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Tenth Annual Wight Vodka Best Sailor's Bar competition is OPEN. Supported by Latitude Kinsale and Seahorse Magazine.
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In This Issue
Route du Rhum: Lalou Roucayrol transferred to a tug & heading to find capsized Arkema
Wight Vodka Best Sailor's Bar
Day 4 RC44 Cascais Cup - Zero to hero RC44 claims Cascais and Championship
2018 RORC Season's Points Championship Winners Announced
What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine
18ft Skiffs Spring Championship, Race 7
Great British Sailing Challenge
Oman Sail are first ever Diam World Tour winners
Letters to the Editor
Featured Brokerage
The Last Word: Douglas Adams

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

Route du Rhum: Lalou Roucayrol transferred to a tug & heading to find capsized Arkema
This evening at around 1700hrs UTC Lalou Roucayrol was successfully transferred from Pierre Antoine's Rhum Multi class Olmix which rescued him two days ago from his capsized Multi50 Arkema on to a tug chartered by his team.

The procedure to move Roucayrol from Olmix to the 35 metre tug Lady Debbie was difficult but the skipper of Arkema is now aboard the tug and on course towards his capsized craft accompanied by his boat captain Quentin Vlamynck and a team of professional divers.

They have about 550 nautical miles to make to the east to find the Arkema and expect to be in the area in about three days.

* Alex Thomson handed 24-hour penalty
The jury have made the decision to give Alex Thomson a 24-hour penalty following the incident that occurred overnight.

* A delighted Meilhat is crowned IMOCA winner
French solo skipper Paul Meilhat at the helm of SMA was crowned the unexpected winner of the IMOCA class in the 2018 Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe solo transatlantic race today from Saint Malo in Brittany to Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe.

The 36-year-old French yachtsman from Lorient took the race win after benefitting from a 24-hour time penalty imposed on British sailor Alex Thomson who crossed the finish line first on Friday morning on Hugo Boss while holding a margin over Meilhat of more than 140 nautical miles.

However, the British sailor who had led the race almost from the start on November 4th, was penalised for using his engine to extricate himself from a rocky headland some 70 miles from the finish line of the 3,542-mile single-handed race which is staged every four years.

When Paris-born Meilhat crossed the finish line himself at 20:23:18 local time (01:23:18CET today) after enduring some frustrating calms on the west side of the Basse Terre island, he had been at sea for12 days, 11 hours 23 minutes. More importantly he was some 11 hours and 48 minutes inside the British skipper's total elapsed time, that included the 24-hour penalty.

* Germany's Boris Herrmann finishes fifth in IMOCA class
German sailor Boris Herrmann finished the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe solo transatlantic race at 17:47h.30s CET this afternoon to take fifth place in the IMOCA class on his first attempt at the 3,542-nautical mile solo race from Saint Malo in Brittany to Guadeloupe

The 37-year old three-time circumnavigator from Hamburg, who races Malizia 2 in the colours of the Yacht Club of Monaco, took 13 days, three hours and 47minutes for the race which is run every four years. He finished 16 hours and 24 minutes behind IMOCA division winner Paul Meilhat of France.

* Alex Thomson Gets Third in IMOCAs Leaving Riou Disappointed
Exhausted French skipper Vincent Riou brought his PRB across the finish line of the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe at 13.21hrs 08s CET (9:21hrs 08s Guadeloupe) today, after dodging a tiring mix of squalls and calms through the final 12 hours of his race, taking fourth place in the IMOCA class.

The 46-year old 2004-5 Vendée Globe winner from Loctudy in western Brittany missed out on third place by 21 minutes and 30 seconds, but after his fourth attempt at the 3,542 nautical mile 'queen of the transat' race, he finally improves on his best position of fifth.

Alex Thomson's 24 hour time penalty ran out just before Riou finished. The British skipper was penalised for using his engine to get off a rocky cliff that he ran into while falling asleep and overtired early on Thursday morning, just seventy miles from the finish.

But the resulting third place on the IMOCA podium is no consolation for the British solo racer who is smarting from the error which cost him his first overall IMOCA class win.

"Like I said yesterday I disqualified myself." said Thomson this afternoon on the dock to greet his friend Herrmann.

Riou, who started as one of the highly tipped pre-race favourites, was also disappointed with his result with speculation that his slower than expected speeds might be attributed to having lost or damaged a foil proving unfounded.

"This race was a bit of a disaster for me." Riou grimaced, admitting that he fell into a downwards spiral of becoming increasingly fatigued, trying to push harder to catch up and making mistakes.

Losing his wind instruments, which control the autopilot in relation to the wind direction rather than to a fixed compass course, ran him ragged.

www.routedurhum.com

Wight Vodka Best Sailor's Bar
Wight Vodka Best Sailor's Bar Supported by Latitude Kinsale and Seahorse magazine

Three more weeks remain to submit YOUR favourite sailor's bar for consideration to our 10th Annual contest. Latitude Kinsale will create a 3D map for the bar, and best submissions for bar story and bar drink win the book TUIGA and a six month Seahorse subscription.

Here's one sent in from a reader in the USA's Northwesst

Name and location of the bar
Sloop Tavern, Ballard, Seattle Wa

Here's what makes it so great...
In 1952 a man named Ole Olsen opened an unassuming little nautical themed bar in Ballard Washington. At the time Ballard was a small working class enclave known for its shipyards, machine shops, and lots of Scandinavians. The Sloop Tavern was one of many taverns lining the streets of Ballard when liquor laws were colored blue and there were only three beers on tap.

Today the Sloop is the last tavern in Ballard. In 1977 then owner Joe Chase turned the sailor's bar into a weekly clubhouse for his newly formed yacht club – The Sloop Tavern Yacht Club, which still has regular races in the summer to this day and has a large trophy case in the corner of the bar. With the addition of the yacht club the many boats of the Shilshole bay marina started adorning the walls of the Sloop.

Is there a special drink they make? Care to share the recipe with us?
34 OZ Beer Mugs.

scuttlebutteurope.com/sailors-bars

wightvodka.com
latitudekinsale.com

Day 4 RC44 Cascais Cup - Zero to hero RC44 claims Cascais and Championship
Giant waves kicked up by an Atlantic gale oddly combined with no wind in the vicinity of Cascais resulted in racing being cancelled on the final day of the RC44 Cascais Cup. This made for a surprise, come-from-behind winner of both this last event of the 2018 season for the high performance, one design race boats and in the 2018 RC44 Championship ranking overall.

"The decision to race or not was made by the fact that we have no wind at all," explained PRO Peter Reggio at noon. "On a day like this, with the water the way it is, we need more wind than normal to be able to race fairly."

After day one here in Cascais, Nico Poons' Charisma was dead last having posted a 7-8. Even newcomer to the fleet, Paulo Mirpuri and his Mirpuri Foundation, enjoying his first ever day racing in the RC44 fleet, were ahead. A 2-2-6-1 on day two saw the Monaco-based Dutchman's team fight back to fourth place, still nine points from the lead. Yesterday, a welcome continuation of their winning streak saw them win both races in big winds and giant seas, coinciding with a most unfortunate day for day two's leader, Team Nika. This propelled Charisma into the lead.

No racing today left Charisma hitting the jackpot, winning the RC44 Cascais Cup, with a three point advantage over Chris Bake's Team Aqua, second on countback to Igor Lah's Team CEEREF. Charisma also overhauled both Team Nika and Team CEEREF to claim the annual RC44 Championship for the first time

RC44 Cascais Cup Standings
1. Charisma, MON, 28
2. Team Aqua, GBR, 31
3. Team Ceeref, SLO, 31
4. Team Nika, RUS, 33
5. Artemis Racing, SWE, 36
6. Bronenosec Sailing, RUS, 40
7. Aleph Racing, FRA, 41
8. Mirpuri Foundation, POR, 51

Annual Results - total with 1 discard
1. Charisma, MON, 9
2. Team Nika, RUS, 10
3. Team Ceeref, SLO, 10
4. Team Aqua, GBR, 12
5. Artemis Racing, SWE, 16
6. Bronenosec Sailing, RUS, 23
7. Peninsula Petroleum, GBR, 24
8. Aleph Racing, FRA, 25
9. Tavatuy Sailing Team, RUS, 37

Full results www.rc44.com/results

2018 RORC Season's Points Championship Winners Announced
The 2018 Royal Ocean Racing Club Annual Dinner and Prize Giving was held at the Royal Horseguards Hotel, with over 200 guests attending the spectacular black tie event and where prize winners, competitors, crews, RORC members and guests celebrated the year's achievements with the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

After a champagne reception, the dinner and prize giving was held in the theatre-style Gladstone Library. The Grade I listed hotel overlooking the Thames has strong links to the British Military and Gladstone has a fortuitous link to the 2018 Yacht of the Year. Every prize winner was roundly applauded as they took centre stage at the glamorous event. There was a huge ovation for the overall winner of the 2018 RORC Season's Points Championship, British Soldier, and for the RORC Yacht of the Year, Ichi Ban.

Winning the Jazz Trophy for first overall in IRC was the Army Sailing Association's X-41 British Soldier, the first Armed Services team to win the championship since it was established in 1999. British Soldier took part in 11 races, winning the championship in the very last race, with crew members ranging from Private soldiers, through Sergeants, right up to Colonel. Five different skippers were in charge during the campaign: Andrew Britton, Will Naylor, Phil Caswell, Paul Macro and Donall Ryan.

The 2018 RORC Yacht of the Year, winning the Somerset Memorial Trophy was Matt Allen's Ichi Ban. Matt's Australian team won the Brisbane to Gladstone Race, the Rolex Sydney Hobart, and the Sydney Gold Coast Race. Ichi Ban's series of results, in the three major Ocean races in Australia, has never been matched.

Full list of 2018 RORC Season's Points Championship Winners

RORC Race Results for the 2018 season

Seahorse December 2018
What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine

Seahorse Magazine

Gaining (serious) international traction
Looking back at this year's Nations Trophy Mediterranean League series, it's clear that ClubSwan's big idea of injecting friendly patriotic rivalry into one-design racing is making headway... and there's more to come

Ain't no stoppin' me now
Ingrid Abery

Operation success (way to go)
Guess what... after a long war of words the results turned out mostly the same. Rob Weiland

Really, truly this time?
The latest initiative for a grand prix sailing circuit starts with one big (enormous) advantage. Russell Coutts and James Boyd

No space for wimps
Tough days on the water followed by a bit of bare-knuckle fighting over the prizes. Just another day in the Sandbagger fleet. Tom Price

Special rates for Scuttlebutt Europe subscribers:
Seahorse Print or Digital Subscription Use Discount Promo Code SB2

1yr Print Sub: €77 - £48 - $71 / Rest of the World: £65 www.seahorse.co.uk/shop/subs/

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18ft Skiffs Spring Championship, Race 7
WHAT Sydney Harbour: Simon Nearn's R Marine Pittwater took out today's final race of the Spring Championship series on Sydney Harbour today, but it was the young Rag & Famish team which became the 2018 champion when the team finished just one point ahead of Finport Finance after seven action-packed 3-Buoys races.

Although the race was sailed in a light Easterly breeze, which faded over the latter half of the course, there was no shortage of action and continual lead changes to satisfy the spectators.

Despite trailing in eighth place at the end of the first lap of the course, the R Marine team of Simon Nearn, Cam Gundy and Brandon Buynil revelled in the fading breeze over the final lap of the course and raced away from the fleet to score a 2m27s victory.

Appliancesonline.com.au (Brett Van Munster, Phil Marshall, Kurt Fatouris) also finished strongly over the final lap of the course to grab second place, 21s ahead of series champion Rag & Famish Hotel (Bryce Edwards, Rory Cox, Jacob Broome).

Finport Finance (Marcus Ashley-Jones) came home in fourth place, followed by Winning Group (John Winning Jr) and Noakesailing (Sean Langman).

Rag & Famish Hotel finished the series with an overal total of 31 points, followed by Finport Finance on 32 points, Smeg (Michael Coxon) on 42, The Kitchen Maker-Caesarstone (Jordan Girdis) on 51, Appliancesonline.com.au on 52, and Vintec (Kirk Mitchell) on 53.

Next Sunday is Race 1 of the NSW Championship.

The race begins the local Sydney fleet's campaign to regain the JJ Giltinan Championship from the successful New Zealand team in 2018. -- Frank Quealey

www.18footers.com

Great British Sailing Challenge
Following the 10-year success of the SailJuice Winter Series, the Great British Sailing Challenge offers year-round multiclass racing...

The Fernhurst Books Draycote Dash takes place this weekend, the first event in the brand new Great British Sailing Challenge (GBSC). It's also the opening event of the Selden SailJuice Winter Series, but competitors will also be automatically entered into the inaugural season of the GBSC, which concludes on 28 & 29 September with a 100-boat invitation-only Grand Final at Rutland Sailing Club.

Dates are now out for the events and clubs that have been early to sign up to the GBSC. While the new series launches with some familiar and well-established events, the GBSC organisers have been setting up some brand new multiclass events due to take place during the spring and summer of 2019. There are a number of others still in discussion and which will be announced in the coming weeks. You'll notice some gaps in a few months, and we're keen to fill those gaps ASAP! So if you're interested in hosting an event at your club, get in touch...

The dates for the events already agreed are as follows:

Fernhurst Books Draycote Dash, Draycote Water Sailing Club: 17 & 18 November 2018
Datchet Flyer, Datchet Water Sailing Club: 8 & 9 December 2018
Brass Monkey, Yorkshire Dales Sailing Club: 27 December 2018
Oxford Blue, Oxford Sailing Club: 16 February 2019
King George Gallop, King George Sailing Club: 16 & 17 March 2019
Derwent Dambuster, Derwent Sailing Club: 11 & 12 May 2019
The Bala Long Distance, Bala Sailing Club: 22 & 23 June 2019
Mountbatten Centre, Plymouth: 8 to 10 August 2019
The Ullswater Ultimate, Ullswater Sailing Club: 17 & 18 August 2019
Grand Finals, Rutland Water Sailing Club: 28 & 29 September 2019

Want your Club to host a GBSC event?

With these dates just announced, we've only just started. There are more in discussion and more yet to come. Contact Andy Rice at

www.sailingchallenge.org

Oman Sail are first ever Diam World Tour winners
Oman Sail's Diam 24 team are celebrating after winning the first ever Diam World Tour with another competitive performance at the deciding event in Polynesia.

The victory was sealed when the race team of skipper Stevie Morrison, Abdulrahman Al Mashari and Quentin Ponroy completed the Grand Prix Pacifique des Jeux, the last of three events counting towards the 2018 World Tour title.

The Oman Sail team ended their winning season ahead of Bernard Stamm's Cheminees Poujoulat in second and the Beijaflore team who finished third.

As 2018 Diam World Tour winners the Oman Sail trimaran will now have a golden Diam symbol on its mainsail when it competes at the opening event of the 2019 season, EFG Sailing Arabia – The Tour, which starts from Muscat in February.

www.diam24onedesign.com/en/world-diam-tour/

omansail.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 Euan Ross:

There is an old book called 'Heroes of Modern Adventure' about the larger-than-life characters who thrilled schoolboys in the days of empire. Such people still exist, and we need look no further than the heroes of the Route du Rhumb. Alex Thomson has emerged from yet another setback with his stature undiminished and maybe even enhanced. This is how we used to play the game; taking responsibility for our actions with good grace and a certain style. One can only hope that SS Great Britain, also heading for the rocks with the brains-trust asleep at the wheel, can handle the impending shipwreck with the same presence of mind; though somehow, I doubt it. Meanwhile, we can all enjoy Phil Sharp's contribution to a terrific race in the Class40. We need such ambassadors for our beleaguered nation now more than ever. ​

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The Last Word
It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, "as pretty as an airport." -- Douglas Adams

Editorial and letter submissions to

Advertising inquiries to Graeme Beeson: or see www.scuttlebutteurope.com/advertise.html

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