|
SCUTTLEBUTT 3025 - Tuesday, February 9, 2010Scuttlebutt 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.Scuttlebutt on Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Scuttlebutt on Facebook: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/facebook Today’s sponsors: North Sails, NorthU, and Atlantis WeatherGear. AMERICA'S CUP OPENER POSTPONED BY UNSTEADY WIND Valencia, Spain (February 8, 2010) - Having two of the fastest, most technologically advanced sailboats ever built doesn't do much good if there's not enough wind to sail them. It's almost as if Mother Nature pulled a fast one on the two bickering billionaires contesting the America's Cup. The opening race of the eagerly anticipated showdown between two-time defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland and American challenger BMW Oracle Racing was postponed Monday because of light, unsteady wind. The giant multihulls USA and Alinghi 5 were towed out of port before dawn to get to the starting line some 28 miles off the Valencia coast. They floated idly for nearly four hours in the cold before the race was called off. -- Bernie Wilson, Associated Press, read on: http://tinyurl.com/y97zltk * VIEWING: Some of the North American options: http://bit.ly/a0j9iY * SCHEDULE: The Match is won by the yacht to first win two races. Race warning signal is at 10:00 am local time (CET), with race to start at 10:06 am. Following the abandonment of racing on Monday (due to insufficient wind), the schedule will continue to attempt a race every other day (Wednesday the 10th, Friday the 12th, Sunday the 14th, etc.). * COURSE: The first and third races will be a course twenty nautical miles to windward and return; the second race, an equilateral triangular race of thirty-nine nautical miles, the first side of which shall be a beat to windward. Golden Gate Yacht Club won a pre-event coin toss, and chose for a starboard end start entry for the first and third races. * EVENT WEBSITE: Look to the 33rd America’s Cup website for event documents, jury decisions, and other event details: http://33rd.americascup.com/en/ * TEAM UPDATES: Here are the best links for team information: - Alinghi: http://www.alinghi.com/en/ - BMW Oracle Racing: http://bmworacleracingblog.blogspot.com/ HARDER THAN BEFORE Chris Bedford (USA) heads up the BMW ORACLE Racing weather programme and it's hard to imagine someone with better qualifications. This is his eighth Cup campaign and he comes to the team fresh off winning the Volvo Ocean Race with the Ericsson Racing squad (it was his fourth Whitbread/Volvo). But despite his vast experience, this America's Cup, with two enormous multihulls sailing on the much longer, Deed of Gift race courses, is a very different proposition to what he, and everyone else, is accustomed to. "I think the fundamental thing to understand about this race is that it is more like a coastal race," he says. "There are quite a few things we don't know. The race area is very large, so we don't know exactly where the race course is going to be on any given day. We also don't know how to define 'upwind' over a 20-mile course length, as the wind will vary quite a bit over that distance in both direction and speed. So we're treating it as a venue where we need maximum flexibility. "In general we're going to be relying on modelling a lot more. Because the race will take anywhere from a couple of hours to several hours, the information from a weather boat will become irrelevant fairly quickly. So the main role of the weather boats will be to define the initial conditions and to verify that the computer modelling is accurately representing those conditions. "In that regard, it's quite different from the traditional race when you're really doing what I think of as 'nowcasting', where your weather boat data has a lot more relevance. When you're taking an hour plus to get to the top mark, the weather boat data is not as useful." -- Read on: http://bmworacleracingblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/weather-with-you.html => Curmudgeon’s Comment: Sailing World has posted audio comments that Chris made on Monday following the abandoned race. Click on link to hear audio: * What happened on the racecourse today (he throws the RC under a bus a bit to start off, but later acknowledges that there was no really good place to run a race day, at least around Valencia.) -- http://www2.worldpub.net/images/sw/4-100208_Bedford_WInd.mp3 * What he expects to happen over the next 48 hours -- http://www2.worldpub.net/images/sw/4-100208_Bedford_WX.mp3 * On the assets he has available to monitor the weather on the course, remember that a 20-mile beat basically means a course area of 400 square miles. -- http://www2.worldpub.net/images/sw/4-100208_Bedford_Assets.mp3 * On the differences forecasting for a normal America's Cup effort and for a Deed of Gift, wing-sail effort (he was also the team meteorologist for Dennis Conner's defense in 1988.) -- http://www2.worldpub.net/images/sw/4-100208_Bedford_Difference.mp3 Sailing World senior editor Stuart Streuli is in Valencia for the 33rd America’s Cup. Read all his reports here: http://tinyurl.com/ye9fyej J/105s AND THE AMERICA’S CUP What do the 1st, 2nd and 5th place J/105s at Key West and both America’s Cup boats have in common? They’re all powered by North sails. Racing with J/105 CSD (Class Sail Development) sails, the team onboard ‘Savasana’ topped the class while Ken Colburn and crew on ‘Ghost’ finished second. “Our new North main and jib delivered the performance we needed in all conditions,” said Colburn. “Our upwind speed and height were excellent.” Both the America’s Cup challenger and defender also race with North Sails inventories. When performance counts, the choice is clear: http://www.northsails.com WATCHING THE AMERICA’S CUP By Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt On Monday I had Gary Jobson and Randy Smyth in one browser, Peter Montgomery, Cam Lewis, and Andy Green in another, and Martin Tasker, Peter Lester, and Ian Williams in yet another. Among this line-up are seasoned broadcasting professionals, multihull experts, America’s Cup winners, and match racing champions. It was all live, all happening … the 33rd America’s Cup was finally back on the water. Sure, the wind failed to materialize, but it was a thrill to see the sport presented such that we may actually be able to watch these incredible multihulls race. There was the studio pre-game show and on-water analysis. There was a chat box for viewers to add comments, and a live update screen with race information. It was a very full viewer experience. Yes, the time of day is a strain in North America. Thank goodness the authors of the Deed of Gift called for a day in between each scheduled race day. Consecutive all nighters could get rough. They truly were gentlemen. Not sure if the commentator line-up will be the same all the time, but here are the links to go to: - Jobson/Smyth: http://www.ESPN360.com - Montgomery/Lewis/Green: http://www.americascup.com - Tasker/Lester/Williams: http://www.livestream.com/bmworacleracing Set your clocks for Tuesday/Wednesday. Tasker did the pre-game show at dawn local time (CET), with the race broadcast beginning at 9:45 am local time. For me in San Diego, CA, that translates to Tuesday at 9:30pm for an hour or so, then a couple hours of sleep before the start sequence begins at 12:45 am on Wednesday. Loving it! * Virtual Eye, the New-Zealand-based company that provides computer generated images used in sailing broadcasts, has had to confront a mammoth amount of problems in order to broadcast the races of two giant catamarans competing in the most prestigious race in the world. Many of the systems to be used are largely untested, which includes multiple relay stations on the water to overcome the significant distance that the race course resides offshore. Virtual Eye was called in for the event less than three weeks ago and one tonne of equipment has been shipped from New Zealand within three days of being summoned to cover the event. -- Valencia Life Network, publisher@valencialife.net THE AMAZING RACE: THE BROAD VIEW David Pedrick has been principal designer in eight America's Cup campaigns, beginning with the 1974 winner Courageous while at Sparkman & Stephens and including the 1987 winner Stars & Stripes. He helped create the America's Cup Class rule in 1988 and was engaged by America's Cup Management in 2009 as Technical Director of the new AC33 Class developed for this America's Cup as a multi-challenger event. David is observing and reporting for Sailing World from Valencia. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The America's Cup has been called The Grandest Prize. This 33rd edition of the famed event is sure to be the most spectacular match of sailing machines ever staged. Other than a basic waterline length limit of 90 feet under the Cup's Deed of Gift, there has been no limit on the competing teams' imagination about performance, design and engineering—nor, evidently, on expense To borrow an expression, those who value laws, sausages and the America's Cup should not watch them being made. So, for the next few days, forget about the ugly arguing to get here. The end result is a feast for the eyes. These are, by far, the fastest sailing craft for close-course racing that have ever been built. Until the past year or so, the world had never seen anything like these giant, spindly, powerful, elegant, amazingly fast sailboats, and still hasn't seen the only two of them in existence go up against each other. The understandably protective teams have issued limited PR photos, and unauthorized photography has been hard to shoot. So, live streaming aerial video of Larry Ellison's USA and Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi 5 on Monday will put online sailing fans in privileged seats. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/y9ut7sy * David Pedrick highlights a number of the finer points regarding the design and construction of each boat in this report: http://tinyurl.com/y8c5acp ECONOMIC IMPACT Billionaires Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli have turned an America’s Cup boom into bust. A 30-month wrangle over rules canceled a 19-team qualifying event, scared off sponsors like Banco Santander SA, UBS AG and Nestle SA and shrank the organizing budget to 8 million euros ($11.1 million) from a record 230 million euros in 2007, organizers said. The event is sandwiched between the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. International interest has declined so much that organizers gave away the television rights, officials of Bertarelli’s Alinghi team said. “This is not going to be a windfall for anyone,” Gary Jobson, the president of U.S. Sailing and the cup-winning navigator in 1977, said in an interview. “It’s going to cost them both a lot of money.” The economic impact of the 159-year-old event, sailing’s oldest competition, is less than 10 percent of the $7 billion last time, according to Tom Cannon, a sports business professor at the U.K.’s Liverpool University. There are no infrastructure benefits and most of the about-$500 million spent will be on the two competing boats, Cannon said. Switzerland’s Bertarelli, 44, said his team has struggled to get sponsors to replace UBS and Nestle, which used the last event to promote its Nespresso brand. The 65-year-old Ellison’s BMW-Oracle retained Bayerische Motoren Werke AG while losing backers including insurer Allianz AG. “It’s a difficult sell,” Alinghi captain Brad Butterworth, 50, said in an interview. This America’s Cup is “95 percent legal, 5 percent sport.” -- Bloomberg, read on: http://tinyurl.com/yjjrnjt MINNESOTA WISCONSIN OKLAHOMA MISSOURI… … California, New York. Those are just six of over 30 locations for North U TRIM Seminars where you learn fast fast. In one day you learn to control and balance power for better upwind performance, trim your spinnaker (A or S) to run faster and deeper, and how to set, jibe, and douse like a pro; plus you’ll take home the NorthU TRIM Seminar-on-CD for review and home study. Coming soon to a town near you. Visit http://www.northu.com or call 800-347-2457 for full info and schedule. FOR THE RECORD (Day 9 - February 8, 2010; 17:01 UTC) - For Franck Cammas and his nine crew onboard the 103-foot Groupama 3, the high pressure in the Southern Atlantic is forming a barrier off Argentina and forcing the giant trimaran to trace a course way out to the West, along the Brazilian coast, and not yet bend a course to the east toward South Africa and beyond. Offshore of Vitoria on Monday afternoon, it's not yet clear whether the team will be able to hook onto a cold front forming over Porto Alegre as it shifts across towards Africa. However, if they make contact at the right time, the descent towards the Cape of Good Hope will be extremely fast. As for now, they are burning up some of their equity on the record reference line. Said helm Lionel Lemonchois, "We're not going to be able to hang a left straightaway! We'll probably have to link together a series of gybes almost as far down as the Roaring Forties before we can set a course for the East... We're on track to make a sizeable detour to hook onto a front in the South. However, if we miss it, we'll be two days behind on passing Cape Leeuwin! We're going to have to pull out all the stops. The situation is changing from one grib file to the next so it's still hard to know when we're going to round the first cape, Good Hope. There's going to be very little in it..." -- Complete story: http://tinyurl.com/yeemrgb Current position as of February 8, 2010 (22:00:00 UTC): Ahead/behind record: +395.0 nm Speed (avg) over past 24 hours: 19.1 knots Distance over past 24 hours: 458.0 nm Data: http://cammas-groupama.geovoile.com/julesverne/positions.asp?lg=en Map: http://cammas-groupama.geovoile.com/julesverne/index.asp?lg=en * After their start on January 31, 2010, Groupama 3 must cross finish line off Ushant, France before March 23rd (06:14:57 UTC) to establish a new time for the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by any type of yacht with no restrictions. Current record holder is Bruno Peyron and crew, who in 2005 sailed Orange 2 to a time of 50 days, 16 hours, and 20 minutes at an average of 17.89 knots. RULE FOR REDRESS There are four provisions within the Racing Rules of Sailing that allow for the protest committee to correct a boat’s score under Rule 62 - Redress. The following is commentary on one of the four - Rule 62.1(b), Redress - by International Judge/Umpire Jos M Spijkerman (NED). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rule 62.1(b) states that a boat physically damaged from contact with a boat that was breaking a rule of Part 2 is eligible for redress only if the damage itself significantly worsened her score. Contact is not necessary for one boat to cause injury or physical damage to another. A worsening of a boat’s score caused by an avoiding manoeuvre is not, by itself, grounds for redress. ‘Injury’ refers to bodily injury to a person and, in rule 62.1(b), ‘damage’ is limited to physical damage to a boat or her equipment. Assumed Facts: Boat B is required to keep clear of Boat A. However, B collides with A, turning A 180 degrees before she is able to continue sailing to the next mark. Boat A loses five finishing places because of the incident. She protests B and requests redress under rule 62.1(b). During the hearing, it is established that there was physical damage to A but that the damage itself did not affect her ability to proceed in the race at normal speed. A’s protest is upheld and B is disqualified. Questions: - Is A entitled to redress? - Must contact between the boats occur in order for redress to be granted under rule 62.1(b)? - If there had been no collision because A had been able to avoid B by changing course 180 degrees, but A lost five places as a result, would she have suffered ‘injury’ or ‘damage’ as those terms are used in rule 62.1(b)? Answers here: http://tinyurl.com/yd54kux SAILING SHORTS * The Canadian Yachting Association (CYA), the national governing body for the sport of sailing, is seeking a full-time National Coach/Manager (NC/M) for the Senior National Team. This position requires an individual with the skills, experience and leadership qualities to direct a group of motivated athletes and support team to podium success at the 2012 Olympic Games and beyond. -- Full details: http://www.sailing.ca/features/nationa/ * And after two years of the worst new boat sales in recent history, this year that eternal optimism may be better founded. The 69th Annual Miami International Boat Show & Strictly Sail Miami, which offers a dizzying range of power boats, sailboats, motors, electronic equipment and accessories, runs Feb. 11-15. Show organizers and dealers alike believe that, despite the weak economy, buyers are ready to come back to the market thanks to pent-up demand for new watercraft, heavy discounts on boats and equipment and an uptick in sales at boat shows held in recent months. -- Read on: http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/1467542.html * For the first time in singlehanded offshore racing, the VELUX 5 OCEANS will provide a standardised package of cutting edge onboard cameras and communications management systems for the competing Open and Eco 60 fleet. In partnership with Marine Camera Solutions, VELUX Group as title sponsor and race organisers Clipper Ventures have commissioned the design, production and installation of new onboard cameras and media desks to fit on each racing yacht to record all the action at sea during the nine months of the race that begins in La Rochelle, France on October 17, 2010. -- http://www.velux5oceans.com/ * The Boxing Kangaroo flag, which has flown over every major Australian sporting achievement since its founding event at the 1983 America’s Cup in Newport, RI, nearly saw its tradition thwarted prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics when the International Olympic Committee issued the Australian Olympic Committee an ultimatum to have it removed because it was “too commercial” and was a registered trademark. However, the wise heads of Jacques Rogge and John Coates - IOC and AOC Presidents, respectively - were able to resolve the dispute to insure the flag would remain in place. -- Complete story: http://tinyurl.com/yeu7bph DISCOVER: THE NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION American sailors are back on a roll with the strongest showing in years at the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta - top 5 in 10 out of 13 classes! As Official Apparel Provider to the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics, our goal is to help the team keep the momentum going, and you can help too by getting your club on board with the 2010 Atlantis "Join the Team" Program. It's pretty simple: club members buy special edition team gear - both the team and your club get a share of the proceeds. Visit http://www.AtlantisWeatherGear.com/jointheteam for more info. Discover: Your Atlantis SPECIAL REPORT - A REASON TO CHECK YOUR SIGNAL FLARES Out of sight, out of mind? Unfortunately for a lot of recreational boaters, that’s the reality when it comes to handheld signal flares. Stored aboard in some dark corner of the boat, most boaters don’t think twice about their condition until they really need them. However, a special report by BoatUS reveals that failing to periodically inspect flares could have serious consequences. This past summer a BoatUS employee opened a sealed orange storage canister that was located in his own 34-foot sailboat’s cabin and found that three handheld flares inside were ruined. Long cracks along their length had developed, and the flare’s combustive ingredients were exposed and spilling out, rendering them useless. There were no signs of moisture inside or outside the canister. In an unexplained twist, three flares with older manufacturing dates - stored in the same sealed orange canister - were found undamaged. BoatUS first learned of this issue three years ago when a BoatUS member in Washington State reported a similar problem. In that case an O-ring sealed the flare container tightly, along with a band of duct tape in an attempt to further prevent any moisture from entering, yet three unexpired flares inside were destroyed. “Most boaters know that emergency signal flares have expiration dates,” said BoatUS Seaworthy editor Bob Adriance. “However, these two puzzling stories tell us that it’s also best to check your flares a few times a season. I would also add flare guns to the list, too,” he added. -- http://www.boatus.com/pressroom/release.asp?id=472 CURMUDGEON’S OBSERVATION Efficiency is a highly developed form of laziness. Special thanks to North Sails, NorthU, and Atlantis WeatherGear. Preferred supplier list: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
