EuroSail News #5434 - 19 October

In This Issue
• New Spanish Team On Starting Grid for the 44Cup Alcaidesa Marina
• ILCA U21 World Championship
• Halloween Is Just Days Away. It's Time For A Little Harken Black Magic
• Cup Spy Oct 17: System reset in Barcelona
• What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine
• Ocean Sprint Results Are In
• Sail Canada's 2023 Rolex Sailor Of The Year
• Emma Rankin - 18ft skiff debut
• Hamble Winter Series - Week 2
• Featured Charter: 28m Monty North S/Y FREE AT LAST
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Triple Mast Schooner ATLANTIC
• • Carkeek 46 - "LOKI"
• • Maximizer. Farr 72’ Sloop
• The Last Word: Albus Dumbledore

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

New Spanish Team On Starting Grid for the 44Cup Alcaidesa Marina
Following the RC44 class' World Championship in Cowes in August, the 44Cup resumes Thursday 19 October in the shadow of another famous maritime British empire outpost - Gibraltar. Host of this event for the high performance owner-driver one designs is the 624-berth Alcaidesa Marina. This is located in Spain, metres across the border from the northern 'Pillar of Hercules', home of John Bassadone's Peninsula Racing team. Racing at the 44Cup Alcaidesa Marina will start tomorrow on the Bay of Gibraltar at 1100 CEST.

Appropriately given the move to Spain for this fourth event of the 2023 44Cup, a Spanish team will be in charge of the class's trial RC44 this week. While the Noticia team has been a regular feature of Spanish yacht racing for years, the international community will most likely remember the name from a decade ago when a Noticia Soto 40 competed in the complimentary one design fleet to the TP52s on the Audi Medcup. Noticia's Santander-based owner Luis Martín Cabiedes latterly recruited the remnants of the Iberdrola former Spanish America's Cup crew, performing well in the process.

From an IMX 40 to the Soto 40 and then on to J/80s (racing with Jose Maria 'Pichu' Torcida - two time J/80 World Champion) and a J/70 (with Torcida and Rayco Tabares - five time J/80 World Champion), both popular classes in Spain, Cabiedes acknowledges his yacht racing has retrograded over the last decade. But there is good reason for this: "Four or five years ago I decided to start steering, which will mean that I can keep racing for longer. So far we haven't had good results, but I am no5 in the J/70 ranking in Spain. The truth is that I always like to sail with very very good crew like this one."

Going into this event Peninsula Racing, Teams Aqua and Nika, Charisma and Team Ceeref powered by Hrastnik 1860 have the same crew as normal. The others have made minor changes in personnel.

The crew on Christian Zuerrer's Black Star Sailing Team has gained an Olympic gold medallist in the form of Australian Will Ryan, who was the 470 champion at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Ryan has sailed with the RC44 previously for just one event, with the German La Pericolosa crew in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote at the beginning of 2022.

Due to the severe weather forecast to later tomorrow afternoon, the race committee has chosen to advance the first start by one hour to 1100 tomorrow.

44cup.com

ILCA U21 World Championship
Tangier, Morocco: The day started cloudy, with rain showers coming and going over the racecourse and the city of Tangier. The sea conditions were slightly different today as there was a swell from the northwest and the wind from the southwest. The wind conditions were quite unstable across the racecourse, as the wind at the start line was more substantial than at mark 1, which was significantly weaker. The wind intensity ranged from 6 knots at the top marks and up to 12 knots at the start line, with gusts up to 15 knots.

In the first race of the day, the ILCA 6 fleet had three starting procedures, starting with a general recall, followed by a canceled start due to a wind shift, and a final good start under a black flag. The ILCA 6 first race was the outer course, with Josephine Heegaard from Denmark arriving first to mark one. The race was very close until the last moment when the race was won by Italian Emma Mattivi. In the second race, the winner was again Emma Mattivi; nonetheless, with one discard after four races, the top female sailor was Josephine Heegaard.

In the male ILCA 7 yellow fleet, the racing was tight, and each sailor demonstrated their skill and expertise in the very technical swell and shifty conditions. In race one, the first place went to Italian Attilio Borio, and in race 2 Haruto Kuroda from Japan took the top spot. In the blue fleet, Finley Dickinson of United Kingdom won both races of the day.

Full results

2023ilcau21.ilca-worlds.org

Halloween Is Just Days Away. It's Time For A Little Harken Black Magic
This is not sorcery. In fact, it might strike you as scary good.

Sailors tell us it's the blend of strength and efficiency in every Harken Black Magic block that has landed them aboard the world's best race and performance cruising boats for a generation. Their performance comes from those very evident, very high-load roller bearings caged to eliminate bearing-to-bearing contact. Those are aided by captive thrust-bearing balls to help with off-center loading, hidden just inside the sheave walls. >Watch a quick refresher on Black Magic blocks.

Today we make over 50 different Black Magic blocks including those with 150 mm sheave diameters with breaking loads over 13,500 kg, appropriate for boats up to 24 m.

You don't own a mega yacht? No worries--there's good news. For the last couple of months, we've been shipping the first, completely maintainable, aluminum, Black Magic blocks with 45 mm sheaves. They're the smallest Black Magic blocks ever! Perfect for primary sheet or halyard blocks for boats 9 to 12 m, or equally appropriate when used in purchase systems for sail controls aboard bigger boats.

These baby 45 mm Black Magic blocks are now available in single and double-sheave models in soft and swivel attachment options. Soon, there will be singles and doubles with becket. Plus, stand-up and runner blocks too. Those will solve a lot of rigging challenges. If you're having a Halloween costume challenge, here's a suggestion: splice four together in a cascade and go as a cunningham.

harken.com

Cup Spy Oct 17: System reset in Barcelona as breeze and seaway return to 'normal'
Only two America's Cup Challengers American Magic and Emirates Team NZ, were reported as sailing on Tuesday in changed conditions to the day before - but more akin to that predicted for Barcelona - southerly seabreezes with an "off-axis" sea-state, which as we can see from the AC Wave Buoy still had much of Monday's height, but much longer interval, typical of a left over swell. Two other teams sailing AC40s in One Design mode were also out off Barcelona.*

What happened in the Cup - October 17, 2023:

- Emirates Team New Zealand sailed their AC75, working through a test program, which in the AC75 is limited to analysis of sailing technique, and some modification of legacy sails from the 2021 America's Cup.

- American Magic sailed their two AC40s, again in development testing - with flap changes to their test wingfoils and one design rigs.

- Alinghi Red Bull Racing - No report.

- Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli - No report.

- INEOS Britannia - No Report. Their test boat T6 is still in the shed after the catastrophic destruction of their rudder and rudder assembly during a towing session. They were sailing alone in their AC40 One Design.

- Orient Express Racing Team - sailed alone in their AC40 One Design.

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

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

Crikey!!!
There’s backing yourself and there’s backing yourself to the tune of a flying, foiling, sailing luxury superyacht... Most developments in yachting are evolution, not revolution but every once in a while a boat is launched that’s a complete game changer, difficult to categorise because it’s distinctly different from anything that’s come before. Thus it is with Baltic Yachts’ 111ft (34m) foil assisted superyacht Raven.

There are no coincidences - Part II
Time to finish the hull, put on the deck and head out to sea. Dan Houston And Bo Eriksson

Here we go again - Part I
Dave Hollom gets started again ahead of AC37... beginning with cavitation and foil choice

The flipside
We may be closer to extinction than we think. Andy Claughton

Seahorse build table - Maturing
Francois Chevalier

Special rates for EuroSail News subscribers:
Seahorse Print or Digital Subscription Use Discount Promo Code ESN23

1yr Print Sub: €77 - £48 - $71 / Rest of the World: £65 www.seahorse.co.uk/shop/subs/

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Discounts shown are valid on a one year subscription to Seahorse magazine.

Ocean Sprint Results Are In
The Race 2: Hundred Years Cup Ocean Sprint results were revealed at Prizegiving in Punta del Este last night, after a highly anticipated wait from Clipper Race crew.

The first of the competition, the Ocean Sprint is a time trial between two lines of longitude or two lines of latitude and an opportunity for the fastest three teams to tot up bonus points.

For Race 2, the sprint was between 05°S and 10°S and the distance on the rhumb line across was approximately 330nm - but only 300nm if travelled directly north to south.

Clipper Race Director, Mark Light, said "As with all Ocean Sprints, the teams experienced varying conditions on arrival and throughout the sprint section, and this very much depended on how far west or east the teams had positioned themselves when exiting the Doldrums Corridor. 

"The other main contributing factor was exactly what route the respective teams chose, either the shortest distance north to south, or more of an angled approach following closer to the main track and concentrating on the overall race."

The three teams completing the Ocean Sprint in the fastest time were:

1st - Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam (3 points)
2nd - Bekezela (2 points)
3rd - UNICEF (1 point)

clipperroundtheworld.com

Melodie Schaffer From Toronto Named Sail Canada's 2023 Rolex Sailor Of The Year
Melodie Schaffer. Click on image to enlarge.

Melodie Schaffer from Toronto was named Sail Canada's 2023 Rolex Sailor of the Year during Canada's Celebration of Sailing event held by Sail Canada and the Port Credit Yacht Club on Tuesday.

Sail Canada's Rolex Sailor of the Year Award has been presented annually since 1986 to individual(s) who have provided global recognition to Canadian sailing and Sail Canada, and who are renowned leaders that have attained high levels of excellence with significant results and accomplishments in world events or activities. Along with recognition for exemplary sportsmanship, they have held the respect of their fellow sailors.

Melodie Schaffer started training at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club and raced in Lasers, 470s, International 14s, 8m, Sharks, and J105s. She has been an offshore racer for five years and has sailed 80,000 nautical miles (close to 150 000 km). She has competed in many offshore events, including the RORC Caribbean 600 three times, and has raced in the Antigua to Bermuda race, the Fastnet Race, the Normandy Channel Race, and the Transat Jacques Vabre. In addition, she has worked as a mate at a Volvo Ocean 60 Race, and has competed in the Clipper Round the World Race, before that event was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

From June 2022 to March 2023, she took part in the Globe 40, a 35,000-mile, eight-leg, double handed competition that takes sailors around the world in Class 40s. Seven teams took part in the 175-day event which started in Morocco and had stops in Cape Verde, Mauritius, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Argentina, Brazil and Grenada, ultimately ending up in France.

Amongst previous winners of Sail Canada's Rolex Sailor of the Year Award, Canada's Olympic and Paralympic medalists Evert Bastet (2007), Terry McLaughlin (2001 and 2013), John McRoberts and Jackie Gay (2016), as well as Paul Tingley (2008) are all on that prestigious list, as is Ross MacDonald, who won it three times (1990 and 1992 with Eric Jespersen, and 2004 with Mike Wolfs).

sailing.ca/rolex-sailor-of-the-year-award/

Emma Rankin - Academy graduate stars in her 18ft skiff debut
Emma leads a 39-year veteran (John Winning) in Race 1 of the Spring Championship. Photo by Sail Media. Click on image for photo gallery.

Twenty four-year-old Emma Rankin is 163cm tall and weighs just 62kg, but she showed everyone, on Sydney Harbour last Sunday week, that she is up for the challenge when she led her Shaw and Partners Financial Services 18ft skiff team into fourth place behind Australian champion Keagan York (Finport Finance), legendary JJ Giltinan World champion John 'Woody' Winning (Yandoo) and rising 18 footer star Henry Larkings (Balmain) in Race 1 of the 2023-24 Spring Championship.

Even allowing for a number of national championship victories, in a variety of classes, before joining the 18s, nobody could have expected her to perform so strongly in her very first 18 footer race against the experienced Australian 18 Footers League fleet, containing many world and international champion competitors.

In a 10-knot East-North-East breeze, Emma and her team of Cam McDonald (on the sheet) and Tom Quigley (in the bow) were either in the lead or within the top six positions throughout the entire three-lap course before completing the course in fourth place, ahead of Giltinan World champion Andoo (John Winning Jr).

If we thought that was impressive, and we did, it was unlikely that Emma and the Shaw and Partners Financial Services team would reproduce another strong performance a week later.

We were wrong again. The Shaw and Partners trio were in the thick of things again as they battled against their more experienced rivals, and now after the first two races of the 2023-24 Spring Championship they find themselves in the equal lead with the most experienced team in the fleet - Yandoo's .John 'Woody' Winning, Fang Warren and Josh Porebski. -- Frank Quealey, Australian 18 Footers League Ltd.

Prior to joining the 18s, Emma's record includes:
2016 and 2017 NS14 National Champion
2018 Australian Women's Match Racing National Champion
2019 Governor's Cup Youth Match Racing America (9th Place)
2022 and 2023 Formula 16 Catamaran National Champion
2023 Hobie 16 Woman's State and National Champion
2023 Formula 18 Catamaran National Championship (6th place)

EuroSail News #5434 - 19 October

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