In This Issue
• A Sudden Shift ... Barcelona is OUT as America's Cup Venue
• So where to now?
• SailGP and America's Cup Merger also in the works?
• Teignmouth Cup
• Miami Street Sailing Series Announced
• Osmium Keels - Another Rating Headache
• The Last Word: Mark Twain

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A Sudden Shift ... Barcelona is OUT as America's Cup Venue
Just 72 hours after the Barcelona venue annoucement (and just 24 hours past the originally scheduled date of March 31), organizers are scrambling to explain why the Spanish Federal Government has deep-sixed Barcelona as venue.

Tersa Ribera, Minister for the Ecological Transition, informed the world press at a hastily convened press gaggle in Madrid that Catalonia's environment minister did not initiate or clear the needed national environmental impact assessments, failed to heed warnings of endangered habitats raised by a number of residents and environmental groups, and, in short, acted with illegal impunity in allowing the event planning.

Nonsense, said Silvia Calvo i Armengol, Catalonia's Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Sostenibility of Andorra. "We are an autonomous region. Jurisdiction of the waters surrounding Barcelona are absolutely in our control. And I don't even like turtle soup."

Armengol's cryptic note was in reference to social media memes that she was unconcerned about the fate of the region's endangered sea turtles, one of the issues raised by environmental groups, because of her supposed love of turtle soup.

Further complicating issues was news from the European Union that the final decision on the multiple-nation bounding Mediterranean Sea laid with Brussels, which would take at least a year to investigate and rule on the AC's impact on both turtles and the fragile ecosphere of gorgonian octocorals that could easily be disturbed by the large number of spectator vessels.

INEOS Team Britain financier Sir Jim Ratcliffe stated the obvious .... "We cannot go ahead with plans for a compound or the event with this level of instability and uncertainty. Last place I want to be is in the middle of a bureaucratic pissing match between the EU, Madrid and Catalonian bureaucrats. I'd sooner toss them all into bag of snakes and wait to negotiate with the survivor".

english.elpais.com

www.barcelona-metropolitan.com

So where to now?
The clock is ticking on where to go now, with reports of Saudi's tossing "metric shittons" of cash at anyone who has any decision making influence. As always, the Cup is as much about philanthropic fluffing as it is about decision-making and sailing skills. EuroSail News has learned from several sources that Larry Ellison is back with a promised bid, fully paid stadium build and fully bribed San Francisco board members.

"Some snivelling peasants were upset that the last Cup cost taxpayers over $5 million, a bit off the original estimates of $250 million in revenue generation that the city had been promised. In my world that's a rounding error. Christ I've got $5 million in the couch cushions of my dozen or so houses."

Ellison may well have made the syndicates and the city a deal they can't refuse: hold the event in San Francisco Bay in late summer 2024, and he'll write a check for a cool half billion dollars to make everyone happy and / or STFU. Ellison reportedly also wants to be the Challenger of Record, which will complicate matters a bit given that ORACLE did not participate in the last Cup. Again more details that expensive lawyers can negotiate for fat retainers.

americascup.com

SailGP and America's Cup Merger also in the works?
Consolidation is the key to increased participation, says SailGP supremo Russell Coutts. "What used to be called the Whitbread, then the Volvo Ocean Race, now The Ocean Race has evolved to the point where IMOCA 60s are sailing the same race course, albeit in a separate class, from the one design VOR65s that gave us such intensely close racing last time out. We envision the same future for SailGP and the America's Cup, probably for AC number 38 in 2028."

The Vendee Globe attracted 33 IMOCA 60s in the last edition. Those are numbers that The Ocean Race, and the America's Cup can only dream of whilst in the depths of an Ouzo binge. The problem is that sky-high design and build costs, coupled with the length of time needed to be able to credibly sail a foiled 50 foot catamaran, have pushed a credible challenge out of the reach of all but the world of billionaires, and sailors amongst that group is a fairly small subset. Smaller still those whose checkbooks can withstand nine figure withdrawals.

"We have eight boats in our fleet already. The SailGP catamaran, the F50, is the same length as the boats sailed in Bermuda. We've seen the problems with the AC75 monohulls, the incredible complexity... who the hell needs a boat that cannot be handled at all if an onboard computer crashes? The F50 is a serious handful, faster than snot, and can be built at a fraction of the cost of the AC75. If we merge the two events, we have a built in successful feeder series, a proven boat and a marketing team that's done what few sports events PR can do... bring the sport into mainstream TV viewing. We'll all make (another) fortune" said Coutts.

sailgp.com

Teignmouth Cup
Donald Crowhurst aboard Teignmouth Electron. Click on image to enlarge.

With dozens of entrants to date for the Global Solo Challenge, the Golden Globe Race, Clipper Round the World and other single-handed, double-handed and fully crewed races around the world, there'a s new entrant to the field... the Teignmouth Cup, announced today in Plymouth.

Race promoter Beaurigard T. "Skruggs" McTavish has seen the winds of change and has as usual jumped in with both feet.

"The Clipper Race was the inspiration for me and has spawned many other races, bringing in amateur sailors to world level ocean racing. They have a serious screening process and a vigorous training program, to ensure full capability of the participants."

"Well, where is the sport in THAT? When you watch bumper cars at the county fair, what's more fun: experienced adult drivers or hyperactive 10 year olds high on a sugar buzz who are hanging onto a steering wheel for the first time? We all know the answer to that.

Participants in the Teignmouth Cup will be screened to weed out anyone with even the slightest of sailling experience. The training period will be a two day affair the weekend prior to departure. Mostly showing them which end is the front and how to pull ropes.

The initial course will be three legs held entirely in the Bay of Biscay: Departure from Brest, leg 1 finish in Santander. Leg two is due west to La Coruna, then a final return leg back to Brest.

"We're keeping things close for our first event" noted McTavish. "We'll have following chase boats to pull the poor bastards off their boats safely when the inevitable dismasting, full roll, or "I forgot to put the bilge plug back in". No sense plotting a global course, there's not a chance in hell of anyone completing it.

24 x 7 video from the following boats and from Go Pros mounted in the cabins and cockpits will bring the agony and ecstacy of wholly unprepared ocean encounters to millions of viewers.

"We hope to capture a true Crowhurst moment... madness followed by a quick swim. We will be there to save that soul; we couldn't do that for poor Donald. But hey, really riveting TV, eh?"

Miami Street Sailing Series Announced
A Miami street at high tide. Click on image to enlarge.

When the world gives you lemons, make lemonade. When climate change raises sea levels... create a new subgenre of sport. Starting this fall and scheduled annually until the heat death of the planet, the Miami Street Sailing Series turns adversity into opportunity: wind powered skim boards and Formula 1-style courses run through the flooded streets of a major American city: Miami.

"We won't see truly catastrophic flooding here for another decade or so" said event founder Heywood J'Blougghmei, but that suits our event strategy perfectly. We want modern city infrastructure for fan viewing, race participation and sponsor exposure and can accomplish all that with just 4-6 inches of water at high tide".

"Sure, sailing a keelboat down Biscayne Boulevard would be great fun, but the urban hellscape that would result from that great a sea level rise is not helpful to sponsors. To say nothing of the snakes and alligators that would cause significant problems on the race course. "

The proposed class is the SailSkim 800, a 4 foot long skimboard with a shallow skeg and a windsurfing rig varying in size from 4 to 7 square metres. The SkimKite division is powered by a kite and allows for foot straps. Fixed rig and multiple rig designs in the planning stages. "Remember the tandem sailboards of the 80s? With street sailing you can literally put 3-4 rigs on a 4x8 sheet of plywood and head down mainstreet when it floods. Bring on the collapse of the glaciers and we could be holding this event in Orlando in 2030" said J'Blougghmei.

Stadium sailing at its absolute best; the towering condo buildings will provide superb viewing from the comfort of thousands of balconies as the board-boats fly along the thoroughfares at speeds topping the normal city speed limits for cars!

For further info email

Osmium Keels - Another Rating Headache
Click on image to enlarge.

Osmium, like its close neighbours iridium, platinum and gold, is formed during collisions between neutron stars. Osmium is a chemical element with the symbol Os and atomic number 76. It is a hard, brittle, bluish-white transition metal in the platinum group that is found as a trace element in alloys, mostly in platinum ores. Osmium is the densest naturally occurring element.

Pen Duick VI competed against the carbonfiber-masted Heath's Condor in the 1977–78 Whitbread Round the World Race as an unofficial entrant, due to its own exotic material - depleted uranium ballasted keel, which was banned for use by the race organizers. Similar bans have been put in place with other heavy metals, particularly radioactive ones (and those created from the interior of glowing meteorites, which some say have achieved sentience, see our April 1 issue from 2003 below... )

But no one to date has tried Osmium.. mostly because its high melting point put it out of the reach of any keel fabricators. The fact that it's a beautiful blue-tinged precious metal to boot, one would think that elite jewelry brands like Cartier and Bulgari would be rushing to outdo one another with osmium trinkets for the rich. But nature has thrown a curve ball in that it's practically impossible to work with. Melting osmium takes Herculean efforts, hammering it causes cracks and, if that wasn't enough, the damn thing is highly poisonous when finely powdered making grinding and polishing a task fit only for those with a death wish!

All those problems have been solved by MarsKeel engineers, who have found that the naturally occuring beads of Osmium can be bound together with common Gougeon Brothers epoxy, poured into a mold and then placed in a keel bulb.

While extremely rare, Osmium is surprisingly inexpensive, as it has so few uses. A small market exists in trading and futures contracts, and the element has its own Reddit subgroup:

"What if any rating penalty we should apply to Osmium is one hell of a quandary" said Jenny Howell of the Royal Ocean Racing Club's rating office in Lymington. "If encapsulated properly in epoxy the lethal dust aspect is manageable by measurers... but this is kinda a big IF..."

rorcrating.com

* From the archives, our 2003 April 1 issue:

IRC, IMS Stumped By Mystery Keel Material Measurement experts from both the RORC and ORC are meeting in an undisclosed location this week to examine a new maxi-yacht that simply defies rating. In more ways than one.

The boat, named Seventh Seal, reportedly has a keel bulb that changes weight as conditions warrant. Whether this is controlled telekinetically by the skipper (whose identity remains unclear at press time) or just as a self-generated reaction to hull and rig loads is unknown at this time. The builder claims to have found the bulb's core materials inside a glowing meteor that struck the outskirts of Hamble late last year.

"This is beyond anything I've ever seen", said RORC measurement guru Mike Urwin.

"In the harbor this thing has one weight, add 20 knots and it clearly weighs far more... the righting moment shifts to compensate for windspeed. We hauled the boat and examined the keel... for a moment that is. It's warm to the touch, and when I drilled a small hole into it for a sample a huge thunderclap rent the heavens, I heard a deep, satanic growl and saw what I sincerely believe to be a vision of End Time. Nicola Sironi looked like a ghost, the last I saw of him he was grasping a rosary and running in the opposite direction. We don't need measurers here, we need a bloody exorcist..."

rorcrating.com

The Last Word
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. -- Mark Twain

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