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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 906 - September 21, 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.
VOLVO OCEAN RACE SOUTHAMPTON, England -- There are only eight boats, the fewest ever, and no American entries, but those things don't matter anymore. These are eight of the best crews ever assembled, sailing high-tech, abominably uncomfortable boats that are theoretically equal. There were three American entries last time but only one -- Dennis Conner's Toshiba -- had a sponsor. And no Americans on board. The boat with the most Americans was Sweden's EF Language, which won the race with San Francisco's Paul Cayard and a few of his buoy racing buddies from the Bay. Cayard is sitting this one out, although serving as an advisor to Grant Dalton's Nautor team. But there are an American or two on almost every boat, including two as skippers -- Lisa Charles McDonald for Nautor's second, all-woman crew, and John Kostecki, another San Franciscan who heads Germany's illbruck team. Now the competitors represent businesses, not nations. Unfortunately, the businesses are all based in Europe and their products are mostly mysteries to Americans. The CEOs hope the Volvo will change that. The Volvo team names are Assa Abloy (locks), illbruck (household fixtures), djuice dragons (mobile Internet portal), Nautor (Swan boats and sports equipment), Team News Corp (movies, TV, newspapers, magazines), Team SEB (Sweden's largest bank) and Team Tyco (electronic security systems). As for Nautor, Dalton's boat will be called Amer Sports One and the women's boat Amer Sports Too (no, not t-w-o). Amer, a subsidiary of Nautor, owns Wilson Sporting Goods, which I'll bet you thought was American all the way. Illbruck (excuse me, illbruck) is interesting. It's run by Michael Illbruck, a German capitalist who doesn't capitalize his company's name. I don't know why, but djuice also prefers to be lower case. All I have learned is that djuice is pronounced dee juice. I don't know what it has to do with dragons. Now that you know all the important stuff, be aware that there also is a new scoring system. Accumulated time went out with the '93-94 race, but at least in '97-98 the longer, tougher legs counted more than the sprints. Now they'll all count the same, essentially creating a series of 10 races: Formula One with freeze-dried food. British bookmakers have Kostecki's illbruck team as the consensus favorite, followed by Team Tyco. The others are mixed but you can get from 33-1 to 50-1 on the women. Consult your local bookie. - Rich Roberts, The Log, www.thelognewspaper.com/
AMERICA'S CUP Oracle Racing asked the panel to clarify if that meant Team New Zealand could not, therefore, have both their old boats, NZL60 and NZL57, and their design information. Cup rules state a syndicate cannot buy "old" boats and the rights to "plans, specifications and design information" for those boats from another entity. The rules were designed to ensure syndicates have independent designers and do not share technology. Oracle also asked for a ruling on whether they could purchase the design data for four yachts they had bought - the AmericaOne and Aloha boats from the last cup's challenger series. Neither AmericaOne nor Aloha are competing in the next cup. The five-member panel, in an interim written ruling, said the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron was the defender of the cup, not Team New Zealand. It said the squadron had submitted that Team New Zealand Ltd was its agent, and the same entity which won the cup in 1995 and 2000. The panel said the yachts and design information remained the property of Team New Zealand Ltd. But Oracle have been told they will be breaching cup rules if they purchase the design information for AmericaOne or Aloha boats. - NZ Herald Full story: www.nzherald.co.nz/sports/
BANG FOR THE BUCK
NAVIGATION * There are also fears about the effects a military action could have on navigation in this 32,000-mile, nine-month race. Already, public access has been barred to sections of one of the key oceanographic and meteorological websites. * Of even greater concern would be a shutdown of the constellation of (GPS) satellites which provide pinpoint navigation. Crew and race organisers hope that the US might downgrade the satellites' accuracy rather than switch the system off. "If it goes down, there's nothing else out there in terms of electronic navigation aids," (Ian) Moore, (British navigator of the German Illbruck entry) added. In that case, navigators would have to use the sextant. Jean-Yves Bernot, from Norway's djuice, said: "It might be downgraded but not shut down altogether. If it is, then the race will be only a small detail to what's going on in the world." Full story: sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From Cory Friedman: Paul Henderson's laisez-faire, leave it to the classes, approach to weigh-ins is perplexing in light of the fact that it was the ISAF that banned weight jackets because they were causing orthopedic injuries. The rapid dehydration weight loss techniques being used by sailors are the same as those used by collegiate wrestlers -- some of whom have died in their plastic suits trying to make weight. This is the same issue as drugs. Are we really going to say that the only way to be competitive in our premier events is to risk ruining your health? Is that what we call freedom? What a great message for junior sailors. The ISAF or US Sailing should commission a series of modern, relatively inexpensive to build, durable, sufficiently powered, tunable, rigidly one design single and double handed performance dinghies and small keelboats (if there is interest) specifically graduated for a weight stepped spectrum of sailors from 80 lb. kids to 250 lb. geezers. The designs should be available to any manufacturer willing to rigidly conform and to pay a modest royalty to pay for administration of the program, without any monopolies. Sails and running rigging should be unrestricted (except for sail size), as long as the products are available to all comers, without preference. All US Sailing and Olympic championships should be in those boats, with the proviso that new boats will be commissioned in 20 years, reflecting then contemporary technology. * From:Peter Godfrey (edited to our 250-word limit): Classes might want to think twice before imposing weight limits. Weight limits have negative aspects [other than health] that need to be considered. For example, many classes effectively exclude larger athletes. The Laser is a good example; a 6'4", 210 lb. sailor cannot be consistently competitive, no matter how good he is. All but one of the Olympic classes now favor small people, leaving larger sailor-athletes with only one class in which they have a realistic chance of succeeding. In this case, truly large people have an advantage. So where is the trim, 190-225lb sailor-athlete supposed to compete in the Olympics? Imposing upper weight limits in sailing is akin to putting limits on how much a heavyweight crew can average, or how much a heavyweight boxer can weigh. While bigger is not always faster or better, properly-applied size and strength have their advantages. Larger sailor-athletes might well look at weight limits simply as ruse by which smaller sailors manipulate the rules to their advantage, minimizing the potential challenge from good sailors who also happen to be big. Classes should think carefully about imposing weight limits. Is it fair to exclude people who work hard at becoming big and strong? Is it reasonable to diminish the value of strength training just because smaller people will never be as big as bigger ones? If sailing considers itself a sport, should it exclude those who work hard at developing physical advantages simply because they have done so?
QUOTE / UNQUOTE - Volvo Ocean Race * "The big difference I see with Roy (Heiner) this time is experience as he has already sailed the race (in comparison to EF Skipper Paul Cayard last time). We may be more consistent than last time (on EF Language)". Mark Rudgier, co-skipper and navigator of Assa Abloy * "All these boats are going to be very similar on performance - design wise they're all very similar; the spread is going to be far smaller this time". Kevin Shoebridge, skipper of Tyco. * "It's nice to have a lot of time to prepare of the race. I think everybody would admit that the sails are pretty key to winning this event and that is one area we have put a lot of time in to so hopefully we will have an edge there". John Kostecki, skipper of illbruck. * "You'll see people making their move in the first part of the leg, and there probably won't be too many lead changes in the middle part. Going down through the trade winds - is your boat on the pace or not? Are you set up for those conditions? The first 800 to 1000 miles is absolutely critical in this leg". Steve Hayles, navigator of Tyco. *"We will run four hours on, four hours on and fours hours on!" Gunnar Krantz, skipper of SEB. Website: www.VolvoOceanRace.org
COLORCRAFT GOLD CUP Three slots remain to be filled - the winner of the York Cup Match Race in Toronto, Canada, this weekend, and the top two Bermudian skippers from the Bacardi National Match Race Championship, to be raced in Bermuda September 29-30. The previously announced eight seeded skippers are: Ed Baird (United States), Dennis Conner (United States), Peter Gilmour (United States), Jes Gram-Hansen (Denmark), Andy Green (United Kingdom), Magnus Holmberg (Sweden), Peter Holmberg (US Virgin Islands) and Bertrand Pacˇ (New Zealand). The 13 unseeded skippers are: Gavin Brady (Italy), Peter Bromby (Bermuda), Mark Campbell-James (United Kingdom), Christopher Carroll (Australia), Marten Hedlund (Sweden), Morten Henriksen (Germany), Andy Horton (United States), Thomas Kozyn (US Virgin Islands), Chris Law (United Kingdom), Lars Nordbjerg (Denmark), Ken Read (United States), James Spithill (Australia) and Markus Wieser (Germany). - Keith Taylor, www.bermudagoldcup.com
INDUSTRY NEWS * BTexact Technologies will supply the race management system for the Volvo Ocean Race 2001-2002. Part of BTexact's events solutions portfolio, the race management system uses satellite technology to track the yachts, allows messages to be sent from sea to land and vice versa via e-mail and supplies data to competitors on weather and other competitors' positions, - wherever the yachts' location.
FALL BOAT SHOW SEASON
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS
SONAR WORLDS
RYA MATCH RACING OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP
SCREENSAVER
49er WORLDS
1. USA MC KEE JONATHAN / MC KEE CHARLIE, 13
THE CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION |
