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Brought to you by Boats.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 Wrapping Up A Fabulous Week
Barking Mad pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in the 25-year history of the regatta, winning the Farr 40 class despite suffering a dreaded DNF. Barking Mad, skippered by Jim Richardson of Newport, R.I., did not finish Race 2 after a scary man overboard incident. That type of result usually proves fatal in a no-throwout series, but the Barking Mad team kept plugging away - winning three of the final five races to pull out an improbable one-point victory. Skipper John Kilroy and the Samba Pa Ti team held off a stiff challenge from Pisces to capture the talent-laden Melges 32 class. Pisces, skippered by Benjamin Schwartz, briefly took the lead by posting a pair of bullets on Tuesday, but Samba responded by placing fourth or better in five of the last six races to win by 12 points. Samba Pa Ti was selected as Quantum Boat of the Week for winning the closest, most competitive class at the 25th anniversary regatta. Things were equally tight in the new High Performance class with the newly-launched Carbonado beating the GP 42 Stray Dog (Charles Engh, Lusby, MD.) by a mere three points. Carbonado, a McConaghy 38 owned by Rob and Sandy Butler of Ontario, Canada, is a cutting edge design with all carbon-fiber hull and rig. Quantum pro Marty Kullman called tactics for Rob Butler, whose wife worked the pit and 14-year-old son Riley served as a grinder. Some classes were already decided going into the final day, but that did not stop the leaders from going out on the water and putting an exclamation point in their victories. Ran, a Judel-Vrolijk 72-footer owned by Niklas Zennstrom of the United Kingdom, ran away from the competition in the Mini Maxi (IRC 1) class. Seasoned British pro Adrian Stead served as tactician aboard Ran, which won all 10 races and also captured the IRC Midwinter Championship. -- Bill Wagner Final podium places: Mini Maxi IRC 1 - 3 Boats 52 Class IRC 2 - 8 Boats IRC 3 Shared start with High Performance IRC - 5 Boats Farr 40 One Design - 7 Boats Farr 400 One Design - 5 Boats High Performance Shared start with IRC 3 - 4 Boats Melges 32 One Design - 19 Boats Melges 24 One Design - 15 Boats Farr 30 One Design - 7 Boats J 80 One Design - 18 Boats PHRF 1 ToD PHRF - 10 Boats PHRF 2 ToD PHRF - 11 Boats J Boats Subclass ToT ToT - 7 Boats Sanya Enjoy Strong Start To Home Leg
In hot and humid tropical conditions the fleet got away cleanly on schedule at 0800 UTC on Sunday (1300 local time in the Maldives) with Team Sanya, the first sole Chinese entry in the Volvo Ocean Race, making the early running immediately after the start of their homecoming leg. Sanya continued to scrap for the lead in the first few hours of sailing with less than half a nautical mile separating the six-boat fleet. The boats will take around two weeks to complete Leg 2 with an estimated arrival in Sanya on or around February 6. Eighty percent of the points for Leg 3 remain up for grabs, after the Stage 1 sprint from Abu Dhabi to Sharjah delivered the other 20 percent to all the teams except for Sanya, who will score full points for this stage*. * As Sanya were unable to race the first stage of Leg 3, they will score full points for this leg – 30 points for 1st place, 25 for 2nd, 20 for 3rd, 15 for 4th, 10 for 5th, 5 for 6th. The other teams will score points on the following scale – 24 points for 1st, 20 for 2nd, 16 for 3rd, 12 for 4th, 8 for 5th, 4 for 6th. * PUMA's Mar Mostro (Kenny Read/USA) is the new leader tonight at 1900 UTC, having forced early leader CAMPER (Chris Nicholson/AUS) into second place. However, the entire fleet is split only by 2.90 nautical miles and CAMPER is only 0.10 nm behind Mar Mostro. This 3,051nm leg will certainly throw in some curve balls in the shape of uncharted atolls, shallows, shipping and ocean debris, but for now, the fleet is enjoying a relatively straightforward first night at sea, on a port tack stretch across to Pulau We, an island on the northwest tip of Sumatra, Indonesia. All six boats are currently south of the rhum line in order to avoid the effects of a wind shadow from the Sri Lankan coast. Mike Sanderson (NZL) has taken Sanya the furthest south, while PUMA's Mar Mostro is 4.21 nm to weather of the fleet. Team Telefónica (Iker Martínez/ESP) lost some valuable miles earlier in the day when a fitting on their code zero headsail failed, leaving the sail flogging and threatening to self-destruct. The crew has assessed the damage and is now hard at work on repairs, but is still well in touch and lies in fourth place tonight.s, but is still well in touch and lies in fourth place tonight. World's Best Invade Coconut Grove Nine of the top ten teams in the ISAF World Rankings are here to compete in the Women's Match Racing event, including those that took the gold, silver and bronze medals in Perth at the class's Worlds: respectively, USA's Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, Fla.) /Molly Vandemoer (Stanford, Calif.) /Debbie Capozzi (Bayport, N.Y.); Great Britain's Lucy Macgregor/Annie Lush/Kate Macgregor; and France's Claire Leroy/Elodie Bertrand/Marie Riou. "The competition is going to be some of the best we have seen on the Sailing World Cup circuit," said Liz Baylis, Executive Director of the Women's International Match Racing Association. "With all of the top teams coming here fresh from the Worlds and a number of teams fighting for their spot on their country's Olympic team, there will be no holding back, and the racing should be very exciting.. Baylis also noted that the Rolex Miami OCR will be followed next week by the Women's Match Racing International Country Olympic Qualifying Regatta at which nine countries will vie for the last three available country berths at the Games. (For both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, a country must qualify itself before it can send a representative.) Other top-five competitors from the ISAF Worlds competing here are Laser Radial gold medalist Marit Bouwmeester (NED) and silver medalist Evi van Acker (BEL); 470 Men's gold medalists Mathew Belcher/Malcolm Page (AUS); 470 Women's silver medalists Hannah Mills/Saskia Clark (GBR); and Star gold medalists Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada (BRA). For fleet racing in the Olympic classes, the Rolex Miami OCR will consist of a five-day opening series (Monday - Friday) and a double-point medal race (Saturday). The top 10 finishers in the opening series of each class will advance to the medal race. For match racing (Elliott 6m), which makes its debut in the 2012 Olympic Games, the regatta will consist of an opening series, a knockout series, and a sail-off for boats not advancing to the knockout series. Competitors in the Paralympic classes will have five days of fleet racing (Monday-Friday) and no medal race. Medals will be awarded to the top three boats in each Olympic and Paralympic class on Saturday, January 28. Seahorse February 2012 Rules of engagement (5) Design for manufacture - Part I If you haven't subscribed to Seahorse already we're keen to help you attend to that! - Please use the following promotional link and enjoy the hefty Scuttlebutt Europe discount... and it gets even better for 2 and 3 year subscriptions... TP52 Class Announces 2012 Racing Circuit Rob Weiland, TP52 Class Manager, says the class is forming a management group owned and controlled by members that will be responsible for event management, event marketing, sponsor and media coordination as well as recruiting new teams to join 52 racing. This year, the class will be racing in a circuit with consistent race management including on-the-water umpiring. The circuit winner will be the best-performing boat in five qualifying events. The regatta schedule will include: - Palma Vela, Palma, April 18 - 22 (tune up event) Weiland says IRC 52 and Soto 40 teams are invited to join in the racing. "We'd like to increase the participation, which not only makes for more exciting competition, but will also provide a chance to race for the Sardinia Cup, a team event with two-boat teams consisting of a 52 and a Soto 40. For all events except the Copa del Rey, the 52s - whether a TP52 or IRC52 - will race boat-for-boat. "Th. IRC52s will have to be within a TCC limit for this," says Weiland. "That limit is set slightly above the TCC that a TP52 has in order to accommodate features such as carbon rigging, which under IRC carry a rating 'penalty'. At Copa del Rey, Weiland says the 52s will race under IRC. "That suits the event organization better and maximizes the number of boats on the start line. We hope to see well over ten teams competing in Palma." Weiland says the class will begin working with the clubs involved in the 2012 program immediately, while the organizational details are finalized for the management group. The 2013 calendar will be announced no later than August 2012. Plans for next year tentatively call for a return to the Americas early in the season. End Of The Road For Cowes Chain Ferry The floating bridge, which has ploughed its way across the River Medina between East Cowes and West Cowes for the past 36 years, will make its final voyage in 2014. Sighs of relief from boaters who have had close encounters with the chain ferry are premature, however, as the Isle of Wight Council has set aside £3 million for a state-of-the-art replacement. "We shall be looking for innovation in the design and technology for the new ferry", said Council leader Councillor David Pugh, "We hope it will last as long as its predecessor has done." Chain ferries have linked East and West Cowes since 1859, and the present ferry, Floating Bridge No. 5, is actually the eighth to have been used on the service. It carries some 400,000 motor vehicles and 1.5 million pedestrians and cyclists every year. Running The Rhumblines She has endured some relatively tough physical tests during her career but very few can compare with the day after day grind of racing which tested the heavy wind sailing skills of the 118 competitors racing for the 2012 Open Australian championship. The boisterous south east breeze and the associated current flow from the January king tides resulted in the race course presenting a serious test of heavy wind sailing in the 15 race championship with the open Gold Medal resulting in an outstanding performance by Victorian teenager Jack Graves while New Zealand skippers Alistair Gifford and Lola Stoodley claimed the minor medals. This normal summer weather system presented all of the solo dinghy skippers with a supreme test of physical endurance when they were required to lean hard in the hiking straps for long periods to master the sloppy seaway. Whenever the wind gusts above 12 knots the waters of Waterloo Bay have a defined history of testing the sailor's tactical and physical endurance and this championship which resulted in a deserved for Jack Graves also identified a wealth of talent in the fleet. Not every young sailor was expecting to be presented with racing in the physically tough elements but those who managed to start smart and sail with a relatively dry bilge when shunting the snub bow into the corrugated sea surface typically known as the Waterloo Slop generally protected their reputations. For Eva Lorenz the challenge was totally different to club racing in small fleets on the tropical warm waters off Airlie Beach. But Eva was on a mission to improve her Australian ranking after finishing 42nd in the 2011 National series. Her target was to sail smart and focus her tactical skills on finishing the regatta in the top 30 she achieved her goal finishing 25th overall and the 5th best female behind Lola Stoodley, Jaime Swalvey, Annabelle Davies and Sarah Kirke. -- Ian Grant Rick Tomlinson Calendar Rick selects all the pictures himself, based on their artistic and action appeal. The pictures can be viewed for a whole month and still offer something new. This years pictures include the Rolex Maxi Cup Porto Cervo, Melges 24 action, the Volvo Ocean Race, Cowes Week, Superyacht art, plus other action from the international racing circuit. Company branded calendars are also available. Order the Portfolio Wall and the freestanding Desk Calendars online at www.rick-tomlinson.com 18ft Skiffs Australian Championship, Race 2
After trailing the early leader Mojo Wine (Archie Massey) for the first two legs of the course, Coxon and his team grabbed the lead near the Clarke Island windward mark and were untroubled over the rest of the course as they went on to win by 2m18s and lead the series with two wins and 2 points. Second over the line today was Gotta Love It 7, which was sailed by Nathan Outteridge, Iain Jensen and Scott Babbage. This was an excellent effort from the team with only Scott Babbage from the regular Gotta Love It 7 crew on board. Third placing today went to Smeg (Nick Press, Dan Phillips and Dave Ewings) which finished a further 1m3s behind Gotta Love It 7. The result was enough to place the team in second position overall on 5 points, following their second place in Race 1 last week. Overall placings have tightened behind the two leaders. Gotta Love It 7 is third on 10 points, followed by appliancesonline.com.au on 11, Lumix (Jonathan Whitty), Mojo Wine and Rag & Famish Hotel (Jack Macartney) all on 15 points. Another group of three teams are just one point back on 16 points. Pure Blonde (Tom Clout), Asko Appliances (Marcus Ashley-Jones) and Yandoo (John Winning). Race 3 of the Australian Championship will be sailed on Thursday. Next Sunday is Race 4 of the Australian Championship. -- Frank Quealey, Australian 18 Footers League www.18footers.com.au Sailing Charity Provides Respite for Families Affected by Cancer Families are taken on sponsored sailing days, ocean cruises, river boat adventures and park breaks. The charity also provides sailing weekends for youngsters living with cancer to improve their confidence and meet other young people dealing with the disease. "Families who live with cancer experience enormous stress. From the moment someone is diagnosed with the disease family life is severely affected and often financial strain is added to an already heavy burden. We give families the opportunity to spend time together away from the stress of their everyday lives. We want them to just have fun as a family and use their time together to create special memories" remarked Lizette van Niekerk, Fundraising Manager for Sail 4 Cancer. In 2011 Sail 4 Cancer helped 400 people and this year they hope to help many more families. If you want to nominate a partner, child, friend or family for a much-needed break simply visit the charity's website: www.sail4cancer.com or call 0845 408 1849. Sail 4 Cancer is entirely dependent on fundraising and appreciates any donations to help more families. The charity is also looking for volunteers to raise funds by running the BUPA London 10K the 27th of May. Letters To The Editor - * From John Horn: re: London Boat Show. To Louay Habib, I say here! here!, I havent been to the show since it left Earls Court I think that was year 2001 or so, Good idea to seperate the stink pots and the sailors. Bye the bye I sail for pleasure and drive stink pots for money. Featured Brokerage This is a competetive Quarter Tonner that has much work done over the years. She comes with an excellent 4 wheeled trailer, ready to go racing. Full set of racing sails. Brokerage through Channel Island Boat Sales Ltd.: www.yachtworld.com/ciboatsales/ Complete listing details and seller contact information at uk.yachtworld.com The Last Word |
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