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SCUTTLEBUTT 2908 - Friday, August 14, 2009Scuttlebutt 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. Twitter updates: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Today's sponsors are Holmatro and Stirling Point. TEN SAILING EVENTS AT 2012 OLYMPICS (August 13, 2009) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) today confirmed there will be 10 sailing events at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The Executive Board of the IOC confirmed the line up of events and disciplines for the 26 sports on the Programme for the London 2012 Olympic Games at their meeting in Berlin, Germany today. The International Sailing Federation (ISAF) had made a request to keep the number of sailing events at 11, maintaining the Open Multihull event. The IOC President Jacques Rogge wrote today to ISAF: “Whilst the IOC Executive Board fully recognises the value that Sailing brings to the Olympic Games, it decided to maintain its decision of 2005 regarding the overall quota of sailors and medals. As a consequence, Tornado Multihull shall not be on the programme of the Games of the XXXth Olympiad in London. The decision to reduce the number of sailing events at the 2012 Games from 11 to 10 was previously made by the IOC Executive Board in 2005, based on the recommendation from the IOC Olympic Programme Commission. ISAF was one of 17 International Sports Federations who submitted a request to modify their events at the London 2012 Olympic Games. These requests were analysed by the IOC Olympic Programme Commission, which submitted its finding to the Executive Board. -- Read on: http://www.sailing.org/29214.php * Here is an IOC update regarding the 17 requests: http://tinyurl.com/pav2n8 BOATS BY THE TRUCKLOAD It is likely the largest single delivery of boats ever in Nova Scotia, likely Canada. It started last weekend with the first of ten 18-wheeler tractor trailers arriving from the Laser Performance’s manufacturing plant in the United States to the St. Margaret Sailing Club in Nova Scotia, Canada. On board are 185 brand new Lasers, along with rudders, centerboards, masts, and of course dollies. These are the boats for the 2009 Nautel Laser World Championships taking place on St. Margaret’s Bay, Nova Scotia from August 19th to September 5th. “Luckily they didn’t all arrive on the same day,” says event manager Duncan Enman. “It will still be quite the sight, roughly unloading 60 boats a day for four days, then putting together the dollies and wheeling them to the boatyard in anticipation of the athletes’ arrival. There are roughly 100 on the site now with the final 85 arriving this weekend.” The Opening Ceremonies for the Standards is August 19th and for the Masters is August 29th. -- http://www.2009laserworlds.org HOLMATRO NETWORK EXPANDING IN THE US The dealer and service network of Holmatro is further growing in the US. Besides the current Holmatro dealers and service centres located in Maine, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, South Carolina and Florida, they are recruiting some of the best rigging shops and distributors on the west coast in the major sailing centres. Noted business manager Howard Seaver, “Hand someone our products that has minimal knowledge of our brand, then watch their enthusiasm grow as they realize its quality and the attention given to detail. They just need to hold and touch our products to see and feel that they are different.” -- http://www.holmatro.com LIVING THE DREAM The Quantum Sails ‘Live The Dream’ contest was won by Katie Burns, earning herself an all-expenses-paid trip to be part of the crew on board TP52 Quantum Racing for the Audi MedCup event in Portimao, Portugal on August 18-23, 2009. Here is her update: “Well, it’s been about a month since I was named the winner of Quantum’s Live the Dream contest, and I am SO AMPED to go to Portugal. Last week, I got to meet Terry Hutchinson, the helmsman of Quantum Racing’s TP-52 and arguably the best helmsman in the world (I wasn’t nervous at all, haha). We talked about the race, the boat, the contest, and my experiences in Iraq as a soldier in the United States Army. “I think for every question I had about the MedCup, he had at least 3 about my experiences in the military. I never thought I was so interesting, but I guess a girl who knows how to rebuild diesel engines, fire a wide array of weapons, repel off towers, navigate her way through a forest with nothing but a map and compass, treat combat wounds, sail a boat from Point A to Point B, and still manage to throw in a pirouette on the dance floor every so often would have a few things to talk about. Of course, that’s what got me to the here and now, at least.” -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/r5gpvr * Here is Katie’s Twitter page for updates: http://twitter.com/KatieBurnsKB CST COMPOSITES MOTH WORLDS (August 13, 2009) - Three races (Races 8-10), were sailed on Day 3 of the CST Composites Moth Worlds, underway at Cascade Locks, Oregon. With winds forecasted in the high 20’s, the race committee shortened the course to avoid having the fleet sail into the deeper swells anticipated further east along the Columbia River as a result of the fresher breeze. While the first race started in 25 knots, it quickly dissipated and by early afternoon, conditions were similar to those of the previous two days. With the heavier breeze in the first race, the strategy opted for by most was a more conservative approach, nonetheless, evidence that the fleet’s been pushing it pretty hard over the past few days was apparent with Hall, Outteridge, and Babbage retiring in Race 9 for repairs. Simon Payne retired from Race 10 with a knee injury that has been bothering him the past few days. It was a disappointing day for Scott Babbage, who handily won the first race then broke gear in a crash between races which he was unable to repair resulting in two DNFs, which puts him out of the running for any possible place. Bora Gulari and Arnaud Psarofaghis continued to consistently make the top four. Day 3 Top Ten Finishers: Bora Gulari (USA) 15 points, Nathan Outteridge (AUS) 17 points, Arnaud Psarofaghis (SUI) 26 points, Dalton Bergan (USA) 29 points, Simon Payne (GBR) 39 points, Rohan Veal (AUS) 42 points, Rob Gough (AUS) 67 points, Brad Funk (USA) 68 points, Scott Babbage (AUS) 76 points, and Andrew McDougall (AUS) 77 points. (Note: 10 races sailed to date, with two discards). -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=8034#8034 SailGroove video: http://www.sailgroove.org/videos/coverage/view/235472 SAILING SHORTS * Sodus Point, NY (August 13, 2009) - On the final day of the 2009 International Lightning Class North American Championships, Marcus Eagan of Bay St Louis, MS with crew Kippy Chamberlain and John Bowden rallied with two firsts to complete their climb up the standings to gain the title in the 66-boat event. Runner up was 2007 champions Geoff Becker/ Bill Ward/ Dan Rabin. Eagan’s team had also won the qualifying series. Winning the consolation division was Justin Coplan/ Alex Feldman/ Mike Carney of Nyack, NY. -- Results: http://www.sodusbayyc.org/events/2009lightningnas/scoring/nafinal.pdf * Marblehead, MA (August 13, 2009) - US SAILING’s 2009 Chubb U.S. Junior Sailing Championship division winners proved themselves in a variety of challenging conditions this week as racing concluded today in a gusty, 15-knot northeasterly wind and large swell after two days of lighter breezes. Southern California swept the national event, as Kevin Laube (San Diego, Calif.) won the Smythe Trophy for the singlehanded division; Kieran Chung (Newport Beach, Calif.) and crew Ryan Davidson (Costa Mesa, Calif.) won the Bemis Trophy for the doublehanded division; and brothers Scott and Evan Hoffmann (Escondido, Calif.) with crew Colleen Hackett (El Cajon, Calif.) won the Sears Cup for the triplehanded division. -- Full report: http://tinyurl.com/omx38a * The Royal Ocean Racing Club, organisers of the biennial British 608-mile classic offshore race, confirmed that Niklas Zennström's Ran 2 is the overall handicap winner of the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race. Zennström's Judel-Vrolijk designed 72-footer finished the race in an elapsed time of 63 hours, 1 minute and 33 seconds, which corrected out to 2 hours, 19 minutes ahead of the second-placed Italian America's Cup team Luna Rossa on board their STP65. -- Event website: http://fastnet.rorc.org SAILOR’S PARADISE IN THE ABACOS FOR SALE Stirling Point is located on the private residential island of Scotland Cay in the Abacos. This singular property encompasses 32,535 square feet of elevated land with 220 feet of rocky shoreline and a protected 80’ deep-water dock with a boat lift. The 1,800 square foot 3BR/2.5BA house has a sun-splashed 1,000 sf. deck overlooking the Sea of Abaco and two garages to house all your toys. Exclusive and private, Scotland Cay has a 3,500' private runway and regular ferry service from Marsh Harbour on the main island of Great Abaco. For more information, visit http://www.stirlingpoint.com or call 617-529-5832. PHOTOS OF THE WEEK Some of the random photos from the sport received this week at Scuttlebutt include Fastnet victories, Beetle Cat victories, and 420 Worlds victories, plus 158 years of America’s Cup evolution, construction in Milwaukee, dogs and boats, a trip to the Persian Gulf, and a (rocky) trip to San Clemente Island. If you have images you would like to share, send them to the Scuttlebutt editor. Here are this week’s photos: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/09/0814/ VIDEO OF THE WEEK There is a lot of talk about multihulls these days. They are officially out of the 2012 Olympics, but officially in the 33rd America's Cup. They are big, like the 131-foot maxi trimaran Banque Populaire V that covered the 2,921 mile transatlantic route between New York and Cape Lizard in a record 3 days, 15 hours, 25 minutes, and 48 seconds, also setting a new 24-hour distance mark by covering a distance of 908.2 miles at an average speed of 37.84 knots. Now they have gripped former Farr 40 campaigner Peter Stoneberg, with this video showing his Formula 40 catamaran SHADOW blasting under the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco Bay. Edited to the song 'Remember The Name' by Fort Minor, the smiles, splashes, and frequent speed updates provide sufficient testimony for why Peter has gone to the dark side. Enjoy: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/09/0814/ * BONUS #1 - There are now 31 separate videos on the Scuttlebutt website from t2p.tv that provide entertaining highs and lows in the sport: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/media/09/t2p/ * BONUS #2 - George Szabo and Rick Peters accepting the cup and love after winning the Star Worlds: http://tinyurl.com/ppfaqu * BONUS #3 - Highlights from the BMW Oracle team’s special event in San Diego on Tuesday: http://tinyurl.com/r8e297 * BONUS #4 - Moth Worlds overview: http://www.shorttsupply.com/node/16 * If you have a video you like, please send your suggestion for next week’s Video of the Week to mailto:editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com WE’RE GOING BACK TO COURT Here is an excerpt of an interview Sailing World’s Stuart Streuli conducted with Larry Ellison, owner of the America’s Cup challenger BMW Oracle Racing team: * Are you happy overall with where you are, six months out, knowing you've got to put an engine on? LARRY ELLISON: “That's not a problem. It's a problem because there's a bunch of grinders who are going to lose their jobs and I don't think it's right. It's not tradition. But if those are the rules, we're perfectly happy. We can be competitive with water ballast and an engine and everything else. That's not the part we're worried about. We're just worried about Alinghi being able to change the rules up to a minute before the race starts. I don't understand how that could possibly work. Plus we understand that Alinghi is going to control the jury and the on-water umpires. So in other words, we can win if they let us…if they decide not to disqualify us. But as of right now we're going to end up back in court because I don't understand how they can change the rules right up to before the race starts. But even worse, if they control the umpires on the water and they control the jury, they can, you know, give us 10 penalties, give us 10 more circles.” * When you go back to court are you going to appeal a standing ruling or are you going to file a new motion? LARRY ELLISON: “We're trying to figure out our legal strategy right now. I can't talk about ISAF agreement, the secret ISAF agreement. The court has said I cannot talk about it. We've seen the ISAF agreement and let's just set that aside. We believe Alinghi…I almost have to have a lawyer here to respond…we would love to have that ISAF agreement made public. Let me say that Alinghi's plan is to run the race with them in complete control of the umpires on the water and the jury. In other words Alinghi will decide if they won or lost the race. Alinghi will be the sole decider of if they won or lost the race. That's the current protocol.” Complete interview: http://tinyurl.com/pzadrw THE COST TO COMPETE The America’s Cup defender launched Alinghi 5 on Lake Geneva on July 9, 2009, following its conceptual birth in early 2008. In an interview with Seahorse magazine, Grant Simmer, design team co-ordinator; Rolf Vrolijk, chief designer; and Dirk Kramers, chief engineer share their thoughts: SEAHORSE: Though obviously not cheap, it seems that this Deed of Gift project may actually work out a great deal less expensive than a classical monohull defence. Is it perhaps sensible that we now actively consider a more open era of America's Cup matches? GRANT SIMMER: The boat that we built is approximately five times more costly than a Version 5.0 (used in the 32nd Match) and we have done most of the work in- house. I suspect that BMW Oracle have spent a lot more than us, from what we have heard; probably twice as much as we have to get here, but then they have been sailing a lot longer and they have built two boats, so... If you want to contain costs you have to have cost-curbing measures like the ones we proposed for a multi-challenger 33rd America's Cup on monohulls. Otherwise, the sky is the limit; with a completely open design space you really could spend anything you want. DIRK KRAMERS: Cost-curbing is really the only way to keep us under control and to determine where we go. We have very definite budget limits for both money and time, although the time budget seems to change with every legal move. The more time you have, the more money you will spend. (That was the cost-curbing principle for the original AC90/2009 plan - one boat/short timeframe equals less cost.) GRANT SIMMER: The example of (Bill Koch’s) America3 is a good one - their design philosophy in 1992 was to look under every stone and that is a pretty expensive design philosophy. Complete interview: http://seahorsemagazine.com/2009-September/alinghi.php LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Please submit your comments to the Scuttlebutt editor (aka, ‘The Curmudgeon’). Published letters must include writer's name and be no longer than 250 words (letter might be edited for clarity or simplicity). One letter per subject, and save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. As an alternative, a more open environment for discussion is available on the Scuttlebutt Forum. -- To submit a Letter: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com -- To post on the Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Julian Bethwaite: Regarding John Longley’s letter in Scuttlebutt 2907 about the origin of asymmetric spinnaker, John is spot on. I remember well hanging on to wire luff flatties, mostly on boats like 16teen and the infamous Skate (amazing boat). Cherub, maybe, I'm way too young to argue the point, but we brought the first Cherub to Australia when we emigrated from NZ in the back of dad's flying boat (think it was a Sunder-land, he was the pilot, plane was owned by TEAL, now Air New Zealand) but I was 2 years old if that, but I was alive, 1959 we emigrated. We also brought the first Flying Ant across. I think what was pertinent to the Prime Mk2 was it was a 2-handed 18teen, and we were literally down one set of hands. We had to do something, so what we did was drop the pole to the deck which freed ourselves up! And then used a soft luff spinnaker - an asymmetric spinnaker. Think that was what made that era, with lots of people involved in the following years. It’s an amazing period of time to live through. Just to embellish the point, few years later, 86-87, we used a wire luff flattie on Entrad, I remember it well, yes we did have cleats sewn to our trapeze belts, I was 115kgs (250lbs) without an ounce of fat on me, and it took all that I could muster along with Matt Coleman (I was the forward hand, Matt was the sheet, and he was equally fit but another 10 kgs on me) to hang onto the bugger. * From Jim Champ: Yes, there's nothing new about asymmetric spinnakers per se: they date back to at least the nineteenth century but seem to have always been sails set with a tight luff, and cut with a jib type panel layout. What Andrew Buckland and Julian Bethwaite came up with in after - sailing bar talk, and which Julian was the first to sail with, was a sail set with a loose luff and a panel layout like a conventional spinnaker with "shoulders". That does seem to have been new. Back in the day though I suppose a sail set from a bowsprit like a modern asymmetric would have been called a balloon jib and it wouldn’t have occurred to anyone to call it a spinnaker anyway! * From Manfred Schreiber: From Joe Bousquet in his write up in Scuttlebutt 2907, “its finish the epoxy work on my gantry, glad that I have a heated hotel room to help things kick.” Hey Joe, it is supposed to be summer. What you are describing is a typical DN winter activity. Many a hotel rooms are seeing epoxy work because we want to race again with the repaired stuff next day. And this is not the only similarity between the DN and the Moth sailing. The close tactical racing looks exactly the same as the downwind jibing battles in DN boats. Nobody wants to give an inch on the course and great friendship on shore. CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, con a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” -- Robert A. Heinlein Special thanks to Holmatro and Stirling Point. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
