Scuttlebutt Europe #3858

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And... It's A Rematch
Peter Burling's Emirates Team New Zealand squad has earned a rematch against ORACLE TEAM USA for the 35th America's Cup with a convincing victory over Artemis Racing in the final match of the Louis Vuitton America's Cup Challenger Playoffs.

It was a nerve-wracking afternoon for the New Zealand team and its fans. With their team on match point, the first attempt at sailing race seven was abandoned after the wind died with Emirates Team New Zealand holding the lead.

But in the second attempt at racing, Burling won the start over his counterpart on Artemis Racing, Nathan Outteridge, and led into mark one for the first time in the series.

From there, the Kiwis showed blazing speed, extending around the race course for what appeared to be an easy race win, a 5-2 victory in the series, and a date in the America's Cup against ORACLE TEAM USA.

In 2013, in San Francisco, ORACLE TEAM USA skipper Jimmy Spithill led his team to one of the greatest comebacks in sport, racing back from a 1-8 deficit to win 9-8 over Emirates Team New Zealand.

But Peter Burling wasn't on that team. In fact, the only holdover on the Kiwi starting crew is wing trimmer and skipper Glenn Ashby. The 2017 Emirates Team New Zealand doesn't appear to be scarred from that experience.

After racing, the inaugural Louis Vuitton America's Cup Challenger Playoffs Trophy was presented to Emirates Team New Zealand by Grant Gibbons, Bermuda's Minister of Economic Development, at a prize-giving ceremony in the America's Cup Village.

Louis Vuitton America's Cup Challenger Playoffs Finals
Race 1 Emirates Team New Zealand beat Artemis Racing: 47 seconds
Race 2 Artemis Racing beat Emirates Team New Zealand: 15 seconds
Race 3 Emirates Team New Zealand win: Artemis Racing do not finish
Race 4 Artemis Racing beat Emirates Team New Zealand: 15 seconds
Race 5 Emirates Team New Zealand win: Artemis Racing do not finish
Race 6 Emirates Team New Zealand beat Artemis Racing: 1 second
Race 7 Race abandoned for exceeding the time limit (to be re-sailed)
Race 7 Emirates Team New Zealand beat Artemis Racing: 56 seconds

This week will see the America's Cup Superyacht Regatta and the Red Bull Youth America's Cup.

America's Cup matches are Saturday / Sunday June 17-18, Saturday / Sunday June 24-25 and Monday / Tuesday June 26 - 27 if extra days / races required.

americascup.com

Red Bull Youth America's Cup
The Red Bull Youth America's Cup began its 2017 campaign on 12th June on Bermuda's Great Sound, the same waters that had just seen the conclusion of the Louis Vuitton America's Cup Challenger Playoffs, and at the end of day one it is the British team Land Rover BAR Academy who will be happiest with their day's work, finishing on top of the leaderboard. However, the big story is the local favourites, TeamBDA, who finish day one in third place overall after a highly impressive first day of Red Bull Youth America's Cup Qualifiers action.

The first day of racing in the 2017 Red Bull Youth America's Cup saw the six Pool B teams kicking off their qualifying campaigns with three races, each team looking to book their place in the Red Bull Youth America's Cup Finals.

The Pool B teams competing on day one included TeamBDA, the hometown favourites, taking on Land Rover BAR Academy (GBR), Next Generation USA, Spanish Impulse by Iberostar, Candidate Sailing Team (AUT) and NZL Sailing Team.

At the end of day one it is the British team Land Rover BAR Academy in first place in the first set of qualifiers, followed by Spanish Impulse by Iberostar, then TeamBDA, much to the delight of the vocal home crowd, with NZL Sailing Team fourth, Next Generation USA fifth and Candidate Sailing Team sixth.

Pool B Qualifiers Leaderboard (Day One)

1. Land Rover BAR Academy, 27 points
2. Spanish Impulse by Iberostar, 25
3. TeamBDA, 24
4. NZL Sailing Team, 24
5. Next Generation USA, 19
6. Candidate Sailing Team, 16

Racing on day two starts on 12th June at 5.00pm AST.

Watch the 2017 Red Bull Youth America's Cup Finals, live on Red Bull TV on June 20 and 21 at 2:00pm local Bermuda time/5:00pm UTC.

Red Bull TV is available on connected TVs, gaming consoles, mobile devices and more. For a full list of supported devices: www.redbull.tv/apps

Red Bull Youth America's Cup media hub here: www.redbullsailingnewsroom.com

Twenty yachts will compete for the America's Cup Superyacht Regatta Trophy
Principal Race Officer Peter Craig explained some of the challenges in delivering close, equable racing for a varied fleet of Superyachts and J Class Yachts which will race in four different classes.

"We have split the fleet into four classes including the J Class. It is very important with these hugely disparate sailing characteristics. Not only is there a size difference there is a speed differences which is as much as six minutes a mile between the fastest and slowest boats."

Class A is three strong and contains the fastest rated superyachts, the well travelled Farr designed 30.5m Leopard 3, Highland Fling 15, the Frers designed Nautor 35.5m and Visione, the 44.5m Reichel Pugh design. Visione finished second in her class in Saint Barths.

Class B features Action, the 37m Dykstra design which finished runners up at the Loro Piana Caribbean Superyacht Regatta in March. Action has double Olympic silver medallist and Volvo Ocean Race winner Ian Walker and double Olympic gold winner Shirley Robertson sharing the roles as strategist and tactician. Action races in Class B along with Rebecca, the 42m Frers ketch, Sojana the Farr designed 35m ketch which has French sailing legend, round the world record breaking skipper Loick Peyron on the crew list. Rebecca and Sojana both finished second in their respective classes in Saint Barths in the Spring. Sojana won Antigua Week overall this year.

Class C with seven entries is the biggest and most diverse division, ranging from the three masted 88m Perini Navi Maltese Falcon to the smaller, elegant 23.3m Wild Horses. Four times America's Cup winner Brad Butterworth is scheduled to sail on Meteor, the 47.7m Dykstra design.

Six J Class yachts will race, representing the most competitive fleet of J Class yachts ever assembled. While the Superyacht fleets race from a staggered start, each crossing the line at a fixed time interval, the J Class contest fleet races. The line up of crews include dozens of past America's Cup winners. Ranger, skippered and steered by Erle Williams, has 15 America's Cup wins shared between seven key sailors, including Matty Mitchell with three wins and Tony Rae, Jared Henderson and Jeremy Scantlebury with two wins apiece. On Svea tactician Tom Whidden's won three America's Cups with Stars & Stripes in 1980, 1987 and 1988 along with Peter Isler, also on Svea in 1987 and 1988. Legendary grinder Andrew Taylor is crew boss on Svea and has won the America's Cup three times, in 1995 and 2000 with Team New Zealand and in 2010 with Oracle. And Hanuman's trimmer Warwick Fleury has four America's Cup wins also, twice with Team New Zealand and twice with Alinghi.

www.boatinternational.com
www.tractrac.com
www.jclassyachts.com

Divisions Set For 49th Transpac
Race managers at the Transpacific YC have divided this year's fleet of 55 entries into seven Monohull and one Multihull divisions for next month's start of the 49th biennial Los Angeles-Honolulu Transpac Race.

The starting order is in reverse order of rated speed, with three classes - Divisions 5, 6 and 7 - being first to start the race on Monday, July 3rd, with the first starting gun to fire at 1:00 PM local time for the start of Division 7. The starts for Division 6 and then Division 5 will follow shortly thereafter.

In all, 17 yachts will be leaving the west coast of the continent on this day, and amongst the three start days this is among the most diverse fleet in terms of size, style and international hailing ports: boat sizes range from Chris Lemke and Brad Lawson's light and fast Hobie 33 Dark Star from Alberta, Canada to Ross Pearlman's more stately and comfortable Jeanneau 52 Between the Sheets from Newport Beach. And besides Dark Star, there are three other international entries in this group: Hiroshige Ikeda's XP 44 t Draconis from Kansai, Japan, Karl Otto Book's Wasa 44 Cubaneren from Aasgaardstrand, Norway, and Michael St Aldwyn's J&J 50 Zephyr from London, England.

On Wednesday, July 5th the second wave of 16 starters from Divisions 3 and 4 will start the race at Point Fermin also at 1:00 PM local time. These boats are more performance-oriented than those in the first wave of starters, and range from Scott Grealish's carbon fiber Farr 400 BlueFlash in Division 3 to the 10-strong group of fast but more conventionally-built Santa Cruz 50's and 52's in Division 4. Being of similar size and speed, this is the largest and could possibly be the most competitive class in this year's fleet.

And on Thursday, July 6th the final wave of the fastest boats will start to leave Point Fermin once again at 1:00 PM local time, starting with Division 2's competitive mix of eight Bill Lee and Alan Andrews-designed ULDB Sleds, including Lee's newly-renovated 67-foot Merlin, celebrating her 40th anniversary of winning the 1977 Transpac and setting a course record that stood for 20 years. Chasing them down will be Division 1's collection of eight fast designs from both the past - such as Avanasy Isaev's 80-foot Grand Mistral maxi from the 1970's - and the present: Tom Holthus's Pac52 is brand new this Spring. And among this group are two 100-footers: Manouch Moshayedi's Bakewell-White-designed Rio100 and the VPLP-designed 100-footer Comanche, a first-to-finish course record contender, skippered by Ken Read.

The last wave to start are the fast multihulls, also starting on Thursday, whose ranks include two MOD 70's - Giovanni Soldini's Maserati and Lloyd Thornburg's Phaedo3

2017.transpacyc.com

Michael Boyd's First 44.7 Lisa, winner of the 2017 Morgan Cup Race
British First 44.7, Lisa, is the overall winner of the 2017 Morgan Cup Race. Owned by Nick & Suzy Jones and skippered by RORC Commodore, Michael Boyd. The Corinthian team scored a memorable victory after IRC time correction. 94 yachts completing the 125 mile course across the English Channel in blustery conditions. The crucial part of Lisa's victory came right at the end of the race.

Five time Figaro competitor, Jacques Pelletier, racing Milon 41, L'Ange De Milon, finished the Morgan Cup just over a minute behind Lisa, to claim second overall. About 15 minutes later, Gilles Fournier and Corinne Migraine, J/133 Pintia, crossed the line. After IRC time correction Pintia was third by just two seconds.

Windward Sailing's CM60, Venomous skippered by Derek Saunders, took Line Honours and victory in IRC Zero, in an elapsed time of just over 17 hours. L'Ange De Milon was the winner of IRC 1, ahead of Maxime de Mareuil's French xp-44 Orange Mecanix2. Mike Greville's British Ker 39, Erivale III was third in class. In IRC Two Lisa was the winner with Pintia second. Stephen Hopson's JPK 10.80 Blue Note was third in IRC 2, racing Two Handed.

A tremendous battle in IRC 3 was played out by two French JPK 1080s. Marc Alperovitch's Timeline took Line Honours for the class and after IRC time correction, won by just 26 seconds, ahead of Delamare & Mordret's Dream Pearls. Rob Craigie's Sunfast 3600 Bellino was third in class racing Two Handed. In IRC 4, Marc Noel racing French Norlin 37 China Girl, corrected out to win the class, ahead of two British teams; David Cooper racing Dehler 38 Longue Pierre and David Gough's Elan 333 Aventurera.

In the Class40 Division, Halvard Mabire's Campagne de France continued their fine for this season, winning their class by over one hour.

In IRC Two Handed, the top seven places all went to British boats, the top three separated by just 2 minutes 17 seconds after IRC time correction. -- Louay Habib

www.rorc.org

Marion Bermuda running out of wind
RHADC Bermuda: Monday morning the forty-seven boat Marion Bermuda Race fleet was in a bunch from 225nm away from Bermuda to about 310nm out. They are trying to make their way, but having a tough go of it.

Boats at the top of the YB Tracker's Leaderboard are 'Lucy Georgina', XP44 skippered by Peter Bacon, the scratch [fastest] boat 'Jambi', a new Hinckley Bermuda 50 skippered by John Levinson and 'Tenacious', a J47 owned by Barrett Levenson.

The top 11 boats on the line honors Leaderboard were showing a distance to go within 10 miles of each other doing 1.2 recent VMG [velocity made good] to the finish in Bermuda. The winds they are in are under 6kts. The back of the fleet seemed to be sailing out of a better breeze, catching up to the leaders and slowing down as they did. -- Talbot Wilson

All of the yachts carry YB Trackers and can be followed on yb.tl/mb2017

Blogs from the boats:
www.marionbermuda.com/race-media/boat-blogs

www.marionbermuda.com

Andy Beadsworth opens Dragon Worlds with a bullet
Photo by Max Ranchi, www.maxranchi.com. Click on image for photo gallery.

Cascais Portugal: Andy Beadsworth sailing Provezza, the Turkish flagged entry with his team of Ali Tezdiker and Simon Fry won the first race of the 2017 Dragon World Championship in Cascais in superb sailing conditions and warm sunshine.

70 Dragons from 19 nations tackled the challenging waters off Cascais, only 20 km down the coast from the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. For the first day of racing one longer race was scheduled using a 2 lap windward/leeward course of 2.2nm in length with a final upwind leg to the finish.

The race was started in gutsy 16 - 20 knots of breeze from 330 degrees, accompanied by rolling waves and warm hazy sunshine.

Race Day 2 on Tuesday 13 June has 2 races scheduled with a first warning signal at 1300hrs local time. -- Jonny Fullerton of Grand Prix Sailing

Top ten after 1 race:
1. Provezza Dragon, Andy Beadsworth Ali Tezdiker, Simon Fry, TUR, 1
2. Alfie, Lawrie Smith Hugo Rocha, Joao Matos Rosa, Gonçalo Ribeiro, GBR, 2
3. Annapurna, Anatoly Loginov, Vadim Statsenko, Alexander Shalagin, RUS, 3
4. Troika, Pieter Heerema, Lars Hendriksen, Claus Olesen, NED, 4
5. PowWow, Michael Zankel, Pedro Andrade, Charles Nankin, GER, 5
6. Louise, Grant Gordon, Ruaridh Scott, Kasper Harsberg, GBR, 6
7. Drago, Jose SM Matoso, Gustavo Lima, Frederico P. Melo, POR, 7
8. Corrier des Saints, Gery Trentesaux, Eric Brezelec, Jeremie Mion, Jean Queveau, FRA, 8
9. Desert Holly M, Stephan Link, Frank Butzmann, Michi Lipp, GER, 9
10. Fever, Klaus Diedrichs, Diego Negri, Jamie Lea, GBR, 10

Full results: www.cncascais.com

Letters To The Editor -
Letters are limited to 350 words. No personal attacks are permitted. We do require your name but your email address will not be published without your permission.

* From Adrian Morgan:

I'll be upsetting a load of Ben's fans, but if he knew they were slow months ago, according to his own words, and behind the curve technically, and made some too hasty decisions about design, then why were we lead to believe that the Cup was ever coming home? I can understand the tactic of talking things up, putting on a brave face, backs against the wall etc. (we are British after all) but was this for the sponsors', or supporters' benefit? Despite all the talk about a plucky, first time challenge, learning curves (steep or otherwise) and "we'll be back", is that really going to happen, and should it? Soon there'll be criticism of money spent/wasted and the usual British delight in retrospection and recrimination. But the truth is a lot of money was spent on a yacht race that a lot of hospitals would have benefited from.

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The Last Word
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