Brought to you by Boats.com Europe, Yachtworld.com Europe, Scuttlebutt Europe is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to Hublot Palmavela The Maxis and the Transpac 52's will count with a fleet of eighteen units with world top crews distributed in the Maxi Wally, Mini Maxi Regatta and Mini Maxi Cruiser-Regatta categories. Italian Esense of Luca Bassani is one of the most spectacular Maxi Wallies thanks to its design and size. Monaco flagged Alegre of Filipino Andres Soriano will one more year take part in the Hublot PalmaVela, and has Nacho Postigo as one of its crew members. Also Maxi Shockwave of New Zealander boat owner Neville Crichton - who also owns Alfa Romeo- will have Stu Bannatyne calling tactics. Klaus-Peter Offen's Y3K is a Wally 100 which has former 2007 Desafio Espanol skipper, Danish Jesper Radich, at the helm. STP Container will be skippered by German Markus Wieser, whereas Magic Carpet 2 will have K-Challenge's skipper Sebastien Col at the helm. American Peter Holmberg will be helmsman on board Allsmoke which will have Fernando Pacheco among its crew. Brian Benjamin's Aegir will sail with two top Spanish sailors, Gustavo Martinez Doreste and Andalusian angel Medina. Among the Spanish Maxis stands Alejandro Guash's W60 Wallino, with Canarian Olympic champion Domingo Manrique on board and Fernando Lopez Domenech at the helm. Tiketitoo of Alberto Palatchi will have Spanish sailors Jesus Turro and Luis Martinez Doreste on board. The Tp 52's will also have their acid test tomorrow, after undergoing the new rule's modifications for the season 2010. The current Copa del Rey Audi Mapfre champion, Matador of Alberto Roemmers and Guillermo Parada stands as favorite and will try to repeat victory with sailors such as Santiago Lange or Bruno Zirilli onboard. Swedish Torbjorn Tornqvist's Artemis is likely to be Matador's main rival, with Paul Cayard calling tactics and New Zealander Cameron Appleton as strategist. British boat Cristabella of John Cook will have kiwi John Cutler as tactician and Weapon of Choice of Tom Wilson -former Matador- will make its debut in the Hublot PalmaVela 2010. Semaine Olympique Francaise The popularity of the French World Cup event means that some entry restrictions have been applied for the Laser and women Match-Racing. "We had to apply the SWC rule to accept entries up to the allowed quota", explained Event manager Bernard Bonneau, also happy with the high level of competition. "With over 33 Olympic medallists and many World champions, the world sailing elite will be on the starting line." For the second consecutive year, Toulon Provence Mediterranee "TPM" will be the event's major partner. "Without TPM, the 42nd SOF would have been under threat, especially in this period of economic crisis" confides Bernard Bonneau. "TPM brings not only consequent financial support but also logistics, great connections and also important actions like the spectators boats to bring the racing to the public." Number of boats registered by class : Superyacht Custom Carbon Gangway Exclusive as in totally visible clear coated carbon with the freedom to customise it. Ultralight as in autoclave cured pre-preg technology optimised with FEM software simulations. Reliable as in thousands of items sold to the most demanding customers. Now available also to the superyacht market with length up to six meters. The Smart Solution Sarah Ayton Teams With Saskia Clark Ayton, one of the 'three blondes' who sailed to victory in the Yngling class at the Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Games, will aim to become the first British woman to win three successive Olympic gold medals when she returns to competitive action, ten months after giving birth to her first child. Ayton, 30, has confirmed she will sail in the two-person 470 class alongside Britain's most experienced 470 crew Saskia Clark - a World Championship medallist in 2005 and 2007 - with this much-anticipated announcement also boosted by the news that, in addition to the support received through the Skandia Team GBR British sailing team, their campaign will also be backed by Volvo Car UK as part of the Team Volvo for life sponsorship programme. Ayton has considered carefully her decision to return to sailing - with the removal of the Yngling class in favour of women's match racing for 2012, she not only had to choose the right boat to sail in and crew to join her, but also balance the demands of being an elite athlete with being a mother to son Thomas. "After thinking really hard about my campaign and experimenting with match racing, it was an easy decision in the end to choose the 470," Ayton explained. "Teaming up with Saskia seemed the most natural route and we are already building up a strong understanding and can't wait to get started on our campaign. "The next event is in Hyeres, where the conditions are going to really test us, but this first year is about building up the relationship and proving ourselves as a team." Ayton's husband Nick Dempsey - the current RS:X windsurfing world champion - and fellow Skandia Team GBR sailors Ben Ainslie, Paul Goodison, Helena Lucas were also unveiled as Team Volvo for life members at a launch event in London on Wednesday. How Long Before The Sailing Freedoms Erode? But the inexplicably outrageous behaviour of one Polish born Frenchman this week takes us one step closer to having all that in jeopardy. Boguslaw (Bob) Norwid will have angered not only his paying student crew whom he wouldn't allow to use the radio when they were overdue, but others as well. The Foreign Affairs Departments of Canada and Australia and their consulates in Chile pushed the Chileans to search longer and further. As for the Chileans, with one of the worst recorded earthquakes in modern history, valuable skills were removed from the coastline as Chilean Coastguard vessels searched for the missing yacht. The British flagged SS Columbo returned safely to Coquimbo 44 days late. The idea that miscreant sailors who clearly cause unnecessary rescues should be forced to pay for them has long been a subject of discourse over sundowners in cockpits and in yacht club bars. In New Zealand last year some sailors who panicked and called for rescue were afterwards shamed into paying for their rescue by the outcry that followed, but that's a long way from the enacting of a regulation. -- Nancy Knudsen, editor of Sail-World Cruising, full article at www.sail-world.com/cruising/ Want To Carry On Heading East After The Newport-Bermuda Race? World yacht shipping specialists, Peters and May are offering a shipping service directly after the Newport-Bermuda race to the Canaries and the Mediterranean. Transit time to Palma de Mallorca will be 14 days with secure loading dates in Bermuda. If any competitors in the Newport-Bermuda race are interested in this service please contact Peters and May, For Further information and pictures of previous Bermuda shipments visit www.petersandmay.com Derbyshire Picks Up His OBE For Services To Sport The 54-year-old from Emsworth began working with the RYA as a coach in 1984, attending the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games as coach to the single-handed classes. Derbyshire was the Olympic Manager for Sailing from 1996 to 2000 and managed the British sailing team at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, which brought home three gold and two silver medals making sailing Great Britain's most successful sport. From 1994 to 2000, he was Ben Ainslie's personal coach, with Ainslie going on to win gold in the Laser class at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Following the Sydney Games, Derbyshire was appointed as the RYA's Performance Director/Racing Manager, where he oversees the running of the Junior, Youth and Olympic Classes Programmes that are the envy of the world. More recently in 2004 and 2008, John was elected as Chair of UK Sport's Performance Directors' Forum where he now plays a pivotal role in the development of world class sport across the UK, not just that of sailing. RSYC Double Handed Racing In The Solent In 2010 a new offshore trophy has been introduced for the first time. The offshore trophy will be awarded for 4 of the 8 races with an inshore trophy for the other 4 and a whole series trophy for all 8. The 2010 season got off to a great start on Saturday 10th April in warm spring sunshine when a fleet of 65 boats competed in 2 IRC classes, 2 Club classes and 1 Multihull class. Provisional results were announced at a prize giving at the Ocean Village Clubhouse on Saturday evening where a racing supper menu was also available: Class 1 'Strait Dealer' took line honours. But on corrected time it was 'No Retreat!' then 'Strait Dealer' followed by 'Jo Jo Gunne'. The next event in the Coors Light Double Handed Series and the first race in the offshore series will be the Coors Light Cherbourg Double starting from the central Solent on the evening of Friday 30th April. The race ends with a prize giving and competitor's meal at the Cherbourg Yacht Club on Saturday 1st May. BTBoats Confirm Sponsorship Deal with the Global Ocean Race Farr Yacht Design Ltd and Cookson Boats have been commissioned to provide the design and construction solutions for the yacht with the first KIWI 40FC boats due to be launched and commissioned in late 2010. Skipper interest in the KIWI 40FC is high and details of the boat can be viewed at www.btboats.co.nz "We welcome BTBoats Ltd as a partner sponsor for the race," comments GOR Race Director, Josh Hall. "We already have one KIWI 40FC - an anonymous entry at this stage - signed-up to compete and we know that numerous potential entries are very keen to secure a KIWI 40FC for the race," he adds. Cookson Boats are building the KIWI 40FC at the company's Auckland facility where construction of the moulds has already started. Co-founder and Marketing Manager of BTBoats Ltd, Lapo Ancillotti, will be the project co-ordinator. Lapo has a long and successful history of collaboration with Farr Yacht Design Ltd and Cookson Boats. Velux 5 Oceans Tracking The boat position data will also be critical for the public and media to follow the race via the Internet 24/7. The official race website will feature a 2-D and 3-D race viewer, allowing race followers to track the course of the skippers and review the multimedia content coming back from the boats from the cutting edge onboard communications system provided by Clipper Ventures and VELUX. The Yellowbrick tracker does not need to be connected to the competing yacht's power supply, making it simple and fast to deploy. It's own battery can outlast the longest offshore events. New South Wales IRC Championship IRC heavyweights such as Rob Hanna's Victorian TP52 Shogun arrived at Port Stephens from Sydney yesterday, and today some of the rock stars of the sport are jetting in for the Championship which commences tomorrow and is made up of six windward/leeward offshore races on a scenic course close to Cabbage Tree Island. Rolex Sydney Hobart veteran Michael Spies will add plenty of clout to Brendan Hunt's Beneteau First 35 Eugenie's three day IRC campaign while Sean Kirkjian will be part of the afterguard on Darryl Hodgkinson's Beneteau 45 Victoire, which is race tuned and the crew hungry having placed second overall in the recent Audi Sydney Offshore Newcastle Yacht Race. CYCA Commodore Matt Allen and famed Ballyhoo and Apollo skipper Warwick Rooklyn arrived late yesterday afternoon with their Farr 40 Bandit and well-known Sydney northern beaches sailor Steve McConaghy is due into town shortly to take up his place as Shogun's tactician. Yachting NSW's Development manager Andrew Cribb will be sailing on Paul Clitheroe's Balance and development officer Daniel Williams will join Rolex Sydney Hobart stalwart Roger Hickman aboard Wild Rose. Twenty-one yachts will contest the IRC Championship including the current leader of the Audi IRC Australian Championship, Harvey Milne's Archambault 31 Aroona from the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Sydney. The forecast for Friday is for southwest to southeasterly winds 8 to 13 knots, tending east to southeasterly 8 to 13 knots during the afternoon while Saturday should bring variable winds 5 to 10 knots, tending easterly 10 to 15 knots. -- Lisa Ratcliff Yachting NSW IRC Championship entries: Remembering The Titanic No distress signal was sent from the Titanic for three quarters of an hour after it struck ice, a new book claimed. Time was spent assessing the damage from the iceberg when nearby ships could have been steaming to the rescue, research from author Tim Maltin said. His work - 101 Things You Thought You Knew About The Titanic... But Didn't - is published on Thursday and claims no alert was sent from the ailing vessel for 47 minutes because the ships' officers wanted to keep the disaster quiet. He spent two years researching the book and studied the results of American and British inquiries into the disaster and worked with some of the main Titanic experts around the world. It claimed Captain Edward Smith, despite being the most experienced seaman in the north Atlantic, was accident-prone and not used to that size of ship (50,000 tonnes). The Titanic was doing around 22 knots at the time of the accident. At the time it was common but not universal practice to maintain normal speed in areas where icebergs were expected. Relying on remarks from the captain overheard by a passenger the author said: ''They were trying to beat the Olympic's maiden voyage time. They were trying to surprise everyone and get in on Tuesday night.'' 101 Things You Thought You Knew About The Titanic... But Didn't, by Tim Maltin, is published by Beautiful Books on April 15, hardback, 12.99 GBP. www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/ Letters To The Editor - * From Owen Sharpe: I'm so jealous. Five of my friends have just finished going from Hong Kong to the Phillippines and back for their Easter holiday in an infamous old New Zealand ketch, Brigadoon. If you want to get a good feeling about sailing check out Davebuoy's photo blog http://www.brigadoon.co.nz/blog/ Featured Brokerage This boat just had a major refit, painted in 2009 and new timber floor fitted to the cockpit, she is ready to go racing and had been maintained to a very high standard, New keel & rudder in 2003, Boatyard cradle, spares etc available Brokerage through Crosshaven Boatyard Co. Ltd.: www.yachtworld.com/crosshavenboatyard/ Complete listing details and seller contact information at The Last Word |
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