In This Issue
Volvo Ocean Race 2021 Preliminary NOR
Qingdao Mazarin Cup powered by Extreme Sailing Series
St. Maarten Heineken Regatta
Ainslie On The GC32 Racing Tour
8000 Miles of Training
Room to move - Bernard Gallay
Adapting IMOCA for full-crewed clash
Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image 2018: Top 20 disclosed
WMRT Regata De Portugal
A Welcome Addition In Lisbon
Letters to the Editor
Featured Brokerage
The Last Word: Richard Feynman
Brought to you by Seahorse magazine, 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
Volvo Ocean Race 2021 Preliminary NOR
The next edition of the race, scheduled to start in 2021, will include two dynamic classes of boats, more women racing than ever before, and a youth challenge trophy.
Initial details have just been released with the Preliminary Notice of Race now available to prospective teams, outlining the general rules of the next event.
Following the release of the preliminary document, race organisers will continue to consult with key stakeholders over the coming weeks before opening for entries for the next race on December 11, 2018.
Two classes will compete in the 2021 event; the high-performance, foiling, IMOCA 60 class and the one-design VO65 class which produced such close, compelling racing in the last two editions of the race.
Entries in the IMOCA 60 class are competing for the overall race title while crews racing the VO65s will chase the first ever Youth Challenge Trophy, as a majority of the 10 sailors on the boat will need to be under 30 years of age, with a minimum of three sailors under the age of 26.
Every team in the race, in both IMOCA and VO65 classes, will be required to have female sailors on board through various crew configuration options.
The switch to the foiling IMOCA 60 class adds a high-performance and design aspect to the race after the last two editions of one-design racing, where all boats were identical. This shift means the teams will be pushing the envelope of technology with boats that foil above the water at extremely high speeds.
The Preliminary Notice of Race is available on request by emailing:
Qingdao Mazarin Cup powered by Extreme Sailing Series
Photo by Patrick Condy. Click on image to enlarge.
Champagne conditions with up to 15 knots of wind saw the fleet of pocket-rocket foilers live up to their Flying Phantom name, gliding across Fushan Bay with extraordinary rapidity.
The day's six races saw French duos Culture Foil and Team France Jeune hold onto their podium positions despite tough competition from the ever-chasing fleet. They closed the day in second and third respectively, with only one point separating the two teams.
Local crew, Team Qingdao, struggled on the water today, falling two places in the overall scores. This didn't deter the Chinese crowds though. Cheers for the home team rang around the Fushan Bay stadium, growing even louder as Zhang Jiangting, Secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Committee of the ruling party of China, joined the local community in watching the sailing. Team Qingdao now sit in tenth place as they move into the final day of racing.
The event's grand finale is scheduled to commence at 13:00 local time (UTC+8) on Wednesday. With double-points up for grabs in the in last race of the day, the Kiwis ought to watch their backs - it's anyone's game.
Standings after Day 3, 10 races (02.10.18) Position / Team / Points
1. Hamilton Huas (NZL) Isaac McHardie, Micah Wilkinson: 110 points
2. Culture Foil (FRA) Nicolas Ferrellec, Theo Constance: 92
3. Team France Jeune (FRA) Louis Flament, Charles Dorange: 91
4. Flying Frogs (FRA) Pierre Le Clainche, Arnaud Vasseur: 81
5. Agiplast Compounding (HKG) Rob Partridge, Morgan Peach: 67
6. BIC Sport (FRA) Pierre Boulbin, Riwan Perron: 60
7. ABM (FRA) Pierre-Yves Durand, Francois Bois: 57
8. EVO Visian ICL (GER) Kim-Anne Le Formal, Elias Neuhann: 55
9. Back to Basics (FRA) Eric Le Bouedec, Basile Bourgnon: 53
10. Team Qingdao (CHN) Max Richardson, Annabel Vose: 43
11. Spanish Impulse (SPA) Albert Torres, Oriol Mahiques: 39
12. Black Flag Racing (FRA) Martin Evans, Hugo Le Pomellec: 22
St. Maarten Heineken Regatta
For the 2019 edition, there will be four days of Serious Racing, counting towards the overall result. Participants will be offered a mixture of races with a combination of windward-leeward and coastal races, blended together into an irresistible cocktail of racing chosen to suit each class. The all-out racing monohulls will savor the prospect of eight races over four days with windward-leeward races on two days and two longer coastal races testing both boat handling and tactics. It's easy to understand why the regatta attracts a large competitive class of 40ft and 50ft cruiser-racers.
With Heineken as a long-standing sponsor, the event's shore side parties are exceptional! Sample the local cuisine, offered by several famous, local restaurants at the Regatta Village before you make your way to the center stage and take in the sweet tunes of international & Caribbean artists. The St Maarten Heineken Regatta parties are legendary and make for everlasting memories on the "Friendly Island"!
Ainslie On The GC32 Racing Tour
Getting to compete against the greatest Olympic sailor of all time has provided much delight for competitors on the GC32 Racing Tour this season.
Five time Olympic medallist, four time Olympic champion Ben Ainslie and his British America's Cup challenger, INEOS TEAM UK, joined at the end of June for the circuit's Portugese debut, the GC32 Lagos Cup. There they grabbed a podium on the last day. For Copa del Rey MAPFRE, 2015 GC32 Racing Tour champion and catamaran veteran Leigh McMillan took the helm and the British team won. With Ainslie back in charge, INEOS TEAM UK secured another podium third place in Villasimius - a fair result given that this was only Ainslie's second event helming the nimble, high speed GC32.
The goal for Ainslie and INEOS TEAM UK is to win the America's Cup - Britain has never won the Auld Mug despite hosting the first Cup in 1851, in fact the famous nautical nation has failed to win in 21 separate challenges over the intervening 167 years. With the next America's Cup taking place in Auckland in early 2021 aboard entirely unique AC75 foiling monohulls, there is no perfect circuit on which teams can train beforehand. As Ainslie puts it: "We have to stay current and we can't get too rusty."
Full interview: www.gc32racingtour.com/ainslie-on-the-gc32/
8000 Miles of Training
Earlier this week Spindrift 2 returned to La Trinite-sur-mer in Brittany, France. Five days earlier, the maxi trimaran left the dock in Newport, Rhode Island to set sail for her home port, completing her second transatlantic training in as many months. This was an opportunity for the team to do a final 'dress rehearsal' in anticipation of the team's Jules Verne Trophy record attempt later this year. The stand-by for this non-stop round the world record will begin in mid November.
Skipper Yann Guichard preferred two transatlantic passages over shorter training sessions along the European coast and, as a result, the team has accrued some 8000 miles of offshore training over the summer period.
"If we had to plan our training again, I would make the same decision and train in a round the world configuration. We have made efficient use of our twelve days offshore. We have had time to test things properly, adjust the watch system, push the boat hard, testing the new sails with the time to do that properly. This would probably not have been the case if we had taken her out on short day passages, especially given the massive logistical aspect of getting a boat like Spindrift 2 on and off the dock. The two transatlantics gave us very different sailing conditions with strong VMG downwind conditions (speed / distance in direction of the wind) on the first and a lot of reaching (crosswind) on the second. To have these varied conditions and be able to push the boat over longer periods at sea is always interesting. The crew was able to get used to the high speeds and get back into the rhythm of sailing the boat - a bonus for when we start the Jules Verne as essentially this will be strong winds. The round the world remains our main goal of the year and this round trip was beneficial for the entire crew and the Spindrift racing team. "
In the coming days, the black and gold multihull will come out of the water so that the technical team can double check the boat after her transatlantic passages in advance of the world tour, whose stand-by is due to start on 18 November.
In the meantime, Yann and his crew will continue their training both at sea and land. In mid-October the team will take part in a training and team building session in the Alps, which will include an ascent of Mont Blanc, should conditions permit.
www.spindrift-racing.com/news/8000-miles-training
Room to move - Bernard Gallay
The legendary maxi-catamaran, the première raceboat of her generation, has had its claws trimmed to reveal a fascinating fast cruising proposition, marketed through Bernard Gallay Yachtbrokers.
Ocean Pearl, as the boat is now known, was launched in 1999 as Club Med. An ultra-high-performance maxi-catamaran,it was among the largest and fastest multihull racing yachts in the world.
This 110-foot (33.5-metre) flying machine was designed by Gilles Ollier and custom-built by the renowned Multiplast yard in Vannes, France for legendary New Zealand yachtsman Grant Dalton to take on The Race, a gruelling non-stop, round-the-world challenge for giant multihulls.
Built entirely from carbon Nomex sandwich for lightness and strength, the design and construction took advantage of the latest high-tech materials and build techniques.
Full story in the October issue of Seahorse
Adapting IMOCA for full-crewed clash
For 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race winner Jérémie Beyou, his roots are in shorthanded sailing, having finished third in the 2016 Vendée Globe. He knows the IMOCA class well, and with it being chosen for the 2021-22 Race, he offers this insight how it can be adapted to full-crewed competition.
Compare the 60-foot IMOCA to the Volvo Ocean 65.
They are quite different ... it's a different way of sailing. You sail the IMOCA more like you're on a multihull compared to a mono. You have to be able to manage it - you don't have to push hard all the time, you have to take care of the boat and watch the data and loads on the boat.
Those of us who sail in the IMOCA class regularly understand this, so maybe we can do the next Race as a crew. After developing these boats, we know the rules very well, so I can imagine collaboration between teams who are already sailing in this class ahead of the next Race.
How would a fully-crewed setup work on the IMOCA?
Sailing with five people on these boats is really nice. We do it sometimes, during deliveries and small races. It's a good size and because it's so difficult to sail the boat alone, having five people onboard means you can push the boat to its limits and focus 100% on performance all the time, which you can't really do on your own.
But it also means when you're sailing five rather than nine or 10 in a usual Volvo Ocean Race boat, all the sailors onboard must be multi-skilled. It's key that the same person can be a trimmer, a driver, a bowman, and be able to do the strategy, so it's like sailing with five solo sailors onboard rather than a traditional crew.
How much conversion would need to be done on the IMOCA?
It's mainly a question of living onboard. The inside of the boat would need to be adapted for five people. That's the bunks and kitchen, for a start. And of course the cockpit too. We really designed Charal for solo sailing, so the cockpit would need to be very different. After that, the big difference will be on the hull design and the foil design, depending on the course of the race.
More in Scuttlebutt:
www.sailingscuttlebutt.com
Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image 2018: Top 20 disclosed
The top twenty pictures from the Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image - selected by the international jury - will be exhibited at the Yacht Racing Forum (Lorient, France, October 22-23), where the 2018 winners will also be celebrated. Today, we disclose the 20 best photographs still in the race to be elected best image of the year!
No less than 109 professional photographers spanning 25 countries have submitted a picture for the Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image 2018. The top eighty pictures have been selected two weeks ago by the international jury and published on the event website, allowing the public to vote for their favorite pictures.
Today, we are pleased to disclose the top 20 pictures selected by the international jury. The winner of the Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image award - who will be announced and celebrated during the Yacht Racing Forum in Lorient (FRA) on October 23 - is one of them!
Top twenty photographers (in alphabetical order):
Pierre Bouras (FRA)
Joran Bubke (GER)
Ivan Bugarev (RUS)
Matias Cappizzano (ARG)
Michael Chittenden (NZL)
Andrea Francolini (AUS)
Christophe Huchet (FRA)
Martin Keruzoré (FRA)
Gilles Morelle (FRA)
Beau Outteridge (AUS)
Ricardo Pinto (POR)
Yann Riou (FRA)
Benjamìn Sans (CHL)
Marina Semenova (RUS)
Szymon Sikora (POL)
Eloi Stichelbaut (FRA)
James Tomlinson (GBR)
Brigi Torok (HUN)
Loris von Siebenthal (SUI)
Yvan Zedda (FRA)
The leading countries are: France (7 pictures), Russia & Australia (2 pictures), Germany, Argentina, New Zealand, Portugal, Chile, Poland, United Kingdom, Hungary and Switzerland (1 picture).
The votes by the public on Internet (Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image website) are still open, and not restricted to the top 20 images selected by the Jury.
WMRT Regata De Portugal
Regata de Portugal joins the World Match Racing Tour to once again add Portugal to the line-up of WMRT host countries. Events have previously been held in Portimão, but moving the the Lisbon coastline allows the beautiful game of match racing, in these high-performance M32 catamarans, to be seen by even more fans of the sport. City centre racing in a capital is a rare spectacle and teams will be working even harder to prove themselves top of the pack in this great arena.
This event falls just one month ahead of the Match Racing World Championship, the final stop on this year's Tour, and presents a final opportunity for teams to gain points on the overall leaderboard and guarantee qualification to the Finals.
wmrt.com/events/regata-de-portugal-2018/
A Welcome Addition In Lisbon
With their maxi trimaran out of the water to begin its final check before the Jules Verne Trophy attempt, Spindrift racing is now focusing on their match racing programme and heading to Lisbon from 3rd to 7th October. The Portuguese capital will host the final event in the World Match Racing Tour before the World Championship event in Shenzhen (China).
The event, which was not initially included in the WMRT roster of events for 2018, has come as a welcome addition for Yann Guichard and his team. The team first sailed here in 2013, when they took part in the Route des Princes with their MOD70.
"We found out about this additional event a month ago and for us it is ideal to be able to train and compete in another event before the final in China. The race course is fantastic, as it will be just off the city of Lisbon. While we would, of course, like to do as well as we did in Marstrand, for us this new event is more of a training regatta. Since our last event in Risør, we have debriefed on where we made mistakes and the areas we need to concentrate on to ensure that we are at the same level as the top crews. It is up to us to get back to the level of teamwork that we had in Sweden. By finishing first or second in the fleet racing we can then chose our opponents in the quarter finals. This new rule means that the fleet phase has become very important and can maximise the chances of reaching the semi-finals. It definitely spices things up, and it is up to us to take advantage of it," comments Yann Guichard.
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 Malcolm McKeag:
I may have missed this in all the coverage of the mid-ocean rescue of the two competitors in the Golden Globe race - but what has happened to their still-floating yachts? Were they scuttled? Were they sunk by the rescuing ships? Have they somehow been recovered? Or were they just abandoned, left afloat to become an unlit, unmarked hazard for the next single-handed sailor barreling along fast asleep in the middle of the night?
Featured Brokerage
The best X-41 on the market. A large refit in 2017 with standing and running rigging, upholstery, instruments and interior re-varnish, she looks like a new yacht. Four out of the top 10 at the ORC worlds in 2018 were X-41s; priced in sterling she offers a very good opportunity.
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
Contact
Ben Cooper
Telephone: +44(0) 1590 679222
-----------------------------------------
Formerly known as SPIRIT OF YUKOH and BARONESSA V, the Finot Open 40 ANASAZI GIRL is beautifully built, finished and equipped to the highest standard. Launched in 2001, she remains professionally maintained.
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
-----------------------------------------
A custom built machine with a real focus on Offshore sailing.. Very high-tech specification throughout, in particular her lifting propeller system and deflector controlled running backstay systems. She is a serious contender whether it be IRC/ORC/PHRF..... she covers them all well.
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
Contact
Sam Pearson - Ancasta Race Boats
+64 277733717
+44 2380 016582
See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/
The Last Word
I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned. -- Richard Feynman
Editorial and letter submissions to
Advertising inquiries to Graeme Beeson: or see www.scuttlebutteurope.com/advertise.html