: I have to disagree with Dorian Cushing's observations (in Scuttlebutt 3206) about the USSAILING Board being loaded with New Englanders. If we eliminate the E.D. and the Chair of the Olympic Committee, as Mr. Cushing suggests, 9 of 14 seats are held by people from outside New England. Even that's a stretch, as two of the five "New Englanders" would include Dawn Riley, who was raised in Detroit and spent many years in California, and Jim Walsh, a non-voting member from NJ. Not many people consider NJ to be part of New England. As far as not having a multihull representative, the Board never has been, and never should be, meant to represent individual factions. It is made up of people willing to volunteer many hours to do what is right for our sport. As for the old boy network, Board members are usually selected from a group of people who have served on committees for a period of time-a process that many organizations use. It's time to quit griping and instead support US SAILING and get on with reviving our sport. * From Scuttleblog Comments: Prior to the election, the geographic distribution was thus: East: Jobson, Brenner, Epstein Midwest: Hubbel, Riley, Hagedorn South: Allsopp, Chamberlain, Tichenor, Dane West: Craig, Honey, Stump, Keller That's 3-3-4-4, as even a distribution as can be achieved with a 14 member board. (The non-voting members should not be considered, since they don't have votes.). Allsopp and Tichenor (both from the south) were the board members who were leaving. (Susan Epstein was re-elected) The four nominees were: McKinnon-Tucker - East Adams - East Ikle - Midwest (upstate NY) Brindley - East So it was pretty predicable that there would be a shift of geographic representation to the East. Current distribution: East: Jobson, Brenner, Epstein, McKinnon-Tucker, Adams, Riley (transplant) Midwest: Hubbel, Hagedorn South: Chamberlain, Dane West: Craig, Honey, Stump, Keller That's 6-2-2-4, and it would have been 5-3-3-4 had Riley not moved, something beyond the Nominating Committee's control. The Nominating Committee considers a lot more than just the geographic distribution of nominees, since that alone tends to be a poor predictor of performance on the board. If anybody thinks that Maureen and Ed are not qualified to serve on the BOD of US Sailing, then say so plainly. Otherwise, "lack of geographic diversity" is a red herring. -- http://sailingscuttlebutt.blogspot.com/2010/10/diversity * From John Harwood-Bee So I am now to be expected to pay to watch sailing in the so called 'LONDON' Olympics. I don't think so!! I shall already be expected to cover the ludicrous costs of another ridiculously expensive sporting extravaganza subsidised by MY taxes. I do not live in London nor am I interested in this piece of nonsense, yet I and millions of others will be expected to have tax payers moneys used to cover the exorbitant costs. First quoted at 3.2 billion pounds the eventual bill is already acknowledged at closer to 11 billion pounds. What accountant calculated those figures? Why should I be paying an inherently corrupt organisation to stage it? I live hundreds of miles from the sailing venues despite the fact that there are very suitable venues within easy reach of the Olympic site in East London. I am a catamaran fan yet the powers that be have ruled them out. Why the hell should I pay anything towards maintaining this farce. The sooner we dispense with 'Olympics' and just leave everything to World Championships the better. If 'LONDONERS' want 'Olympics' let THEM pay for them. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION "All the mistakes I ever made were when I wanted to say 'no' and said 'yes.'" - Moss Hart, Playwright and Theatre Director Special thanks to North Sails and Melges Performance Sailboats. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
