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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 Peter Morton Takes Record Third Victory at Coutts Quarter Ton Cup Race Officer Rob Lamb and his Committee, the core of which will be officiating on the RSX course at the Olympic Regatta in Weymouth, did an excellent job to complete the final three races scheduled despite very variable breeze. The unpredictable wind and a strong tide gave the sailors plenty to think about and ensured the fleet was constantly shuffling places with surprises and dramas at every turn. Race seven set the tone of high drama when a number of teams misjudged the strength of the tide, resulting in a series of mark one pileups. After that the day just got more and more exciting with some of the closest racing you could hope to see anywhere in the world. Despite being one of the boats caught up in the race seven mark rounding debacle, ultimately Peter Morton and his crew claimed a record third Coutts Quarter Ton Cup win by just 4 points from Alice II with Aguila third and Anchor Challenge fourth. This achievement was impressive not only because it was the first time the event has been won by the same person three times but also because Peter and his team have used three different boats for their wins. Full Results www.rcyc.co.uk Yann Elies is Crowned King of Gijon Yann Elies, Morgan Lagraviere and Fabien Delahaye formed a tight-knit trio who led the opening leg from the very first night of La Solitaire du Figaro - Eric Bompard Cachemire when they gained a significant edge over the rest of the fleet by skillfully negotiating the rock-strewn coast of northern Brittany. Maintaining a watchful eye on their competitors the three skippers alternated positions at the front as they passed relatively unscathed through a ridge of high pressure with its light and tricky winds, maintained speed through a second foggy night that featured several close encounters with ships, and came out of the predicted massive wind shift best placed for the final approach to Gijon, arriving in typically close Figaro fashion after more than 450 miles. The skipper of Groupe Queguiner-Le Journal des Entreprises went on to round each of the following marks in first: the Grande Basse de Portsall, close to the Brittany tip, then the Birvideaux lighthouse before attacking the Bay of Biscay and up to the finish line in Gijon. With today's victory Yann Elies, who is competing in his 13th Solitaire du Figaro - Eric Bompard Cachemire, reaches an impressive score of six leg wins since his debut in the race. The remainder of the top 10 streamed across the finish line of an increasingly stormy Gijon in little over an hour, with Nicolas Lunven (Generali) taking fourth ahead of Thierry Chabagny (Gedimat), Paul Meilhat (Skipper Macif 2011), Erwan Tabarly (Nacarat), Frederic Duthil (Sepalumic), Damien Guillou (La Solidarite Mutualiste) and Xavier Macaire (Skipper Herault). The best of the international contingent were set to arrive in succession, Nick Cherry on Artemis 77, Francisco Lobato on Roff and Sam Goodchild on Artemis were within 2 miles of each other as they approached Gijon in 25th, 26th and 27th places respectively. As the Leg 1 winner, Elies, crossed the line this afternoon they had around 20 miles to make to the finish line. Trouble On The Return Trip From Bermuda Returning crews were offered daily weather briefings and were advised by forecasters of the possibility of strong winds along their route home. Many of the boats have elected to continue to use their Yellowbrick positioning recording devices for their return trip and may be tracked on http://gae.yb.tl/nb2012return. The position of 'Avenir' has been returned to its 6/24 location at the request of the owner. Following is the notice distributed by Bermuda Radio RCC: Early this morning (Tuesday June 26) the Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre received a call from the U.S. Coastguard in Norfolk, Virginia, requesting information on the Newport to Bermuda race boat 'Avenir'. 41 ft sloop 'Avenir' which departed Bermuda two days ago bound for Newport, Rhode Island, reported that vessel had suffered rudder damage in position 230 miles Northwest of Bermuda and was in need of assistance. Unsuccessful attempts were made by the crew to jury rig a temporary rudder with Captain also reporting that some of the crew had become violently seasick. A decision was made by Captain and crew to abandon vessel. Cruise ship 'Norwegian Star' was diverted to the yacht's position, picking up the six survivors at 2:30 pm this afternoon. Norwegian Star is due into Bermuda tomorrow morning. Early this afternoon [Tuesday] another 'Newport to Bermuda' race boat 'Convictus Maximus' contacted the U.S. Coastguard for assistance after a crew member onboard suffered a suspected spinal injury. Sailing vessel 'Convictus Maximus', a 42 foot sloop with six persons onboard, located 230 miles Northwest of Bermuda, also departed Bermuda two days ago bound for Newport, Rhode Island. Efforts are currently underway to have the injured crewmember brought ashore for medical treatment. Official Clothing Partner Henri Lloyd Announces Exciting Plans For The J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round The Island Race Weekend Henri Lloyd shall also be selling a commemorative clothing range featuring the official race logo exclusively on the Henri Lloyd stand within the Official race village. The range includes the Henri Lloyd Breaker Jacket & Vest, Rigger Hoodie, Fast-Dri Polo, Atmosphere T and Fast-Dri cap. Henri Lloyd Ambassador Ben Ainslie CBE, will be competing in the race onboard Eleonora and will be visiting the Henri Lloyd stand on Saturday 6pm, to meet race competitors and sign autographs. ISAF World Sailing Rankings The next release of the ISAF World Sailing Rankings will be on 15 August 2012. World Ranking Leaders - 27 June 2012 Men's One Person Dinghy (Heavyweight) - Finn Women's One Person Dinghy - Laser Radial Men's One Person Dinghy - Laser Men's Two Person Dinghy - 470 Women's Two Person Dinghy - 470 Men's Skiff - 49er Men's Keelboat - Star Men's Windsurfer - RS:X Women's Windsurfer - RS:X The full ISAF World Sailing Ranking lists, results from all ISAF Graded events, lists of Graded events throughout the year, Ranking release dates and the method of calculation for the Rankings can be found on the ISAF website at www.sailing.org/rankings Tour De France a La Voile 2012 Eight legs for this year's race - from Dunkerque to la Seyne sur Mer through Dieppe, St Cast Le Guildo, Roscoff, Talmont St Hilaire, Roses and Gruissan. The teams will sail both inshore and offshore legs in the English Channel, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea to finally crown the best crew. There may be some surprises too on the foreign side. Almost half of the fleet isn't French! Starting with the Belgium crew, who will take part to the race for the 20th time. This time, Mady Faubert's crew will sail with a renowned sailor - Bertrand Pace. A strong asset for this team, Pace is one of the most rewarded skippers of the race (eight victories). Bienne Voile - SRS, Ville de Geneve Carrefour Prevention and Tu Delft are coming back to the Tour de France a la Voile. Meanwhile, Iskareen's German crew is now associated with Herve Gautier for its second take at the race. Teams of the Tour de France a la Voile Cotes D'armor Bretagne (Fra 14), Josselin Le Moine Regates Royales de Cannes Gaff rigs, schooners, cutters, sloops, yawls, J Class, one-designs from last century and 12 Metre Class will bring back the glorious years of yachting over five days of racing on the courses around the Lerins Islands. It will be an exceptional gathering, with some of the biggest and most famous yachts from the last century such as the majestic Eilean (designed by William Fife III), Mariquita (William Fife III), Cambria (William Fife), Moonbeam III and Moonbeam IV, winning in 2011 (William Fife), Mariska (William Fife III), Manitou (Olin Stephens) and the "tiny" Dainty (by Westmacott)... The Pen Duick fleet returns to Cannes Dragons Etchells Bedrock Trophy Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club organized the 2 day event of close windward leeward racing, with a 3 lap course with a downwind gate for Saturday and a longer 2 lap course without gate for Sunday. Saturdays racing in 25 knots of breeze guaranteed lively downwind planning conditions which tested both crews and boats alike, with 3 boats having to retire for the day with either gear or crew failure in the first race alone, only to be joined by Ante Razmilovic who in race 2 broke his boom. Ante however rushed ashore to fix the boom and made it back to the start line unfortunately 4 minutes after the start of race 3 but he still gamely sailed the course. Sunday's early morning breeze of 25kts gusting 30 led to an in-harbour postponement until the breeze died down sufficiently to get racing underway, and the 11 boats who made it to the start line sailed all 3 races in the best of Solent conditions - sunshine and winds varying from 15 to 23 kts. The practice that the Bleddyn Mon team put in over many weeks moved them into the top spot as they scored 2 firsts and discarded their last and worst result of the weekend to take the Bedrock Trophy Title. www.facebook.com/#!/groups/etchellscowes/ 470 European Championship With 2012 Olympic qualification now finalized and teams representing their nation at the 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition confirmed, the goal at the Europeans can be purely about Championship success. For many, the 2012 470 European Championship will mark their final event before the Olympic Sailing Competition and next week they will head straight back to Weymouth for final preparations. The Championship will be a 13 race series, including the final Medal Race showdown for the top 10 boats in the 470 Men and 470 Women events. Racing gets underway on Thursday 28 June 2012, with the warning signal for the first race scheduled for 1200 hours. The 470 Men and 470 Women fleets are scheduled to sail twelve races, after which the top 10 boats in each fleet will race the Championship deciding Medal Race on Wednesday 4 July, with the other teams competing a final race. Spinnaker Tales: Wrapt In Raptor Both Mark Buchbach and his exceptionally talented crew were totally unsure of their prospects when they sailed onto the open waters off Pt Cartwright for the first of the three race championship series. The crew understood that the untried Raptor had a proven pedigree from the design board of leading Australian sports boat designer Alan Carwardine but they needed to know more. Collectively they had the sports boat sailing experience to understand that Raptor would have to produce something special to compete against a very strong fleet. However they were confident that the maiden race performer had the speed sailing potential that could stand up to the test but were unsure about having the consistent all angle speed to outpace her high .933 handicap rating. All their fears were effectively washed away in the speed sailing wake when Raptor won the line and handicap double from former Australian champion Brett Whitbread's Bloke World and the consistent Peow Peow (Andrew Triggell) in race one. Their winning line honours margin of 3 minutes 35 seconds in a race time of 49 minutes and 20 seconds set the standard for Raptor to outpace her rating to record an impressive 1 minute 9 second victory in her maiden race. Unfortunately there was very little that their impressive list of rivals could do when the Raptor crew scored an equally impressive line and corrected handicap win in race two. While there elapsed time was 23 seconds slower the Raptor crew had enough time in reserve to claim a 1 minute 57 second win while the Ben Leigh-Smith helmed Vivace held on to claim second just 16 seconds in advance of Peow Peow. Naturally the Raptor crew were impressed with the performance of their new and relatively untuned sports boat. Just to prove that two wins from two races was no fluke the Raptor crew made a clean sweep of the State championship trophies winning race three by the narrow margin of 31 seconds form Peow Peow and Blokes World who also claimed the minor championship medals overall. Based on aggregate corrected handicap times over the three races Raptor was 4 minutes 15 seconds faster than Peow Peow and 5 minutes 44 seconds faster than Blokes World. This suggests Raptor will be the favourite to win the Telcoinabox Airlie Beach Race Week sports boat championship on the Whitsunday Sailing Club courses from August 17 -23. Meanwhile the Raptor crew will continue with club racing on Brisbane's Waterloo Bay before they begin the long road trip to Airlie Beach where they will face another high standard fleet representing West Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland who be aiming to break Raptor's remarkable performance. -- Ian Grant Brewin Dolphin British Open Metre Regatta The classic Six Metre class was dominated very narrowly by Fenton Burgin's Sioma, the oldest yacht in the fleet, designed in 1927. Meanwhile in the Modern class day one was led by one point by Tom Richardson's Georgia. Principal Race Office David Arnold sent the fleet on an uptide windward leeward course in a light 8-10 knots breeze which was consistent almost until the bitter end when it dropped off completely during race three leaving the well bunched up fleet struggling against what was left of the tide. However, they were saved by a new wind from the opposite direction, most finishing with kites flying. In the first race Peter Andreae's Erica and fellow class Abu owned by Christian Teichmann were neck and neck, pulling away convincingly as a pair from the rest of the fleet - but the race was over for both when they then rounded the wrong mark, allowing Sioma to take the bullet. Race 2 was not without incident either. Andy Ash-Vie's Wildcat led to the first mark, but took it a little too close, allowing the rest of her fleet to get past as she set about extracting herself. Wildcat had good boat speed and hastily clawed her way back to second place at the finish. "Racing was very close and it was good to see the classics and moderns so close together," commented Class Chairman Robin Richardson who raced St Kitts. "Three of the Sixes, Wildcat, St Kitts and Georgia are virtually identical, since they all came from the same designer, so it is a good challenge for us to race together." Cruising on the edges of the race course too was the 1958-built 12 metre Sceptre providing a further historical backdrop for spectators and competitors alike. Racing continues on Thursday and Friday, with the fleet vying for the overall podium position to win the Royal Southern Yacht Club Challenge Cup. It could belong to anyone. Featured Brokerage The Ker 40 is a light displacement high performance IRC Race Yacht, designed by talented British designer Jason Ker. Over the last ten years his designed have stormed onto the international sailing scene in no uncertain terms. In what has been termed the "perfect team" Ker's creation will be expertly crafted by McConaghy Boats. The Ker 40 is for top level racing in local and international regattas. Designed and Optimised for the IRC and ORC rating rules. Brokerage through Ancasta International Boat Sales: www.yachtworld.com/ancasta/ Complete listing details and seller contact information at The Last Word |
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