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SCUTTLEBUTT 1937 -- October 4, 2005Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus.COMMENTARY (Michelle Slade interviewed America's Cup radio commentator and professional match racer Andy Green about the Acts of the America's Cup. Here are some of Green's comments.) I really think the Acts have been a great success. It's really been a first effort for the Americas Cup to bring the sport into the modern age. In my view it was in the dark ages before. It took a huge amount of money to challenge every four years and the return was about 3 months of action, and of that, only about 2 or 3 weeks of semi-finals and finals. For the sponsors to cough up millions of dollars, for 2 ˝ years of secrecy and a few months of action, it was completely unsustainable. The Acts have been the right thing by necessity as much as anything else. I think the Cup would have really struggled to move anywhere if the Acts hadn't been introduced. For me looking forward, this is just a first effort and it's been a huge success. Were here in Trapani, Sicily and the crowds are enormous, they're trying to get in, get involved, be part of the action, see the Americas Cup trophy which is on view. We had 25,000 people at the opening ceremony here in little Trapani with a population of 70,000! I'm sure some of them are just punters coming around for a look however they all buy a hat or a t-shirt, and the kids love it its all great (Ed's note: the line outside the official clothing store was 30 deep and long waiting outside the store on Saturday to purchase gear). I don't think anybody, whoever wins the Cup, will be able to do it any differently now. The progress and development has gone this far. The Kiwis can't afford not to and neither can Larry Ellison. The Acts are becoming bigger than anything, the sponsors will demand it, the people will demand it so I think it will happen. Looking beyond 2007, I see that being the time when it's really going to go big. A lot of the sponsors here, e.g. Emirates, will go to Dubai for an Act, San Francisco for an Act, China, Germany, France etc. I think well have 3 years of traveling the world with certain blocks of time put out when there's no testing, no other sailing, just participating in the Acts with the boats and teams being shipped around a season in Europe, a season in America and a season in Asia. -- The full interview is posted at: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/05/ag/ BIG WIND AND RAIN Dark, ominous skies, with squalls bringing rain and gusty winds, whipped the Mediterranean Sea into a frenzy off Trapani, signaling a change on Monday from the relatively idyllic weather on the weekend. The wind generally ranged from 12 to 17 knots, with gusts in the squalls in excess of 20 knots. The second flight of races was delayed, allowing the weather front to pass through, and took place in shifty and gusty conditions under what were initially clearer skies. But the rain returned as the wind eased late in the afternoon. The tough conditions wreaked havoc on the America's Cup teams, with breakages throughout the fleet. The South Africans were the first to fall, unable to raise a mainsail in time for their match against Alinghi. Perhaps the most heartbreaking failure was on K-Challenge, in the middle of an extremely close race with Victory Challenge. Some trouble on the second beat saw the headsail fall to the deck and a man go up the mast in an effort to effect repairs. Meanwhile, the Swedes simply sailed away, closing to within a point of the French. The afternoon grew worse for the French when they pulled out of their second match against Luna Rossa. In the second set of matches, Alinghi had an excellent start over Emirates Team New Zealand, going on to sail a much better race than the Kiwis, who never threatened in this heavyweight match. -- Andy Rice / Peter Rusch, http://www.americascup.com/en/ THE BIG MATCH OF THE DAY In the match that should have been a clash of the titans, the Kiwis appeared to whither against Alinghi right from the start. Dean Barker looking deeply frustrated by the end of the day and taking full blame for a lackluster performance on the start. But their problems appeared to be more than just the start, as Alinghi blew them away on both of the upwind legs and out maneuvered the Kiwis at the mark roundings. It's not often we see Team New Zealand look sloppy at mark roundings but a near miss with the headsail over the side at the top mark and a kite that had to be cut free at the bottom, were sights the team would rather not have seen for themselves, let alone put on display. -- Matthew Sheahan, Yachting World, full story: http://tinyurl.com/d529h TEAM STANDINGS: Alinghi, 9 pts BMW Oracle Racing, 8 pts Luna Rossa Challenge, 8 pts Emirates Team New Zealand, 7pts K-Challenge, 5 pts Victory Challenge, 5 pts Desafio Espanol 2007, 4 pts Team Shosholoza, 2 pts United Internet Team Germany, 2 pts +39 Challenge, 2 pts Mascalzone Latino Capitalia, 1 pt China Team, 1 pt QUOTE / UNQUOTE "Trapani is proving to be the best America' Cup venue visited so far this year." -- The Daily Sail, www.thedailysail.com IMPORTANT FINALE The final match race of the Louis Vuitton Act 8 regatta in Trapani in Sicily is perfectly set up for today's finale, offering the chance for Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle team to unseat Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi. Skipper Chris Dickson has been trying to add harmony to purpose to Ellison's team since the departure of tactician John Kostecki, helmsman Gavin Brady and others during the summer. In the Act regatta in Malmo in Sweden last month BMW Oracle posted their best result and if Dickson can beat Italy's Luna Rosa in Flight 9, that would set up a winner-takes-all encounter with Alinghi. Victory to BMW Oracle would draw the teams level, with the tie split in favour of the Americans. Such a valedictory victory would dissolve some of the furrowed brows at BMW Oracle and halt the Swiss team's unbroken 2005 record. Whatever the result, Dickson can end the season knowing his team's performance has improved markedly. -- Tim Jeffery, The Telegraph, http://tinyurl.com/99ow4 THE NEW MELGES SPORTBOATS ARE ON BEST BOAT LIST Since the introduction of the Melges 24, Melges Performance Sailboats has been cranking out a number of exciting boats from their facility in Zenda, Wisconsin. In 2005, a brand new scow, the Melges 17, was introduced and over 40 new boats have been delivered. The Melges 32 has been the talk of the sailing community for much of the summer and now this class is forming with strong numbers. The Melges products are on Sail Magazine's latest Best Boat List. A true honor. Check out the complete line up of Melges products at http://www.melges.com MILESTONE FOR ERICSSON (Neal McDonald, skipper of Ericsson for the Volvo Ocean Race, looks back on the last three months as he and the shore crew and sailing crew prepared their VO 70 for the race. Here are some excerpts from his journal.) It has been a hard but rewarding three months - we have achieved a huge amount, we've sailed over 5000 miles, tried out numerous sails, completed our 2000 mile qualifier for the Volvo Ocean Race, optimised lots of systems, and most importantly made our sail choice for the first leg. The major drive has been get to the right sail designs for the start of the race. The sails are our engine and have to be right. We are only allowed to use 24 sails through out the entire race and we start each leg with 11 of them. It's been a pretty scary prospect knowing that the sail designs we have submitted this week will make up nearly half the sails we are allowed to use for the whole race. This time the sail decisions have been much more complicated than before, mostly because with a new design of boat we simply just don't know the boat well enough. On top of this, in previous VOR's we have been allowed more sails. It has certainly caused a lot of head scratching. Despite all this we have had some productive sailing and a great sail design team, and we are comfortable with the decisions we have made. The worst part about it all is that in reality, we will probably not know just how good our decisions have been until half way through the first leg. -- www.ericssonracingteam.com OPENING THE BARN DOOR WIDER The Transpacific Yacht Club has set a tentative speed rating limit for the 44th race from Los Angeles to Honolulu in 2007 that seeks to continue the tradition of battles for the Barn Door. The decision by the board of directors states a rating limit "similar to 2005, with a length limit of 30 meters." This length limit will bring some consistency between the larger boats eligible to compete in the Transpac and in the Newport-Bermuda Race. TThe board retained the right to consider raising the size and rating limit, but only if an established group of bigger and faster boats indicates a serious commitment to participate in the race. This year Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory---a maxZ86 from Germany---was the scratch boat when it led a five-boat assault on the record for monohulls in 6 days 16 hours 4 minutes 11 seconds while collecting the Barn Door slab of carved koa wood traditionally awarded to the monohull with the fastest elapsed time. Randall Pittman's slightly larger 90-foot Genuine Risk had to power down to meet the rating limit and posted the third fastest elapsed time behind Roy Disney's maxZ86, Pyewacket. Starting dates for Transpac 2007 have been set for July 9, 12 and 15, two days earlier than this year's sequence of July 11-17. The fastest boats will start on Sunday, July 15, perhaps alongside Volvo 70s on their final leg of the proposed Volvo Pacific race. Transpac is studying options, starting in 2007, to track competitors' positions by automatic transponders instead of daily radio reports, a system already in limited but successful use in other events. The transponders typically send latitude and longitude positions of each boat to a shore location on a schedule predetermined by race organizers. Such frequency can be from continuous to once every several hours and would have a bearing on tactics if the information was then available to the fleet. Normally, in Transpac, competitors learn one another's positions by radio only once every 24 hours. "The questions are," vice commodore Al Garnier said, "should we have transponders, should we delay [the information that is available to other competitors] and what should be our secondary reporting system should a transponder fail?" An ad hoc committee of Transpac board members has been formed to review the issue and make recommendations. -- Rich Roberts, www.transpacificyc.org NEWS BRIEFS * Mike Ingham (Rochester, N.Y.), the 2005 Thistle National Champion, sailed a consistently conservative regatta in the fleet of 20 class champions, finishing with 59 points in 19 races and earning US Sailing's Championship of Champions title. Even after the two OCS hits on the final day, Sunfish Champion Eduardo Cordero still finished in second place with 69.6 points, followed by the youngest competitor, 13-year-old Optimist Champion Matt Wefer (Glen Head, N.Y.) with 75 points. Wefer is one of the youngest competitors in the 30-year history of the event to finish this high. The event was hosted by Bayview YC in Flying Scots. -- http://www.ussailing.org/championships/adult/CofC * Kiwis Aaron McIntosh and Bruce Kendall have joined forces to campaign the Tornado Catamaran for the Beijing Olympics 2008. This new team already has three Olympic medals and four Olympic Class World Championships to their CV. In 1984 Bruce won a bronze medal on the Windglider which he followed up four years later with a gold medal sailing a Lechner. In 1992 Bruce narrowly missed out on a medal when he finished fourth, a result matched by Aaron in 1996 when the Mistral was the equipment. In Sydney in 2000, Aaron again sailing a Mistral took the bronze medal. -- http://www.sailing.org/default.asp?ID=j1/Fh0j`2 * US Sailing has determined the ranking system for the 2006 US Disabled Sailing Team, and it's now posted online. Interestingly, the Rolex Miami OCR is not a qualifying event for the Team, because the IFDS (International Federation for Disabled Sailing) World Championships will be held simultaneously in Australia. The classes currently selected for the 2008 Paralympic Games are the Sonar and the 2.4mR, but the IFDS is scheduled to announce a third Paralympic class next month, a doublehanded keelboat. US Sailing will subsequently announce a ranking system for that class to name its athletes to the Team. -- www.ussailing.org/olympics/paralympic/2006/rankingsystem.htm * The Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad - Beijing 2008 has unveiled its new environmental logo. The symbol, which was created using a calligraphic art form, is composed of human and tree-like shapes. The logo consists of the crown of a tree and the shape of a human being, which are used to create the form of a large tree reaching the sky. The image represents harmony and unity between human beings and nature. The green lines form a luxuriant crown of a tree and recall flowers in full bloom, embodying the sustainable development of nature. Take a look: http://www.sailing.org/default.asp?ID=j6qFh0j`B DON'T GET COLD FEET This fall, the Figawi Foul Weather Boot from Sperry Top-Sider® is ready for whatever Mother Nature sends your way. These fully insulated, knee-high boots feature seam-sealed waterproof construction and toggle closures to keep your feet warm and dry. Sperry Top-Sider's signature non-marking Super-Tack™ rubber outsoles with Quadro-Grip Wave-Siping™ keep you firmly planted on both wet and dry surfaces. And, their contoured EVA midsoles help absorb pounding waves, keeping you and your feet comfortable for hours on end. Available in charcoal grey with yellow accents, the Figawi Foul Weather Boot has a suggested retail price of $149.95. Additional information: http://www.sperrytopsider.com/Style.asp?code=1174 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. This is neither a chat room nor a bulletin board - 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.) * From Ray Wulff: I'd like to say I am not a big fan of the thread posing Paige Railey's accomplishments vs Sally Barkow's accomplishments. Either way, any comments saying one is better than the other by anyone diminishes the amazing performances by both women this year. I imagine we will be seeing both of them on the podium in 2008. * From Alfred Poor: Like Bob Hofman ('butt #1935), I was curious about the "climbing fees" charged mountaineers in Alaska. I found a 2001 report to Congress titled "Analysis of Cost Recovery for High-altitude Rescues on Mt. McKinley, Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska", which states (in part): "The current practice of not charging for rescue is a long-standing interagency and intergovernmental policy. To change this long-standing practice and charge for rescue would be a major change for the National Park Service, would be highly controversial, and would be inconsistent with other rescue efforts for similar activities conducted by the military, state, and federal agencies. Historically, the decision of cost recovery has been left to the discretion of agencies. At this time, agencies have not approved SAR cost recovery." This view has merit, but I still think that there should be some personal responsibility. Government agencies - and their constituent taxpayers - should receive some reimbursement for extraordinary SAR costs on land or sea, especially when there was a reasonable expectation that such services might be required. In this day and age of enormous demands on the public coffers for a wide range of deserving and essential domestic and international programs (not to mention some that are not so deserving or essential), it is no longer sufficient to say that the cost is fractions of pennies to the individual taxpayers. I think that requiring more individual accountability is only reasonable for risky activities on land or sea or in the air. * From Michael de Angeli: Trying to fairly allocate the costs of rescue of sailors at sea, e.g., by requiring certain classes of voyagers to purchase insurance or post a bond to cover the cost or rescue, suggests that government policy would have to be changed in order to prohibit rescue of uninsured voyagers of the class. This would in turn require a regulation to be written distinguishing between such voyagers and the ordinary weekend warrior or passage maker who gets in trouble for any of the usual reasons. How do we draw the line between a well-equipped and meticulously-trained voyager (in search of Guinness Book records or merely out for personal satisfaction) who is overcome by unpredictable weather or other calamity and an inexperienced boater who sets out in an unsound or ill-chosen vessel on a passage that would be reasonable in a better boat skippered by a more skilled sailor? Unless we want Congress or the Coast Guard to be making these value judgments we have to anticipate the occasional expensive rescue. After all, nearly every situation requiring rescue probably involves human error at some point, even if it's only in setting out in the first place. Further, in other areas we accept that government should use tax dollars to help people in distress, whether the cause is short-term, such as setting out on a dangerous journey, or long-term, such as building a city in an obviously tenuous location. If we're willing to rebuild Now Orleans, why not rescue boaters in distress? * From Allan Taylor (re Dom Mee): Completely irresponsible on his part. I agree that he should have to post some sort of bond to cover the inevitable search and rescue operation. If not, then let him drown. It was his choice to put his life at risk. Why the hell should I have to pay for his incompetence through my tax dollars. And the fact that your magazine promotes/encourages these types of attempts is simply unconscionable. * From Mark Weinheimer: The poll asks who should pay for an ocean passage gone wrong. I think governmental agencies are there for regular folks and commercial interests making regular voyages. When someone goes single-handed racing or takes on a "challenge" passage such as crossing an ocean in a 6' boat, they should post a bond to cover the expense of their rescue. I am not against people stretching the limits of human capability but I am reluctant to pay for their on the job training. Some kind of insurance or private underwriter should be in place before stunt voyages take off or the sailors should be liable for their own expenses. If no one can be found to take on the potential expense, is it time to re-think the concept? * From Glenn vonRosenberg: First off I am embarrassed to say I was inside Sunday afternoon here in Charleston, SC while we were under sunny skies and a nice NE wind, but I had baby duty. I was flipping through the channels trying to find a good game and stopped on ESPN. The current show caption read '2005 National Scrabble Championships'. Are you kidding me…1 o'clock in the afternoon during football season and ESPN is showing scrabble championships? What is wrong here? Was there truly nothing better to show? I do not know if anyone has any connections with ESPN, but I would love to know why that was on the air. I have always been an avid sailor either racing, cruising or blue water. I would love to see the sport grow and get more publicity, but if ESPN is showing scrabble during the heart of football season, I am afraid us sailors have a long road ahead before they show sailing. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION Funny thing about "no brainers" -- it's about the only task for which most people would consider themselves over-qualified; but rarely does one choose to delegate. |
