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SCUTTLEBUTT No. 953 - November 28, 2001Scuttlebutt is a digest of yacht racing news of major significance; commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American emphasis. Corrections, contributions, press releases, constructive criticism and contrasting viewpoints are always welcome, but save your bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere.
NEW RECORD American adventurers Rich Wilson, from Rockport, Massachusetts, and his co-skipper Bill Biewenga, from Newport, Rhode Island, broke the record of 69 days, 14 hours, set by the American extreme clipper ship Mandarin as she carried prospectors to the Australian Gold Rush in the winter of 1855-56. The record-busting voyage was the latest education adventure program undertaken by Wilson's Boston-based sitesALIVE! website. The program enabled Wilson and Biewenga to share their experience with schoolchildren by linking to a curriculum delivered on the Internet to classrooms throughout the United States and Australia. - Keith Taylor - http://www.sitesalive.com
VOLVO OCEAN RACE The northerly group of yachts, lead by second overall News Corp has more stable conditions and heads straight to the east with Assa Abloy just one mild away. They are followed by djuice. The weather files announce a southwesterly setting in tomorrow afternoon, filling the entire Great Australian Bight. The southerly group tries to gain through a better wind angle and an earlier breeze, while the northern yachts believe in the shorter way. Marcel van Triest, navigator onboard the Swedish Volvo Ocean Race yacht SEB, currently in the lead on leg 2, has temporarily left the boat due to a loss of a family member. Dutch Van Triest left the boat earlier today, before rounding Eclipse Island at the south-west corner of Australia. Marcel will be returning to Team SEB in Sydney, in time for leg three. Van Triest left the boat under dramatic circumstances, diving overboard outside Eclipse Island. He was picked up by a waiting motorboat and was transported to Perth airport before catching a flight to Europe. The measures taken are completely in compliance with the rules stipulated by the Volvo Ocean Race organizers. Also, as the illbruck Challenge team rounded Eclipse Island waypoint off the southwestern coast of Australia, illbruck shore manager Tom Faire met the team in a fishing boat within one mile of shore at 1 pm local time. In a brief procedure, the race boat dropped its headsail and tied up alongside Faire who was in the anchored boat and handed over the needed materials and parts. The supplies included materials to make a safer repair to the broken bow inspection hatch, the bracket to reinstall the wind instruments at the top of the mast, parts to repair the Satellite B, materials to repair the steering pedestal, navigational lights, and medical supplies. Race rules allow teams to receive needed emergency parts or supplies. While the team had made temporary repairs to the leak in the bow of the boat, the crew has been bailing water constantly since the first night when the situation almost forced the team to return to port. The severe thrashing in heavy seas that night also caused the wind instruments at the top of the mast to break off. The team has been sailing without wind instruments and Satellite B capability since November 11, the first night of the race. The port steering pedestal broke when a huge wave crashed over the boat while Mark Christensen was helming in the rough seas of the Southern Ocean. POSITIONS on November 28 @ 0400 GMT: 1. Team SEB, 1667 miles to finish; 2. News Corp, 5 miles behind leader; 3. Assa Abloy, 6 mbl; 4. illbruck, 8 mbl; 5. djuice, 25 mbl; 6. Amer Sports One, 56 mbl; Amer Sports too, 163 mbl. - http://www.volvooceanrace.org
QUOTES FROM THE BOATS "It feels like we have been down in the Southern Ocean, come back up to civilization, taking a deep breath and are diving back down again," Gunnar Krantz, Team SEB
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AWARDS
LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON * From Chris Ericksen: (edited to our 250-word limit): As one who has served as chairman of two world championship regattas and a who is a firm believer in the law of unintended consequences, I can only shake my head at the decision of ISAF that, when an International Jury is must be constituted, no person from the country hosting the event may serve as Chairman of the International Jury. The announcement of the decision acknowledgment that no issues of favoritism have ever been raised when the Chairman of an International Jury is from the country hosting an event in which an IJ is seated. The thought the favoritism would ever occur on a jury chaired or sat upon by any of the IJs I've worked with is beyond my belief. Why, then, was this decision necessary? The unintended consequence is an unnecessary complication of the job of the regatta organizers, who must work closely with the head of the IJ during the crafting of regatta documents and even in selecting the rest of the International Jury. I can only imagine that this will be made more difficult if the head of the IJ cannot be from the same country in which the event will be held. It seems that this was at least ignored or at most offered up so as to avoid an outcome that is both barely imaginable and never reported. Apparently ISAF has crafted a solution for which there is no problem--and the volunteers who run this sport are again left holding the bag. * From Peter Huston: It's great that Sailing Summit is addressing the participation decline in yacht racing. What's the cause of the rapid decrease? Maybe that there is far too much focus on the top end of the game? Is the race jihad mentality shoved down the throat of the weekend warrior? Why do club events have to be held to the same standard as the Olympics? Try creating time sensitive, fun events and watch people come back to the sport. * From Dierk Polzin: Possible causes of Sailings Decline? How about changing the racing rules nearly every year for the last 8 years? How about the increasing emphasis on America's Cup and other Grand Prix Events that portray our sport as only for the rich?. How about 100 different sanctioned national one-design classes that dilute the organizational and promotional abilities of our sport to compete against unified programs like Youth and Adult Soccer? How about a National Governing Authority that runs youth events that compete against the strongest one-design classes with little or no cooperation or mutual planning? How about boat dealers that have no brochures on local racing activities or events and who promote boats that are not integrated in the local sailing scene. * From George Bailey: Given that there is not going to be a shortage of classic plastic for anyone alive today unless lots more people start sailing, why should those of us not earning a living from sailing want to increase the number of people sailing? This would raise the price of used everything. It would make the conditions where I sail now like they are where I used to sail, Miami. What are the positives that outweigh these minor negatives? Personally, I have no interest one way or the other in whether other people take to sailing. Someone please explain to me why I should be promoting recreational sailing to non-sailors? Since I can't reply on this list to the observation that recreational sailing builds character and is otherwise good for people, I will say ahead of time that the more people we drag in, the less that will be so, assuming it is so, which I don't. What else, then? - * From Mark Green: Regarding Peter Bentley's conclusion about the women's Volvo team: Who cares "if Amer Sport Too's performance really does anything to further women's sailing in the wider world"? I doubt the women on this team made this goal a prerequisite when they signed on. I commend them for tackling a challenge that few sailors will ever know, for risking their lives to sail in some of the toughest oceans on the planet, for apparently keeping their spirits up when running dead last in a small fleet. Just the fact that they are out there does something for women's sailing. To compete is better than not having competed at all. I am sure that, at the end of the day, the participants on the team will take pride in having raced around the world, even if they were off the pace. Rather than congratulate them for the challenge they have undertaken, Mr. Bentley seems to be after them solely because they are women. I doubt he would be asking the same questions about a mens team if they were trailing. In a race that has gotten so out of hand (moving the interior of the boat to windward after each tack...nothing but freeze dried food...two boat campaigns training for years in advance) that there are only 8 entries, should we really discourage any participants? * From Chris Welsh: Wow - Going too slow in the Volvo Ocean Race? My hat's off to anyone sailing the Southern Ocean as part of a round the world race, whether they are going 87% of all out, or 102%. I am amazed that anyone feels qualified and / or wants to throw stones at an effort like the stones madforsailing threw - especially from their vantage point of aggressively helming a computer website on land. Criticism of someone's pace in a race of the Volvo's difficulty is out of place. I think you could finish last in the Volvo Race and carry your head pretty damn high for setting out to sail around the world, for setting out to race around the world, and for finishing. 99.99% of sailors don't have the skills, ability, and fortitude to attempt it at all. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, it is far better to dare mighty things, than take rank with those on the sidelines, knowing neither joy nor sufferance because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
KILPATRICK UPDATE His wife Tara told the Times by phone, "It's shocking for me to see how much he's lost. He has visibly lost a lot of muscle. It's scary looking. Other than that, he's all right. The doctor cleared him. He ate [solid] food last night in the hospital." What did he eat first? "The first thing he had to eat was some chocolate chip cookies I had in my bag for myself," Tara said. "He started rummaging through all my things, like, 'I know you have food in here somewhere.' " * According to Tara, the problem may have been initiated when Kilpatrick was thrown violently against something when the boat lurched in heavy seas and 40-knot winds while he was below decks preparing a meal. "He was holding something and took a corner of something right above his hip . . . the stove or something," she said. "That was eight hours before [he started feeling ill]." Apparently, the intestine became inflamed and swelled up, causing the obstruction. "The doctor said it was likely that that caused it, but there's no definitive proof," Tara said. Kilpatrick said, "We'll probably never know. It could have been just a chunk of freeze-dried [food] that didn't hydrate well and got stuck in my intestines. [Or] I just figured I got a little food poisoning. The galley area is not super-clean." - Rich Roberts, LA Times Full story: http://www.latimes.com
CALENDAR OF MAJOR EVENTS
FINN GOLD CUP: BAINBRIDGE SAILCLOTH: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
CORRECTION
SEEN ON THE HAURAKI GULF Team New Zealand's new variant of the millennium X style rig is still being trialled on NZL-60. There is still no sign of Oracle's two boats or of Victory Challenge's new generation SWE-63. - Cheryl, 2003AC website forum, http://www.2003ac.com * I have been checking out the Swiss boats more closely, and certainly the bow of the new Swiss boat is a little tipped up - like YA boats, but it doesn't look at all bad because of the complementary bow line near the water being cut away as it is. - Justin, 2003AC website forum, http://www.2003ac.com
GBR CHALLANGE Monday was a big day in that it was the first day we had two boats out on the (Hauraki) Gulf. This, combined with lighter warmer conditions, made for some good but long sailing days. It seems like weeks since we have sailed in these conditions - most of the crew could not remember the last time we had hoisted an asymmetric spinnaker (which as a rule we fly in sub-15 knots). It goes without saying that the work rate is just as hard, if not harder, handling the A sails and all the manoeuvres that come with them. This month has opened our eyes fully to the varying conditions on the Gulf in October and how when the forecast says 'wet and windy' it means it. The arrival of the second boat (GBR 52) means we can continue and expand the two-boat exercises we started back in the Solent in May. - James Stagg, Bowman, GBR Challenge, Yachting World website Full posting: http://www.yachting-world.com
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