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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 ISAF Conference But the event taking centre stage will be the decision on whether to re-open the 2016 Olympic Events slate, approved, some would say, with ambush tactics at the Mid-Year Meeting in May. The narrow decision by just two votes to run with the Kiteboarding events ahead of the Windsurfer triggered a fury around the world the likes of which has never been seen before on ISAF decisions. Yesterday afternoon, Yachting New Zealand issued a media release where YNZ President Jan Dawson was quoted using almost the same words that Abercrombie had used the day earlier. Both claimed that under the ISAF Constitution the Councillors were required to vote in unison. From our reading of the Constitution, confirmed by others and history, that is not the case. It is true that the views of all nations in the group must be presented, so a Councillor would put those on the table. A minority view is very important in sailing, as the sport is so diverse, and the majority view, prior to a debate is not always in the best interest of the sport. The ISAF Constitution requires the Councillors to 'have regard to the interest of the sport of yachting throughout the world as a whole'. That is quite different from voting along Regional lines. The relevant clause 39: Members of the Council shall be persons who are active in Yachting. Members of the Council shall be responsible for placing before the Council the views of the Member National Authorities by whom they were nominated or elected but in the exercise of their votes they shall have regard to the interest of the sport of yachting throughout the world as a whole. (From this document: www.sailing.org/tools/documents/CONSTITUTION ) Quite where matters go from here remains to be seen. -- Richard Gladwell in Sail-World.com * Update Statement On RS:X Legal Challenge On 1 August 2012, ISAF was notified of a legal challenge by the International RS:X Class Association Ltd (IRSXCAL) to the decision of the ISAF Council to select kiteboarding for the Rio 2016 Olympic Sailing Competition. The challenge requested a judicial review and was submitted to the High Court in the UK. Judicial review proceedings require permission from the Court before they can proceed to a full hearing. ISAF has received notification that on 19 October 2012, the High Court refused IRSXCAL permission to proceed with its claim against ISAF. The judge accepted ISAF's arguments that it is not a government body that can be subjected to judicial review proceedings. ISAF will ask the Court to order the legal costs of defending the judicial review proceedings to this point by paid by IRSXCAL. On 30 October 2012, IRSXCAL exercised its right for this decision to be reconsidered by the Court at an oral hearing. ISAF has not yet been notified by IRSXCAL of the grounds on which it is seeking a re-consideration. A date for this hearing to take place will be fixed by the Court within the next eight weeks. It remains ISAFs position that this case is without merit and will be denied reconsideration at the oral hearing. * Conference correction: Two issues ago we noted that the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Awards would be televisedon November 6th. Not the case... Media output on the night will include a short release published on announcing the winners with images and a video news release. The VNR will also be available for web TV. A longer piece with detailed information will be released on 7 November. There IS however a blog... www.sailing.org/follow/2012-ISAF-conference-blog.php That will include immediate updates on the recommendations to Council, decisions made in Council and then Election of Officers. Our thanks to the ISAF's Daniel Smith for bringing this to our attention. ISAF: http://sailing.rog ISAF Conference site: www.sailing.org/meetings/2012-conference.php Volvo Ocean Race Version 1 Class Rules Announced The new boat, designed by Farr Yacht Design in the United States, is being built by a consortium of four boatyards - Green Marine in the UK, Persico in Italy, Decision in Switzerland and Multiplast in France. Work is already well underway, with the first boat due to be launched in June 2013. "As not all the components have been designed or specifications finalised yet the class rule is not a final version but v1 of the class rules is pretty comprehensive," said Race Director Jack Lloyd. "We promised at the launch in June that the class rule would be published on November 1, 2012 and we have produced the 'foundation' of the class rule. That's important because the more information we give now the better. As actual and prospective teams put together their support staff they need to know what they can and cannot do to their boats. "The class rule we have produced is a Closed Class Rule, which means that, if it does not specifically say that you may - then you shall not." As the designs and specifications are finalised the class rule will be 'amended' or updated, with the final version being posted when Boat 1 is delivered in June 2013. Boat owners can ask questions about the class rules which will be answered and posted on the Volvo Ocean Race official noticeboard. They can ask for interpretations after May 1, 2013. The VO65 Class Rule v1 is posted here: www.volvooceanrace.com/en/noticeboard/ The 12th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will start from Alicante in the second half of 2014, with the full route due to be announced in January. For the first time, the race will be contested by identical 'one-design' boats. Men's teams will be made up of eight sailing members plus a Media Crew Member, with all-women's teams allowed two extra crew members. 39270 - The Official Pictorial Record of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011 - 12 From intense racing to the high emotion of life onboard and the festive atmosphere of the race villages, this magnificent fleet captured the imagination of millions through the media. 39270 provides the ultimate hard-copy keepsake of this global spectacle. Published for an international audience with text translations in English, Spanish, French and Chinese, this book documents one of the all-time great adventures by compiling the very best photography from all angles of this global event, to tell a visual story more vividly than every before. 39270 - the official pictorial record of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011 - 12 Available from www.southatlanticpublishing.com Emirates Team New Zealand... Into The Shed The yacht will go into the shed for 10 days for, amongst other things, modifications that are designed to extract greater performance from the boat. Grant Dalton says: "After 16 days on the water, we are comfortable with the boat and we can work on building speed by developing on-board systems and racing mechanics and giving the sailing crew time to develop communications and boat handling. "The design department has collated and analysed a massive amount of data every time the 72 has sailed and has come up with some changes that we expect will improve performance. "Amongst the obvious changes are fairings which are designed to reduce windage and therefore drag will be installed on the back beam and elsewhere. We have not done this before because the fairings make access needed to tune various systems and visual checks of the structure more difficult "Once we have completed the work, the team will back into on-the-water testing and spending time on sailing crew development." -- Warren Douglass Loick Peyron Joins Artemis Racing "It is fantastic to have Loïck join Artemis Racing. Loïck has no peer when it comes to large multihulls." said Paul Cayard, CEO of Artemis Racing. "As we have seen, these AC72's will be a real challenge here on San Francisco Bay and having someone of Loïck's experience will certainly be advantageous." Peyron has an extensive background of achievements in multihulls in both inshore and offshore racing. In the late 1990's and early 2000's he won the ORMA Championship four times, the Single-handed Transatlantic Race three times, and just this year won the Jules Verne Trophy setting the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe in just 45 days. Peyron has been the skipper for Energy Team France in the 2012 America's Cup World Series (ACWS). "I look forward to working with these great guys in San Francisco. Thanks to my new role with Artemis Racing, Energy Team will be gaining the experience of the 34th America's Cup at the highest level," said Loïck Peyron. The Peyron brothers and their Energy Team will continue with the AC45 on the ACWS circuit next year and are aiming to participate in the 35th America's Cup. artemis-racing.americascup.com Century-Old Sunken Schooner Found Near Los Angeles The ship, named the George E. Billings, hauled timber at the beginnings of the 1900s from the West Coast to Hawaii and Latin America. After briefly being turned into a sport-fishing barge, it was scuttled by its owner in 1941, according to a paper presented today at the California Islands Symposium in Ventura, Calif. Archaeologists and historians who had been searching for the shipwreck finally found it in February 2011 off the coast of Santa Barbara Island, according to Robert Schwemmer, a NOAA maritime archaeologist. The five-masted schooner was built in 1903 by the Hall Bros., a shipbuilding company, in Port Blakely, Wash. After it was turned into a fishing barge, the owners were informed by the U.S. Coast Guard that they had to install bulkheads throughout the ship, or face a $500 per day fine, Schwemmer told OurAmazingPlanet. Instead of installing bulkheads, they decided to set it on fire and let it sink, he said. -- Douglas Main From Yahoo News Sailor Hopes To Cruise Globe In A 10-Foot Boat The Swedish sailor wants to cruise nonstop around the world by himself in a sailboat slightly larger than a bathtub. Armed with a stack of books and 880 pounds of mainly sardines and granola, the 73-year-old seasoned boat builder plans to wedge inside what he affectionately calls a "survival capsule," and spend up to a year-and-a-half reading, writing, thinking and soaking up the wonders of nature. Mr. Yrvind is knee deep in the building of his boat. If successful, he will win the honor of using the smallest—and probably slowest—boat ever to circle the world without docking. "I'll be completely safe. It's like a ping-pong ball in the sea, it never breaks," Mr. Yrvind said while showing the boat in his workshop. "A small boat constructed the right way is always stronger than a big boat." Skeptics wonder if Mr. Yrvind will go crazy living on a small piece of real estate and question whether a boat this size would be able to hack it should it bump into a whale or iceberg. Full article in Blue Water Sailing: Huge Fleet on Derwent for Audi Showdown Regatta
As such, the Showdown is one of the biggest mixed fleet regattas in Australia, involved close to 600 sailors ranging in age from eight to eighty. Conducted by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, the Showdown in an early-season regatta aimed at providing big-fleet competition for the State's sailors as they prepare for major national championships and ocean races. The Showdown starts on Friday evening, 2 November with a twilight harbour race for an expected fleet of more than 30 keelboats and sportsboats. Saturday will see a massive sea of sail on the Derwent, with the off-the-beach classes starting the first day of competition with up to four races planned on Saturday and Sunday. Off-the-beach entries of dinghies and small catamarans late today totalled 122, with late entries still coming in. The keelboat fleet will be boosted on Saturday with more than additional 40 to 50 yachts expected to join the regatta fleet in what is also part of the Combined Clubs long race series. The long race, starting from off Castray Esplanade from 9.20am Saturday, will mark the return to racing in southern Tasmania of Cougar II, owned by Beaconsfield-based medico Tony Lyall. Cougar II is entered for the entire regatta as the start an intensive crew-training program for Lyall's second Sydney Hobart campaign for with the powerful TP52 he bought late last year. -- Peter Campbell Innovations In Olympic Sailing To make the racing easier to understand from the non-sailors perspective and more enjoyable for the competing sailors, the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup will adopt some new race formats. Being a completely new series provides an opportunity for different formats to be introduced and new ideas to be developed. The following innovations will be adopted as part of the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup: - Shorter, but more races each day (12-15 over four days for 'conventional' classes and up to 20 for high performance disciplines). All five participating events will be ranked as '100-pointers' in the ISAF World Sailing Ranking List. 2013 Events: Fraglia Vela Riva Delta Lloyd Regatta Sail for Gold Kieler Woche Semaine Olympique Francaise Not Sailing But Cool... If true, the research, published Oct. 17 in the journal Frontiers of Perception, suggests something fundamental about the laws of nature has yet to be discovered. "The claim is that events can be predicted without any cues," said Julia Mossbridge, a Northwestern University neuroscientist who co-authored the study. "This evidence suggests the effect is real but small. So the question is: How does it work?" Other scientists are skeptical of this interpretation, however. They suggest some bias in which studies get published could play a role in seeing an effect where there is none. * Editor: My body knows when a future hangover is coming... www.livescience.com/24479-bodies-predict-the-future.html Letters To The Editor - * From Markus Schwendtner, IKA Executive Secretary: In the past few weeks you have been virtually "bombarded" by the RSX lobby group with false accusations, defaming papers and inaccurate information that only repeated the same mantra over and over again: "Kiteracing is not ready, kiteracing is dangerous, kiteracing is the evil..." While all this paperwork presented to you is largely based on hearsay and statements from people with a very vested interest in the return of windsurfing, we would like to share this video with you - because seeing is believing. Witness with your own eyes and ears, and don't let yourself get dragged into misinformation strategy of the RSX lobby group. See how exciting and appealing kite racing is, hear from sailors what they think about format and equipment, get first hand information from already "converted" RS:X sailors like Dorian van Rijsselberghe, Zac Plavsic, and Race Officers like St. Francis' Director of Race Operations, Robbie Dean. The video can be found here: vimeo.com/52493924 Featured Brokerage Top Najad 49 in good condtions and well equipped, this Najad 49 was sailed in nordic area. Brokerage through Baltic-Yachtpoint: www.yachtworld.com/balticyachtpoint/ Complete listing details and seller contact information at The Last Word |
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