EuroSail News #5390

In This Issue
• A wet and wild start to the 2023 ORC World Championship
• 12 Metre World Championship
• What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine
• Cup Spy August : Riding the Summer seabreeze
• Sailing World Championships
• Rolex TP52 World Championship
• Fast boats ready for take-off at Airlie Beach Race Week
• Laura Dillon wins Irish Sailing Sailor of the Year
• Kiwis Launch Their AC40
• Featured Charter: HYPR - Volvo 70
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Cookson 50 - "Furiosa"
• • L30 One Design
• • Farr 40 OD Warpath
• The Last Word: Michael Pollan

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

A wet and wild start to the 2023 ORC World Championship
Kiel, Germany: The weather today in the Kiel Bucht region was exactly as forecasted, with strong westerly winds of 20-35 knots on the first Coastal Race of the 2023 ORC World Championship, producing a wild but fast and fun experience for the 113 boats competing in the event.

With the start made in front of Kieler Yacht-Club at Dusternbrook Harbor, four waves of starting groups successively filled the inner fjord with their small headsails and reefed mainsails, speeding northeast on a port tack close reach in flat water on the first leg of the course. Once around the second corner at Friedrichsort, the fiord opens up and the wind became gusty, and even more so once around the point at Lighthouse Buelk.

Tomorrow racing will continue in Day Two of the 2023 ORC World Championship with the Long Offshore Race of 115 miles length for Class A, 105 miles for Class B and 85 miles for Class C. These courses are designed to have teams finished by late tomorrow night so that inshore racing may start late in the day on Wednesday.

Live tracking will be available ORC World Championship 2023 - Summary of the results - Day 1

Class A
1. BEAu GESTE TP52 - Karl Kwok (HKG)
2. OuTSIDER TP52 - Tilmar Hansen (GER)
3. RED BANDIT TP52 - Carl-Peter Forster (GER)

Class B
1. WINDWHISPER Grand Soleil 44P - Marcin Sutkowski (POL)
2. SIRENA Swan 42 - Peter Buhl (DEN)v 3. DIXI 4 X-41 - Erik Stannow (DEN)

Class C
Yellow fleet
1. MATILDA 4 J-112E - Juss Ojala (EST)
2. TOPAS Farr 30 - Harald Dr Brüning (GER)
3. NOLA J-112E - Margus uudam (EST)

Blue fleet
1. SHADOW J-112E - Harles Liiv (EST)
2. SuGAR 3 Italia 11.98 - Ott Kikkas (EST)
3. TEAM PRO4u First 36.7 - Patrik Forsgren (SWE)

Complete results are at: orcworlds2023.com/results

12 Metre World Championship
After participating in a morning parade around Newport Harbor that was punctuated by cannon salutes from yacht clubs and other prime waterfront viewing spots, ten historic 12 Metres moved on to Rhode Island Sound for Saturday's final race of the 12 Metre World Championship. To be named the World Champions at the end of the day, Jack LeFort's (Winter Park, Fla./Jamestown, R.I.) Challenge XII (KA-10) had merely to finish better than fifth among Modern Division's five entries if Takashi Okura's Japanese entry Freedom (uS-30), close behind in the standings, were to win. The day prior, Kevin Hegarty/Anthony Chiurco's (Newport, R.I./Princeton, N.J.) Columbia (uS-16) already had mathematically sewn up the nine-race series in the five-boat Traditional/Vintage Division.

After waiting for two hours, a windward/leeward course was set (later shortened) for a seven-knot breeze, and Challenge XII handily sailed to victory while Freedom finished fifth to maintain its Modern Division podium position of second place. Columbia finished third, while the fleet's oldest boat, Mark Watson's (Newport, R.I.) Onawa (uS-6), built in 1928, sailed its way to a clean victory and a claim on second place overall for the Traditional/Vintage Division.

Both the Challenge XII and Columbia teams, homegrown with mostly local crews, won the Worlds in 2019 when it last was held in Newport.

The Ted Turner Trophy for most significant contribution to the 12 Metre Class went to Steve Eddleston, Commodore of the 12 Metre Yacht Club Newport Station, who subsequently presented the Tiedemann Trophy for best Vintage yacht to Onawa.

The Worlds fleet included four boats that successfully defended the America's Cup when it was sailed in Newport in 12 Metres from 1958 to 1983: Columbia - 1958, Weatherly -1962, Courageous - 1974/1977 and Freedom - 1980.

12mrworlds.com

Seahorse August 2023
What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine

A Drheam story
The Drheam-Cup is a class act from start to finish with interesting and testing courses designed for different types of boats - including a rapidly growing IRC fleet - and a festival atmosphere at both ends

He really was a Wizard
A courageous Carol Cronin takes on the challenge of sharing the life of Buddy Melges

Once is too often - Part I
Rich Du Moulin is one of the original pioneers of the Storm Trysail Club’s now well-established and internationally respected safety at sea programmes and seminars

Seahorse build table - Bora Bora
The R&D was hell. Brett Bakewell-White

RORC - Worth the effort
Jeremy Wilton

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Cup Spy August 4-5: Riding the Summer seabreeze in Barcelona
The five teams based in Barcelona have been enjoying seabreeze sailing, and are learning how to foil with "off-axis" swells. Sailing conditions have followed a pattern, but various issues have stopped some teams from gaining the full benefit.

There are 13 boats of various Cup-legal configuration in play so far in this America's Cup. The teams fall into two broad groups ETNZ, Alinghi RBR and American Magic who are running a 1 x AC75 and 2x AC-40 program. INEOS and Luna Rossa are running a 1 x LEQ12 (custom design test boat under 12 metres overall length) and 1 x AC40 campaign.

What happened in the Cup - August 4 and 5, 2023:

- Emirates Team New Zealand were the only team to sail an AC75, in the last two days and have sailed the most of any of the teams - getting out on four of the six days this week. They missed the fresh breeze of Wednesday, and didn't sail on Saturday. They will switch to their AC40 for next week's sailing block.

- Alinghi Red Bull Racing did not sail on Friday or Saturday - and sailed on three of the six days this week, when they sailed both their AC40's, with Dean Barker co-helming on Monday and Wednesday.

- Luna Rossa - were sailing off Barcelona, on Friday, in the AC40-OD, with Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni co-helming - the same combination used in the last Cup. Spithill said their main objectives were getting to understand the Barcelona course and sea-states.

- American Magic - sailed their two AC40s, on Friday and Saturday - which were the only two of five available days in August on which they sailed. They lost most of the Friday session due to unexplained technical issues on both AC40s, with the Recon team saying American Magic only got 40 minutes of sailing from a five hour session on Friday. They were the only team to sail on Saturday - again with their two AC40s and scored a perfect seabreeze - which they put to good use for two boat training - speed testing and race training.

- INEOS Britannia were down for a serious week of sailing, however the complexities of their technical platform kicked in once again. Setup issues cost them the first two days of the five available in August. They did get onto the water on Thursday, and put in a long day getting a series of issues sorted. Friday was spent tow-testing - presumably to get their F1-style testing comms system synchronised.

- No further news from the Orient Express Team (formerly K-Challenge).

Richard Gladwell's full report in Sail-World.com

British Sailing Team descends on The Hague for Sailing World Championships
The Sailing World Championships is a multi-class regatta that takes place once an Olympic cycle. In 2018 the Danish city of Aarhus held the regatta, and now it's the turn of Dutch capital The Hague to play host, with the action taking place in the beach resort of Scheveningen (below). Racing starts on August 11 and finishes on August 20.

unlike the Paris 2024 test event that saw only one entry per class per nation, the Sailing World Championships is open to multiple entries in each class - and that means huge fleet sizes. More than 1,400 of the world's best sailors will descend on The Hague for the regatta, including over 60 British Sailing Team and British Sailing Squad athletes. The full British Sailing Team contingent can be found here.

The second of two major regattas this summer, the Sailing World Championships promises to be massive. It's the first time that nations can qualify for a spot on the start line at next year's Olympics. And just to up the ante even more, many nations are still in the process of choosing their Paris 2024 team, so performance on the waters of The Hague is absolutely critical. Para sailing also makes a welcome return to the Sailing World Championships in The Hague, with Britain fielding three para sailors: Emily Wright, Adam Billany and Rory McKinna.

allianzsailingworlds.com

Talisman Terry Hutchinson will sail 2023 Rolex TP52 World Championship with Quantum Racing powered by American Magic
When they seek to defend their world title in Barcelona in two weeks time at the Rolex TP52 World Championship in Barcelona, Doug DeVos' Quantum Racing powered by American Magic will have their five times 52 SuPER SERIES title winner Terry Hutchinson on board as tactician, substituting for John Kostecki who is still recovering from a medical procedure which he underwent in late May.

Hutchinson, who, as skipper/president of sailing operations of American Magic is presently based in the Catalan capital city, will reprise the role in which he helped guide Quantum Racing to Rolex World Championship titles in 2014, 2016 and 2018 as well as last year.

He will sail with 2023's team newcomer helm Harry Melges IV - himself a member of the American Magic afterguard - and young Victor Diaz de Leon reverting to his role as strategist, with Nicolo Sanfelice now coming in as navigator until the end of the season.

Quantum Racing powered by American Magic currently lie third on the 2023 52 SuPER SERIES standings some 26 points behind leaders Provezza. They finished second by six points in Saint Tropez and were again runners up in Scarlino - where they missed victory by one point - but in Menorca finished sixth, 20 points off Platoon's winning aggregate.

Now the uS-flagged team are also hoping a winning performance in Barcelona will reduce some of that points deficit. Kostecki is expected to be back on the boat as tactician at the final regatta of the season in Puerto Portals in September.

The Rolex TP52 World Championship runs from 21st to 26th August in Barcelona, based out of the Marina Vela by the W Hotel. The event will feature five days of Live TV.

52superseries.com

Fast boats ready for take-off at Airlie Beach Race Week
Airlie Beach Race Week is sure to set pulses racing and hearts pumping when the multihulls and sports boats take to the water for the 35th running of the annual Whitsunday Sailing Club (WSC) takes off from 10-17 August.

The Mitchell name is synonymous with victory after victory in Multihull Racing events. Brothers Paul and Dale head into major events with a target on their backs, whether racing together or separately.

Paul Mitchell returns to the fold this year with the Extreme 40, ullman Sails (ex-Back in Black), after cleanly winning the division in 2021 with another Extreme 40, Angus. Mitchell's brother, Blair, joins him along with other regulars. They are the ones to beat.

So far there are three other thrill-seeking Extreme 40s entered: Joel Berg's Parabellum, Michel Van Der Zwaard's Angus and Mike Peberdy's High Voltage. The latter two finished second and third respectively at Airlie Beach Race Week Festival of Sailing last year.

Previous top placegetters are also returning to the fray, including Peter Hackett's Farrer 9R, Full Bore, Terry Archer's Grainger 75, G'Nome and Clive Kennedy's Farrier 85, Evil Gnome. -- Di Pearson/ABRW media

For online entry and Notice of Race, please visit the official site: abrw.com.au

Laura Dillon wins Irish Sailing Sailor of the Year
2022 RORC Overseas Rear Commodore Laura Dillon has won the prestigious title of Irish Sailing Sailor of the Year. Laura has been racing with the RORC for decades and 2022 was certainly a golden year for Laura.

In her native Ireland, Laura raced on the J/99 Snapshot winning ICRA Boat of the Year and the Women at the Helm Award from the National Yacht Club. Dillon was also delighted to win IRC One at Cork week, as tactician onboard Louise Makin & Chris Jones' J/111 Journeymaker II.

For 12 years Laura Dillon has raced on S&S 41 Winsome with owner, and long standing RORC, member Harry Heijst. In 2022, racing on Winsome, Dillon was named Top Female Helm at Cowes week. Dillon skippered Winsome to class wins in RORC Easter Regatta and also Round the Island Race.

Laura Dillon takes every opportunity to get in a mixture of sailing and is keen to promote the sport wherever she can. Whether this be in her home club of Howth, to a wider audience. Loving the team element of the sport she has now racked up over 35 years of competitive international racing.

"The competitive element is what keeps me coming back! You are forced to switch off from work, as you simply can't be thinking about anything else on a start line. Sailing Is a Sport for Life!" commented Laura Dillon.

Congratulations to Laura on all your successes and here's to more in 2023!

rorc.org

Kiwis Launch Their AC40
A rapid turn-around from delivery to on the water by the Emirates Team New Zealand shore crew was rewarded with a perfect day of building southerly breeze in Barcelona and the persistent easterly-flowing chop and swell that gained momentum into the afternoon and produced some of the most testing conditions that the America's Cup venue can serve.

'Te Kãkahi', the New Zealand pure one design AC40 launched into the team's pen and docked out just after midday with the sailing team were keen to get on the water to commission the yacht ahead of the expected swell build. Once out into the open waters and free from the Port Vell entrance, it was straight down to business with easy flight before a batten issue on the jib after about 10 minutes of sailing saw the team come back into the shelter of the harbour to fix the issue.

Nathan Outteridge described it saying: "Some of the battens weren't sitting perfectly on the forestay on the jib so we did like an initial commissioning lap and we normally want to stop after five or 10 minutes just to check the whole system so it's a bit bumpy out there for the 40s to bring a chase boat alongside so we just sailed back in and yeah went jib up and down and fixed that problem and then had a full look through the boat, everything was running fine so then yeah we went back out and for another hour or so of sailing."

EuroSail News #5390 - 8 August

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