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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 Last Chances For Finals In Shifty Winds
With five races completed at least in each class, all sailors can now discard their worse race result which will become handy for the leaders who have for most collected a bad race in the last two days's shifty conditions. Scores are very tight at the top, half way through the regatta. In the Women Match racing, the six teams in the Repechage Group were first up sailing three flights of their round robin. The New Zealand team of Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen, and Susannah Pyatt had a very successful morning winning all three of their matches. Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) and Claire Leroy (FRA) lead the Gold Group with three wins each. And in the Silver Group Anna Kjellberg (SWE) leads the way with 3 wins from 3 matches. Tomorrow will see the completion of the round robins with the top two from the Repechage Group joining the six teams from the Gold Group in the knock-out Quarter-Finals. Repechage Group Results: Gold Group Results: Top three by class: 470 Men 470 Women Finn RS:X Men RS:X Women 49er Laser Laser Radial Star 2.4 Metre www.trofeoprincesasofia-mapfre.org Team Korea Enters 34th America's Cup Team Korea will be known as the 'White Tiger Challenge'. The White Tiger, or 'Baekho' in Korean, is one of the revered ancient guardian gods in Korean mythology, ferocious and potent, a fitting image for a team from one of the world's major industrial nations with long term America's Cup ambitions. Founder of Team Korea is Dong Young-Kim, an accomplished sailor and the organizer of one of the biggest prize money sailing events in the world, The Korea Match Cup. In launching Team Korea, he intends to boost public interest and knowledge of the America's Cup and hopes to attract new people to take up sailing as their support for the team grows. The inaugural 2011/12 America's Cup World Series begins this summer with three regattas to be staged in Portugal, UK and USA. A further series is planned for 2012/13, before the Louis Vuitton Cup for all the Challengers in San Francisco in 2013, followed by the 34th America's Cup match itself. Racing begins in new AC45 catamarans, which are then replaced by giant 72 foot wing sailed 'monsters', potentially capable of over 40 knots speed, competing in a combination of both fleet and match racing. Team Korea becomes the ninth Challenger accepted, together with two teams each from France and Italy, one each from China, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand, plus the Defender from the USA. There are three additional challengers who have yet to announce and two more are in the process of having their challenges vetted, making a total of 15 teams set to compete in the 34th America's Cup. Les Voiles De St. Barth
At all four race starts, the groupings were much tighter as crews ramped up their performances and rivalries reared their heads: Rambler 100 versus Genuine Risk, Vesper versus Venomous, Black Hole versus Nix (versus Affinity today). The Racing Cruising class, the largest at Les Voiles with 24 entries, today was again sent on a 16 nautical mile course, which was much less punishing than yesterday's opening race. Of the original five entries in the Multihull class, only Fat Cat and Bordelo are still competing. Today, Blanca, a 30-foot Seacart catamaran, lost its mast, while the 40-foot trimaran Dauphine Telecom and the 66-foot Gunboat Phaedo did not start. Thursday, April 7 is a lay day, which will give the crews a chance to relax and enjoy themselves with a full and varied program of events planned at St. Jean Beach, including an RC (radio control) model boat regatta and lunch with music. Racing continues on Friday and Saturday with a first warning signal at 1100. The closing ceremony and fireworks will follow the awards ceremony on Saturday, April 9. Top Three: Maxi Racing Racing Cruising Classic Multihull Dubarry Lahinch - Inspired By Design Brad Van Liew Leads Velux 5 Oceans Fleet Into Sprint Four Timed Run For ocean sprint four, the speed gates are located at the latitudes 5°S and 5°N, mirroring the speed gates set on ocean sprint one from La Rochelle to Cape Town. Brad, skipper of Le Pingouin, is the first of the four skippers to enter the sprint four timed run zone. So far the 43-year-old veteran racer has picked up the full three bonus points on each leg after posting the quickest times between the speed gates. During ocean sprint one, Brad passed from 5°N to 5°S in two days, six hours and six minutes. However the notorious Doldrums, which lie right between the two gates, are typically not as active at this time of the year, possibly allowing for a quicker passage this time round. It is impossible to know exactly where Brad is in relation to the fleet this morning as both he and his nearest rival Derek Hatfield are currently in stealth mode. Yesterday Brad waved goodbye to the coast of Brazil, a shoreline he has tracked since the fleet left Punta del Este in Uruguay on March 27. He is currently enjoying perfect sailing conditions in the south easterly tradewinds south of the Doldrums. The fleet have so far sailed more than 2,200 nautical miles on ocean sprint four, a 5,700 mile leg to Charleston on the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. Positions at 0600 UTC Skipper / distance to finish (nm) / distance to leader (nm) / distance covered in last 24 hours (nm) / average speed in last 24 hours (kts) Brad Van Liew, Le Pingouin: STEALTH MODE Farr 30 Australian Championship Tyquin sailed with a highly regarded crew which included Australian Sailing Team Technical Coordinator and current Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race winner (Secret Men's Business 3.5), Michael Dunstan. Alex Douglas, owner and skipper of Synergy was leading GOA going into the last day of racing. The withdrawal of GOA in race eight after an "incident" may have started the Synergy crew thinking they had the title, but a strong fight back from GOA sealed the deal for the 2011 regatta. The Synergy crew included two time Farr 30 World Champion Darren Jones who offered one of the best prizes of the regatta. For the first time the Farr 30 Australian Corinthian Championship was awarded with Jon Drummond owner and skipper of the Gladstone based boat Loco securing that championship. The prize on offer, which was only announced at the presentation, was a day's coaching with Jones. The Farr 30's will rack up again in the Queensland Cruising Yacht Club Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race and then the Queensland IRC Championship on the 28-29 May at Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. Full results and race photos can be found via - www.rqys.com.au Final Results Class site: www.farr30.org World ARC Circumnavigation Rally Goes Annual
World ARC is currently a biennial event, starting in January and finishing 15 months later. The current event started in January 2010 and the next will start in January 2012. Demand from sailors for a rally in the 'off' years has lead to the decision to make World ARC an annual event. This will make it easier for cruisers to sail half the rally, then take a year out to explore on their own, before rejoining the subsequent rally to complete their circumnavigation. An annual event also enables more people to join the rally. World Cruising Club organised the first-ever circumnavigation rally, Europa 92. Since then, the company has organised seven successful circumnavigations. The first World ARC was held in 2008-09, and he current edition, World ARC 2010-11, is drawing to a close in the Caribbean after 26,000Nm and 15 months. World ARC follows a route that makes the most of the Trade Winds and seasonal weather systems, whilst enabling the participants to enjoy some of the most beautiful and remote cruising destinations. From the first World ARC, World Cruising Club made a decision to follow the classic sailing route around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, avoiding areas of political instability and piracy. Star South American Championship Lars Grael and Ronald Seifert, who are ranked #8 in the world, won the gold medal after two second place finishes on the final day. Their point tally of 11 gave them a comprehensive six point win over Alessandro Pascolato and Henry Boening. Gastao Brun and Gustavo Kunze enjoyed a strong final day finishing third and first in the final two races. They leapfrogged Alberto Zanetti and Nicolas Rosas (ARG) to clinch the bronze medal. The last day of the championship was very different to the previous two with light winds and big waves. The difficult conditions meant a lot of strategic sailing in both races. The 2011 Star South American Championship combined all weather conditions with the experienced Grael claiming a deserved gold. Final Standings 1. Lars Grael and Ronald Seifert, BRA, 11 points UK-Halsey Rules Quiz The answers to all the quizzes were re-written for the rules changes by Rob Overton, who has been a member of the US Sailing Racing Rules Committee since 1993. Rob was one of five international rule writers who drafted the new Section C rules that took effect on January 1, 2009. See the Rules Quiz page at www.ukhalsey.com/RulesQuiz/quiz_list.asp You can buy the Quiz program for $55 or $100 for the program plus two of the best books written on the 2009-2012 Racing Rules - Understanding the Rules by Dave Perry and The Rules in Practice by Bryan Willis. Both are reviewed in our Rules Blog. www.ukhalsey.com/store/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=4 North West Passage and Cape Horn in a Single Journey
The yacht Solanus has three permanent members of crew, the skipper Bronislaw Radlinski, along with two crew, Nowak and Kantak. Other crew have joined them from time to time. Leaving Dkansk in Poland in May 2010 from their yacht club, the Polish Sports Club Bydgostia, they headed across the Atlantic to tackle the North West Passage from east to west in the summer of 2010, completing it successfully on 20th September. From there they sailed south, visiting ports in Canada, the USA, Mexico and Chile. Last week, very late in the season, they successfully rounded Cape Horn, and are now berthed in the most southerly city in the world, the remote Ushuaia. In spite of their yacht being excellently prepared, they have now found problems with some of their shrouds, and must wait in Ushuaia until a repair can be effected. They anticipate making full repairs in Buenos Aires where there are yacht facilities. -- Nancy Knudsen in Sail-World Cruising To follow their journey: www.solanus.pl 'The League' Already Looks to a Big 2011-2012 Season The club's boats in the container are Asko Appliances, Panasonic, Smeg, Thurlow Fisher Lawyers and Yandoo. Encouraged by the Live tracking at the 2011 Giltinan plus the increased media coverage and video, the League now believe they have a stronger package to offer sponsors. The Live tracking attracted nearly 12,000 viewers in 29 countries (with no pre publicity), and League officials believe that with more time to organise and promote this fantastic new development in the Australian 18s, the potential to attract more corporates in the future cannot be overlooked. With a solid base of boat sponsors already for the club-owned fleet, this new opportunity could be a major boost for income and ensure the continued growth of the Sydney Harbour based skiffs. -- Frank Quealey, Australian 18 Footers League From The Editor's "Not Sailing But Very Cool" Files...
The illustration shows all of Kepler's candidate planets - which await confirmation by follow-up observations - crossing the face of their host stars. This provides scale, and it's also a nod to Kepler's planet-hunting strategy: The spacecraft detects alien worlds by measuring the telltale dips in a star's brightness that occur during these planetary "transits." The graphic is the brainchild of scientist Jason Rowe, who created it in an attempt convey Kepler's exoplanet discoveries to the masses in a clear, concise manner. In Rowe's graphic, the parent stars of Kepler's potential alien worlds are arranged by size, with the largest at the top left of the diagram and the smallest at the bottom right. For reference, our own sun is shown sitting by itself, just beneath the top row. Both Jupiter and Earth are depicted transiting the sun in the illustration, researchers said. NASA launched the $600 million Kepler observatory in March 2009 to seek out planets circling alien stars. To do that, the spacecraft is staring continuously at a single patch of the sky, watching for tiny changes in the amount of light coming from every star it sees. Astronomers use other telescopes to follow up Kepler's findings in order to confirm whether or not the candidate stars do, in fact, host exoplanets. To date, Kepler has discovered 1,235 possible planets, with 54 of those candidates located within the so-called "Goldilocks zone" - that just-right range of distances around a star in which liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Based on the amazing wealth of planet candidates from Kepler, astronomers have estimated that our Milky Way galaxy could hold as many as 50 billion alien planets, with 2 billion of those perhaps being about the size of Earth. Featured Brokerage "Sonic Astro" is a fourth generation TP52. She was designed in 2006 after extensive towing-tank testing and with the original TP52 ideas in mind; to be extremely fast around the cans but to race safely offshore. In her two MedCup seasons she raced without incident and showed good speeds inshore and offshore. Due to her very high spec carbon prepreg construction she started her second life as an IRC race yacht without problems and won almost all the races she has done since. She is now for sale and offers her new owners lots of potential for a very succesful IRC campaign. Brokerage through Ancasta International Boat Sales: www.yachtworld.com/ancasta/ Complete listing details and seller contact information at uk.yachtworld.com The Last Word |
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