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SCUTTLEBUTT 3656 - Thursday, August 16, 2012Scuttlebutt 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 and Ullman Sails. FAILURE TO PERFORM The United States didn't win an Olympic sailing medal for the first time since the 1936 Berlin Games... the boycott of the 1980 Games notwithstanding. This shutout was not the plan the team had hoped for at the 2012 Olympic Games in Weymouth, Great Britain (July 29-Aug. 11). Dean Brenner, who has been Chairman of the U.S. Olympic Sailing Program for eight years, is stepping down. The position has a two term limit, and his successor Josh Adams is ready to take over September 1st. In the second part of Scuttlebutt's interview with Dean, he discusses the failure at the 2012 Games and the future of the U.S. program. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Any problems leading up to the event that may have affected results? None. We spent significant time here over the past four years to understand the venue. We got here on July 17, a full ten days before the regatta. There was no jetlag. Everyone was rested and ready. There were no equipment problems. We were comfortable here. We had our routine. I believe our lead-in plan covered all the bases, and I have gotten no indication that we made any errors in this plan. * Performance is the bottom line, and the team did not perform very well. What happens now? Here is what's happening. As is customary after each Olympics, an independent panel review will take a look at what we are doing. This is being headed by US Sailing President Gary Jobson and my successor Josh Adams, who are now organizing the panel, and it is the intent of this process to determine what changes might be needed. There is going to be a lot of analysis of what we did right and wrong, and that's okay. That's healthy. But it's also going to be possible to overreact. You can do a lot of things right and still not win your regatta. I think we were good enough in a lot of classes, but at these Games, we didn't get it done. I am not sure what we would have done differently, but I can share some things that kept us off the podium. First off, in about half the events, we were a long shot at best. So to say we did not win medals in any of the ten events is correct, but we weren't expected to either. To say that we failed in those classes, at the Olympics, is unfair. The surprises for us were to fail in the Women's Match Race, Finn, Laser Radial, and Women's 470. We also thought our 49er team was capable of more, though by no means they were not a strong medal contender. -- Read on: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/12/0815/#P2 COMMENT: There is much more to this interview as Dean discusses the Games and the Team's future prospects, but from a personal observation, there is one theme that remains certain to me. While the Club Flying Junior and Club 420 may be fine boats to use in the U.S. for youth sailing in general, their simplicity is stifling the development of elite young sailors. Competition in boats of greater complexity, as is done in other countries, and as once was the norm in the U.S., is desperately needed. - Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt PHOTOS: Courtesy of esteemed photographer Carlo Borlenghi, Scuttlebutt has produced an Olympic gallery which captures the scenery, celebrations, and sailing in each of the ten events: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/12/olympics/ DISCOVER: THE HOT COMBO FOR WARM WEATHER Here in Marblehead, it's too hot to wear the heavy gear. But the water's still in the 60s, so when it starts to come aboard, you need something to wear. This is where the new Resolute line nails it: a lightweight inshore jacket & pant combo that's light enough to take anywhere, waterproof enough to protect you from the occasional wave and breathable enough to wear even on the hottest days. It comes in a range of cool colors, and the women's version is the hottest thing on the water! Check it out the new Resolute range at http://www.atlantisweathergear.com/Newfor2012. Stay cool when it's hot. Discover your Atlantis. THE MAN IN THE ARENA: Atlantis WeatherGear, who was the apparel partner for the US Sailing Team during the 2009-12 Olympic 'quad', wanted to share this quote with Team Leader Dean Brenner, and to anyone else who is seeking to make a difference in the sport of sailing: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship in a Republic" delivered by Teddy Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April 1910 CHANGING OF THE GUARD The closing of the London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition is also perhaps the end of a magnificent era within the Finn class. With three time gold medalist Ben Ainslie (GBR) announcing that he is very unlikely to ever set foot in a Finn again, his decade of domination is complete and he leaves the stage open for a new generation of heroes to take his place. The goodbyes are not just limited to Ainslie. Almost a dozen of those who competed at Weymouth and Portland have probably sailed their final Finn regatta and will be hanging up their hiking pants one last time. The game is changing at a fast pace. The new generation are younger, taller, stronger and fitter than ever before. And they are all hungry for success. Silver medalist Jonas Høgh-Christensen (DEN) pointed this out just a few weeks back, "I love the Finn and think it has gotten a revival with the new physical aspects. It is for sure the hardest boat on the Olympic programme. Real athletes pushing super hard. Next time around there will be no old school sailors with a bit too much fat. They will be fit, tall and young. With that said it looks like my time is up." -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/Finn-081512 American Zach Railey comments about the conditioning needed for the Finn... "The physical requirements of sailing a Finn are like no other boat on the Olympic Circuit. You have to be big and have the frame to build the strength needed to sail the boat. Power is the number one word I think of when I think of a Finn sailor; we are just big powerful guys. With the new sailing techniques and especially the new 10 knot free pumping rule we have seen the fleet become much fitter while maintaining the strength needed to control the boat. "The top Finn sailors in the World will spend 4 days a week lifting in the gym, 3 days a week doing cardio training sessions, eating the right nutrition and will do all of this while sailing 5 days each week because the boat requires that type of dedication. Finn sailing requires you to hike against a boat that has non-stop power while sailing upwind. The burn and pain that runs through your body while hiking, I have never felt in another boat in my career. "Finn sailing is simply a test of power and endurance. Then imagine doing that for 20 minutes upwind and then going straight into a downwind or reach where your heart rate is at 180 bpm or higher; do this over and over again until you reach our target race time of 75 min. Then do that at least two times a day and then do that for 6 days straight. I challenge anyone to do this and come back and tell a Finn sailor that the Finn is not physically Olympic!" 2012 INDUCTEES ANNOUNCED Annapolis, Md. (August 15, 2012) - The National Sailing Center & Hall of Fame (NSHOF) today announced the nine sailors who will make up its 2012 class of inductees into the National Sailing Hall of Fame. The 2012 class of inductees will be honored on Sunday, October 14, 2012, during an invitation-only ceremony at Southern Yacht Club (New Orleans, Louisiana), the second-oldest yacht club in the country. National Sailing Hall of Fame 2012 Inductees: navigator Stan Honey (Palo Alto, Calif.), winner of the 2006 Volvo Ocean Race as well as the 2010 Trophée Jules Verne for fastest non-stop circumnavigation of the globe; prominent yacht designer Bruce Kirby (Rowayton, Conn.); 1988 Soling Olympic silver medalist, winning Volvo Ocean Race skipper and America's Cup tactician John Kostecki (Reno, Nev.); and three-time Star Olympic medalist and two-time Star World Champion Mark Reynolds (San Diego, Calif.). National Sailing Hall of Fame 2012 Posthumous Inductees: Olympic gold and silver medalist Peter Barrett (Madison, Wis.); America's Cup competitor and journalist Bob Bavier (New Rochelle, N.Y.); preeminent rules expert Gregg Bemis (Boston, Mass.); yacht designer and Medal of Freedom winner Rod Stephens (New York, N.Y.); and founder and first commodore of the New York Yacht Club John Cox Stevens (New York, NY). Full report: http://tinyurl.com/NSHOF-081512 STRONG FINISH FOR FRENCH IN COMMODORES' CUP Before the first Olympic gun fired in Weymouth, seven teams gathered in Cowes for the prestigious Brewin Dolphin's Commodores' Cup 2012. Congratulations to Herve Borgoltz and crew who scored the second best overall individual result aboard Grand Soleil 44 R "Eleuthera"! Competing with new Ullman Sails onboard - including a FiberPath GP Race mainsail and genoa, and a Redline S2 spinnaker - "Eleuthera" helped the French team place third overall in the seven-day event. GBR Red won overall honors, leading teams from Great Britain, France, Hong Kong and Benelux in both inshore and offshore races on the Solent and English Channel. http://www.ullmansails.com SAILING SHORTS * Cascade Locks, OR (August 15, 2012) - It was breeze on for the first day at US Sailing's 2012 Youth Championships on the Columbia River Gorge. All four fleets completed three races, with current leaders as Mitchell Kiss (Laser Radial), Greg Martinez (Laser), Scott Buckstaff/ James Moody (29er), and Max Simmons/ Riley Legault (Club 420). Racing continues through Saturday. Event website: http://championships.ussailing.org/Youth/US_Youth_Champs.htm * A federal court judge in Norfolk, Va., ordered a Somali pirate on Monday to serve a dozen life sentences in prison for his role in the hijacking of a German merchant vessel and a U.S. cruising sailboat, saying the hostage negotiator was lucky he wasn't facing the death penalty. Mohammad Saaili Shibin is considered by U.S. authorities to be the highest-ranking pirate they have ever captured. Shibin had direct ties to those who finance pirate operations from ashore in largely lawless Somalia. -- Soundings, read on: http://tinyurl.com/TOT-081512a * The Coast Guard said a series of tests to the Global Positioning System will be conducted at various times between Sunday and Sept. 9 that could cause GPS service to be unreliable or unavailable. -- Soundings, read on: http://tinyurl.com/TOT-081512b * On Friday, August 17th the Chicago Match Racing Center (CMRC) will begin competition in its August Grade 2 Invitational, with 11 teams from 7 nations slated to do battle through Sunday in what is the first of four events in the US GRAND SLAM Series. This series features ISAF Grade 2 match racing in four consecutive events: the Grade 2 Invitational, held at CMRC over August 17-19; the Detroit Cup, held August 23-25 at Bayview YC; the Knickerbocker Cup, held at Manhasset Bay YC over August 30 - September 2; and the Oakcliff International, held over September 5-9 at Oakcliff Sailing in Oyster Bay, NY. -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14322#14322 INDUSTRY NEWS UPDATES The Industry News category of the Scuttlebutt Forum provides an opportunity for companies to announce new products and services. Here are some of recent postings: * Sailor/Author new website * Sail America retains association management company * Nautor's Swan Launches 2,000th New Swan View updates here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum/industry_news SEND US YOUR RACE REPORTS Posting your event information on the free, self-serve Scuttlebutt Event Calendar tool is the easiest way to communicate to both sailors and sailing media. But don't stop there... send us your race reports too. Here are some of the upcoming events listed on the calendar: Aug 17-19 - Verve Cup Offshore Regatta - Chicago, IL, USA Aug 17-19 - Ida Lewis Distance Race - Newport, RI, USA Aug 17-18 - Nantucket Race Week - Nantucket, MA, USA Aug 18-22 - CORK - OCR - Kingston, Ontario, Canada View all the events at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar 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 John McConnell: I wish Paul Henderson could be put back into the ISAF President's Chair (re, Scuttlebutt 3655). * From Peter Johnstone: If you want to build something to the highest peaks, you need a pyramid with the broadest base. We have great sailors in the U.S., and terrific commitment. We need leadership that understands what it takes to build something of significance from the ground up. I am a huge fan of the new US Olympic sailing team leader Josh Adams, and wish him the very best in what will be a huge task. * From Alex Stout: In regard to the letter from Lew Sacks (Scuttlebutt 3655), people die in cars and car racing with regularity. Doesn't seem to have hurt motor sports. American football and concussions have very bad long-term effects on the players, but NFL teams are at or approaching billion dollar entities, and the fan base keeps growing. X-Game bikers, snow boarders, etc. all have tragedies, but these sports are growing, not shrinking. Heck, in line with drowning, the Olympics told the story of an open water U.S. competitor dying last year in a competition. Tragic, yes, stop open water swimming, not a chance. Go Red Bull. I got excited when I heard about the Red Bull Storm Chase (Scuttlebutt 3654). EDITOR'S NOTE: The Red Bull energy drink has a long history of promoting its brand alongside hazardous action. The company either seeks out the extreme event, or creates it themselves. The Red Bull brand is now a prominent sponsor at the 34th America's Cup, and we suspect they are not concerned if disaster were to fling the crew through their wing branding... like this: http://youtu.be/HjwY6O2zE0E * From Tracy Usher: Regarding the observations shared by Alistair Murray in Scuttlebutt 3655, I have to admit I've never understood why sailing is so hard to understand. A regatta is simply a series of races where one's finish position in a race translates to points for that race, a sailor gets to discard their worst race, and the sailor with the lowest series score is the winner. Why can't we explain that? The cycling world was able to tell me how Lance Armstrong could cross the finish line of any given race in, like, 50th place yet not lose any time to the guy in 20th place. Gymnasts and divers get judged by a number of judges, they toss out the low and high scores and sum the rest to get their score. We seem to understand that. Heck, even NASCAR has a series with points given for finish positions in individual races. As for not needing to win the last race, the gold medalist in the Decathlon finished 9th and 7th in the last two events...we seem to understand how that works. To me, the hardest part of explaining sailing to a non-sailor is the upwind leg where its often not obvious who is ahead until they get to the weather mark. But I think the video from this Olympics, especially the great aerial shots, did a much better job than I've seen in the past at giving an overall perspective. All it needed was some good commentary (the videos I saw were silent) and I think it could have been interesting to the general public - in particular the Radial medal race where the podium positions changed on nearly every leg. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION I hate people that say "he's a nice person once you get to know him." They might as well just say "he's a pain but you'll get used to it." SPONSORS THIS WEEK New England Boatworks - Kaenon Polarized - North Sails Atlantis WeatherGear - RIBCRAFT - US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider Doyle Sails - Pure Yachting - Ullman Sails - Team One Newport - Soft Deck Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
