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SCUTTLEBUTT 1991 -- December 20, 2005Scuttlebutt is a digest of major yacht racing news, commentary, opinions, features and dock talk . . . with a North American focus.RESHAPING THE OLYMPICS - PART III (In a comprehensive story just posted on the Sailing World website, Stuart Streuli offers some suggestions to keep sailing in the Olympic Games. Here are just a few brief excerpts from a must read story.) With the format now decided, it's time to pick the classes. The worst thing ISAF can do is approach this like it has in the past, creating a Survivor-style elimination in which the class with the least political savvy is voted off Olympic island. Instead ISAF should start from scratch, forcing each class to earn its Olympic status. Five easily make the grade: the men's and women's windsurfer divisions, the Laser and Laser Radial, and the 49er. Though I haven't seen it in action, I'm willing to give the new RS:X sailboard the benefit of the doubt, especially since fan-friendly slalom racing is now part of the program. The next five are significantly more difficult. The only viable professional sailing tour is based around match racing and ISAF needs to build on this-a strong link between the Olympics and the America's Cup makes great sense. Match racing is great for spectators and it's easy to follow. Best of all, the winner of the last race is the champion. The boat should be a three-man keelboat with some zip. The women will need a keelboat, but for fleet racing. Again the boat should be fast and challenging to sail, a small three-person sportboat that planes downwind; something akin to the Viper 640, the Laser SB3, the RS Elite, or the RS K6. This plan will certainly draw fire from the traditionalists, especially those in the Finn, Star, and Yngling camps. But ISAF must modernize the Olympic classes; clinging to aging designs is only hurting the sport. -- Stuart Streuli, Sailing World, this is a story you'll want to read: http://tinyurl.com/958u9 THE FIVE REASONS (In an interview just posted on the Harken website, Jonathan McKee outlines the five reasons James Spithill's Luna Rosa team (Jonathan and his brother Charlie were on that crew) won the Melges 24 Worlds. Here are those five reasons, plus a couple of excerpts from the extensive interview.) 1. We had a good preparation regime, using two regattas and some short, but intense training time to get up to speed and comfortable with the boat. 2. We had conservative, but clean starts nearly every time, allowing us to get into the front row and start to work the shifts. 3. We avoided the corners and tried to stay centered up the course. This usually allowed us to work the shifts all the way to the mark. 4. James Spithill is a fantastic talent and led our team with poise and maturity. 5. We hiked like hell! Sailing with (my brother) Charlie is always a great experience. We have slightly different sailing styles, so we help cover each other's weaknesses. Charlie really knows how to win a long, tough regatta, and always stays focused and positive. Our partnership is one of the defining features of my life. Together we have done things that neither of us could have accomplished on our own. We continue to work together every day on Luna Rossa-which is an honor and a pleasure. Most of my professional sailing friends think I'm crazy when in my off time I go racing for fun or cruising with my family. But I genuinely love being on the water, and sharing my love for sailing with my family and friends. Our time is so precious these days and we should spend it doing what we love. I'm just following my passion and trying to have fun and learn something new each and every day. I feel blessed to have had such a broad a successful sailing career. For the next year and a half, my focus will be firmly fixed on helping my friends with the Luna Rossa team win the America's Cup. They are a great group and I think we have a good chance. After that it might be fun to do some more short-handed ocean racing, a part of the sport I really enjoy. The Barcelona World Race (doublehanded Open 60s around the world) in 2007 is particularly appealing. And I would love to do a Figaro season some time. When the kids get a little older, we're planning some long distance cruising. There are some interesting opportunities on the horizon. - Jonathan McKee, full interview: http://www.harken.com/sailing/jonathanmckeemelgesworlds.php CHEATING AND BAD BEHAVIOR Bryan Willis (GBR), Vice Chairman of the ISAF Review Board, Vice Chairman of the ISAF Racing Rules Committee, and member of the ISAF Race Officials Committee, has been asked by the ISAF Executive Committee to investigate whether there is a growing problem of cheating and bad behavior in the sport. In a message to all sailors, he says, "I would appreciate input from you. If requested, your responses will be kept confidential. 1. Have you had any experience in recent years of cheating or bad behaviour? If so please give me some examples, including the action that was taken (if any). In providing examples, you may choose not to identify the names of any individuals involved. 2. Do you think there is a problem generally that needs addressing? If so, what action do you think ISAF should take? 3. Have you had experience of International Juries (or protest committees) being reluctant to proceed with a rule 69 hearing, and if so, why? I will use your response in compiling my report to the Executive Committee together with recommendations, next November. Many thanks for your help. Please reply by the end of February 2006 to cheating@isaf.co.uk BOAT SHOW SEASON The 2006 San Diego Boat Show is January 5-8 at the San Diego Convention Center, and will feature the J-109 and J-133, both exiting new 35-foot and 43-foot models. J/Boat dealer Sail California will be on hand with their newest member: Ken Bertino. Ken is well known throughout the San Diego community, and has been active in both offshore racing and cruising for almost as long as "The Curmudgeon!" Stop by and see Jeff, John, and Ken at the 2006 SD Boat Show, at their office at 2330 Shelter Island Drive Suite 106, SD CA 92106, or call 619-224-6200. NEVER TOO OLD TO ROCK 'N ROLL - Peter Huston There is a lot said in the sport about our ability to line up against the greats of the game in any class of boat on just about any weekend somewhere on the planet. The average country club member is never going to play in a foursome with Tiger Woods. Recreational skiers will never race against Bode Miller. Best way to get near the court with Andre Agassi is to buy a ticket to a tournament. But there is one thing that we tend to overlook - the opportunity to compete against the best for most of our lives. More to the point, to be competitive at a world class level far longer than most other athletes can in other sports. And, competitive in open competition, not only separate "Masters" divisions as in golf (though some classes do have Masters events, which are enjoyed by many). Most recent example - 59 year old Dave Ullman finishing third in the just completed Corum Melges 24 Worlds. Going in to the last day, he had a chance to beat a relatively young turk - 26 year old James Spithill. The prior day Ullman won both races. Age had little to do with the final outcome in the regatta. Spithill is a very good sailor with more talent than his years suggest. Ullman has more years than his talent shows. A long career in the NFL is maybe 10 years now. On occasion, there will be a player with extreme longevity and talent in one sport or other - baseball's Cal Ripken, NASCAR's Mark Martin - who remain ageless in spite of their age. Hero's to those of their generation who are far closer to AARP membership than they are their high school prom - icons to those young enough to be their children, or maybe even grandchildren. How many major pro sport athletes are winning at the pinnacle of their sport at age 49, like when Bill Buchan won his Star Gold Medal? The issue isn't really that you can be competent and competitive in sailing until you are into retirement age. The real issue - one of the prime benefits of playing the game - is the unknowing trade that the generations make with each other during competition - one gaining wisdom, the other retaining youth. Some days it's hard to tell who learned more from the other - but no matter who gets the trophy, we all win. - Peter Huston NEW AC BOAT Shrouded in black wrap, Team New Zealand's new America's Cup yacht NZL84 sat peeking out of the syndicate's base in Auckland yesterday. The much awaited new boat, built at Cookson's boatyard on the North Shore, was delivered to the team's base two weeks ago and on Sunday sailed for the first time. It was back on the Hauraki Gulf again yesterday with NZL81, the sistership to NZL82 which was raced in the last Cup. Emirates Team New Zealand managing director Grant Dalton said the boat's maiden voyage went well. "We have had no problems and you can't deduce anything other than that. We have just been loading it up to check that it is okay structurally and we haven't had any issues." The weather forecast isn't great for the rest of the week so it is unlikely the boat will be sailed again. The team break for a two-week holiday at the end of the week. America's Cup rules do not allow teams to skirt their boats until January 1. As a result NZL84 is tucked away in the boat shed. It will be shipped to Valencia in February. With a number of New Zealand sailors from rival syndicates in Auckland, particularly from heavyweight syndicates Alinghi and Oracle, Dalton said the team did consider delaying its launch until the new year. -- Excerpts from a story by Julie Ash, NZ Herald, complete story: http://tinyurl.com/cp8lr NEWS BRIEFS * Three race circles are planned for Block Island Race Week 2006 now scheduled for June 19 - 23. One design fleets including J105 ( 25 Plus boats) and J109 ( 20 plus boats) have already committed as well as an IRC class and expanded PHRF opportunities. Additional class entry inquiries should be forwarded to ted@zuse.com. The Notice of Race as well as online registration will be up and running by January. -- www.blockislandraceweek.org * The China Team for the America's Cup will race the Louis Vuitton Acts 2006 on the CHN79, the second boat of the 2003 DEFI generation. The technical team is working flat out to bring this boat up to the standards of the V5 tonnage. CHN79 will be ready to sail in the spring of 2006. However the 32nd America's Cup will see the first ACC boat "made in China." Construction will begin mid-2006 and be ready for sailing beginning of 2007. A technical crew from the China Team is in the process of selecting available sites to begin this construction. -- www.china-team.org * The rig on Ericsson VO70 was stepped on Monday morning and the boat has now returned to the water. Using the knowledge gained from the first leg and valuable advice from experts, the team has reinforced weaknesses on the boat with particular focus on the keel movement system. The sailmakers are working to ensure the team has the right sails for the Southern Ocean leg. With John Kostecki's arrival on Tuesday, the sailors plan to fit in as much sailing as possible, to finalize their sail selection and train for the in-port race. -- www.ericssonracingteam.com * Following the ISAF Annual Conference in Singapore there has been a change to the ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing 2005-2008, meaning Rule 40.2 relating to quick release trapeze harnesses will not take effect until January 1, 2009. - www.sailing.org * Desafío Español, the Spanish America's Cup team, celebrated its official base opening in Valencia's Port America's Cup on Monday evening. The base, designed by architects Axel Klein and Pedro Palmero, is among the bigger ones in the Port America's Cup, at 4 200 square metres, and is unique in having two buildings, one containing the boatshed, gym, offices and a public mulit-media zone, and the other containing a merchandise shop, offices and VIP and hospitality areas. The syndicate's new boat, ESP 88 currently under construction in Alginet, is due to be finished in April. * If you sailed in the 2005 Melges 24 Worlds last week, Scuttlebutt is seeking some fun stories from the event. Post your story on the Forums - best story wins a North Sails tote bag: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1298#1298 YOUR VOTE COUNTS We polled the 'buttheads on who they thought would win the 2005 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year Award, and the results were predictably close amongst the two front runners. However, the men's category appears to be an open field, and Scuttlebutt is again polling our readers on who they think will win. A reminder that we are not voting for should win, but who will win (see the Forums to post comments). To vote for the men: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/polls/05/1219 Women's results: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/polls/05/1215 TIME IS RUNNING OUT Holiday shopping time is running out, but you can buy more with a Hall gift certificate. We'll even e-mail it to you - what could be faster? A Hall gift certificate can be redeemed anytime and the sailor on your list will love finding it under the tree. If you're the one who's hard to buy for, wrap up a gift certificate for yourself. Coming in 2006 are the new SK 78 Dyneema line from Maffioli and the Hall QuikVang Carbon high-performance vang. When you see them, you'll be glad you have that certificate. http://www.hallspars.com 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. 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. For those that prefer a Forum, you can post your thoughts at the Scuttlebutt website: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi) * From Damian Christie, Melbourne, Australia: Thank you Ken Guyer for your remarks about nationalism in the America's Cup. The Cup has captivated the public for so long precisely because it is (theoretically) 'a friendly competition between foreign nations'. Australia and New Zealand's Cup victories in 1983 and 1995 were moments of immense national pride and character - and examples of how Aussie and Kiwi ingenuity could prevail over the most powerful nation on earth. Compare that with Alinghi's Cup victory in 2003 - although hailed by the sailing fraternity as one of the greatest Cup units ever assembled, Alinghi's victory barely registered a murmur amongst the ordinary Swiss national not surprising when two-thirds of the crew and design team were foreigners! It was a far more pyrrhic victory for Kiwis as some of their former national heroes enjoyed Cup success at their expense. I doubt the ordinary Swiss national could have felt the same elation that Aussies and Kiwis shared in previous Cups. This is especially so in a country where sailing is alien to the national psyche. Given that the next defense of the Cup is also being hosted outside Switzerland, I expect few locals will even bat an eyelid at newsbites coming back from Valencia in 2007. After all, how can they get excited about the high stakes surrounding 'their' Cup when it's so far removed from their radar? Australians, New Zealanders and Americans at least understood the symbolism of the Cup as a test of one nation's prowess against another's. * From Erik Goethert: (re Rolex for Mike Ingham) Mike most recently won the J-24 East Coast Championship by 12 points in a 50 boat fleet and the Thistle National Championship by ~20 points in a 82 boat fleet. He is an honest sailor who competes at the highest level with family and friends. In the era of professional sailors with fully funded campaigns, it is great to see Mike showing them how it is done. * From Roger Vaughan: Greg Stewart's helpful hints for getting your boat ramped up for IRC competition brought a chuckle. I thought for a moment it was April Fool's Day. All one has to do is "remeasure" all the major sails (read: buy new sails); rip up anything down below or on deck that weighs more than a pound and move it forward; buy and fit a new keel after a thorough structural engineering check; and oh yeah, buy a new rig. Wow, listen to that cash register sing, ching ching! There's been a lot of discussion in this forum about how to grow sailing. A laundry list like Stewart's isn't exactly an inducement for people to get involved in the sport. True, IRC racing is a small niche, but --the entry level sailor with an eye toward moving up through more competitive classes might ask -- if that sort of madness is going on in IRC, there's got to be a trickle-down effect throughout the sport. Darn, shot ourselves in the foot again. From: Skip Ely (re Improving IRC Competitiveness - edited to our 250-word limit): Our SC 52 is currently uncompetitive in IRC. So in order to "improve our competitiveness" we need to consider a new keel with greater stability (don't forget to make structural changes to support the new appendage). Change our rig type, probably requiring new sails and structural changes. Change the trim to bow down which improves the IRC rating. Change Sail dimensions, we do that as part of the new rig. Keel $20K to 30K; Rig and Sails $150K to $250K; Marine architect and (6) trial configurations $10K to $???K. For our SC 52 we could go a long way towards being competitive for a mere $180,000 to $300,000+, and the result would most likely rate extremely poorly in PHRF and Americap II, and would be very difficult to use for anything other than racing. We did not participate in IRC this year and probably won't in the future. What about improving Americap II? We should be rating the boats for what they are, not supporting a rating system that costs an owner close to the replacement cost of his boat to be "competitive" in the current year. At this year's Big Boat Series required many of the IRC boats (SC 52s in particular) to have their displacement measured via load cell. This was, to say the least, eye opening and should be considered for other rating systems as well. * From Craig Fletcher: New rig, new sails and a new keel, sounds like IRC is yet again another inexpensive rule to sail under. * From Harrison Hine: I am not familiar with the particulars of the Melges 24 class but I was amazed by the photos of the event. It is evident to me that the majority of the teams sail with very slack lifelines which allow the crew to position the majority of their weight outside the shearline of the boat. Am I a dinosaur or is this allowed in this class? I always thought that the majority of the crew's weight must be inside the lifelines. Why don't the just add hiking straps and allow the crew to mini hike like the Star and Soling Class? Curmudgeon's Comment: to see the Melges 24 hiking action Harrison is talking about: http://sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/05/m24worlds/index5.asp CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." - Mark Twain Special thanks to Sail California San Diego and Hall Spars & Rigging. |
