|
SCUTTLEBUTT 1319 - April 30, 2003Powered by SAIC (www.saic.com), an employee-owned company. Scuttlebutt is adigest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. THEY'RE BACK Disappointed by Prada's loss in December to American syndicate OneWorld in the Louis Vuitton Cup, Patrizio Bertelli said he would not mount another challenge. Rumors began to fly around that Alinghi's 2007 America's Cup defense in Europe have finally encouraged the syndicate head of the former challenger champion to resume Italian's assault on the Auld Mug. According to the Italian press, Luna Rossa Campaign should become a consortium-directed activity, rather than a program under the Prada single umbrella and the activities should be directed by Francesco de Angelis. - Cup in Europe website, http://www.cupineurope.com/LatestNews/Prada-LN8.htm MORE CHAOS AT HYERES Broken masts, ripped sails, abandoned races, sailors in difficulty … today's racing proved once again difficult for some classes in the third day in the Semaine Olympique Française. The Easterly started with a moderate speed of 15 knots to increase gradually to 25 knots by mid-afternoon. More than the wind, it is the size of the waves that created havoc, especially in the 49ers forced to abandon their first race. "We were the last boat still standing", declared with regret the Norwegians crew of Sundby/ Bovim, after the Race Committee was forced to cancel racing. Twenty on the starting line, the first group to sail in the 49er, suffered casualties with boats capsizing at an alarming rate to end up with 5 boats after the 2nd leg. The Norwegians who had already proved their ease in the heavy conditions after winning Sunday races were the only survivors on the second upwind when racing was finally abandoned. Other accident occurred in the Tornado race. The Spanish team of Echavarri / Paz, leaders of the score board were a few meters from winning their 2nd race when a huge rolling wave sent the crew flying. Hit by the boom in the face, Anton Paz only managed to cross the line behind Dutch team of Booth / Dercksen. With a large cut in his face and forehead, he was directly rushed to shore and hospital where he is undergoing surgery. Still leading the regatta, the Spanish favourites have not given up. "I will wait and see how I feel tomorrow, but I hope I will be able to keep racing." confided Anton Paz after receiving treatment (30 stitches). In the Yngling class, Melanie Dennison and Shirley Robertson showed again their preference for the breeze after winning a race each today and regaining the lead of the scoreboard. "It was fun today" said Robertson. "We are fast downwind and Melanie Dennison is better on the upwind legs. It was perfect conditions for us." The British team is learning a lot with their new coach, GBR Challenge skipper, Ian Walker. - Emmanuel Marty, Sail-World website, full story: http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?Nid=9676 Event website: http://hyeres.ffvoile.net/gbr/index.cfm NO WEED SPEED In stock now at Ockam - the CS4500 Ultrasonic Boatspeed sensor. Another amazing product from Airmar, our supplier of the Depth/Temp NMEA Smartducer. Flush mounted with a hard, smooth surface, no moving parts, removable sensor in a nylon or bronze thru-hull. No more boatspeed problems caused by seaweed or other junk catching in the paddlewheel. No more damaged paddlewheels from lifting slings or lobster pots. On-the-water testing proved excellent accuracy and responsiveness. Fully compatible with both the Tryad T2 multiplex interface and older style Model 015 Boatspeed Interface. For more information contact your Ockam dealer or Tom Davis (tom@ockam.com). http://www.ockam.com AROUND ALONE The majority of the Around Alone fleet has come together to the East of Bermuda, but the wind gods have thrown them all an unwelcome curve-ball as a small area of high pressure has developed to the west of the island. Impatient to finish, Swiss skipper Bernard Stamm could only coax an average of 6.6 knots out of Bobst Group Armor - Lux overnight when the winds died away. "For an hour I drifted backwards and I had no idea when it would be over." A weak front is due to pass over Bobst Group Armor - Lux during this evening bringing a light northerly wind. That wind will slowly move into the southeast by tomorrow, but without any real teeth. At that rate he will only see the skyline of Newport sometime early on Thursday May 1st. The skipper that is reeling from the effects of the small high is Bruce Schwab on Ocean Planet. Schwab and Class 2 leader Brad Van Liew on Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America have stalled overnight and Ocean Planet was sailing at a shade under 4 knots. While Schwab watches his sails slat back and forth Thierry Dubois on Solidaires is positioned to the west of Ocean Planet further away from the High, and in a touch more breeze. Derek Hatfield on Spirit of Canada is still sailing Leg four. Hatfield will probably finish in Salvador Thursday or Friday of this week, just as the first boats finish Leg 5 in Newport, Rhode Island - more than 4000 miles away. - Mary Ambler, http://www.aroundalone.com/ STANDINGS: 2200 UTC April 29 CLASS One: 1. Bobst Group-Armor Lux, Bernard Stamm, 300 miles from finish 2. Tiscali, Simone Bianchetti, 291 miles from leader 3. Ocean Planet, Bruce Schwab, 363 mfl 4. Solidaires, Thierry Dubois, 422 mfl 5. Pindar, Emma Richards, 550 mfl; CLASS Two: 1. Tommy Hilfiger, Brad Van Liew, 794 miles from finish 2. Everest Horizontal, Tim Kent, 193 mfl 3. Spirit of yukoh, Kojiro Shiraishi, 553 mfl 4. BTC Velocity, Alan Paris, 812 mfl - Spirit of Canada, Derek Hatfield, still sailing leg 4. ANTIGUA SAILING WEEK Jolly Harbour, April 28, 2003 - Day two of the 36th annual Antigua Sailing Week dawned with more glorious Caribbean sailing conditions. Periodic overcast skies accompanied 15-18 knot winds in the morning but the clouds gave way to sunshine in the afternoon and the winds held. Racers from division A came ashore late afternoon looking a little wrung out after the two races of 15 miles each as the crow flies. Division A tackled a three-loop windward/leeward course in the morning followed by an Olympic course in the afternoon. Division B's course had the fleet wending its way to Jolly Harbour, party central and overnight stop for day two. Arien van Vemde's Sotto Voce ended the day top of big boat racing while Swan 56 Lolita leads racing B and fleet after two wins today. Sotto Voce and Equation went to arbitration after Sotto Voce's spinnaker brushed Equation's backstay as they were jibing their way to the finish and received a 40 per cent penalty putting her at the bottom of the class in race one. However she bounced back in the second race with a first place. The fleet heads back to English Harbour tomorrow in an 'uphill' race; good news for the grinders. While sailing a predominantly similar course, division A's course is 25 miles and division B's is 20 miles. - Alastair Abrehart, www.caribbeanracing.com SWEDISH MATCH TOUR Denmark's Jes Gram-Hansen and Team Victory Lane have opened up a 19 point lead on fellow countryman Jesper Radich in the Swedish Match Tour 2002/2003 Rankings following a sixth place finish at the Congressional Cup, the fifth of nine events on the Swedish Match Tour. Disappointingly for Radich, he and his crew finished ninth overall at the Congressional Cup and failed to add any points to their Swedish Match Tour Rankings total. Australia's James Spithill posted a third place finish in his return to the Swedish Match Tour, following his turn as helmsman for the OneWorld Challenge at last fall's Louis Vuitton Cup. The 15 points Spithill received put him solely in third place, ahead of Great Britian's Chris Law and "The Outlaws," with whom he had been tied entering the regatta. American Ken Read and his Saucony Racing team, winners of the Congressional Cup, reentered the Rankings in fifth place, two points behind Law and five points ahead of the sixth place skipper, and fellow American, Ed Baird of Team Musto, who spent the last several months in Auckland, NZ, as a television commentator at the America's Cup. In seventh place is New Zealand's Gavin Brady of Team Beau Geste, runner-up at the Congressional Cup, while Sweden's Mattias Rahm of Team Stena Bulk hangs on to the eighth spot. The Swedish Match Tour awards points to the top eight finishers at each event, counting the accumulated best seven-of-nine finishes to determine the final Swedish Match Tour Rankings. In addition to more than US$800,000 in individual event prize money, the Swedish Match Tour awards US$200,000 to the top eight sailors on the Swedish Match Tour, with the first-place skipper netting US$60,000. The next event on Swedish Match Tour 2002/2003 is the Toscana Elba Cup - Trofeo Locman, May 10-18. - www.swedishmatchtour.com Standings: 1. Jes Gram-Hansen, DEN/Team Victory Lane 72 2. Jesper Radich, DEN/Team Radich 53 3. James Spithill, OneWorld Challenge 46 4. Chris Law, GBR/"The Outlaws" 37 5. Ken Read, USA/Saucony Racing 35 6. Ed Baird, USA/Team Musto 30 7. Gavin Brady, NZ/Team Beau Geste 28 8. Mattias Rahm, SWE/Team Stena Bulk 26 2003 NEWPORT TO ENSENADA YACHT RACE: Ullman Sails customers trophied in 17 of 23 divisions in this year's Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race. Congratulations to our customers collecting a total of 26 trophies (5 firsts, 9 seconds, 8 thirds, 4 fourths). From high performance racing yachts to family sailing adventures, let your local Ullman Sails loft show you just how affordable new sails can be. Call your nearest Ullman Sails loft or visit us at http://www.ullmansails.com NEWS BRIEFS * Jeff Linton won the US Pan American Games trials in the Sunfish class with a 12 point lead over second place finisher Marcus Eagan. Hank Saurage was an additional eight points back to take third place in the 35-boat fleet racing at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron, in Sarasota, Florida. Full results: http://www.ussailing.org/olympics/PanAm/2003/sunfishresults.htm * For better or worse, Scuttlebutt viewers responded to the latest Scuttlebutt survey in favor of event commercialism. When asked how they felt about a sponsor's name being included in the regatta title, 81% said they were fine with it while 19% stated that they didn't like it. So there you have it. Oh by the way, Scuttlebutt surveys are sponsored by SAIC. - http://www.saic.com TEAM NEW ZEALAND Early details of how the next Americas' Cup challenge is shaping up will be revealed to Team New Zealand's sponsors when they meet next Monday. The sponsors will hear about what went wrong with the disastrous 2003 defence and meet the new managing director Grant Dalton. Team New Zealand is already canvassing a wide field of prospective business sponsors to back their next campaign. Team New Zealand's family of sponsors are weighing up their future with the America's Cup challenger amid talk that the 2007 campaign could cost more than $140 million. Sponsorship specialists say that at least half the money will come from offshore. Bob Gill, the area director for international sponsor broker Carat has worked on previous Team New Zealand campaigns. He doubts the so called family of five will remain intact. Without the live atmosphere of the America's Cup village and the participation of spectator boats on the course, Gill says it will be a lot tougher attracting domestic sponsors . But high on sponsors' check list is local television coverage. Lion Nathan says it wants to see a tangible plan from Team New Zealand before it decides its future but says there are limited benefits to flashing the Steinlager brand around in places where you can't buy the beer. Telecom is saying little about a new deal but its target market is Australia and New Zealand. However, Gill points out that Telecom also has a position to protect as the local leader in telecommunications. He believes it's the global brands that are mostly likely to lead the charge from New Zealand. Team New Zealand executive director Tony Thomas is already out talking to multinational companies like previous backers SAP, Omega and American Express. No new deals have been signed but he's hopeful. Thomas is also talking to Tourism and Trade and Industry New Zealand bosses about what public money they will contribute, in what sponsorship experts see as crucial to keeping the campaign afloat. - Cup in Europe website, full story: http://www.cupineurope.com/LatestNews/2007TeamNZ-LN3.htm SCUTTLEBUTT SAILOR OF THE MONTH Just when you thought being named the Rolex Yachtsman or Yachtswoman of the Year meant something, here we come with the Scuttlebutt awards. Each month we will determine who is worthy to be included, and then let you determine the Scuttlebutt Sailor of the Month. At the end of the year, we will put the monthly winners to a vote to see who deserves the coveted title of Scuttlebutt Sailor of the Year. Here are our picks for the month of April: Augie Diaz, for his triumphant run at the Snipe Winter Circuit (1st-Midwinters, 1st-Don Q, 1st-Gamblin, 2nd-Bacardi); Ken Read, for his thrilling victory at the Grade 1 match race event, the Congressional Cup; Matt Struble, for his complete domination at the US Sailing Multihull Championship (aka, The Alter Cup); and Tito Gonzalez for defeating fifty-nine boats to claim the Lightning World Championship. Cast your vote at http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com AMERICA'S PREMIER RACING SCHOOL J World, The Performance Sailing School, has helped thousands of racers bring home the silver over the past twenty years. Advanced, introductory and crew training programs are available year-round at five great locations. Learn more during one fun-filled intensive course than you would during seasons on your own. - http://www.jworldschool.com STERN SCOOP At a time when containers are being loaded with boats for the Pan Am Games, it was announced over the weekend that, "…only the Olympic Classes i.e., Mistral Boards Masculine, Mistral Boards Feminine and Laser Masculine, will be able to compete in the Sailing Event of the Pan American Games." This has lead to some very strong language by some very angry people. LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com) (Letters selected for publication must include the writer's name and may be edited for clarity or space - 250 words max. This is not a chat room or a bulletin board - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.) * From Tom Farquhar: The quote from Mr. Schaumberg expresses a widely held misconception about the tie-breaking system in the Racing Rules of Sailing. Rule A8.1 does not permit the use of "excluded" scores for breaking ties. However, rule A8.2 (formerly A8.3) does permit the use of an excluded score if it happens to be in the last race of a series, or even one of the prior races if the series tie cannot be broken by using the scores from the last race. * From Pat Healy: Jeff Progelhof's question about College Rankings and Ken Legler's next day answer is an example of how the Intercollegiate Sailing Association can improve the system by making the process more transparent. Publish a short explanation from each panelist on the ICSA website. As Ken showed, stating which regattas are used and how results from different parts of the country were folded into the final list, goes a long way to make the ranking more interesting, help uncoached college teams identify the importing regattas and give high school sailors a handle on the sometimes bewildering process. Hopefully this will be adopted at the ICSA's Annual Meeting on June 1st in Detroit. * From Chuck Barrett, Cal Sailing Team, 1987 (In response to Jeff Progelhof): I don't know the precise criteria for the ranking, but one of the major factors is that most of those high ranking teams have coaches. There are a lot of college programs out there that are completely student run. Many of them are not Varsity sports and are scraping by to keep 2-4 boats in racing form. You hoped that the people loaning you the launch didn't start charging you for anything more than gas, or you wouldn't have enough for new sails this year. We did manage some high national rankings some years, but that is largely due to the efforts of a few talented sailors who are willing to share their expertise with the rest of the team. Travel was another major expense as there are only a few intersectionals west of the Mississippi. It's a long way to go for most West Coast schools to even get looked at by all those Eastern Coaches. Most College sailors are definitely doing it for the love of the sport. Give 'em your support, they could sure use it. * From Charlie Shaw: Without attempting to minimize the fine performance of the catamaran Afterburner in the recent Newport to Ensenada Race, it should be noted that they were nearly three hours slower than the multihull record of in 6 hours 46 minutes 40 seconds set by Steve Fossett sailing the Stars & Strips soft-sail cat (non-AC version) in 1998 - the only time any boat has finished before sundown. Afterburner's elapsed time was 9:40:21. * From Bruce Thompson: I have been involved in running major races for over a decade and can see the value in both Corinthian and hybrid sponsored events. But I do not see much of a future for paid race committees. I can testify that the Chicago NOOD regatta (approximately 300 offshore boats) would not have grown to three separate circles without the support of other yacht clubs besides the named sponsor, the Chicago Yacht Club. They receive significant support from their neighboring yachts clubs, such as mine, Chicago Corinthian. And it has been gratis! But our own regattas are totally Corinthian. Volunteer PRO's and crews are the rule. We run Wednesday night racing for about 50 boats in both JAM and spinnaker classes. We get enough good marks for race management from the competitors that our program continues to grow and attract people to the sport. A newby can start racing JAM with a minimal investment, which opens the door to the future. A paid RC would drive the cost through the roof and be the beginning of the end. As to whether an amateur can handle a mark set boat, I'm reminded of the decision by my friend Vlad Kobal to supervise the NOOD regatta from a mark set boat. Good drivers are worth their weight in gold! THE CURMUDGEON'S OXYMORONS Act naturally |
