In This Issue
• Deed of gift challenge too good for Team NZ to ignore
• UK Season Opener for RORC
• Unparalleled style - Lyman Morse
• Pendulum
• Portugal Brings Its Charm To Hosting The Ocean Race Europe In June
• Vendee Globe Much More Than Just A Success
• Making Complex Simple - article for Sailing World Magazine
• Pegasus Keel
• Denmark unveil line-up ahead of SailGP season opener in Bermuda
• World's largest sailing ship to dock in Devon and Cornwall in summer
• Letters to the Editor
• Featured Brokerage:
• • 1929 Classic International 12M
• • Neel 51 - Trimaran
• • Jeanneau 54 Yacht
• The Last Word: Richard Feynman

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

Deed of gift challenge too good for Team NZ to ignore
Team New Zealand should accept the deed of gift challenge to put the America's Cup on the line in Britain as early as next year.

It's a win-win situation, even if they lose to Sir Ben Ainslie's Team UK.

The willingness of the British to defend the Auld Mug in Auckland in 2024, if they do manage to beat the Kiwis at Cowes, makes this a no-brainer.

When the concept was first mooted, I thought it was exciting, purely for the romance of taking the Auld Mug back to where it all began in 1851, especially if the race around the Isle of Wight really could be replicated.

It sounded like an event the world would sit up and take notice of because of all the history surrounding it and these radical AC75s bringing a truly modern link to the roots of sport's oldest trophy. -- Duncan Johnstone

Duncan 's full editorial: stuff.co.nz/sport/americas-cup/

UK Season Opener for RORC
Sam Laidlaw's Quarter Tonner BLT. Photo by Louay Habib. Click on image to enlarge.

RORC Spring Series Race 1
Start: 3rd April 2021 FWS: 09:50
OSR Category 4. Duration 6-8 Hours
Organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club

The 'stay at home' rule in the UK will end on the 29th March allowing the Royal Ocean Racing Club to organise a Spring Series of racing in April and early May. With some government restrictions still in place, three races are planned to offer crews the chance for some early season training and race practice. The series is open to IRC rated boats including an IRC Two-Handed Class and MOCRA rated multihulls.

The first race of the RORC Spring Series is scheduled to start on Saturday 3rd April from the Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes. One long race is planned of approximately 6-8 hours duration and online entry is open at: https://rorc.sailgate.com/

Michael O'Donnell's J/121 Darkwood will be competing in the RORC Spring Series. This will be the first RORC race of the year in preparation for their Rolex Fastnet Campaign.

IRC Two-Handed is expected to be the largest class racing in the RORC Spring Series. Early entries include 2020 RORC Yacht of the Year, JPK 10.10 Jangada. Richard Palmer will return to the fray after a knee operation and will team up with Jeremy Waitt. 2020 IRC Two-Handed Champions James Harayda and Dee Caffari, will be racing the Sun Fast 3300 Gentoo. Kelvin Rawlings' Sun Fast 3300 Aries will be racing with the RORC for the first time. Rawlings will be racing Two-Handed with Stuart Childerley, the team won the Two-Handed class in the 2015 Rolex Fastnet Race.

Sam Laidlaw's Quarter Tonner BLT will be racing in the RORC Spring Series. Laidlaw has won the Quarter Ton Cup twice and BLT won the Quarter Ton Cup in 1980. The vintage Jacques Fauroux design is currently the smallest boat entered for the race. -- Louay Habib

www.rorc.org

Unparalleled style - Lyman Morse
For a wonderful long-established name in the discerning Maine boat building community, Lyman-Morse collaborates successfully with some very modern people...

With more than a century of Maine-based commercial and recreational boatbuilding and craftsmanship infused in their culture, Lyman-Morse began in earnest building sailboats and powerboats with souls over 40 years ago. The new LM46 is a perfect blend of these characteristics, where modern design meets traditional materials, combining uniquely to evoke the soul of modern sailing.

In those days the industry was rapidly evolving from one-off wood construction towards series-built production, and by embracing these innovations the yard grew quickly in size, talent and capabilities. Now Lyman-Morse has expanded to become not only the premier builder of choice on the Down East coast, but to also to service a long list of clients with a diverse variety of skill sets to become a premier brokerage and service operation as well.

Full article in the April Issue of Seahorse

Pendulum
"Be brave, be bold... It's time for the colonials to conquer the old world. Take the Cup on tour, I say." These are the words of New Zealand's most prominent Sports Editor, Duncan Johnstone of Stuff, one of the leading voices in the America's Cup and one of the key opinion formers in the land of the long white cloud. It's the zeitgeist of the nation and the sailors right now. He's absolutely right. Spot-on. Do or die time.

And with bright minds like Johnstone leading the way, the mood music is shifting squarely towards an interim regatta in the UK with the argument laid clearly before the Kiwi public that; "Getting a meaningful event to form an interlude is gold, especially to Team New Zealand. The biggest problem they regularly face at exactly these post-regatta moments is one of survival. A deed of gift challenge offers them the chance of bridging finance, with the extravaganza in Britain an easy sell for someone with the door-knocking skills of Grant Dalton. Without knowing the details of any other juicy offers moving forward, this looks like an opportunity that is gift-wrapped."

In a nutshell that's it. And with the news yesterday, as predicted here, that Jim Ratcliffe would be absolutely willing to bring the Cup back to Auckland in 2024, win, lose or draw, let's just get it on. The New Zealand government can breathe a huge sigh of relief and have surety over the future event. The Kiwi public can rest assured that Team New Zealand won't lose the Cup on foreign soil (or anywhere for that matter) and they can cheer on their heroes at a home event that hopefully the world can come to and swell the coffers as a thank you for a brilliant event this time.

Magnus Wheatley in Rule69Blog

Portugal Brings Its Charm To Hosting The Ocean Race Europe In June
Following the Race start from Lorient, France, at the end of May, the inaugural edition of The Ocean Race Europe will stop in Cascais, bringing the top international offshore racing teams in the world to Portugal.

Located 30km west of Lisbon, Cascais is a historic and cosmopolitan seaside resort on the edge of the Tagus estuary, between the Sintra mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Ocean Race Europe will feature the record-breaking, one-design, VO65 fleet which produced the closest edition of The Ocean Race in history in 2017-18. The teams are seeing the event as the first step on their journey towards the next edition of the around the world race in 2022-23.

And for the first time, the foiling IMOCA fleet will participate in a competition under The Ocean Race banner. The IMOCA teams bring a high-tech component to the event, showcasing the latest foiling technology.

"The Ocean Race Europe will surely provide us with great competition on the water. But it is also an opportunity for our wonderful sport to inspire towards a greater purpose," said Richard Brisius, the Race Chairman of The Ocean Race. "We are united in driving action towards the promotion of ocean health and we look forward to working on this with all of our friends and partners in Cascais when we are in Portugal this June."

The home team in Cascais, the Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team, was the first VO65 team to confirm its entry in the European race back in January and The Mirpuri Foundation will host the event from its training base at the Clube Naval de Cascais.

www.imoca.org

Vendee Globe Much More Than Just A Success
The Vendee Globe is always an extraordinary adventure, each edition is unique but none more so than this ninth race, which proved to be particular in the range and depth of the sporting stories, the organisation of the Start Village, the start itself and the finishes.

The first, and some might say foremost victory, was in the race actually starting. The organizational protocols were required to be constantly updated, adapting the Start Village to the ever changing situation, the national State safe event requirements, setting up protocols which ensured the safety of staff, stakeholders, visitors, skippers and teams, culminating in the unfortunate necessity of a start 'behind closed doors'. 93 per cent of visitors reported that the felt safe with the health protocols put in place.

In the bigger picture it was a difficult year for all the sailing teams who proved that, despite missing out on two pre-Vendee Globe preparatory Transatlantic races, had nonetheless done good preparatory and optimising work, ensuring boats were competitive and reliable. The ninth edition proved that the IMOCA fleet has come on in terms of speed, performance and durability over the course of nearly four months racing on the world's oceans.

In short the race stood up to the challenges that the health situation brought, it proved to be an exciting sporting event from first to last, never closer at the front of the fleet and with multiple races within the race all the way through the record sized fleet, ensuring that no one skipper was out of touch with a rival or rivals for any significant period of time. An unprecedented 76 per cent of the starters finished the course.

www.imoca.org

Making Complex Simple - article for Sailing World Magazine
Originally written for Sailing World Magazine by Sailing.Dog's Andrew Palfrey

In this web series of technical articles highlighting some of the major controls generic to most keelboats, we'll use the 5.5 Metre as a platform to explore various key controls, what they do, and how and why they're set up as they are.

I had been speaking with Sailing World's Dave Powlison about a potential series of articles highlighting the major generic controls on most keel-boats to control the rig and sails, when it suddenly occurred to both of us that we could do this series in parallel to my involvement in the creation of two 5.5 Metre class yacht builds taking place in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight in England.

Why the 5.5 as a platform for this discussion? For starters, there are no fewer than 46 control points. This is where a control line is directed to a crewmember. Believe me, I have "simplicity" going through my mind at every moment—we are doing all we can to minimize complication. At every step of the way, we debate what we do and don't need and where it needs to be led.

To read the rest of the article check out the Sailing World website.

www.sailing.dog

Pegasus Keel
The Pegasus 50 is built in Slovenia and designed by Marine Designs. This is not a new yard. It has produced many yachts and has recently started to build in carbon fiber. I can't find any mention in the material about whether this design will be built in carbon, but I will say that I have seen few promotional packets more complete and better organized than this one. I don't have hull lines and I don't have structural specs but I sure have just about everything else. It's a pleasure to review a boat when I have this much accurate material to work with.

This is a production cruising boat project with enough options to keep just about everyone happy. I admire the company's unique approach to the styling and details. -- Bob Perry

sailingmagazine.net/article-2147-pegasus-50.html

With extraordinary Pegasus 50 keel, we improved directional stability while sailing, decreased autopilot activity and gave the captain and his limited crew full control to manoeuvre in small ports by reducing boat side movement and increase reversing steering control.

Lateral resistance at low or zero speed (in ports) is mainly created from keel and rudder(s). 50-60 feet performance cruiser average lateral area of the keel and rudder - that counteracts force created by side wind on hull and rig - is 1,5% of sail area. We wanted to increase the lateral keel area by 30-50% but not reducing the speed potential of Pegasus 50. A bigger lateral area certainly means a more wetted surface and increased drag that works against speed. But it was a decision to increase safety and comfort and reduce stress on board, so the keel area had to be 30-50% bigger.

pegasus-yachts.com

Denmark unveil line-up ahead of SailGP season opener in Bermuda
Denmark's SailGP team have revealed their crew to compete in the series' second season, including two female athletes who bring additional Olympic experience to the team.

Danish helm Nicolai Sehested revealed an all-star crew consisting of Olympic medal-winners, world champions and round-the-world racers ahead of the series opener in Bermuda on April 24 and 25.

Sehested confirmed that he will once again be joined by Rasmus Køstner, Martin Kirketerp, brothers Hans-Christian Rosendahl and Lars-Peter Rosendahl, and Tom Johnson. Hailing from Perth, Australia, but currently living in Denmark, Johnson is the only international member of a majority Danish crew.

Sehested also announced that the roster will also feature Danish Olympic medal-winners Anne-Marie Rindom and Katja Salskov-Iversen, the two successful candidates in the wake of the Denmark SailGP Team female selection camp.

Rindom is a two-times world champion and the 2019 World Sailor of the Year, who competes in the Laser Radial class. She won a bronze medal at Rio 2016, and is preparing to race at the Tokyo Olympics this summer.

Salskov-Iversen, who raced in the Olympic 49erFX class alongside Jena-Mai Hansen, also took home a bronze medal from Brazil, a year before winning the World Championships. -- Sam Murley

www.royalgazette.com

World's largest sailing ship to dock in Devon and Cornwall in summer
Click on image to enlarge.

A massive sailing cruise ship is touring around the South West of England this summer - and will be staying in Plymouth and Cornwall for part of its journey.

The Golden Horizon, run by Tradewind Voyages, is a staggering 162m long, with a width of around 18.5m.

Based in Ipswich, the ship will be taking its 42 sails on a tour around the south coast - including a few stops in Cornwall across July and August.

It will arrive in Cornwall for the first time on June 24, having launched from Portsmouth, and will dock in Falmouth.

After staying the night in Falmouth, giving visitors the chance to tour around the towpln, it will then skirt up the coast and spend a further night in Fowey on June 25.

Golden Horizon's next trip to the county, after leaving Liverpool on July 25, the ship will dock in Ilfracombe, Devon, before making its way to St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly for July 30.

After that, it returns to its home port of Harwich before departing again - and reaching Falmouth on August 9. -- Edward Church

www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/worlds-largest-sailing-ship-dock-5222930

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 Chris Gould:

Just a few thoughts on the recently completed Americans Cup, and the next one. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, but found it a little tricky to find the right videos without discovering the results!

It's looks like we will be racing in AC 75s again, which to me is great news. I presume there will be tweaks to the rule for the next competition. I hope the four teams that were racing in Auckland can get together to discuss what changes would be worthwhile and improve the boat, its sailability and reduce costs. It would also be good if the teams could get together and discuss what they tried that worked well and what didn't – but I suspect that they will want to give away as little as possible send any future competitors.

I've been trying to think what's in the AC 75 that would be useful in other classes. Not much on the face of it. But the double-skinned mainsail might work where class rules allow. A and C-class cats? I think Moths and International Canoes have mast size restrictions. Fully-crewed IMOCAs might be able to use the idea if it can be made reefable.

Featured Brokerage
1929 Classic International 12m. 450000 EUR. Located in Barcelona.

Built by the Baglietto shipyards in 1929 to designs by Vincenzo Vittorio Baglietto and sailing under 'I-1', LA SPINA was the first 12m to come out of Italy and was designed to the Second International Rule (design no.123). Launched to her home port of Santa Margherita, LA SPINA was later named 'LA VESPA' (1948) and 'CORSARA' (1956) she has more recently returned to her original launch name.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
Lead Broker: Lucio Pellegrini - Grabau International (Spain)
Tel: +34 675 236 174
Email:

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NEEL 51 - Trimaran. POA EUR.

The NEEL 51 combines the benefits of its predecessors the NEEL 45 and the NEEL 65, performance and comfort living. It's a blue water yacht for family, manoeuvrable by minimal crew. The 51's sleek lines and reversed bows give it a modern design and sporting look.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
4 rue Virginie Heriot
Plateau nautique BP 23085
17032 La Rochelle Cedex, France
Tel. : +33 546 290 871

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Jeanneau 54 - G race. POA EUR.

The Jeanneau 54 Yacht is a beautiful and practical sailing yacht, very much along the lines of her larger sister, the very successful Jeanneau 64.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
Sea Ventures (UK) Ltd
Swanwick Marina
Swanwick Shore Road
Swanwick
Hampshire SO31 1ZL
+44 (0)1489 565444

See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/

The Last Word
If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize. -- Richard Feynman

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