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SCUTTLEBUTT 2019 -- January 30, 2006Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions,features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. STRONG WIND FINALE One race; double points; must count; 18-20 knots of breeze -- that was the last-day mantra for some of the 610 sailors from 40 countries competing in US Sailing's Rolex Miami OCR. Adding the emphasis on today's finale was the new Olympic format, which stipulates that only the top-ten sailors from each class can participate in the Medal Race. Their scores count double toward a total point score that is better when lower. Although sailors did not have the option of allowing the Medal Race as one of their throwouts, three teams nevertheless had won the right to sit out, as mathematically they had already claimed victory. Those teams were France's current world champions in the Star class Xavier Rohart (Martigues) and Pascal Rambeau; USA's reigning Yngling world champions Sally Barkow, Carrie Howe and Deborah Capozzi; and USA's Olympic silver medalists in Tornado class John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree. The latter two teams sailed today, winning their final Medal Races for good measure. - Media Pro Int'l, www.ussailing.org/Olympics/RolexMiamiOCR 49er (32 boats) 1. Piero Sibello/Gianfranco Sibello, ITA, 34 2. Chris Draper/Simon Hiscocks, GBR, 36 3. Rodion Luka/George Leonchuk, UKR, 67 4. Morgan Larson/ Peter Spaulding, USA, 69 470 Men (21 boats) 1. Nic Asher/Elliot Willis, GBR, 42 2. Benjamin Bonnaud/Romain Bonnaud, FRA, 49 3. Gideon Kliger/Udi Gal, ISR, 52 4. Mikee Anderson-Mitterling/David Hughes, 59 470 Women (16 boats) 1. Ingrid Petitjean/Nadege Douroux, FRA, 33 2. Christina Bassadone/Saskia Clark, GBR, 35 3. Amanda Clark/Sarah Mergenthaler, USA, 51 Finn (25 boats) 1. Rafael Trujillo, Santander, ESP, 32 2. Christopher Cook, Toronto, CAN, 36 3. Jonas Hoegh Christensen, DEN, 42 Laser Full (89 boats) 1. Paul Goodison, Rotherham, GBR, 23 2. Felix Pruvot, Brest, FRA, 42 3. Maciej Grabowski, Gdynia, POL, 49 Laser Radial (47 boats) 1. Anna Tunnicliffe, Plantation, Fla., USA, 54 2. Paige Railey, Clearwater, Fla., USA, 67 3. Jennifer Spalding, Vancouver, CAN, 72 Neil Pryde RS:X Men (39 boards) 1. Nick Dempsey, Weymouth, GBR, 11 2. Nicolas Huguet, Marseille, FRA, 38 3. Ivan Pastor, Santander, ESP, 49 Neil Pryde RS:X Women (20 boards) 1. Bryony Shaw, Weymouth, GBR, 23 2. Marina Alabau, Santander, ESP, 25 3. Lucy Horwood, Wales, GBR, 26 Sonar (6 boats) 1. David Schroeder/Keith Burhans/Bill Mauk, USA, 13 2. Rick Doerr/Ezra Culver/Mike Ross, USA, 15 3. Carwile Leroy/Ali Soylu/Carlos Rodriguez, Fla, USA, 26 Star (69 boats) 1. Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau, FRA, 50 2. Andrew Horton/Brad Nichol, USA, 86 3. George Szabo/Eric Monroe, USA, 94 Tornado (25 boats) 1. John Lovell/Charlie Ogletree, USA, 29 2. Olivier Backes/Paul-Ambroise Sevestre, FRA, 49 3. Revil Xavier/Espagnon Christophe, FRA, 57.00 Yngling (14 boats) 1. Sally Barkow/Deborah Capozzi/Carrie Howe, USA, 15 2. Hannah Swett/Melissa Purdy/Liz Filter, USA, 45 3. Sarah Ayton/Sarah Webb/Victoria Rawlinson, GBR, 47 A TOTAL FARCE (In a story posted on The Daly Sail subscription website, Paul Brotherton gives us his view of the final race series at the Rolex Miami OCR. Here's an excerpt.) So Olympic Sailing is going to be more interesting for TV in China as we have a fancy new double points, non discardable, last race, series decider, the thought being that this mechanism would keep everyone focused and excited about the sailing until the last day: No confusion about discards as they are all done, no lack of appearance by the winner as they must sail in this last race. The thought is well intentioned but for gods sake please someone grab those who come up with these 'great' ideas and ram some common sense down their throats. Let's just take a wild leap in imagination and visualize this ISAF Grade 1 event (the Miami OCR) to be the Olympics in China. The points are not made up they are factual and the following scenarios are all possible. Tornado, Star and Yngling Classes: The last placed boat in the live TV spectacular, yes that's right, dead last across the finish line takes the Gold Medal! What a spectacular performance there from the boat cruising home in last place laughing and performing a victory plod round the track. 49er and RS: X men - this would be a similar scenario where the leader and the second placed boat could finish last and second last and still win Gold and Silver, no matter what else happens. 470 women, Laser Radial and Laser: Last place finisher in the medal race gets the Gold or at worse the Silver. That's eight of the eleven Gold medals up for grabs that could just come over as a total farce. - www.thedailysail.com TRIUMPHANT RETURN Three years ago Dean Barker stood in the Viaduct Basin dejected and demoralized, the America's Cup gone. But it was a triumphant return yesterday as Barker, dripping in champagne, stood on the dock alongside his Emirates Team New Zealand crew - Terry Hutchinson, James Dagg, Jared Henderson and Don Cowie - as inaugural winners of the Auckland Match Racing Cup. Yesterday the beaten man was BMW Oracle Racing's Bertrand Pace, losing 3-0. The win over the high-calibre fleet further silences Barker's critics and provides the best indication yet that he is capable of winning back yachting's greatest prize for New Zealand. - Julie Ash, NZ Herald, full story: http://tinyurl.com/9meex Final standings: 1. Dean Barker 2. Bertrand Pace 3. Chris Dickson 4. Cameron Appleton 5. Ian Williams 6. Mathieu Richard 7. Ed Baird 8. Magnus Holmberg 9. Staffan Lindberg 10. Sebastien Col Event website: http://www.aucklandmatchracingcup.co.nz/home.html JUST FOR DINGHY SAILORS New England Ropes has engineered a complete selection of cordage especially for dinghy and one-design sailors. These lines have been refined through extensive testing and feedback from day-sailors and club racers plus National and World Champions. Whether you are ramping up for winter events in the south, or working on your to-do list from last season, New England Ropes has the rope that's just right for the application. View the options in the "Pleasure Marine" section on their website: http://www.neropes.com VOLVO OCEAN RACE UPDATES * The VO70 Ericsson was off-loaded from the towering Wallenius Wilhelmsen ship "Tagus" and arrived into the Volvo Ocean Race village at Melbourne Docklands early Friday afternoon. Skipper Neal McDonald explained the activity as Ericsson was placed in her cradle beside the race village. "Everything now has to be taken off the boat - the sails, the mast etc. All the boats have to be reweighed during the stopover. On top of this, every component needs to be checked as is necessary during every stopover, from the mast to the keel and every single rope and shackle. The Melbourne stopover will be like all the others, but with compressed time. The advantage we have is that the boat has only been sailed two days so she is in good shape, and we know that she is fast as we were second when we had to retire from leg two. Once we have made the necessary repairs we will need to put the kit back together and we hope to get her back in the water early next week. * On Friday, Brasil 1 begun her historic road trip and race against time as she began the epic journey that will take her 2500 miles across Australia from Fremantle to the Volvo Ocean Race Village in Waterfront City, Melbourne. It will take approximately five days to drive the boat across Australia. It is a mammoth road trip and being restricted to 12 hours driving a day and 30 minutes break every 4 hours, as well as keeping to the 80 km/hr speed limit, will make it a painstaking process. The boat will have a police escort to the front and rear. After suffering structural problems which were repaired in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, before they continued on the leg, Brasil 1 took her second knock of the leg when she lost her mast 1500 nautical miles off the coast of Australia. * The movistar shore crew go though some changes during these days, before the boat will be berthed again next week. The most important part of this operation will replace the hydraulic rams of the canting keel. "This is a drastic decision but we haven't doubt about this is the right one", says movistar skipper Bouwe Beking, "We are not going to use the titanium rams and we will recover the stainless rams used during the trainings done before the Star in Vigo; these stainless rams didn't give us problems during the 20.000 nautical miles sailed. We can go harder without getting worried about the reliability". But if these rams had worked ok, why had it been changed?. "The reason of that replace was only due to one reason: speed - explains Pedro Campos CEO of the team- we were looking for a better performance, but just now we know it wasn't an obliged decision because all the teams was looking for the limits". Current Leaderboard: 1. ABN Amro One, Mike Sanderson (NZL) 29 pts 2. ABN Amro Two, Sebastien Josse (FRA) 24 pts 3. movistar, Bouwe Bekking (NED) 15.5 pts 4. Brasil 1, Torben Grael (BRA) 14.5 pts 5. Pirates of the Caribbean, Paul Cayard (USA) 13.5 pts 6. Ericsson Racing Team, Neal McDonald (GBR) 12.5 pts 7. Brunel, Grant Wharington (AUS) 11 pts Event website: www.volvooceanrace.org SHOWING SIGNS OF LIFE Valencia, Spain -- After a well-deserved holiday break, Port America's Cup is increasingly showing signs of life and preparatory activity. Teams are gradually coming back to Valencia and for some of them this means moving to their permanent base. Taking advantage of a beautiful and sunny Sunday morning, we cruised inside the harbor and snapped some interesting photos of the bases and the brand new canal. Judging from the construction stage and speed, one can correctly assume that most America's Cup teams will be able to move to their permanent bases before the start of the next Louis Vuitton Acts. Team China and United Internet Team Germany are the exception so far, as construction of their bases has not started yet. - Valencia Sailing. Take a look at a great bunch of photos: http://valenciasailing.blogspot.com/ OVER 1000 SAILORS HAVE TAKEN THE QUIZ - HAVE YOU? Chris B of Chicago is the most recent winner of the North U Quiz Prize. The Quiz has eight questions on Racing, Cruising, and Weather, including this: Racing upwind on the first part of a beat in no current, you know that further up the leg there's current running from left to right. Which way should you go to set up for the current? Are you sure? Try the quiz. You might learn something. You could win a prize. Learn about NorthU Tactics, Cruising, Weather, and Performance Instruments Seminars at http://www.NorthU.com NEWS BRIEFS * German America's Cup Yacht is under construction at the shipyard Knierim-Yachtbau in Kiel, Germany. The team of ten designers is headed by Axel Mohnhaupt (Berlin), and includes Fietje Judel from Bremerhaven. The hull shape had been milled out of a block of foam by a giant five-axis milling machine with millimetre accuracy. The boat builders first laminated a carbon negative mould, in which they then laminated final hull. "Using a female mould saves unnecessary weight by minimizing filler," explains shipyard director Gunnar Knierim. The boat is expected to be launched in April, displaying the sail number GER-89. -- http://www.United-Team-Germany.de * Both US Sailing's Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta and Acura Key West 2006 are now playing on http://www.t2p.tv * GlaxoSmithKline has emerged as the favourite to buy Swiss biotech firm Serono for a knockdown $12bn (£7bn) after an attempt to auction the business collapsed. Serono's chief executive, Ernesto Bertarelli, put the group up for sale by asking for bids for the 62 per cent stake owned by his family. A valuation of $15bn was put on the company, which makes a multiple sclerosis drug, Rebif, and infertility treatments. Mr Bertarelli is best known for bankrolling the famous Swiss victory in the America's Cup yacht race in 2003. -- http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article341604.ece * The growing success of Australia's Skandia Geelong Week was demonstrated when the Royal Geelong Yacht Club distributed more than five thousand access passes to competing crews this year. More than four hundred boats competed across sixteen divisions with two national titles up for grabs. The event is a feast for boat-loving eyes. A stroll around the docks revealed state of the art crafts from across Australia. Everything from tiny hydrofoil moths to supreme canting keel maxis is proudly on display while classic yachts and National Maritime Museum's majestic three masted barque The James Craig evoke images of an earlier era. -- http://www.geelongweek.com.au Correction: The West Maine Pacific Cup Safety at Sea seminar hosted by the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, CA is scheduled for Saturday, February 18 -- not a day later as was originally announced. -- http://www.pacificcup.org MELGES 32 ONE-DESIGN MIDWINTER CHAMPIONSHIP The Melges 32 class had eight boats on the starting line for their Midwinter Championship in Key West this past week. Racing was close and exciting throughout the series. Mike Carroll's New Wave edged out Jeff Ecklund's Star for the first Midwinter title. Check out these supersonic racers at http://www.melges.com EIGHT BELLS * The yachting community in Southern California lost a long-time and tireless worker with the death of Harlan Moore. A member of Long Beach Yacht Club, where he was the mainstay of their race-management program for decades, and a past Commodore of the Association of San Pedro Bay Yacht Clubs, Harlan also organized and moderated basic-level race-management courses up and down the Southern California coast on behalf of the Southern California Yachting Association (SCYA). He was active in the management of US Sailing Area J and served as the Area Race Officer for many years. It is hard to imagine anyone in San Pedro Bay--and perhaps throughout Southern California--who has affected the lives of racing sailors over the past decades more than Harlan Moore. Harlan Moore served in the US Marine Corps. He is survived by his wife and lifelong partner in race management, Pat; his son and daughter, Bill Moore and Patty Moore Reno, their spouses and children. His remains were interred in a private ceremony. A celebration of his life is anticipated but no plans have been set. - Chris Ericksen * Eight Bells for longtime Lake Ontario sailor John M. Odenbach Sr. (1914-2006). In 1936 he bought his first sailboat a NY 30, Amorita, and in 2004 at age 90 bought a Beneteau 40.7. Most of the years he and some of his 9 children raced various black Rampage's around the Great Lakes and SORC. He was a skipper in the 1971 Congressional Cup and winner of USSA Van Allan Clark trophy for sportsmanship in 1987. -- John Odenbach Jr. LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. You only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree. And please save your bashing, and personal attacks for elsewhere. For those that prefer a Forum, you can post your thoughts at the Scuttlebutt website: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi) * From Adrian Morgan (re a new class for the America's Cup): Oh no! Scrap the IACC in favour no doubt of a "more affordable, exciting class that better represents the development of the America's Cup in the 21st Century" (my words). For goodness sake stick with the rule, tinker by all means, but not yet another AC class, which means everyone has to start from scratch. It works. Leave it alone for a century. And for heavens sake don't let them stick a canting keel on the bottom. Finally, canting keels may well make "rail meat" redundant, but do you really think a racing skipper would then allow all those bodies to head for the leeward side? * From David Branigan: Magnus Wheatley's 'volte face' on the Volvo Ocean Race (Scuttlebutt 2017) is to be welcomed but the fact remains that similar ill-informed commentary that sparked cheap headlines around the world has not been corrected elsewhere. Had the various merchants of doom been actually present at any of the stop-over ports so far, their rush to judgement may not have been quite so hasty. As I write, the VOR village at Melbourne Docklands is bustling. Scores of shore-crew out-number their sailing counterparts in the compound, busy with refits and modifications. Contrary to further inaccurate reporting, this all takes place directly in front of an elevated public viewing platform and not in Fort Knox. School has just finished for the dozen or so children travelling with their parents on the race and in two weeks time, we will see these kids parted from their Dads again as Leg 3 begins. Were we really ever expected to believe that these world-class professionals would merrily abandon their families on such a foolhardy expedition as was being suggested? I can't believe it to be so pathetically simplistic. Meanwhile, I wonder is this a case of people in glass houses throwing stones? Can all these critics swear they follow basic safety guidelines every time they put to sea - if they indeed ever do put to sea? * From Tim Kent: Broken keels rams, busted bulkheads, lost bomber doors ("bomber doors"?) on the one hand, long surfs, stunning speeds and an overall exhilarating experience on the other; the Volvo 70 has it all. No sailor in his or her right mind would pass up an opportunity to sail on one of these beasts, maybe not for a leg, but a daysail on one in 30 knots of breeze would be an unforgettable experience. Are they fragile and problematic? Of course they are; more than anticipated, but every offshore sailor - particularly a racing offshore sailor - leaves the dock knowing that they are going to repair their way to the next port. Losing a keel is nothing to take lightly, but these sailors have managed their boats and the problems they pose with skill and professionalism (backed by sizeable budgets). The only thing wrong with these contentious, wild, fragile and awe-inspiring boats is that no one had the wisdom and insight to build one for me. * From William Walker: Cheers to Paul Cayard and the crew of the Black Pearl. Cutting edge and development are great. We should have a holiday like Columbus Day ... Cayard Day ... What would be a good time of year for this holiday. My kids are following this race and can't wait to see the movie. Godspeed Boys! * From Barry Demak: Let me get this straight. Somebody named "Ron Arnold" unsubscribed to a sailing electronic newsletter because one of the most respected people in the history of our sport wrote an opinion letter to 19,999 other people who actually care what he has to say and think he (and his sailing, design and boat ops teams) might have a few reasons to know what they're talking about? Oh, I'm sure this had the Curmudgeon shaking in in his bright yellow shirt! (apologies to Capital One and David Spade) Also, I think the NFL should remove tackling from the game in time for the SuperBowl. someone could get hurt. * From Bob Fisher: Hans Voorn of Amsterdam writes, "Here in The Netherlands we are very proud of the Dutch participation in the VOR, which is a first at this magnitude." Is he unaware of Conny van Rietschoten's two wins in the Whitbread Round the World Race, the predecessor to the VOR? I know the Dutch were very proud of Conny at the time. * From Peter Huston: The "hiking" that is shown in the Scuttlebutt forum on a Melges 24 is counterintuitive to the fun that a Melges really provides. Suggested solutions - 1.) downwind only races - 2.) total elimination of the "hiking" line - 3.) addition of a (or several) trapeze. Fast is fun - "hiking" while doubled over as if you are depositing last nights beverages into the salty brine is not. * From Frederic Laffitte: I agree with most of the sailing Hall of fame inductees, however unless I am mistaking, there is a huge omission to the list. Eric Tabarly, who is widely considered as the father of offshore yacht racing, is not part of the hall of fame! CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION "Pioneering is the business of finding new and unexpected ways of dieing" -- Adam Hall Special thanks to New England Ropes, North U, and Melges Boats. |
