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SCUTTLEBUTT 3497 - Tuesday, January 3, 2012Scuttlebutt 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. Website: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/scuttbutt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sailingscuttlebutt RSS: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/rss/index.xml Today's sponsors: Morris Yachts, Doyle Sails, and Soft Deck. GROWING THE SPORT...ONE INVITATION AT A TIME By Chris Caswell, SAILING Magazine I've been following the efforts of various groups to foster interest in sailing and, while I certainly applaud and support their efforts, I wonder if what we really need are more sailors who are willing to say, "Hey, wanna go sailing?" After all, sailing is what the marketing people would label an "equipment-intensive sport". Without a boat, you're nowhere. It's not like sports such as basketball or football where a few bucks will get you on the playing field. Youngsters in the ghettos may be able to parlay a well-worn basketball into a scholarship, and kids from the coal mining towns are able to turn their brawn into tickets to the majors, but sailing has always been controlled by those who own the boats. As a youngster, I was fortunate enough to have a father who had been a sailor from his youth, and I was racing dinghies long before I could drive a car. But, like those kids from the barrios and steel towns, I wanted to break into the "majors" and sail big boats. On weekends, I used to hang around the docks, shagging docklines for returning ocean racers and talking eagerly to the crews, all in the hopes of hearing the golden "Hey, kid, wanna go sailing?". But today, our boats are protected by yacht club walls or hidden in gate-keyed marinas, so the opportunities have dwindled for newcomers to participate. And that simply has to change. Let me tell you about a couple of incidents so you'll see how you might be able to help with that change. My first crewing slot on anything bigger than a Snipe came through the kindness of a man who was basically uneducated and who belonged to that class once derogatorily called "blue collar workers". But he did have a Six-Meter that he cherished, and Charlie also understood about the dreams of youngsters. When that first invitation, that "wanna go sailing?" was offered, I was ecstatic. My position was nothing particularly demanding (setting the running backstays on each tack) and it didn't draw on what I considered to be my extensive knowledge of racing tactics (no one asked me anything), but I was part of a crew! The entire time, I was treated as an equal, although they had the wisdom not to offer a teenager one of their beers between races and, when we returned to the dock, I was taken to the club as part of the team. It wasn't until years later when I realized that Charlie had bumped one of his many regular crew to give me my shot at the "majors". He was handing something back to the sport that meant so much to him. And the mere fact that I had sailed aboard his boat even once added immensely to my sailing resume, and it wasn't long before I was in demand on a variety of ocean racers. Another example of giving something back to the sport took place many years ago at a Star World Championship. -- Read on: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=13075 DAVE PERRY'S RACING TIPS Shortly after jibing around a reaching mark, Boat Z's crew accidentally falls overboard. During the time it takes the helmsman to lower the spinnaker and turn back to recover his crew, Boat T picks the crew up and returns him to Z. The crew is not injured. With her crew back aboard she continues in the race and finishes, but is protested under rule 41, Outside Help, for receiving outside help. You are on the protest committee; how would you decide this? See answer below. MORRIS YACHTS' US COAST GUARD YACHT UPDATE Morris Yachts was chosen out of 11 yards to build eight new 44-foot sailboats for cadet leadership training at the U.S. Coast Guard academy in New London, CT. To date, two Leadership 44's are completed and in service for Cadet Officer training at academy with Hull #3 ready for commissioning and rigging within the next week. The L44 vessel is also available for 'civilian' sailors worldwide in two models the Lp44 for performance racing and the Lc44 for cruising. The civilian versions retain all of the exciting sailing characteristics of the Academy's L44 with a modified Herreshoff-style interior for enhanced luxury and comfort. The Lp44 model also comfortably accommodates a crew of 7-9. To view the brochure, click here: http://www.morrisyachts.com/Coast-Guard-Project ANOTHER CLASSIC The 2011 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race was notable for an unexpected winner of the coveted line honours trophy, a worthy overall winner and a slow passage home for the smaller boats. The Boxing Day start of the 628 mile race south to Hobart was spectacular, with the 88-strong international fleet setting off from the heart of Sydney Harbour. Weather-wise the start of the race was fairly conventional with some fast running conditions for the afternoon, but with a dramatic 180 degree wind shift into the south forecast for the first evening. A swell from the north generated by the ex-tropical cyclone Fina, combined with this wind shift, created a horrific confused sea on the opening night, as the 30 knots southerly wind kicked in with a punch, gusting up to 40 knots. After sail damage forced the retirement of Grant Wharington's Wild Thing, line honors became a battle between the Mark Richards-skippered Wild Oats XI and Anthony Bell's maxi Investec Loyal. After 2 days 6 hours 14 minutes and 8 seconds at sea, Investec Loyal crossed the finish line at 19:14:18 local time (Dec. 28), just 3 minutes and 8 seconds ahead of Wild Oats XI. This was the fourth closest finish in the 67 year history of the Rolex Sydney Hobart. Celebrations were dampened when the line honours winner was protested by the race committee concerning a conversation between Investec Loyal tactician Michael Coxon and a helicopter pilot. But after a three hour long protest hearing, the International Jury disallowed the protest (details here: http://tinyurl.com/protest-010212) As the slower boats were becalmed in Storm Bay and up the Derwent River, it became evident that this year's Rolex Sydney Hobart would be one for the smaller large boats, including the competitive 50ft fleet. However the stand-out boat in this size range was Stephen Ainsworth's Reichel Pugh 63, Loki. Over the last 18 months this has proved to be one of the most successful campaigns in on the Australian circuit. Under IRC, Loki's corrected time was 50 minutes faster than that of Michael Hyatt's Farr 55 Living Doll, with 84 year old Syd Fischer's modified TP52 Ragamuffin third and the Cookson 50 Jazz of Britain's Chris Bull, fourth. Complete report: http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/news.asp?key=5569 More protest info: http://tinyurl.com/protest-info-010212 Final results: http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/standings_ext.asp?key=524 BIZARRENESS IN THE INDIAN OCEAN (January 2, 2012) - The Volvo Ocean Race was amid its bizarre Leg 2 when Scuttlebutt Sailing News went on its holiday break last week. Due to the spread of piracy, the route from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi had a mystery finish location in the Indian Ocean, wherein the fleet would be transported by ship to another mystery location, and then have a final sprint to the finish. Like we said... bizarre. The last Scuttlebutt report in 2011 was Day 12 on December 22nd, which saw Groupama (FRA) holding a significant lead as they entered the doldrums. But like life, the doldrums are not fair. Worse yet, with the mystery finish location just beyond the doldrums, any mistake getting through this zone would prove to be permanent. And mistakes were made. Groupama and PUMA (USA) in second position chose a westerly approach, but it was the easterly route of CAMPER (NZL) and Telefonica (ESP) that proved better to transition the zone. In this era of three hour position reports, the leaders stuck to their weather analysis rather than covering the fleet. With over a hundred miles of lateral separation, the easterly advantage turned the fleet inside out. The Kiwis and Spanish then fought for the lead over the final three days, with Telefonica snatching victory from CAMPER to win the first stage of Leg 2 on Monday (Dec. 26) by one minute and 57 seconds. Both teams crossed the finish line with the intent to protest each other over a luffing incident that occurred within an hour of the finish line, but had mutually decided to withdraw their plans to protest after reviewing the tracker data. Leg 2 - Stage 1 Finish order 1. Telefonica (ESP), Iker Martinez (ESP) 2. CAMPER (NZL), Chris Nicholson (AUS) 3. PUMA Ocean Racing (USA), Ken Read (USA) 4. Groupama (FRA), Frank Cammas (FRA) 5. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (UAE), Ian Walker (GBR) Suspended - Team Sanya (CHN), Mike Sanderson (NZL) Following the shipment of the five Volvo Open 70s to the mystery start location for Stage 2, the plan is for them to be offloaded on Tuesday (Jan. 3) in preparation for the restart on Wednesday (Jan. 4). This final stage is a 98 nautical mile sprint and an estimated arrival time at Abu Dhabi's Destination Village of around 1600 local time (1200 UTC). Weather forecasts predict a strong Shamal desert wind which could mean challenging conditions for the crews. An update from Team Sanya is that after their rigging failure on December 19 forced an emergency stop at a port in south east Madagascar, their supplier Future Fibres will be installing an entire new set of replacement rigging. Once installed, the team will tune and sea-trial the re-built rig in Madagascar before resuming racing on or around the January 6 to complete Stage 1 of Leg 2. However, they will not be competing in Stage 2 of Leg 2, nor will they be competing in the Stage 1 of Leg 3 from UAE to China. But under race rules they will be able to re-join the race for the second stage of Leg 3 to their home port of Sanya. Like we said... bizarre. Course details: http://tinyurl.com/Piracy-121111 Tracking/Standings: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/racetracker/rdc.html Video reports: http://www.youtube.com/user/volvooceanracevideos WHOOPS: When Leg 2 was first announced March 2010, the threat of piracy was sufficient enough to question the decision. And when race organizers announced in August 2011 that the route for Legs 2 and 3 would be re-drawn, they publically admitted it too. In December 2011 they clarified their plan of having two stages with the boats getting shipped through the most dangerous zone. Now all they have to do is update the official Race Schedule which makes no mention of any of these changes: http://tinyurl.com/VOR-2011-12-schedule BACKGROUND: During the nine months of the Volvo Ocean Race, which started in Alicante, Spain and concludes in Galway, Ireland during early July 2012, six professional teams will sail over 39,000 nautical miles of the world's most treacherous seas via Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Auckland, around Cape Horn to Itajai, Miami, Lisbon, and Lorient. Teams accumulate points through nine distance legs and ten In-Port races. - http://www.volvooceanrace.com PROUD TO BE AMERICAN Winning a medal at the Perth 2011 Star World Championship, Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih qualified the USA and themselves for the London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition. Utilizing innovative 3D modeling and rigorous testing, Doyle's Technology Team continues to develop fast, winning Star sails. Designed and assembled in the USA, Doyle sails will proudly power Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih in the 2012 Olympics. http://www.doylesails.com WHILE WE WERE AWARE These notices were recently posted on the America's Cup website: * When it was first announced that the 2013 America's Cup would be raced on San Francisco Bay, the vision was for the whole bay to be used, and that spectating would occur from all surrounding headlands. However, the course description announcement on December 31st now calls for more traditional windward-leeward races of either 30 or 60 minute lengths. -- Details here: http://tinyurl.com/ACUP-010212 * Emirates Team New Zealand sought clarification from the America's Cup Jury that the length of their SL33 training boats were compliant with the America's Cup protocol. Any training catamaran boats must not exceed 10 meters after January 1, 2012. The jury, which agreed the boats were compliant, charged Euros 5000 for the decision. Full Decision: http://noticeboard.americascup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/JN023.pdf * Green Comm, which was found liable by the America's Cup Jury for Euros 73,099.95 related to damage caused to Artemis Racing and Aleph in an incident at the America's Cup World Series event in Plymouth, sought to re-open the case. After reviewing the case, the America's Cup Jury found there was no cause to re-open the case, and charged Euros 6500 for the decision. -- Full Decision: http://noticeboard.americascup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/JN022.pdf * Oracle Racing had submitted an Application to the America's Cup Jury, advising that they are considering making an agreement with a Challenger or another Defender Candidate, and seeking an interpretation of the Protocol to ensure any such agreement is compliant with the Rules that govern the Event. This application closely followed the announcement that challengers Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa had entered into a cooperation agreement to help advance their respective campaigns. The Oracle Racing Application included 8 questions which the jury has now responded to. The cost of the jury response has not yet been decided. Full Decision: http://noticeboard.americascup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/JN024.pdf SAILING SHORTS * Napier, New Zealand (January 2, 2012) - After two days of racing at the Optimist World Championship, the 209 competitors have now completed five of the 15 scheduled races. The Netherlands hold the early lead, with Bart Lambriex and Philip Meijer in first and third respectively. The United States also looks strong with Wade Waddell in second and Williman Marshall in fifth. Ryan Lo of Singapore is in fourth. Racing continues to January 9th. -- Event website: http://www.optiworldsnz.org.nz/ * (January 2, 2012; Day 41 - 23:00:00 UTC) - Loick Peyron (FRA) and his team on the 131-foot maxi trimaran Banque Populaire V continue on course to lower the non-stop circumnavigation Jules Verne Trophy record (48 days 7 hours 44 minutes 52 seconds). They are in the north Atlantic, currently forced far west to skirt a big, windless High Pressure area, but expect to be curving their course toward the finish by Wednesday. They're ahead of the record by 842.5 nm with 2,498 nm remaining. Tracking: http://tinyurl.com/BP-JV-Tracking-2011-12 * A prominent Bulgarian yachtsman has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to smuggle nearly half a ton of cocaine. He was arrested in April this year on the Martinique island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, an overseas region of France. Dimitar Topalov, who vied last year for the most prestigious yachtsmen award in Bulgaria "Golden globe", and his partner Plamen Vassilev were detained after their Class 40 yacht was followed closely by the French. Officially, the two Bulgarians were taking part in the La Route du Rhum-La Banque Postale regatta. -- Full report: http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=135227 * The Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) announced its 2012 rules are now available for download online. These rules include the International Measurement System (IMS), the ORC Rating Rules (ORC International and ORC Club), the "Green Book" of ORC Championship Rules, GP Class Rules, the ORC Speed Guide, and ORC Stability and Hydrostatic Datasheet. -- Full report: http://www.orc.org/news/2011/111228a.htm#news0 * OVERSIGHT: The 2011 Scuttlebutt holiday card rekindled many memories. How often does one go Laser sailing on their high school playing field? But when we released the card, we failed to give credit to Chip Pitcairn who had taken the image. Shame on us. If you missed the card and photo, here it is again: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/11/xmas.jpg RULES ANSWER Boat Z is penalized for breaking rule 41, Outside help. Though rule 1.1 , Safety: Helping Those in Danger, requires that every boat give all possible help to any person or vessel in danger, rule 41 makes no specific exception for receiving outside help unless the crew is ill or injured. Dave Perry, author of Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing 2009-2012, 100 Best Racing Rules Quizzes 2009-2012, and Winning in One-Designs offers US SAILING these racing tips... read on: http://home.ussailing.org/KB.htm?ArticleId=5301 COMMENT: I hope the description for this rules question was not too confusing. When it began by explaining the incident occurred 'after jibing around a reaching mark', I was worried that there would be some readers that would say, "What's a reaching mark?" - Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt INTRODUCING SOFT DECK Soft, peel and stick nonskid decking solution. Easy to use, great traction even when wet, barefoot friendly, installs over existing nonskid in minutes, comes in multiple sizes and colors. Made for sailors by sailors. Shock mitigating line for go-fast stinkpots coming this spring. Details here: http://www.Soft-Deck.com GUEST COMMENTARY Scuttlebutt strongly encourages feedback from the Scuttlebutt community. Either submit comments by email or post them on the Forum. Submitted comments chosen to be published in the newsletter may be limited to 250 words. Authors may have one published submission per subject, and should save their bashing and personal attacks for elsewhere. Email: editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com Forum: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/forum * From Eric Sorensen: A new concept for our area to get people into sailing was published in the December issue of 48N. The Port of Seattle agreed to paint a big yellow circle on 'X' dock, located at the North end of Shilshole Marina, which is designated for crew needing a ride. Most boats exit out here. It means if one is short handed maybe there will be someone who can help out waiting to be a permanent part of your crew. It was pointed out in the article that potential crew should have a PFD, other sailing wear and maybe some cold drinks. I hope to get the same thing going up in Anacortes too. Seems like a good idea to get people out racing. I know that racing intimidates many, but one hour of racing is worth weeks of cruising for learning to make a boat go with the wind! * From Bob Brenac, Sydney Australia: As a daily reader of 'Butt, I can't help but comment on the many opinions posted regarding the public perception of sailing in general. May I suggest that readers keep an eye out for what could be described as one of the world's biggest LIVE audiences of ANY individual sporting event. More people take a day out to watch this sailing event than go to the Super Bowl, US Masters, Grand Slam Tennis match, Indi 500 or whatever! Last week more than 350,000 people crowded the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, a natural 'stadium' perfect for just such an event, or on the water in every conceivable type of watercraft, to watch the start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. And it happens every year!! BUT....does this translate to a growing interest in sailing? While December 26 in Sydney, Oz may be a showcase of offshore sailing boats, but to the vast majority of people watching, it is really just a picnic day with a free show thrown in. Spectacular as it may be - and on a fine, warm summer day it is truly a magnificent spectacle - once the yachts clear the harbor entrance and head south for the next 600 miles, the show is over and the masses return to their chardonnays & left over Christmas lunches. Sailing, as a sport, is forgotten for all but the handful of enthusiasts. From here on, it's back to the day long TV broadcasts of tennis and cricket. So to those concerned about any adverse effects of holding the America's Cup in San Fran, such as traffic, crowds etc. - don't be! Sailboat racing in any dress is still sailboat racing, a participant sport that never has been and, to my mind never will be, a spectator sport. CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION New Year Resolutions for 2012: I will answer my snail mail with the same enthusiasm I answer e-mail. SPONSORS THIS WEEK Morris Yachts - Doyle Sails - Soft Deck Point Loma Outfitting - North Sails - Amazon.com Ullman Sails - Team One Newport - Summit Yachts - North U Need stuff? Look here: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ssc/suppliers |
