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Team Great Britain 2012: Ainslie's In
Sportsmail can reveal the country's greatest sailor will be unveiled as one of the first group of athletes named for Team GB for 2012.

He will be joined by the latest twist on the 'Three Blondes in a Boat' tradition - the 'Match Race Girls', sisters Lucy and Kate Macgregor and Annie Lush.

For Ainslie, the target is a fourth gold medal to go with the silver he took at his first Olympics in Atlanta 15 years ago.

Ainslie will start as the firm favourite having overcome the second best Finn sailor in the world, Giles Scott, in claiming the one British slot in the class.

That was a remarkable achievement given Ainslie only returned to the Finn last autumn after his America's Cup ambitions fell through.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/

* The first selections for the sailing team to represent Britain at London 2012 will be unveiled on Tuesday morning with half of the 16-strong squad expected to be named.

Four of the 10 crews who will compete at Weymouth and Portland next August have been selected at the first available opportunity because there are no serious British contenders for their spots.

Beijing gold medallists Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson will be named in the Star class while Bryony Shaw, a bronze medallist in 2008, has been selected in the women's RS:X windsurfing class and Nick Dempsey in the men's RS:X windsurfing class.

Lucy Macgregor, her sister Kate and Annie Lush are also expected to be revealed as the Britain's women's Match Racing team.

In addition, three times gold medallist Ben Ainslie is almost certain to be announced because of his remarkable performances in the Finn class since returning to Olympic sailing last October, a move prompted by the break up of Team Origin, the British America's Cup campaign. -- Kate Laven and Jacquelin Magnay in the Telegraph

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/sailing/

Musto Performance Skiff European Championships
Musto Performance Skiff European Championships The Go Sailing Musto Performance Skiff European Championships from Portoroz has been won by local Slovenian sailor, Dylan Tidd.

17 year old Dylan put together a consistent series in the spotlight of national TV and press and joins World Champion, Daniel Henderson, as another hugely talented young sailor emerging from the class.

The regatta started with the opening ceremony by the swimming pool at Restaurant LAGUNA in Marina Portoroz on a warm sunny evening. There were a total of 45 competitors from 12 countries: AUS, AUT, BEL, FRA, GER, GBR, ITA, NED, RUS, SUI, USA and SLO.

For the first time Slovenian class regular and previous Olympic 470 campaigner Mitja Margon was joined by top local young sailor Dylan Tidd.

The class continues to grow in Europe with fleets of over 50 in Germany and Switzerland, the EuroCup series will end this year with well over 100 competitors taking part.

Medal winners:

First place: SLO 271 - Dylan Tidd - 39 pts
Second place: GER 370 - Ivar Ahlmann - 50 pts
Third place: GBR 130 - Alastair Conn - 54 pts

Full results on the event site www.gosailing.si

Sail Management On The Go!
Click for larger application images.

North Sails App Managing your sail inventory can be a hassle. Taking and organizing photos, comparing shape, trim and weather, tracking usage and then sharing the data.

With North Sails Sail Scan app you get a 'lite' version of Sailscan, which is the powerful program North uses internally. The app, available for both iPhone and iPad, makes it easy to take photos of your sails during racing or training, for later analysis. You can quickly compare different trim, and also see how the shape changes over time. And it's easy to email all the data to the crew or your contact at North Sails who can compare it to the original design.

"The app helps our customers to be more scientific about their sails", says Lars Ive at North Sails. "It's fast, easy and fun to collect data and it makes it much easier for us to engage in discussions about sail shapes."

"I love when I get these kind of tools from my sailmaker", says Peter Gustafsson, racing J/109 Blur. "It makes my life so much easier by keeping it all in one place. I even shot my sail measurements to keep them in the app. I wonder what's next? Real time trim advice over video?"

In the app it's easy to manage both different boats and sail inventories. All scans are attached to the correct sail.

On each photo you trace the trim bands and get draft, camber and twist. Then make quick note about the weather, rigtune and anything else you want to remember. And then, by just pushing a button, everything gets emailed to your contact at North.

The North Sails Scan App is available in your local iTunes App Store or at North Sails Scan.

itunes.apple.com/de/app/north-sails-scan/

Hot Palma
Palma de Mallorca, Spain: The International Melges 32 Class Association (IM32CA) is thrilled to be ushering its third World Championship, this time in spectacular Palma de Mallorca, hosted by Real Club Nautico de Palma (RCNP). An impressive twenty-nine entries from eight countries have converged on the exotic mediterranean venue to race for the class' most coveted title. Italy brings 10 entries, the United States has delivered an unprecedented eight teams, while the remaining competitors originate from France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Netherlands and Spain.

As expected, the final field of competitors is one of the strongest and most talented ever. Reigning Melges 32 World Champion Luca Lalli with tactician Tiziano Navi on B-Lin Sailing has returned to the international arena, ready to defend his title.

Another very important noteworthy competitor who has returned as a charterer is 2008 Audi Sailing Series Champion and former Let's Roll owner Claudio Recchi aboard Audi Fratelli Giacomel.

Over the course of the weekend, teams have not only been in full preparation mode on the water (both Saturday and Sunday were designated formal practice days), but also on land as well. Long days of boat and sail measurement, and weigh-in are almost complete as registration wrapped up on Monday. Five full days of official World Championship racing is slated to begin on Tuesday, September 20 and through until Saturday, September 24.

Full Entry List
1. Jason Carroll/Cameron Appleton, ARGO
2. Carlo Perrone/Lorenzo Bodini, Atlantica 19
3. Claudio Recchi/Riccardo Simoneschi, Audi Fratelli Giacomel
4. Luca Lalli/Tiziano Navi, B-lin Sailing
5. Pieter Taselaar/Tom Slingsby, Bliksem
6. Marc de Antonio Altimira/Hugo Rocha, Bribon-Movistar
7. Filippo Pacinotti/Danielle Cassinari, Brontolo HH
8. Ferdinando Battistella/Andrea Casale, Cuervo y Sobrinos
9. Oscar Strugstad/Andy Horton, Dawn Raid
10. Lanfranco Cirillo/Michele Paoletti, Fantastica
11. Edoardo Pavesio/Enrico Fonda, FRA MARTINA
12. John Porter/Jonathan McKee, Full Throttle
13. William Douglass/Chris Larson, Goombay Smash
14. Peter Rogers/Ruairidh Scott, Highlife
15. Christian Soyka/Peter Bolvig Hansen, IMMAC Fram
16. Vincenzo Onorato/Francesco Bruni, Mascalzone Latino
17. Wolfgang Stolz/Jesper Radich, Opus One
18. Joe Woods/Paul Goodison, Red
19. Kees Kaan/Geert de Krom, ROARK
20. Mauro Mocchegiani/Matteo Ivaldi, Rush Diletta
21. John Kilroy/Vasco Vascotto, Samba Pa Ti
22. Geoff Pierini/Steve Hunt, Sicktrix
23. Naofumi Kamei/Kan Yamada, Team Bros.
24. Jean Francois Cruette/Christian Ponthieu, Teasing Machine
25. Edoardo Lupi/Branko Brcin, Torpyone
26. Santiago Estevez/Sandra Azon Canalda, Turismo Rias Baixas - Caseldog
27. Steve Howe/Morgan Larson, Warpath
28. Yukihiro Ishida/Hamish Pepper, Yasha Samurai
29. Alexis Michas/Brian Ledbetter, Zetiana

Event site: www.cyberaltura.com/melges32/home/home_uk.php

Corsair/Seawind Australian Multihull Championships
A dense spring fog cast a gloomy scene over Moreton Bay but it will be replaced with a building sea breeze when the high standard fleet line up for the important Australian Multihull class races over the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron courses today.

The promise to race in a stronger wind system will be welcomed by the 25 crews representing South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland after they fought to protect their tactical reputations in an unpredictable and shifty four knot breeze yesterday.

Specialist skipper George Owen and crew revelled in the challenge to claim a runaway line honours win with the super fast Victorian catamaran APC Mad Max while the consistent Keith Glover skippered trimaran Trilogy claimed an important lead in the championship with a convincing corrected handicap win.

These were the expected results from a day which most crews would claim to forget when they were left on the disadvantaged side of the unpredictable wind which regularly changed direction and rarely gusted above 4 knots.

The unstable nature of the breeze was really a lottery some crews got lucky while others placed their championship prospects in damage control when their tactical options 'crashed' with a series of wrong choices.

"It was easy to go the wrong way in search of more wind pressure, thankfully our errors were minimal". Said Trilogy skipper Keith Glover.

Trilogy remains as the one to chase in the tactical battle for the Division 1 championship points while the George Owen skippered APC Mad Max is favoured to win the line honours in the two windward leeward races today.

Interest will also focus on the tactical struggle for the Division 2 championship lead between Victorian Shaun Fishley in Frassid and Queenslander Peter Hackett's Intrigued who featured in a close match race for the important points in race 1 yesterday.

Local Moreton Bay skipper Phil Day who steered his Brisbane to Gladstone race champion Rhythmic to a comfortable win in the Classic division yesterday remains as a strong favourite to master the challenges from the Glen Stewart skippered Cliffhanger and the George Bulka helmed Skedaddle when the sails are tensioned for the short windward leeward races later today. -- Ian Grant

Clipper Race 3: Rio De Janeiro To Cape Town
The ten teams are enjoying a welcome respite from the punishing weather conditions experienced over the weekend after the strong winds moderated.

However, the wind direction is not doing the fleet any favours as it is blowing from the very place the crews are trying to reach, forcing the ten skippers to head off at a tangent.

Commenting on the race underway, Clipper Race Chairman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston said the skippers need to head south to pick up the westerlies that are forecasted to fill in a couple of hundred miles to the south over the next 12 hours or so.

"The race is now on to get south to find the westerlies and Welcome to Yorkshire is currently best placed to pick up the favourable winds first," Sir Robin said.

"The skippers need to think tactically and focus on the long-term gain by positioning themselves to the south," he added.

Gold Coast Australia, one of the teams that has been heading south, emerged from Stealth Mode this morning with an increased lead having spent 24 hours under the invisibility shield.

With a lead of 47 miles now separating them from their nearest rivals, Visit Finland, Richard Hewson and his team are maintaining the form that has placed them firmly at the top of the leader board having won the first two races in the 12-month series.

The fleet is expected to arrive in Cape Town between 23 and 26 September where they will be berthed at Victoria & Alfred Waterfront until the start of Race 4 to Geraldton in Western Australia on 5 October.

Positions at 1200 UTC, Monday 19 September

Boat - Distance to Finish

1. Gold Coast Australia, 1639nm
2. Visit Finland, 1686nm (+47nm Distance to Leader)
3. De Lage Landen, 1706nm (+67nm)
4. Singapore, 1719nm (+80nm)
5. Derry-Londonderry, 1741nm (+103nm)
6. New York, 1751nm (+112nm)
7. Welcome to Yorkshire, 1758nm (+120nm)
8. Qingdao, 1760nm (+121nm)
9. Geraldton Western Australia, 1812nm (+174nm)
10. Edinburgh Inspiring Capital, 1911nm (+272nm)

www.clipperroundtheworld.com

Marlow Ropes Release Free iPhone App.
Marlow Ropes iPhone App Marlow Ropes are proud to announce the release of the first version of their new iPhone App. The Marlow Ropes iPhone App is free and available for everyone to download from the iTunes App Store.

The Marlow Ropes App is the first comprehensive rope information app to be released for the iPhone. It's free and easy to use, wherever you may be.

Overview The Marlow Ropes App consists of five tabs:
1. Products. Full product listings, including:
- The Grand Prix series
- Racing & Cruising
- Dinghy & Windsurf
- Mooring
- Superyachts

2. Technical. Understand your ropes with
- Splicing techniques.
- Rope care advice.
- Material Properties - + more.

3. Catalogues. The latest Marlow Catalogues in PDF format
4. Marlow TV. Sailing and rope related videos from around the world.
5. Interactive barcode reader.

- Use the inbuilt interactive barcode reader to scan the QR barcodes found on Marlow's new point of sale chandlery racking to discover further information

Login to the iTunes store and search Marlow Ropes to download your free copy of the App and start discovering everything it has to offer.

Download the Marlow App here:
itunes.apple.com/us/app/marlow-ropes

marlowropes.com

Bermuda Hosts World's Best For Renre Jr Gold Cup
The final race of the 2010 RenRe Jr Gold Cup sailed on the Argo Group Gold Cup course in Hamilton Harbour. Photo by Talbot Wilson-Argo Group Gold Cup. Click on image to enlarge.

Renre Jr Gold Cup Hamilton, Bermuda: The Renaissance Re Junior Gold Cup, set for October 6-9, caps off the sailing season for young Optimist sailors in Bermuda by giving them a shot at competing against the world's best. Fifteen countries plus Bermuda will have youngsters in the competition sailed in Bermuda's Great Sound and Hamilton Harbour.

The RenaissanceRe Jr Gold Cup showcases the talent and potential of the island's youth and their international guests. This is never more evident than in the final race on Hamilton Harbour when Bermuda's young sailors get to compete against an international cache of champions in front of the spectator fleet gathered to watch the finals of the Argo Group Gold Cup.

With the skipper's age ranging from twelve to fifteen, the 2011 teams will come from sixteen different countries including New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, Great Britain, Germany, Mexico, the US Virgin Islands, Poland, Singapore and the United States of America to compete.

The RenaissanceRe Junior Gold Cup will hold its final race Sunday Oct. 9 on Hamilton Harbour just prior to the Argo Group Gold Cup finals. -- Laurie Fullerton

Overseas countries and sailors facing the Bermuda contingent:

AHO (Netherland Antilles) Odile van Aanholt #9 in IODA Worlds Malaysia
CAN Justin Vittecoq - this year's Canadian National Champion
DEN - name as yet unavailable but will be current National #1
GBR - Matthew Whitfield - UK Team Trials winner
GER - Marvin Frisch - German National Champion, #1 Swiss Nationals, #1 Polish Championships, 5th in IODA Worlds 2010
FIN- Astrid Still - 2010, 2011 top female in Finland
ITA - Francesca Bergamo - #1 IODA Girls European Champion
ISV - Scott McKenzie - top sailor there 3rd in the International Regatta held in July in the Dominican
NED - Bart Lambriex - 2010, 2011 National Champion, #1 Belgian Championships, #1 German National Championships, #15 at IODA Worlds
NZL - Leonard Fry - #1 NZL Nationals, US Nationals and UK Nationals
SWE - Oliver Osterberg National #1
SUI - Wolf van Cauwenberghe - Current Swiss National Champion
USA - Wade Waddell, Team Trials winner for USA, US National Champion, #11 IODA Worlds
SIN- Matthew Scott, #2 IODA Asian Championships, #14 Singapore Open Championship
MEX- Polo Seifert - details to come
POL - sailor yet to be named but offer accepted

bermudagoldcup.com

Telefonica Moves Closer to the Gibraltar Strait
The Volvo Open 70 "Telefonica" set off from the Pontevedra estuary yesterday at 12:30 local time and during the past 24 hours the yacht has covered some 486 miles (900 km). Having already rounded Cabo San Vicente, the Spanish entry set to compete in the upcoming Volvo Ocean Race has passed the height of the Portuguese city of Faro, and is just 110 miles from Tarifa (Cadiz, Spain) and from crossing the Gibraltar Strait.

Despite the high average speeds of around 20 knots over the past few hours, "Telefonica" is well aware that conditions will change in the next few hours, with a patch of lulls along the last few miles before crossing the Gibraltar Strait, and then a long close-haul to Alicante.

"The forecasts indicate that we'll probably be left with no breeze ahead of the Strait and once we are across it we'll get mainly Easterly breeze, which means we'll be close-hauling all the way to Alicante, our home until the 5th of November," said Iker Martínez.

According to Andrew Cape, "Hopefully we may past Gibraltar just after midnight." After that it will be time for some crashing around on board and some of the typical shaking about when close-hauling... "We are going to get hammered after that, with more than 30 knots on the nose," points out Cape.

Latest ETA at Alicante: Tuesday 20th, 13:00 local time

www.teamtelefonica.com
www.volvooceanrace.com

Pinpoint Technology Behind AC World Series
Technology being used by the America's Cup World Series is leading the way in producing live graphics for sports. Stan Honey, the event's director of technology, also a top navigator, has been explaning how custom built software and systems have revolutionised how boats' position, course boundaries and penalties are calculated and displayed.

If you've watched any of the YouTube videos from the AC World Series, you'll probably be familiar with the aerial views that place course boundaries and two boatlength circles round the marks right on the live camera pictures of the sailing. This system is called Liveline.

How it's achieved, and how it links with the penalty system being used here is very clever stuff indeed.

Each boat carries a box of tricks that sends and receives data from the race management system. Rather than using standard GPS, a much more accurate system called RTK (real time kinematics), which combines military and civilian signals, calculates the position of each boat to an accuracy of 2cm and the roll, pitch and yaw to 1/10th of a degree.

The key to calculating how close boats are to marks and overlaying the graphics is on a similar unit on a helicopter. This posed Honey and his colleagues a much harder challenge, because the helicopter is flying 1,500ft above the water but to avoid the graphic animations bobbing around the TV pictures the data coming from it has to be ultra accurate.

The difficulty was to measure the attitude of the helicopter accurately. A combination of RTK signal and an inertial measurement unit achieves this to 1/1,000th of a degree. -- Elaine Bunting's blog, full article at www.yachtingworld.com/blogs/elaine-bunting/

British Yachtswoman Dee Caffari Accepts High Naval Honour
In recognition of her service to the sea and Britain's maritime heritage, record-breaking British yachtswoman Dee Caffari MBE has been appointed by the Royal Navy as an Honorary Commander.

Caffari, who set her third world record earlier this year by sailing non-stop around the planet more times than any other woman in history, joins the likes of adventurer Bear Grylls and fellow British yachtswoman Dame Ellen McArthur who have both received similar naval distinctions.

One of the main links Caffari has with the navy is through her work as an ambassador for the tri service initiative, Toe In The Water. The volunteer based charity uses competitive sailing as a direct extension of the rehabilitation programmes carried by the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) Headley Court to re-inspire profoundly and traumatically injured service personnel to explore life beyond their injuries. Caffari first competed with Toe in the Water at the Dartmouth Regatta in 2009 and has continued to work closely with them since them, racing alongside many injured and able-bodied Royal Navy and Royal Marines crew members, as well as soldiers and airmen.

Caffari's next goal is to compete in the Vendée Globe 2012 with the intention of securing a podium position and the search for a new title sponsor to support her on-going sailing campaign continues.

www.deecaffari.com

Letters To The Editor -
Letters are limited to 350 words. No personal attacks are permitted. We do require your name but your email address will not be published without your permission.

* From Adrian Morgan: re: AC numbers
Who's watching and why? The viewing figures yesterday morning for the Plymouth round of the AC were revealing.

644, 1,380, 3,291, 13,380, 492,327. Guess which Youtube figure related to "The Plymouth Capsize Club"? Seems like the Facebook generation want cheap thrills, and to hell with the subtleties of yacht racing. And me too. Having waded dutifully through 20 minutes of race coverage, which all began to look much the same (spray, frenzied activity, lurid graphics, frenetic musak, inane commentary) I too was tempted to cut to the chase, or rather the capsize. And I don't even have a Facebook profile.

Featured Brokerage
Featured Brokerage Boat 1987 34' Pescott Performance Cruising Catamaran. A$ 155,000. Located In Phuket, Thailand

On a passage the boat is sailed very easily single handed or by a couple. Returning to Australia in 1992 after the first cruise to Thailand, Summersalt did the 2500 miles from Singapore to Thursday Island in 18 days thru the reef strewn waters of Indonesia. This passage was done 2 handed with the autopilot steering nearly all the time in mostly variable but following winds. The fact that the only form of charging for the single 75amp battery was one 42 watt solar panel is indicative of how easy the boat is on the helm, even in following seas.

In 2004 Summersalt had a refit in Phuket with the cabin being raised to give a head room of 1.58m in the saloon.

In 2007 all the standing rigging was replaced as were all the halyards. On one hull the bottom has a copper-epoxy treatment with antifoul on the other hull.

Brokerage through Pippen Marine: www.yachtworld.com/pippenmarine/

Complete listing details and seller contact information at
uk.yachtworld.com

The Last Word
Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top. -- Hunter S. Thompson

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