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SCUTTLEBUTT 3338 - Tuesday, May 10, 2011Scuttlebutt 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, IYRS, and North Sails. MAINTAINING THE CORINTHIAN ASPECT OF THE REGATTA The history of New York Yacht Club is intertwined with progressive thinkers - starting with John Cox Stevens and James Gordon Bennett Jr. - who took a proactive approach to organizing sailing contests that have become benchmarks for all other sailing events: from transatlantic crossings to America's Cup match races, to team and fleet races. The proactive approach is the common thread that extends to The New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup presented by Rolex, scheduled for September 10-17, which has announced that extensive on-the-water umpiring will be used for the competition. Primarily used for match and team racing and the medal rounds of the Olympic Regatta, this will be the first time NYYC has emphasized umpiring to this degree for fleet racing, a first for a Corinthian event of this magnitude. Ten umpires will be on the water daily to deliver instant justice. With broad geographic representation, eight of the 10 are certified as international umpires or international judges, or both, and each is an active sailor who competes regularly. "They get the game," said Patricia O'Donnell, NYYC Chairman of the Jurors. "In most instances, when competitors come off the water they will know where they stand and not have to wait for the decision of a jury. If there's a protest, the umpires can institute a penalty right there on the water. In the event a protest does need to be heard ashore, this event is being adjudicated by an international jury, which means the decisions of the jury cannot be appealed. We're hoping it will ensure people sail cleanly, that we maintain the Corinthian aspect of the regatta, and the event is moving forward in line with the direction sailing is going on the international level." Sailed in NYYC Swan 42s, the recent addition of boats has allowed the event to now host 22 yacht club teams - representing 16 nations from six different continents - with racing on Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay. Taking cues from the halcyon days of the America's Cup, competitors must be non-professional (Corinthian) sailors; members of the yacht clubs they represent; and also be nationals of their country. -- Full report: http://nyyc.org/2011InvitationalCup/article_1029/ WHAT THE HECK DOES 'CORINTHIAN' MEAN? A question about the meaning of 'Corinthian' was asked last week in the Scuttlebutt Forum. "I've done all the Internet searches I can think of, done the OED, the library at the San Francisco Maritime Historical Park, and consulted the many reference books I own," noted Tony Johnson. "I've contacted the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, where the concept got its start according to their website, and the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, CA. Nothing has been of much help." When it comes to questions like this, few are better prepared to answer than yachting historian and author John Rousmaniere. Here is John's response: The word "Corinthian" seems vague and harmless today, but it's been controversial for 2,000 years. The first Corinthians were residents of the ancient Greek seaport of Corinth. A typical port town, Corinth was described by A. N. Wilson in his biography of St. Paul as "a place of proverbial wickedness, energy, riches, noise." Paul's chiding first letter to the Christian Corinthians in the New Testament portrays them as a little unruly but fully capable of improvement. Paul was not one to waste golden words like "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love" on hopeless reprobates. The notion of the Corinthians as hearty fellows with hearts of gold carried on for centuries. In Henry IV Part 1, Shakespeare has young Prince Hal (then a rowdy but a future great king) describe himself as "a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy." A Corinthian, then, was a spunky, robust guy or gal. This nickname would have appealed to the young American sailors of the 1870s who were challenging the yachting establishment by sailing their own boats. Until then most yachtsmen had just one well-proven ability, which was to write big checks. When three 105-foot schooners crossed the New York Yacht Club's starting line in the first-ever transatlantic race in 1866, two of the owners watched from spectator boats and the third, James Gordon Bennett Jr., sailed as a passenger, deferring to his professional skipper, the aptly named Samuel "Bully" Samuels. Among the nicknames for traditional yachtsmen was "the splurgers." The new alternate definition of "yachtsman" as an amateur ("Corinthian") developed in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century and caught on in America. New Corinthian yacht clubs had fleets of small boats, and the rules required that they be raced only by Corinthian sailors who did all the work, had all the fun, and were paid not a nickel. The old establishment initially responded by slinging mud, and when the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club was ridiculed for "aping English ideas," the envy is as thick as the mud itself. By the 1920s, the average American yachtsman was a Corinthian "lad of mettle." Good on them. Forum thread: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=11786 DISCOVER: THE TRUE MEANING OF "LIGHTEST" Other folks have tried to lay claim to the "Lightest Performance Sailing Jacket" crown, but ever since we introduced it in 2007, the Microburst jacket has been the titleholder, hands down. The jacket weighs less than 12 oz., and for Spring '11, we've added what might be the coolest stowable hood you'll find - made from our new Nanoburst stretch laminate, this hood stows flat even when you don't fold it perfectly. There when you need it - gone when you don't! Check out the jackets and the new AWG TV Microburst video at http://www.atlantisweathergear.com/products/Mens-Microburst-Jacket.html Discover Your Atlantis PERSPECTIVE FROM THE OLYMPIC TRAIL By Graham Biehl, 2008 U.S. 470 Olympian With the sailing events confirmed for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil, I am quite pleased with the direction that ISAF is taking the sport. Having sailed both two person dinghies and skiffs at a high enough level, I had a personal interest in both of these events and took more concern to the skiffs being in or out of the Olympics more than anything. Both disciplines offer necessary skills to compete at a high level, and I strongly encourage anyone to sail both competitively. I am stoked that both events will be representing the sport in the Olympics for men and women. The recent ISAF event selections for the 2016 Olympic Games sparked a lot of debate within the Olympic Circuit during the last year and a half. With the prospect of the 470 class being used as a mixed event (one man and one woman) as opposed to a separate gender event, people in general were pretty good with their nerves. The fleet did not seem to be worried that the class would fall out of the Olympics, but that it would simply change and everyone would have to change with it. We are all here to ultimately win medals, not to worry about what's going to happen two years from now. The 470 group on the men's side is very peculiar because most of us sailing the boat simply cannot fit into the Laser, Star, or 49er without making a concentrated effort on weight gain, or lucking out and finding the perfect size crew or helm. Most of us naturally fit our positions and although we still have to make an effort to maintain our team size, it is minimal compared to what we would have to do to sail another class. I would say that a lot of sailors were a bit worried about the future but just sort of accepted that change happens. IF the 470 would have gone mixed, I don't think it would have been a necessarily bad thing. Sailing is one of the few sports at the Olympic level that offers men and women to compete against each other. The 470 is a great option for this and would certainly draw some new attention to our sport. I believe the biggest impact would have actually been at a lower level, like in the 420 class. Participation at the 420 World Championships is always around the 100 mark for the open division and around 60 for the women's division. That's a huge level of participation for a feeder class to the 470, and the numbers would have certainly dropped in the 420 had the 470 gone mixed. The best thing about ISAF's decision for the 2016 Olympic sailing events is that it now allows an equal number of sailing opportunities for both genders through many different disciplines. The future of our sport in the Olympics looks much brighter and longer term with the recent decisions, and am hopeful that ISAF continues moving forward to grow interest in our sport on an international level. NOT A SINGLE PHRF RATING TO SOUR THE MOOD By Carol Cronin, 2004 Olympian I belong to the church of one design sailing. Though I miss a few Sundays, I make up for it on the occasional Saturday. Last week, I even went on Friday - for eight hours. It's been two years since my last Sperry Topsider NOOD Regatta. (NOOD is short for National Offshore One Design, but of course non-sailors assume you're talking about its homophone when you tell them "you're off to sail in the NOOD" - always good for a laugh.) With nine events around the country, the series has become a national revival meeting for the church of one design. And thanks to a record-setting 220 teams racing in 16 divisions, the Annapolis stop (April 29- May 1) was even better than I remembered. NOOD regattas have something for everyone. At the top of my list is the competitive racing for those whose chosen class is no longer the hot new fad. Boats were grouped by size and speed, minimizing fleet overlaps and making the ambitious schedule of eight races in three days achievable. The Annapolis entry list included Alberg 30s, Beneteau 36.7s, Cal 25s, Catalina 27s, S2 7.9s, Etchells, Farr 30s, Melges 24s, Farr 40s - and seven different J/Boats classes. It was a true variety pack of keelboats, without a single PHRF rating to sour the mood after sailing. -- Boats.com, read on: http://www.boats.com/blog/2011/05/annapolis-nood-delivers/ DRAGON WINS OFF-SHORE LEG IN INAUGURAL ATLANTIC CUP The Atlantic Cup, a new professional Class40 race showcasing the top short-handed sailors in the U.S., set off in light conditions on Saturday, May 7th under the backdrop of the Manhattan Skyline. The course took the four doublehanded teams out of New York Harbor Saturday afternoon south to the only turning mark on the course at Barnegat Light and then east to Newport, RI. After a slow start, Mike Hennessy and Rob Windsor sailing the Owen Clarke designed Team Dragon rallied across the finish line at 9:23pm ET Sunday, May 8 with an elapsed time of 30:48:44 to capture first in the off-shore leg of the Atlantic Cup. Attention now turns to the in-shore series, which will be held Saturday and Sunday May 14-15 in Newport, RI. Teams will use a crew of six for the three races held each day. The combined overall winner of both the off-shore and in-shore stages becomes the first Atlantic Cup Champion and earns a portion of the $15,000 prize purse. Full report: http://www.atlanticcup.org/archives/1446 SEE WHERE MOTHS ARE BUILT Moth dinghies may seem otherworldly, but they are indeed built on Earth. One of those places is IYRS in Rhode Island. On May 25, the school will be host an afternoon Open House at the IYRS Bristol facility, home to the school's Composites Technology and Marine Systems programs. Visit IYRS during one of the most dynamic times of the year, as students ready their projects for an early June graduation ceremony. The Open House runs from 4 to 7 pm at IYRS in Bristol (253 Franklin Street). Go to http://www.iyrs.org to learn more. PLAN B Italian Francesco Bruni is closely connected to the Mascalzone Latino team, which is the Challenger of Record for the 34th America's Cup. But with the team's Cup plans currently landlocked in a fight for funds, Bruni is staying active as one of the few Cup sailors on the World Match Racing Tour "Last season we had a lot of ups and downs. A lot of times we went well through the round robins but we seized up in the quarter finals. We only competed in two semi-finals, resulting in a third in France and a fourth in Denmark which simply isn't good enough. We need to do better this year. We expected more. With the previous two Tour winners not taking part in 2011 (2009 Champion Adam Minoprio is competing in the Volvo Ocean Race and 2010 Champion Ben Ainslie is focusing on qualification for the Olympics), Bruni is expecting more. "Honestly, this season we're looking at the top 3 - we have to get there. We seem to do well in qualifying but we're missing something in the knock-out phases. A lot of times we ended up losing 3-2 and not progressing to the semi-final. This happened 3 or 4 times - just 1 point can make a huge difference. The experience of last year will help us a lot. "It takes a lot of teamwork, you need a lot of training and race time. It takes time, you can't just come to the WMRT and win an event - it doesn't happen, the level is so high. You need to get to the semi finals first and only then think about winning one. You don't get a lucky win - results show that. Ian Williams will be one to watch as he is very prepared and proved to be at a good level at the Congressional Cup. Torvar Mirsky has also been sailing a lot this winter so those are the two guys who will have a good shot at winning in France." The first event of the 2011 WMRT begins on May 11th at Match Race France. Here is the line-up: Alexis Littoz-Baritel (France) - Savoie Mont Blanc Francesco Bruni (Italy) - Mascalzone Latino Peter Gilmour (Australia) - YANMAR Racing Bjorn Hansen (Sweden) - Hansen Sailing Team Damien Iehl (France) - French Match Racing Team Alvaro Marinho (Portugal) - Seth Sailing Team Torvar Mirsky (Australia) - Mirsky Racing Team Pierre-Antoine Morvan (France) - Extreme Team Morbihan Bertrand Pace (France) - Aleph Sailing Team Jesper Radich (Denmark) - Radich Racing Team Phil Robertson (New Zealand) - WAKA Racing Ian Williams (Great Britain) - Team GAC Pindar WMRT website: http://www.wmrt.com/ CLASSIFYING RACE ORGANIZERS AND OFFICIALS The ISAF Classification system is a service to classes and events who want to define who they want to sail. If there is a limit on the number professional sailors that can participate on a boat, the Classification Code is the system that must be used. The challenge of the Code is to fairly determine what types of activity warrant a sailor to be classified as Group 3 (professional), and what is permitted within the Group 1 (amateur) classification. One of the tools of the Code is a list of over 120 frequently asked questions (FAQs), with their answers helping to define Group 1 and 3. Here are the FAQs for Race Organisers & Race Officials: Q. Is a race officer, judge, umpire or measurer who is paid for this work Group 1? A. Yes, he is normally Group 1. The knowledge and skills required do not normally enhance the performance whilst on board a boat when racing. Q. Is a measurer who has been paid to measure a boat and then races on it Group 1? A. (a) Yes, he is normally Group 1 provided that the paid work is only to carry out official measurement duties of recording data, certification or equipment inspection. The measurer must act as an agent of the body that appointed him and not for the boat, but may be paid by either the appointing body or the boat (b) However If he engages in any other form of paid work on the boat (for example, consultancy on boat design or rating/measurement optimization) then this must be considered separately and he may be Group 3 ISAF Sailor Classification Code: http://tinyurl.com/ISAF-CODE-0111 ISAF Sailor Classification Code FAQS: http://tinyurl.com/CODE-FAQS-0111 SAILING SHORTS * At the Edgewood Yacht Club in Cranston, RI, members are prepping for the summer season, just as they have for decades, despite the fire that destroyed the club's historic building in January. The clubhouse had been a fixture in the Edgewood neighborhood since 1908, and even survived Hurricane Carol in 1954. New decking has replaced the burned area, and plans are in the works for a new building as well. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/Turnto10-050911 * The week of May 21-27 leading up to Memorial Day has been designated National Safe Boating Week with the emphasis on wearing life jackets and saving lives. In 2009, the Coast Guard counted 4730 recreational boating accidents involving 736 deaths, 3358 injuries and approximately $36 million dollars of property damage. Almost three-fourths of all fatal boating accident victims drowned, and of those, 84 percent were not wearing life jackets, according to the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. -- Boating Industry, full story: http://www.boating-industry.com/output.cfm?id=2745955 * Less than one week before the VELUX 5 OCEANS fleet begins their final leg across the North Atlantic to La Rochelle to complete the race that began more than eight months ago. The four boats will start at 1500 local time (1900 UTC) on Saturday May 14 from Charleston Harbor. After winning all four legs so far, American Brad Van Liew need only finish the final leg to secure his overall victory. However, Polish ocean racer Zbigniew 'Gutek' Gutkowski on Operon Racing and Canadian Derek Hatfield on Active House start the 3,600-mile race to La Rochelle tied on points. -- http://www.velux5oceans.com NORTH-POWERED J/105s TAKE 1ST, 3RD AT SDYC YACHTING CUP North-powered J/105s 'Sanity' owned by Rick Goebel and 'Blow Boat' owned by Tom Hurlburt took 1st and 3rd at the San Diego Yacht Club's 2011 Yachting Cup held April 29-May 1 in San Diego, CA. Racing in the 16-boat fleet, 1st place 'Sanity' stayed in the top five all weekend with one bullet and three 2nd place finishes. 'Blow Boat' was only six points behind with a bullet in the final race and never finishing worse than 7th. Both boats raced with a complete North Sails Class Sail Development (CSD) inventory. When performance counts, the choice is clear: http://na.northsails.com FREE CLASSIFIED ADS The Scuttlebutt Classified Ads provide a marketplace for private parties to buy and sell, or for businesses to post job openings. Here are recent ads: * Etchells 552 for sale * Star Boat for sale * Sonars wanted * Saturday Sunfish Sailing Instructor/Program Director needed View/post ads here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum/classified_ads 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 Mike Esposito: While all the broadcasting innovations for the America's Cup sound pretty cool, their recent announcement (all ramped up about "extreme sport" yadda yadda) stumbles in its second paragraph: ".teams fly over the water as speeds of up to 35 mph." It's not the "as" vs. "at" typo, those things happen. It's the 35 mph bit. A non-sailor has got to think: "Wow, 35 mph, I've seen cars drive faster to grab a parking spot at the mall." Years ago, during the Milwaukee-Grand Haven Queen's Cup, I was aboard an SC70 reaching along at 25+ knots for more than an hour with a peak around 30 knots, so I know 35(ish) mph on a boat feels screaming fast. Most Scuttlebutt readers know 35 mph on a boat feels screaming fast. But it sure must sound like a snooze to people who go 20 mph on side streets in their family car. Maybe AC could post how little time skippers will have to decide to "cross, ram or duck" as the speedy cats converge, or how far a sailor would plunge if he fell from a flying hull, or the tremendous loads on the rigging, or even the shark-friendly confines of the planned race course. It might even put people ahead of the new toys and create some athlete heroes. * From Andy Rice, SailJuice: (re, 2016 Olympic event selection) Contrary to my previous report (in Scuttlebutt 3337) that it was a 19:18 vote between one submission and another, it was actually a vote-off between seven different submissions, shown in the attached table (see link below). The winning submission did indeed gain 19 of the votes, 51% of the overall votes, which meant that with an outright majority no further rounds of voting were required. That ISAF Council could reach a majority consensus in round one - out of seven choices - is an even more ringing endorsement of the line-up of events that Olympic Sailing now has for Rio 2016. Interesting to note, also, that the only support for the Star came from the Puerto Rican and Brazilian submissions. The politics of Olympic selection are writ large in this table: http://sailjuice.posterous.com/an-insiders-view-of-that-isaf-meeting-and-cat CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION If you did what you always did, you'll get what you always got. SPONSORS THIS WEEK Summit Yachts - Team One Newport Atlantis WeatherGear - IYRS - North Sails Doyle Sails - West Marine - LaserPerformance - Ullman Sails J Boats - Point Loma Outfitting - Mount Gay Rum Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
