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2011 Rolex Yachtsman & Yachtswoman of the Year
Portsmouth, Rhode Island, USA: Etchells World Champion Bill Hardesty (San Diego, Calif.) and ISAF (International Sailing Federation) Sailing World Champion Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, Fla.) today were named US Sailing's 2011 Rolex Yachtsman and Yachtswoman of the Year.

Established in 1961 by US Sailing and sponsored by Rolex Watch, U.S.A. since 1980, the annual presentation of US Sailing's Rolex Yachtsman and Yachtswoman of the Year awards are considered the sport's ultimate recognition of an individual's outstanding on-the-water achievements for the calendar year. Over its history the coveted award has been presented to 40 men and 32 women.

First shortlisted for the award in 2008 - when he won the Etchells World Championship - Hardesty reclaimed that class' top title in 2011 after a dominating performance in an 81-strong fleet. He had several other class wins, including the Etchells Midwinters West Championship, and transitioned from skipper to tactician and translated his skills into wins in a number of additional classes which led the selection panel to commend the diversity of his achievements during the year. Hardesty's notable performances as tactician included winning the 47th Congressional Cup in Catalina 37s and the CMRC Grade 2 Invitational in Tom 28s, along with top finishes at the Rolex Big Boat Series in Express 37s (second) and the Farr 40 World Championships (fourth).

From a personal standpoint, however, Hardesty is most proud of winning the ISAF (International Sailing Federation) Match Racing World Championship as tactician for skipper Ian Williams (GBR). The world championship series title was earned through wins of the Portimão Portugal Match Cup in Portugal, the Stena Match Cup in Sweden, and the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia.

ISAF (International Sailing Federation) Sailing World Champion Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, Fla.) has been named the 2011 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year. Shortlisted for the honor for the seventh consecutive year, she is the first woman in the award's history to earn it in four consecutive years. A member of the selection panel noted her level of dedication to the sport, while another remarked that she is a tremendous ambassador for sailing. She joins the rare company of four-time winners JJ Fetter Isler (1986, '91, '97, '00) and Ted Turner (1970, '73, '77, '79). Only five-time award winner Betsy Alison (1981, '82, '84, '93 and '98) has eclipsed them.

Tunnicliffe, the 2008 Laser Radial Olympic Gold Medalist, committed to a match racing campaign in the Elliott 6m two years ago with a goal of again representing the U.S.A. at the Olympic Games. During 2011 she skippered Team Maclaren to podium finishes in three ISAF Sailing World Cup events: US Sailing's Rolex Miami OCR in Florida (silver); Princess Sofia Trophy in Spain (bronze); and Skandia Sail For Gold in Weymouth, England, venue of the 2012 Olympic Regatta (gold). The year culminated with a win of the ISAF Sailing World Championships that also qualified the USA a berth in the Elliott 6m event at the 2012 Olympic Games.

www.ussailing.org

Dragons on the Derwent
Photo by Peter Campbell. Click on image for photo gallery.

Dragons on the Derwent The rain came in blinding squalls and with it strong, gusty and chilly winds from widely varying points of the compass, but champion International Dragon skipper Nick Rogers was always in command to win race five of the Prince Philip Cup on Hobart's River Derwent today.

Well, almost. The Tasmanian champion, sailing Karabos IX with crew Leigh Behrens and Simon Burrows as crew, sat becalmed near the windward mark the second time round as his opposition "came in from the left and in from the front with heaps of breeze," Rogers recalled after the race. Fortunately, he picked up enough breeze to round the windward mark still in front, and was never headed.

Most crews were well rugged up for Hobart's unseasonal burst of wintery weather, although crew member Ian Ross got wetter than most.

He toppled overboard from Jock Young's Aquila shortly after the start, but was quickly recovered by Young and fellow crewman Nick Jones, giving the 'thumbs up' back on board as rescue boats quickly converged on the scene. Aquila then retired from the race.

This was Karabos IX's third win in four races, giving Rogers a comfortable pointscore margin in its bid to win his 10th Prince Philip Cup as a skipper, plus one as a crew. Karabos IX is on 5 points after four races.

Second place overall on 13 points is British yachtsman Robert Campbell and his crew of Rene Nel and Simon Cash sailing Indulgence, who finished fourth in race four, while third overall on 17 points after a second today is Sydney yachtsman Wolf Breit, with Roger Hickman and Dan Morrow as crew, sailing Shapes.

Tuesday's race three winner Ridgeway (Stephen Shields) had a "best be forgotten" sailing day, finishing 10th in the fleet and dropping to fourth overall on 19 points. Aquila (Jock Young) is still fifth overall despite the retirement today.

Karabos IX won heat four from Shapes with third place going to another Tasmanian boat, Leander, sailed by Stephen Henley, Justin Barr and Andrew Burnett, with British yachtsman Robert Campbell placing fourth in Indulgence, followed by Western Australian Sandy Anderson, helming Linnea. -- Peter Campbell

Complete results: www.ryct.org.au/results/1213/princephilip/series.htm

Ready to Roll at Quantum Key West 2012
Quantum Key West 2012 Key West, Florida: High profile fleets, intense competition and superb sailing conditions have made Key West a showcase event for many one design classes. The popular Farr 40 class, which debuted in 1996, is certainly one of them. Jim Richardson recalls many fond memories and looks to next week for more.

After a one-year hiatus because its world championship was held in Australia last winter, the Farr 40 class is returning to the southernmost tip of the United States for the 15th time. Barking Mad is among seven boats entered in Quantum Key West 2012, being held Jan. 16-20 on the azure waters off the Conch Republic.

"We've been going to Key West ever since the class got started. The event is iconic and the boat is iconic," said Geoff Stagg, who has managed the Farr 40 class since its inception. "Key West is always one of the most anticipated events on our annual schedule. The level of participation we've had in Key West over the years is indicative of the high regard in which the event is held among our owners."

Stagg said it speaks volumes that the second-largest Farr 40 regatta in class history came in 2001 off Key West. That is the year George Andreadis and his Atalanti XI crew fought their way to victory in a talent-laden 37-boat fleet.

As usual, the Farr 40 class in Key West will feature a slew of big-name tacticians, including multi-time America's Cup champion Hamish Pepper (Barking Mad) and match racing champion Ian Williams (Charisma).

Another class that has carved out a reputation for high-performance and bare knuckles competition off Key West is the Melges 32, which will have 19 boats on the line this year. Samba Pa Ti, which was named Boat of the Week after winning Key West 2010, headlines a deep, talented fleet that will no doubt come down to the wire. Skipper John Kilroy (Los Angeles, Cal.) has brought on an extremely talented helmsman in past Melges 24 world champion Lorenzo Bressani of Italy.

Warpath, which finished second in Key West last year and just captured the 18-boat Melges 32 Gold Cup off Fort Lauderdale, figures to be another top challenger. Skipper Steve Howe will have veteran professionals Morgan Larson (tactician), Marco Constant (main trimmer) and Willem Van Way (jib trimmer) in the afterguard.

Other classes to watch include the debuting Farr 400, the new High Performance PHRF boats, the Mini Maxis and the J-Class boats. There will be plenty of action on all three racing Divisions. -- Bill Wagner Press Officer

Scratch Sheet, Redesigned Race Week Dashboard: www.premiere-racing.com

Risk to Gain EBook

Risk To Gain - The Ebook
Mark Chisnell's classic account of Paul Cayard and Team EF's 1997-98 Whitbread Race victory is now available for the first time as a text-only, eBook edition. It's a unique insight into Team EF's two boats during their extraordinary journey around the world. Stomach-churning storms, frustrating calms, broken gear and a remarkable level of detail of life onboard.

'It's the best book yet on this race. Great writing...'
Yachts and Yachting

www.amazon.com/Risk-to-Gain-ebook/

London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition Notice of Race Published
The Notice of Race for the London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition has been released.
The competition begins on 29 July and runs until 11 August at Weymouth and Portland, Great Britain.

The Notice of Race states the key conditions for the 10 sailing events at the London 2012 Olympic Games and includes details on the rules, regulations, entry and qualification guidelines, format, scoring, schedule, venue and courses.

Athletes, coaches, trainers and other team officials shall comply with the Olympic Charter, as well as with the ISAF rules, in order to be eligible for participation in the London 2012 Olympic Sailing competition, and shall be entered by a National Olympic Committee (NOC).

Click here to view the Notice of Race.
www.sailing.org/37610.php

ISAF Olympic Website - www.sailing.org/olympics

2012 London Olympic Games Website - www.london2012.com

Double Olympic Medallist Misses Selection
Nick Rogers remortgaged his house in a bid to fund his London 2012 Olympic sailing campaign - and was left counting the cost after failing to secure selection.

Rogers won 470 class silver in Athens and Beijing with Joe Glansfield but had looked like getting his chance to seek a gold medal upgrade on home waters this summer.

His initial partnership with best friend Pom Green failed to ignite on the water but his fourth place with replacement crew Chris Grube at last year's Skandia Sail for Gold regatta, secured the only British spot at the Olympic test event and earned him frontrunner status for selection.

But Rogers and Grube went on to finish a disappointing fifth in Weymouth and tenth at last month's World Championships in Perth, where rivals Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell claimed silver and, as a result, were today confirmed as Team GB's 470 crew for the Olympic regatta.

"Nick Rogers and Chris Grube had the whip hand and it was theirs for the losing," admitted Stephen Park, the Royal Yachting Association's Olympic manager.

"However, Nick and Chris didn't medal at the Olympic test regatta and they didn't medal at the World Championships.

"If they had done, they would have been the crew we announced."

With an enviable strength in depth in every Olympic sailing class, Park makes no excuses for such ruthlessness in selection issues.

And after naming athletes for eight of the ten Olympic sailing disciplines, expects his final two decisions to go to the wire.

Alison Young, who finished seventh at the World Championships, and Charlotte Dobson are locked in a closely-fought battle for the women's laser radial spot.

While Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes, injured at the World Championship, John Pink and Richard Peacock and David Evans and Ed Powys are hard to separate in the British men's 49er fleet.

Forthcoming ISAF World Cup regattas in Miami, Majorca, Hyeres and Medemblik will be used as further trials - and there will be no margin for error... -- Sam Green, Sportsbeat

www.morethanthegames.co.uk/sailing/

A Drag Queen Aboard Your Boat
ActiveCaptain are most known for the Wiki style harbour guide. Now the company has launched an app: The DragQueen. It's free and it is useful for all sailors.

The world is full of app's. One more or less useful than the other. The DragQueen is developed by Jeff Siegel, the founder of ActiveCaptain. The name is quite descriptive and funny. We are talking about an anchor alarm app.

Siegel is a techy guy living for the boating life. He grew increasingly dissatisfied with the anchor alarm app's available for smart phones. He decided to do something about it and started working on the DragQueen. After testing and tweaking for two months he finally launched it.

Now it is available for iPhone, and it is free. He will soon launch it for Android. The three customer reviews so far is very positive.

Here's what the app does, as described on iTunes:

DragQueen is a simple anchor alarm. It provides distance and GPS accuracy alarms along with an alarm delay. The alarm is quite annoying and is the perfect thing to waken you at night if it detects anchor dragging to your specifications.

See https://activecaptain.com or find it in the iTunes store. -- Jon Amtrup in TheSailNews:
thesailnews.com

Champions Race
Photo by Andreas Lindlahr. Click on image for photo gallery.

Champions Race Speed, emotions, high-tech boats and topsailors. Sailing in its most spectacular form in front of the audience and the media in the centre of cities. With the ultra-fast Tornado Catamaran and new race courses in the Sailing Arena of Lindau and Rostock.

The island town of Lindau and the Hanseatic city of Rostock offer ideal conditions for our new sailing arena. We sail close to the promenade with clear and concise race courses where theygenerate a lot of emotion for the sailors and spectators. The races are exciting and comments are easy to understand and to overlook.

With the ultra-fast tornados and their flexible rig we can start on time in virtually any wind on the second, making a reliable partner for the program. The precise timing we have was already shown at the first Champions Race, as we went live on time on ARD and NDR with our races. On top of this, we had 80.000 spectators over three weekends.

The Champions Race on Lake Constance, Lindau will take place from 01.-02. September. The Champions Race in the centre of the Hanseatic city of Rostock on the Warnow river is from 6-7. October.

There we will show our new race course with two goals (one in leeward and one to windward) and present four large buoys where spectators and cameramen can sit in. They will be so close to the racing and seeing action like never before. We publish a small part of the stands directly in the race course http://www.championsrace.org/champions-race-course/

Ten teams are scheduled to sail the races. With the currently best sailors and masters of the Tornado class. There are also boats for sailing team placed in other classes and awarded wildcards. -- Roland Gaebler

www.championsrace.org

ISAF World Sailing Rankings
The ISAF World Sailing Rankings for 11 January 2012 have been released.

Visit the ISAF World Sailing Rankings homepage at www.sailing.org/rankings to view the full Ranking lists.

The next release of the ISAF World Sailing Rankings will be on 1 February 2012 and will include the 470 North American Championships, RS:X South American Championship and the Rolex Miami OCR in USA

World Ranking Leaders - 11 January 2012

Men's One Person Dinghy (Heavyweight) - Finn
Ed Wright (GBR)

Women's One Person Dinghy - Laser Radial
Marit Bouwmeester (NED)

Men's One Person Dinghy - Laser
Tom Slingsby (AUS)

Men's Two Person Dinghy - 470
Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS)

Women's Two Person Dinghy - 470
Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes (GBR)

Men's Skiff - 49er
Emil Toft Nielsen and Simon Toft Nielsen (DEN)

Men's Keelboat - Star
Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada

Men's Windsurfer - RS:X
Piotr Myszka (POL)

Women's Windsurfer - RS:X
Blanca Manchon (ESP)

Visit the ISAF World Sailing Rankings homepage at www.sailing.org/rankings for more on the latest Ranking release and dates for all Ranking releases.

A Tall Ship For San Francisco
Shining a spotlight on wooden ships built 150 years ago may seem a quirky thing to do at a time when the Bay Area is about to be deluged with the highest tech boats ever built for the biggest sailing event ever organized.

But then again, maybe not.

Alan Olson, founder of the educational sailing non-profit Call of the Sea, based in Sausalito, is about to launch another project - the Educational Tall Ship program - involving the construction of a 140 foot overall brigantine along the lines of a historical sailing ship that will be used as a teaching opportunity and a community/Bay Area wide project. He's optimistically hopeful that it'll mostly be completed to coincide with the San Francisco America's Cup during the summer of 2013.

Olson's tall ship for San Francisco will embrace the design and construction methods developed by Matthew Turner, a founding member of the San Francisco Yacht Club. Considered the most prolific boat builder on the Pacific coast and the San Francisco area, Turner built 228 sailing ships between 1864 and 1908, partnering with companies like Spreckels Sugar, C&H Sugar and Matson Lines.

They weren't clunky old boats but highly sophisticated, fast and able commercial vessels capable of making trips to Hawaii in just nine days.

"There's an historical connection and we want to show how shipping and boat building of that era was very significant," Olson said. -- Michelle Slade

For more information, visit: www.educationaltallship.org

Michelle Slade's blog: www.sailblast.blogspot.com

Featured Brokerage
Featured Brokerage Boat 2004 34' Atkinson Sloop. US$83,000. Located in Pattaya Thailand.

Phillip Atkinson has born a clever design concept that was conceived for low latitude sailing , river and shallow ground exploration normally reserved for catamarans but without the price tag.

An all round sailing yacht that will make good speed in light conditions and handle heavy weather sailing.

You may even consider racing this yacht. Simple in design and large on living space she makes for an enjoyable sailing experience. A large uncluttered cock pit and great head room down below is very pleasant in a 35 foot yacht.

A great boat she is complete with a roached main sail , roller furling headsail sail and spinnaker make this yacht very attractive. A walk through transom makes swimming and diving simple. An enclosed head and functional galley add to the concept of this Yacht. Large opening hatches provide great ventilation.

Brokerage through Lee Marine Co.,Ltd.: www.yachtworld.com/leemarine/

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

The Last Word
Nobody has a higher opinion of him than I do. And I think he is a homicidal buffoon. -- Christopher Hitchens referring to Alexander Haig

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