In This Issue
• Hugo Boss Takes The Lead
• Vendee Globe: Expert analysis from Conrad Colman
• Harken’s New Air® Winch 900
• 2020 ORC Congress concludes looking forward to 2021
• New America's Cup Minister describes Dalton as a "man of integrity"
• Light enough, fast enough... AND strong enough - Doyle Sails
• SA government offers temporary reprieve for stranded cruising yachts
• Wight Vodka Best Sailors Bar
• The HRSC Foxer fleet enjoys a final fling
• Perseverance Gala
• Featured Charter
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Swan 56-012 Amoress 3
• • ecoracer769
• • Cookson 50 - Endless Game
• The Last Word: Douglas Adams
Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News 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
The 12th annual Wight Vodka Best Sailors Bar search is on... Send us your thoughts and drink recipes...
Hugo Boss Takes The Lead
After four days at sea, Britain’s Alex Thomson has assumed the lead of the Vendee Globe for the first time, as HUGO BOSS starts to accelerate downwind northeast of Sao Miguel in the Azores.
All his mainly French principal rivals have been watching Thomson’s performance in the race to date, having not had the chance to race against him in the build-up, and what is happening now will dispel any doubts they may have about the Englishman’s pace off the wind.
This afternoon the black-hulled foiler from Portsmouth on the English south coast was about 35 miles east and to leeward of his nearest two foiling rivals in fourth-placed Thomas Ruyant (LinkedOut) and Charlie Dalin (APIVIA) who was on Ruyant’s tail. Thomson was clocked at 15 knots in a northerly air stream on a heading that could take him just south of the Azorian island of Santa Maria.
The next best new generation foiler is Nicolas Troussel’s CORUM L’Epargne which led the race early on but is now nearly 19 miles astern of Thomson in sixth place.
Remarkably, the second and third places on the latest leaderboard are still occupied by old non-foiling IMOCAS - both of them designed by Bruce Farr and launched a year apart in 2006 and 2007 and both of them super-quick upwind.
The first of them is Jean le Cam’s Yes We Cam! Who was just four miles behind HUGO BOSS, the second Benjamin Dutreux’s OMIA-Water Family, another nine miles behind.
Top ten as of 12 Nov 2020 - 21h (UTC)
1. Alex Thomson - Hugo Boss, 23406.7 nm to finish
2. Jean Le Cam - Yes We Cam!, 11.82 nm to leader
3. Benjamin Dutreux - Omia - Water Family, 23.34 nm
4. Charlie Dalin - Apivia, 25.06 nm
5. Thomas Ruyant - Linkedout, 25.22 nm
6. Romain Attanasio - Pure - Best Western, 37.9 nm
7. Maxime Sorel - V And B-Mayenne, 38.28 nm
8. Sam Davies - Initiatives-Coeur, 43.18 nm
9. Damien Seguin - Groupe Apicil, 45.48 nm
10. Nicolas Troussel - Corum L'epargne, 47.29 nm
www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ranking
Vendee Globe: Expert analysis from Conrad Colman
No surprise that although the 33 solo skippers are only on their third full day at sea there has already been plenty of action out on the Vendee Globe racecourse since the start on Sunday.
Exclusively for Yacht Racing Life New Zealand ocean racer and past Vendee Globe competitor Conrad Colman provides some expert insight into what has been going on out on the north Atlantic Ocean.
If there is one consistent theme on the third day of this current Vendee Globe race it is preservation of both man and machine. Having already tackled one cold front in the notorious Bay of Biscay and with another rolling over the fleet as you read this, the 33 sailors are having a tough day out there and some are clearly wondering how to keep this up for months on end.
Seb Simon (ARKEA PAPREC) complained of being seasick for the first time in his life and Clarisse Cremer (BANQUE POPULAIRE), also a Vendee Globe rookie, is, in her own words, already at the end of her tether and is struggling to adapt to the changing conditions.
Both these boats are in the western pack who aggressively sought out the approaching cold front in order to get a jump on the rest of the fleet, but they were rewarded with a brutal sea state and winds gusting nearly 50 knots overnight.
This split between the group in the west that went on the attack (notably including LINKEDOUT, ARKEA PAPREC, HUGO BOSS and APIVIA) and those who stayed closer to the Spanish coast in more sheltered conditions (lead by CORUM and most of the daggerboard boats) gives an early insight into how hard each sailor is willing to push and how the foiling fleet will often sail a longer, faster route than the daggerboard boats like APICIL and YES WE CAM for whom deviations from the rhumb line are more costly.
Conrad's full analysis in YachtRacing.life
Our DAME Entry Might Be Virtual. But the Performance Improvement is Very Real. Introducing Harken’s New Air® Winch 900.
Introducing the new Air® Winch 900 which provides 9000 kg working load in a package that includes a drum diameter 13% larger than the Harken 1130STR that preceded it. The larger drum requires fewer wraps for more precise control while easing. It also helps generate the line speeds demanded by today’s 80-100 foot rocket ships that are being pushed harder than ever.
The Air winch 900 sits 17% lower to the deck, reducing parasitic drag. It features a new self-tailing design allowing an incredible range of line sizes (from 8 to 16 mm). And all of this new geometry is delivered in a winch that is fully 24.5% lighter than the 1130STR.
Like every Air winch, the 900 comes with the massive hole in the middle. That’s where we removed all those kilos.
See the Air winch 900.
2020 ORC Congress concludes looking forward to 2021
The 51st edition of the Offshore Racing Congress concluded over the weekend with a review of the 2020 season’s activities along with new policies and innovations lying ahead in 2021. There are 56 members of the ORC Congress that represent 35 countries, World Sailing and the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) as a founding member, and they meet yearly to approve the budget, policies and rules recommended by several Committees reporting to the Congress in this meeting.
Held online this year, the Management Committee reported the organization had a 25% drop in certificates issued due to the effects of the pandemic, but a significant reduction in operating costs kept the organization financially on a solid footing according to Treasurer Patrick Lindquist (FIN), and the levy rates will remain unchanged for 2021.
Andy Claughton of the International Technical Committee (ITC) reported his group of 12 designers, programmers and technology experts made significant progress this year in several areas, including setting the framework for the VPP system to accept not only a complete range of foil types for monohulls, but also multihull geometries so that a 2021 roll out is expected of the new ORC Multihull Rule (ORCmh) on an experimental basis. And while progress was made in other technical areas of research in the VPP, without the usual schedule of events among monohulls and Superyachts there were no opportunities to test these changes, so the VPP is expected to have very few changes in ratings for next year.
Another innovation is a new design for ORC International and ORC Club certificates where the pages are reorganized to be more readable and relevant to the various user groups: owners, sailors, sailmakers, and race organizers as well as measurers. For example, a summary of simple rating options are no longer shown on the first page but will be shown along with several other options on a dedicated page available to rating offices in each country to show what options will be relevant for their fleets. This will include, for example, the ratings the boat has for popular races that have pre-designed scoring models.
The advent of ORC Double Handed (ORC DH) certificates this year was extremely successful, with close to 2400 - a third of this year’s ORC fleet - issued ORC DH certificates. Next year Non-Spinnaker certificates will also be offered, so there are now three possible certificate types for boats to race and still enjoy the full range scoring options: regular, DH and now Non-Spinnaker.
A review of ORC championship events in 2021 was made, with the 2021 ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia in early August already open for entry and showing a strong turnout, the ORC European Championship expected to be held in Capri, Italy in May, and the ORC Sportboat Europeans postponed from this year in Istanbul to be in the same location next year in late August. There are active bids for the 2022 ORC Europeans under consideration, and a location selected for the 2022 Worlds to be announced soon.
New America's Cup Minister describes Dalton as a "man of integrity"
The new Minister for Economic Development, and responsible for the America's Cup has defended the two key players in Emirates Team New Zealand and its event arm America's Cup Event Ltd - Grant Dalton and Sir Stephen Tindall.
In an interview Thursday morning (NZT) on the top rating breakfast show on NewstalkZB, the Hon Stuart Nash described ETNZ/ACE CEO Grant Dalton as a "man of integrity"
"The fact that Sir Stephen Tindall is involved gives me confidence that things are run well within the America's Cup and America's Cup Event Ltd," he added.
The new Minister in the Labour Government, which was recently re-elected in a landslide, says he did not believe claims in one of the three sets of papers released on Tuesday that the Ministry, for which he is now responsible had actively tried to have Dalton replaced as CEO of America's Cup Event Ltd.
In the interview the Minister was placed in the awkward position of having to defend the indefensible past history within his new portfolio and department, which ETNZ/ACE claim to have not acted in good faith in its relationship with the America's Cup champions, and rights holders for the event.
He also refused to discredit Dalton, ETNZ/ACE, but on the contrary was very definite in his support of both the CEO and ETNZ Chairman. -- Richard Gladwell
Light enough, fast enough... AND strong enough - Doyle Sails
With three round the world races and dozens of long ocean races on his CV, Doyle Sails’ chief designer Richard Bouzaid has come to regard prolonged periods at sea on high performance race yachts as an occupational necessity, more duty than delight. In that professional capacity, over the course of a decade-long association with British solo ace Alex Thomson, he has added thousands more sea miles to his sailing log, testing and refining sails for Alex Thomson Racing campaigns. As offshore environments go, it doesn’t get much tougher than that.
With the start of the Vendee Globe scheduled for November, Bouzaid says the new generation Imoca 60 foilers are flying faster than ever.
Full article in the December issue of Seahorse
SA government offers temporary reprieve for stranded cruising yachts
Cruising yachts stranded by Covid-19 port lockdowns will be offered a five-week ‘safe corridor’ to disembark and access maritime services at three South African ports, the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) has confirmed.
Access to South African ports has been approved by the National Coronavirus Command Council as a “once-off project to offer a safe corridor for yachts stranded on humanitarian grounds,” SAMSA said in an official marine notice published last week.
The announcement follows calls from sailing organisations for government to restrict the current lockdown restrictions which make no provision for cruising yachts needing to call at South African ports as they round the Cape. Crews were being denied immigration clearance, prompting safety concerns due to the approaching hurricane season in the Indian Ocean.
Wight Vodka Best Sailors Bar
"I met my wife at Bayview racing Melges 24s. She was racing on a boat from out of town and I assumed she was also from out of town. Our tactician knew better and told me so. After racing I drank more than my share of beer from her boyfriend’s cooler in the parking lot and left, only to wind up kissing her for the first time in the same parking lot about 3 months later."
Their famed drink was created by the late Jerome Adams who served old and new friends for decades. The Hummer:
The recipe:
1-1/2 oz. Bacardi
1-1/2 oz. Kahlua
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
A couple of ice cubes
It works best if you blend and then let sit in the freezer for a bit to make sure it is milkshake consistency.
Fire up your blender, and then tell us about YOUR favorite bar ... with a story and a recipe please.
The HRSC Foxer fleet enjoys a final fling
Photo by Mike Insall - Nautiphotos. Click on image to enlarge.
Since then and during the summer months a fleet of up to twenty Foxers has raced every weekend, weather permitting of course, and on Wednesday afternoon (November 4th) they enjoyed a final fling before the new one-month lockdown commenced, chalking up more races in perfect conditions.
With the evolving government and RYA guidance that Hamble River Sailing Club monitors constantly, it remains to be seen how long the irrepressible Foxer fleet will be grounded but everyone looks forward to seeing their unmistakable striped sails adorning the river scene once again. -- Jonty Sherwill
More info at www.hrsc.org.uk
Perseverance Gala
When: December 10th, 6 - 7:30pm EST
Where: The comfort of your home!
What: Join us for daunting sea stories, celebratory salutes from a few of your favorite sailors, a surprise Award ceremony, a live auction, and spoken word from our youth sail instructors!
How a virtual gala works: An access link will be emailed to you on the morning on December 10th granting ticket holders entrance to a videoconference. Another option, is a generous host can include up to 8 additional participants in their own personal videoconference and simultaneously watch the broadcast together.
Price: Individual tickets range from $25 to $750. Enter the coupon code EARLYBIRD to receive 10% off all ticket tiers before November 27th, 2020. Guests are encouraged to be honest, please pick the best price for which you qualify.
You’ll not want to miss Herreshoff Marine Museum’s holiday black-tie event - all from the comfort of your own home- on the eve of our 50th anniversary. We encourage you to pour a tasty beverage, sit back, and enjoy the show!!
Registration and full details on the HMM site: herreshoff.org/gala2020/
Featured Brokerage
This beautiful Swan 56 “Amoress³” has a stunishing teak interior with holly cain sole. 2013 the interior has been revarnished and a massive refit has been done in 2014/2015. This Swan 56 has been build for competitive racing and luxury cruising with a short handed crew.
See listing details in Nautor's Swan Brokerage
Contact
Giorgio Passarella
Nautor's Swan Brokerage
MYM Mediterranean Yacht Management
Tel: +377 97 97 95 07
Email:
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Northern Light Composites is proudly presenting ecoracer769, their first full natural fibers sportboat, combining innovative design and new construction technologies in order to win races in green, sustainable way.
The sailing boat is built from 100% flax fibre, with a recyclable core, and is introducing a new concept resin, which makes her completely recyclable. The mast, the keel and the rudder structures are made of aluminium and steel, and also the engine is electric - all chosen in the name of sustainability.
Length mt 7.69
Beam Max mt 2.80
Depth mt 1.80
Displacement kg 1.100
Upwind sail area m2 42
Downwind sail area m2 100
ORC rating 615 (preliminary)
Yacht Design Matteo Polli YD
Structural Enginnering
Alessandro Pera, Mattia Sconocchia
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
Contact
email
phone 0039 346 4944171
northernlightcomposites.com
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The quite incredible Cookson 50 yachts do not come on the market very often, and when they do, they are rarely as good as ENDLESS GAME. Amazing specification and maintained as well as a yacht can be. Please do call for her full specification and for more
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
Contact
Ben Cooper
Telephone: +44(0) 1590 679222
See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/
The Last Word
Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with. -- Douglas Adams
Editorial and letter submissions to
Advertising inquiries to Graeme Beeson: or see www.eurosailnews.com/advertise.html