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Brought to you by Boats.com Europe, Yachtworld.com Europe, 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 Transfusion Crowned Rolex Farr 40 World Champions
The defending champions Nerone (ITA) warned yesterday that Transfusion would have to force the win. That's exactly what they did, sailing and recovering from a couple of debatable tactical choices superbly to finish two points ahead when the final points were tallied. In race nine Transfusion's crew were coughing dust for the first upwind leg, rounding the top mark well back and lacking boat speed while Nerone was sailing hotter angles out in front on the first downwind run. Transfusion's US tactician, John Kostecki, now a three-time Farr 40 Worlds winner, lived up to his reputation as one of the world's best as the local boat clawed its way back to finish second to Massimo Mezzaroma and Antonio Sodo Migliori's Nerone. Transfusion needed to finish two places ahead of Nerone to take the title. Belgiorno-Nettis, a second generation Italian based in Sydney, gave himself a tiny margin for error, finishing four places ahead of the defending champions who out-smarted them at last year's Worlds. Conditions off Sydney Heads were 10-12 knots, up to 15 knots at times out of the NE to ENE with plenty of sunshine and a sizeable spectator and support boat fleet enjoying the close racing and nerve-racking finish that delivered the local team the win as the curtain fell on four days of searing salt water action. The last time Sydney played host to the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship back in 2005, local Richard Perini's Evolution took the victory from the internationals and once again the Aussies have proven themselves too good for the rest of the world. Third on the final pointscore was Jim Richardson's Barking Mad (USA). The next Rolex Farr 40 World Championship will be held in Chicago, USA, in late August or early September 2012. -- Lisa Ratcliff Full results on farr40worlds.com and All Skippers Safely Past Cape Horn Race leader, Brad Van Liew, passed Cape Horn in perfect conditions on Monday 21st, but has endured light winds since turning up into the Atlantic. Although it allowed him time 'to get some jobs done' at first, it has lead to a somewhat frustrating week for him, especially as the rest of the pack are making good progress. Behind Brad, the situation is far from resolved. Zbigniew 'Gutek' Gutkowski and Derek Hatfield have been enjoying some good sailing conditions, and at 12h00 UTC only 28 nautical miles separated them. Gutek and Operon Racing has had a week of highs and lows, having reported a worrying noise coming from his keel earlier in the week, which could have seriously jeopardised his race he then made a euphoric rounding of Cape Horn on Wednesday and since then he seems to have found a way to stabilise the issue: "Now I have my boat heeled a lot because I noticed it's a very good position for my keel. When it's almost horizontal, the 3.5 tons of lead at its end make such a big lever that the keel can't move. Only when it's straight down it knocks again" he said, "It's not very comfortable configuration for the boat, because I can feel she's tired. It's not so fast either, but I am satisfied with this solution. " For Derek on Active House Cape Horn held huge significance, not just as a major achievement in this race, but also to lay to rest the ghost of races past. In the 2002/3 edition of the VELUX 5 OCEANS Derek had a serious incident and pitchpoled and dismasted whilst rounding Cape Horn. He could hardly contain his joy and relief at having got round safely on Wednesday, shortly after Gutek. "For me Cape Horn was unfinished business, and that box is now ticked. It is such a weight off my shoulders. For the whole leg it's all that any of us have been thinking about. I feel like I really lucked out, I couldn't have asked for a better day to round Cape Horn" he said. Set Sights for the Dyneema&Reg; Treasure Trove, Free Rigging and Sailing Master Class!! Register Now - Less Than 1 Week Left... If you are selected as part of the 2011 Dyneema® Experience Team, we'll re-rig your boat completely free of charge with ropes made with Dyneema®®. All we ask of you is that you test and experience rigging with Dyneema® and share this with us, your friends, family and other sailors worldwide, through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. The most active 'skipper' of the 2011 'Dyneema® Experience Team' will experience a masterclass with a friend on one of the Volvo Ocean Race Yachts in Alicante. Dyneema® has proven to be highly versatile for a wide range of products in the yachting industry. The combination of high performance and durability makes it the ideal material, for running rigging for performance cruisers and professional sailors. The closing date for applications is March 4, 2011. The 2011 Dyneema® Experience Team ends on September 23rd 2011. Register now at www.dyneemaexperience.com Join the team www.dyneemaexperience.com Putting Atu Behind All four, Groupe Bel, Estrella Damm, Hugo Boss andGAES Centros Auditivos appear to have emerged in decent shape, a bit battered and bruised but with their boats and equipment in good shape. Estrella Damm's Pepe Ribes and co-skipper Alex Pella both sustained painful bruising in separate incidents, Pella falling against a winch while putting in a reef and Ribes while wrestling with a wild headsail furler. The three times Volvo round the world race veteran Ribes confirmed they were drained after their exploits but they were joint quickest boat of the fleet this morning and already trying to hunt down Groupe Bel. Their fellow Wellington pit-stop partners have been between two and three knots slower and Estrella Damm had made 11 miles on Kito De Pavant and Seb Audigane during the morning and early afternoon. A temporary transmission blank from MAPFRE's tracking beacon has seen the Spanish duo Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez miss out on accurate position of their position reporting today, but there is little doubt that they are still pacing leader Virbac-Paprec 3 as both appeared in a remarkable duplex, boat-to-boat visio-conference link up (see website media gallery). MAPFRE's Iker Martinez admitted they are finding it tough to hold on to the pace of Virbac-Paprec 3 which was 28 miles ahead of them this morning. The leaders are now expected at Cape Horn some time on Thursday, with their pace due to pick up still more over the next couple of days, likely to squeeze round the notorious Cape on the heels of a fast moving, typical low pressure system. 'Coming Of Age' for the New Offshore Classic
British Soldier had a cracking race but by the end they were fighting off a rear guard action from Christian Reynolds Swan 51, Northern Child. There was another great tussle between several yachts finishing in Class One. Andy Middleton's First 47.7 EH01 claimed second overall in class with Richard Balding's Swan 60, Fenix third. Philippe Falle's First 50, Hydrocarbon Logic and Ondeck's Farr 65, Spirit of Minerva also finished this lively race which was a great achievement. First 40.7s Spirit of Athena skippered by AYC (Antigua Yacht Club) and RORC member John Duffy and Coyote skippered by RORC member Peter Hopps, finished the RORC Caribbean 600 on Friday afternoon, wrapping up a fantastic event. Coyote were the last boat to cross the line but beat Athena on handicap. The two boats had been locked in a private battle all the way around the course. Not everybody gets to race a ballistic maxi, but there are many races within the event, which are just as important. The two production yachts had their own private gentleman's duel from start to finish. The third edition of the RORC Caribbean 600 could be described as a 'coming of age' of a new offshore racing classic. Already interest is pouring in from future competitors. The race around 11 Caribbean islands provides some of the most spectacular racing conditions and scenery anywhere else in the world. It has attracted a huge variety of yachts and competitors and there is almost unanimous agreement, the RORC Caribbean 600 is a tough race with big wind and waves. It is exciting and a joy to experience. Full results for all classes can be found at: caribbean600.rorc.org * At 15:30 GMT on Thursday, Collier-Wakefield and his team on Concise 2 crossed the finish line taking first place in Class40 and winning the Concise Trophy having led the fleet from crossing the RORC Caribbean 600 start line three days earlier. Tony Lawson, the yacht's owner, was delighted with his team's performance: "Although Ned Collier-Wakefield is down as the skipper, this really is a combined effort from a great bunch of very talented lads," said Lawson of the youngest crew competing in the event. "The new boat is going well with less freeboard and a much more ergonomic cockpit and the articulated bowsprit gives the crew more options," he explained. "It was important that we continued to build on our success in the Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland and we were very pleased to see that we went even faster than in the similar conditions we experienced in the 2009 RORC 600. We feel we have nudged the bar slightly higher." David Ducosson and his crew on Fitz took second, crossing the line ten hours after Concise 2, while the German team on Pogo 2 rounded La Desirade off Guadeloupe and, three hours into the reach north to Barbuda, opted to bear away and head directly for Antigua without completing the course. ORACLE RC44 Cup San Diego After the inaugural U.S. event in Miami at the end of the 2010 season, the class is now heading west to make its 2011 debut at the Oracle RC44 Cup San Diego. The event features 11 RC44 teams representing nine nations. Match and fleet racing will take place over five days on San Diego Bay with spectacular free spectator viewing areas from portions of Broadway Pier, Harbor Island and numerous areas along the downtown waterfront. Among the top sailors set to compete on the 2011 RC44 Championship Tour are class designer Russell Coutts (NZL), American yachting legend Paul Cayard and San Diego native son Rod Davis, Audi MedCup winners Morgan Larson (USA) and Jose Maria Ponce (ESP), Olympic Gold medalist Kevin Burnham (USA), along with some of the world's top match racing talent including Cameron Appleton (NZL). The RC44 class was conceived and co-designed by four-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts. With an evenly split amateur and professional crew line-up, the class attracts the world's leading business minds as their owner-drivers, along with many of the world's top sailors. For Oracle RC44 Cup San Diego information, or to book a hotel room, visit www.oraclerc44cupsandiego.com Royal Institute Of Navigation - Electronic Navigation Workshop The workshop aims to concentrate on those areas of interest and concern for all leisure sailors/motorboaters and uses expert speakers to review the latest developments in technology. The morning session will concentrate on chart plotters, PC based systems and the latest electronic chart offerings. The afternoon session will cover AIS and radar systems - collision avoidance will be the theme but does technology make us safer? We will also look at the navigational uses of iPod Apps and how they can link to on-board systems. Have your opportunity to hear expert opinions on a rapidly changing environment and ask your own questions. Venue: The Royal Southern Yacht Club in Hamble. This meeting has been organised by the RIN Small Craft Group and is open to all. Cost (includes lunch): Complete the booking form available at: To All Interested In The Transatlantic Race 2011 To enter the TR 2011, please complete the attached entry form and return it to me and the as soon as possible, but no later than March 31, 2011. To submit a provisional entry, please do the same, marking the form as PROVISIONAL. The form and all race documents are also available at www.transatlanticrace.org The TR 2011 is required to compete for the Atlantic Ocean Racing Series (AORS), along with two other races. The Pineapple Cup and RORC Caribbean 600 are now completed, with the Annapolis to Newport, Rolex Fastnet, Biscay, and Rolex Middle Sea Races yet to come. Interest in competing for the Series has been increasing rapidly with at least half of the TR 2011 entries currently planning to compete for the AORS. We encourage and invite your participation in the TR 2011 and AORS. The TR 2011 is sure to be a significant event for the 2011 sailing season and it would be terrific to have you join the fleet. Please let me know if you have any questions or need any further information. I look forward to hearing from you. Best, Camet Code Zip Performance Shirt For more information please see Attacking the Pacific At the midway point, the skipper confirms that physically he's at the peak of fitness: "I'm amazed" he admits today, "to feel this fresh. I'm not limiting myself. I don't have to choose to do one course or the other". The same is true for the boat "even though I carry out a few jobs here and there on a daily basis, notably at the equator when I broke three battens". Excellent news then as the skipper of SODEBO made his entrance into the Pacific on Friday. Ahead of him and prior to the liberation represented by rounding Cape Horn, potentially ten days away, the big test consists of going around the Antarctic continent. Fully focused for the past 28 days and sailing at an extreme standard since leaving Brest, Thomas is continuing to attack "whilst trying to strike a balance on a daily level and keeping to the same pace day after day of around 20 knots, and the same output with about the same number of miles each day, namely around 500". Ahead of him is strong, steady wind, which will require a great deal of effort. For Tom, that means manœuvres and hence sail changes, "huge sails which weigh more than me". Indeed the solo sailor is entering some testing latitudes where his boat will go very fast in some very heavy seas. "At these latitudes, the phenomena move quickly and they are massive in scale. They are violent masses of air and water that nothing can stop. At these latitudes, you sail in systems which are on a par with cyclones in terms of scale". And then in the circumnavigation of Antarctica, there has been some ice pinpointed by CLS Argos, which has been working on the subject with Tom and his team this year: "It's a new aspect to racing which enables us to manage the risk. Knowing about it is no less harrowing, but it's simply less idiotic" concludes the skipper before returning to the deck to furl in the gennaker and hoist the solent in the pitch black of the Pacific. -- Translated by Kate Jennings US Sailing's Rolex Yachtsman and Yachtswoman of the Year Ceremony
During 2010, Tunnicliffe, a 2008 Laser Olympic Gold Medalist and member of the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics, won both the 2010 Snipe Women's Worlds and Laser Radial Women's North Americans and raced in the Elliott 6 Metre (with crew Molly Vandemoer of Redwood City, Calif. and Debbie Capozzi of Bayport, N.Y.) to win US SAILING's Rolex Miami OCR; place second at French Sailing Week in Hyeres, France; and take third at Skandia Sail For Gold in Weymouth, England, site of the 2012 Olympic Regatta. She won the XII International Women's Match Race Criterium in Calpe, Spain, sailed in Tom 28s, and was second at the Toyota International Match Race in Detroit, Michigan, in Ultimate 20s. She picked up a bronze medal in the match racing event at Kiel Week in Germany and also placed third in the BoatU.S. Santa Maria Cup in Annapolis, Md., sailing in J/22s. The 55-year-old Honey was cited for his victory in the Jules Verne Trophy as navigator on an otherwise all-French crew aboard Groupama 3. The trimaran set a race record of 48 days, seven hours and 45 minutes and accounted for history's fastest non-stop circumnavigation under sail, eclipsing the former record by more than 56 hours. Honey is the second American in the history of the award to receive the honor for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe. (Cam Lewis was the first, in 1993, after winning the Jules Verne prize aboard Commodore Explorer, also with a record time.) After graduating from Yale University (New Haven, Conn.) with a degree in Engineering and Applied Science and from Stanford University (Palo Alto, Calif.) with a Masters in Science Electrical Engineering, Honey, in 1998, co-founded Sportvision Inc. which evolved into the leading developer of live-tracking enhancements for sports TV broadcasts. Honey led the development of the yellow first-down line for televised football; the NASCAR racecar tracking and highlighting system; and the baseball K-Zone system, which highlights the pitch location and strike zone in televised baseball. He holds eight patents in navigational system design, 21 patents for TV special effects, is a member of the board of directors of KVH (a manufacturer of satellite communications and navigation sensors), and currently works for the America's Cup Event Authority on TV technology for the America's Cup. Honey is married to Sally Lindsay Honey, a two-time Yachtswoman of the Year (1972, '73). Featured Brokerage This Beneteau Figaro II "Hot Socks" has acquitted herself well in events such as the Solitaire du Figaro, the bluQuble Solo 1000, OSTAR 2009 Fastnet 2009 and Shetland Round Britain and Ireland 2010. Ideally suited to fast offshore short handed sailing, her owner is now moving on to new projects and so "Hot Socks" needs a new jockey. Brokerage through Sea Ventures (UK) Ltd.: www.yachtworld.com/seaventures/ Complete listing details and seller contact information at uk.yachtworld.com The Last Word |
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