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SCUTTLEBUTT 3619 - Monday, June 25, 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: Quantum Sails and Melges Performance Sailboats. SEEING TRIPLE Multihulls can polarise sailors. It used to be you were either into them or you weren't. That, however, is now changing and with multihulls moving into the mainstream they are very much at the forefront of competitive sailing. If France is the spiritual home of multihulls, then Lorient must be its beating heart with the likes of Banque Populaire, Groupama 3, and many other famous multihulls based out of the port. While in Lorient, CAMPER skipper Chris Nicholson and a number of other Volvo (Ocean Race) sailors took up the offer of Groupama skipper Frank Cammas to go sailing on his Jules Verne winning trimaran Groupama 3. At over 100 feet, Groupama 3 has won the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation of the world, held the trans-Atlantic record for 2 years and remains one of the fastest ocean-going yachts in the world. For Nico, the opportunity to have a ride aboard the green speed machine in near perfect conditions of 20 knots breeze was too good to miss. "You'd think we would have had enough of sailing, but to get the opportunity to go sailing on a legendary boat like Groupama 3 is just incredible. "I've done plenty of cat sailing before but this is the first time I've been out on a tri so it's pretty cool. They're impressive machines and it's certainly the easiest 30 knots I've ever done in my sailing life. It's unbelievable really how effortlessly the boat does big numbers. You do 30 knots on Volvo Open 70 and your hair is on fire versus 30 knots on this where everything is calm and sedate. It makes a nice change! "It's nice just to sit back and watch how the hulls perform under some pretty big loads. There was a decent seaway out there and I was really impressed with the way the boat handled it. I think I'd want to spend a few more months sailing on one of them before I'd make the call to sail around the world in one, but there's no doubt that multis are the exiting high performance part of the sport at the moment. It certainly excites me so who knows where I might end up in the future." -- http://etnzblog.com/#!2012/06/nico-sees-triple SCHEDULE: Competition resumes again on Friday, June 29 for the Pro-Am Race, the In-Port Race on Saturday, June 30, and the final offshore leg from Lorient to Galway, Ireland (485nm) on Sunday, July 1. Schedule: http://tinyurl.com/VOR-2011-12-schedule Standings: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/racetracker/rdc.html Video reports: http://www.youtube.com/user/volvooceanracevideos BACKGROUND: During the nine months of the Volvo Ocean Race, which started in Alicante, Spain (Oct. 29) and concludes in Galway, Ireland during early July 2012, six professional teams will sail over 39,000 nautical miles around the world via Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Auckland, around Cape Horn to Itajai, Miami, Lisbon, and Lorient. Teams accumulate points through nine distance legs and ten In-Port races. - http://www.volvooceanrace.com STEPHEN MURRAY'S 'DECISION' WINS ONION PATCH SERIES Hamilton, Bermuda (June 23, 2012) - The new Carkeek HP40 'Decision' owned by Steve Murray (New Orleans LA) was the top Onion Patch boat in the Newport Bermuda Race and then the talented 'Decision' team put on a top performance in Friday's Royal Bermuda YC Anniversary Regatta presented by the Butterfield Group to come out as the first place individual boat in the series. 'Decision' edged out Lawrence Dickie's 'Ptarmigan' by only .5 points and beat the US Naval Academy TP52 'Invictus' by 2.25. 'Invictus' had led going into the Bermuda event but finished that day in 11th place. As the top individual boat in the Onion Patch Series, Murray wins the Henry B. du Pont Trophy. "Doing the Onion Patch Series has been a dream of mine since I was 12," Murray said. "Burt Keenan who was from New Orleans did the series and I had heard about it as I grew up sailing. I'm really excited at being able to win it now. This new Carkeek 40 is really fast in the conditions we had in the RBYC Anniversary Regatta. We are having a great time in Bermuda." Murray had won the racing division in the Regata al Sol, a 555 mile race from Pensacola FL to Isla Mujeres MX, in May as a warm-up for Newport Bermuda. He then trucked 'Decision' to Newport RI for the New York Yacht Club 158th Annual June 9-10, the first stage of the Onion Patch series. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/OP-062512 BACKGROUND: The Onion Patch Series was born in 1962, and today includes New York Yacht Club's Annual Regatta in Newport, Rhode Island (June 9-10), the Newport Bermuda Race organized by The Cruising Club of America (starting on June 15), and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club's Anniversary Regatta in Hamilton Harbour (June 22). -- http://www.onionpatchseries.com/ QUANTUM SAILS: WHEN 'NO' IS NOT AN OPTION Thanks to quick work on the part of the Quantum Newport team, "Decision" was able to add a jib top to its sail inventory just in time for the start of the Newport to Bermuda race. The sail, designed and built in only four days, proved to be very important in this year's event and was used in nearly 50% of the race. Congratulations to Stephen Murray and crew on "Decision", a Carkeek 40 HPR, for taking first in IRC and second in ORR in Class 8, St. David's Lighthouse Division. Great onboard video from crew Alex Clegg of Quantum Newport: http://tinyurl.com/btxw5wh PERFECT WEATHER - TYPICAL WEATHER Long Beach, CA (June 24, 2012) - The stars were out under a clear blue sky for the 134-boat Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week through the weekend, but please don't ask Jeff Janov for his autograph. As before, Janov's Dark Star dominated the Farr 40 class with six wins in seven races, and the humble skipper from Malibu was almost happy to surrender the glare of a sweep with a lone loss to Ray Godwin's Temptress in the first of Sunday's two windup races. "They sailed really well," Janov said of his Long Beach rival. "This fleet is really tough. Anytime you do well it's very rewarding." Three others completed their perfect weekends in the event co-hosted and organized by the Alamitos Bay and Long Beach Yacht Clubs: Larry Spencer's Blue Star in Olson 30s, Mark Surber's J/125, Derivative, in PHRF-2, and John Sangmeister's Morelli ProSail 40 catamaran in the Random Leg 1 class that explored the offshore wonders every day in daily races measuring from 18.5 to 27.5 nautical miles. Then there was Jim Sears, co-host of the CBS network daily show "The Doctors," who won the 15-boat Viper class but had to make a hard choice between skipping a couple of races Saturday or attending the Emmys awards affair in Hollywood that night. He found a substitute skipper and attended the Emmys, seeing as how he was nominated for two honors. "We won the regatta but lost the Emmy to Regis Philbin," Sears said. "At first I was going to skip the Emmys. I love to sail. But I had to leave after the first race Saturday." He has been sailing a Viper for only a year, finishing seventh here last year. -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14053#14053 LONG DISTANCE BEACH CAT RACING Jeremy Leonard of Surf City Racing was hired to document the Great Texas Catamaran Race (June 13-16) by video and photography. Jeremy describes the race, which offers 300 miles of extreme sailing along the Texas coast, as "one of the most incredible sailing events that I've ever attended. It meshes Texas hospitality, hardcore racing, and old-school beach cat good times." Here is his complete report... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Great Texas 300 is a 4 Leg, 300 mile beach catamaran race from the remote South Padre Island to Galveston, Texas. The GT is currently the only distance beach cat race in the country, and this year 10 boats competed. This grueling race tests the mettle of sailor and boat, with conditions on all points of sail ranging from a benign 5 knots of breeze, to howling, lumpy conditions. One consistent danger of each leg is the through-the-surf, beach launch and landing for the starts and finishes. This year the swell was much smaller than in previous years, but still there were several broken rudder systems, crashes, and even a broken mast. There's a whole litany of items that the GT300 requires its sailors to carry aboard in order to be able to participate in the race. The GT folks take safety seriously, and in addition to a presentation from the local Coast Guard, they have a dedicated person, Trey Garrison, who is in charge of the safety check list. Garrison makes contact with each team, and meticulously catalogs each piece of safety gear. Before Leg 1 I asked Garrison, what his concerns were, and he responded, "It's about 90 nautical miles as the crow flies. At the start we'll have ten boats, and the surf is a little on the rough side. As a matter of fact, we had one boat go out to practice today and broke a rudder." The danger of beach launching is evident. -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14051#14051 SCUTTLEBUTT SAILING CALENDAR Events listed at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/calendar SAILING SHORTS * Miami, FL (June 22, 2012) - For the second time during the 2012 Snipe U.S. National Championship, the 44-boat fleet was kept ashore on the final day of the event due to extreme weather. Seven races were completed, with Brazilians Bruno Bethlem de Amorim and Daniel Seixas Claro winning by a six point margin over second place Ernesto Rodriguez and crew Cate Gundlach of South Florida. Rodriguez/ Gundlach were awarded the Heinzerling Trophy as the top U.S. skipper and crew. -- Full story: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14043#14043 * St. Petersburg, FL (June 24, 2012) - The 2012 Rose Cup, a national youth match racing event held on June 21-24, saw Will Holz of Chicago Yacht Club complete a near flawless run to take the title. After winning 14 of 15 matches in the triple round robin series, he dispatched Phil Bendon (Chicago Match Race Center) 3-1 in the semi-finals before beating Charlie Lalumiere (Portland Yacht Club) 3-2 in the finals. The win gives Holz an invitation to the Governor's Cup in Newport Beach, California on July 17-22 and the Harken Youth International Match Racing Championship on February 20-24, 2013. Full report: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14052#14052 * Sausalito, CA (June 22, 2012) - The 2012 Hobie 16 and Hobie 20 North American Championships were hosted by Sausalito Yacht Club on San Francisco Bay, with both fleets able to race on all five days of the event (June 18-22). The 34-boat Hobie 16 fleet was dominated by Enrique (Quique) Figueroa/ Christian Maysonet, with the Puerto Rican team not needing to sail the final race. The scores were much closer in the 16-boat Hobie 20 event, with Mark Lewis/Tiffany Lewis (USA) holding on to edge out a two point victory. -- Daily reports/results: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14022 * LeRoy Neiman (USA), a globetrotting artist whose celebrity often eclipsed that of the famous athletes and entertainers he portrayed in vibrantly colored, boldly expressive paintings, died June 20 at a hospital in New York. He was 91. By all accounts, Mr. Neiman was the foremost artist of the sporting world, with his work including several of the successful America's Cup boats. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/WP-062512 MELGES ROCKS The Melges 24 World Championship will be on Lake Garda in Italy this year. Already, 120+ boats pre-registered for this championship, with over 21 countries represented! The Melges 24 continues to grow and bring excitement to sailors around the world. The Melges 24 is forever fun! New boats being produced now. Race to http://www.melges.com for further details. ENTRY LIST: The North American contingent for the M24 Worlds currently includes Don Jesberg, Bora Gulari, and corinthian entry Robert Harf: http://melges-worlds-2012.appspot.com/entrylist/ EIGHT BELLS * An absolute legend from the Australian sailing world died last week. My dear friend and "business father" Stan Lenepveu was 89. He was the "Stan" in "Ronstan", and without him many of us would wonder what we would be doing these days. He and Ron Allatt started a company in 1953 that has employed many hundreds of people and given many of us so much joy and satisfaction. He was a fine "Sharpie" sailor and a skilled boatbuilder of boats such as Dragons and the Flying Dutchman. Stan was a down to earth toolmaker who was talented, gruff, no nonsense and emotional, and Ronstan was his life. I will never forget teaching him how to tie his tie as we rode the elevator up to the reception held the day the company was sold! -- Alistair Murray, Managing Director, Ronstan --------------------- * Rolly Tasker, a legend in his own time, has crossed the bar. A cheerful and inventive Aussie yachtsman and sailmaker, there was more wind in his sails at last sighting, but illness has changed the course of his voyage. He died at 86 years on Friday. Rolly was raised in Western Australia, where geography and culture foster inventiveness to survive. Rolly grew up modestly, hanging around boatbuilders and absorbing the art and science of sailing. He designed and built his first dinghy in 1936, when he was ten, earning money for materials by catching and selling crabs. A few years later, his mother began sewing sails that he designed on the family's pedal-powered machine. Over time, he learned how to refine the shapes of his sails. In his early racing, he was a bailer on an overpowered skiff in Perth's Swan River. Through that and other sailing in dinghies and skiffs, he developed a strong intuitive sense of the aero- and hydrodynamics of sailing. He got plenty wet along the way, but his talent and determination drove him toward increasingly significant championships. In 1956, he became Australia's first Olympic medalist in sailing, with a silver, and won the World Championship in the Flying Dutchman class two years later. He opened his first sail loft in Western Australia in 1954. He eventually opened lofts in various countries, culminating in a modern, open and efficient Loft #12 in Phuket, Thailand in 1990. At 100,000 sq ft, it is among the largest in the world. In all, Tasker Sails has built more than a million sails, sold in more than 60 countries. Rolly was at the helm of the loft's ever-growing business until very recently, nearly 60 years since establishing his first loft. Being 86 years of age on his passing, Rolly's version of retirement age is quite a story in itself. -- David Pedrick, read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=14048 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 Chad M. Lyons: With the passing of Jim Drake (as noted in Scuttlebutt 3618), had he not introduced the asymmetrical rig with a wishbone boom, the sport would not have seen such wide popularity. These additions made the sailboard more efficient and easier to learn. An accurate account of the evolution of the modern sailboard was published in American Windsurfer over a decade ago and is briefly reported here: Patents; A blow by blow of how the inventor of windsurfing found his place in the sun. - New York Times: http://tinyurl.com/NYT-062512 We all owe Jim for his contributions to our sport. May he rest in peace. * From Pete Williams: How refreshing it was to read in Scuttlebutt 3618 that someone of Ken Read's stature opine that "variety is the key to sailing". I wonder how many people that compete experience much variety. When all that is generally served on the menu is Windward-Leewards race courses, my guess is there are generations of people that don't understand how far in a corner our sport has moved. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION Beer is the answer...but I can't remember the question. SPONSORS THIS WEEK Quantum Sails - Melges Performance Sailboats - North Sails US Sailing - Allen Insurance and Financial - IYRS - Summit Yachts KO Sailing - Ullman Sails - APS - Pure Yachting - Henri Lloyd Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
