Scuttlebutt Europe #2793 - 14 March
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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
Struntje Light Wins Two Races To Take Early Lead At Miami Beach Invitational
Principal race officer Peter "Luigi" Reggio used the north course that is located just off South Beach for Wednesday's action. In typical Farr 40 fashion, the mark roundings were tremendously tight as the seven boats completed a four-legged course that featured downwind finishes. Owner-driver Wolfgang Schaefer and his team aboard Struntje Light enjoyed a fantastic first day of competition, winning two races and placing second in the other to seize the early lead. Tactician Peter Holmberg correctly called the right side of the course in Race 1 and Struntje Light was the first boat to benefit from a 25-degree shift, rounding the first windward mark in first place and never looking back. The German entry engaged in a great duel with Charisma in Race 3 and managed to grab the lead for good midway up the second beat. Charisma, owned by Nico Poons of Monaco, posted a pair of seconds on Wednesday and sits third in the overall standings. Morgan Reeser, who developed into an Olympic medalist just up the road in Fort Lauderdale, is serving as tactician aboard Charisma, which is coming off a fourth place finish at Quantum Key West 2013. Competition continues on Friday and Saturday off South Beach with Reggio hoping to complete 10 races. Top three results:
1. Struntje Light, Wolgang Schaefer, Germany, 1-2-1=4 For complete results, visit www.yachtscoring.com
Repeat Performance for Leaders at Rolex Swan Cup Caribbean
With ten knots of prevailing Caribbean winds out of the East, racing organised by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda got underway at 1100. The course for the racing divisions reversed the route taken yesterday, with a downwind start outside North Sound down Drake's Passage keeping the Dog Islands to starboard. Turning North with Round Rock to port and racing hard on the wind along the East coast of Virgin Gorda before turning West at Pajaros Point, launching their spinnakers to pass Oil Nut Bay and continue towards Necker Island and onto to the finish. PRO Peter Craig ensured that the fleet returned to the dock in good time for the ClubSwan Cocktail competition. A repeat performance in the Maxi Class saw Swan 80 Selene take the win off of Jim Madden's Swan 601 Stark Raving Mad. While in Class B, it was the South Africans on James Blackmore's Swan 53 Music who were first in class with Phil Lotz's Club Swan 42 Arethusa in second. "Pretty light conditions should make things a little more interesting in the coming days. We hope it is not too light, as we want to get the races in. We picked the sails we'd need down range under 10 knots, which we haven't seen much of. We always like coming here to this part of the islands, warm weather and nice breezes. The atmosphere and the parties are great too," said Swan owner Phil Lotz.
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Buoyant Bronze Age Boat Makes History In Cornwall
Slipping majestically into the calm waters of Falmouth bay the 50ft long, 5 tonne vessel launched to a rapturous reception from the gathered crowd of onlookers. A first for experimental archaeology and a first for the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, the 50ft long 5 tonne prehistoric boat has been reconstructed as part of a collaborative project with the University of Exeter. A team of volunteers, led by shipwright Brian Cumby, have spent the last year building this one of a kind craft out of two massive oak logs using replica methods and tools, such as bronze headed axes. This collaborative boat building project is led by Professor Robert Van de Noort from the University of Exeter. One of the world's leading experts in Bronze Age period boats, he is heading up the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project. Dr Linda Hurcombe, Archaeologist at University of Exeter: "To sit inside something that has not been seen in British waters for 4000 years and paddle it, and to see the carving of the wood, the tallow and the yew stitching all working together is a sight to behold." The replica Bronze Age boat is available to view now on the Museum's pontoon.
The New Portsmouth Yardstick Explained
The data was collected and collated by the RYA from its clubs and amalgamated into a document known as the 'Digest'. The Digest contains the recommended performance numbers for all of the classes submitted by each club. When looking at how a club assess the relative performance of each of its classes, you need to take into account the vast variety of factors that will affect its perceived performances. Andy Wibroe, RYA technical co-ordinator, said: 'The data that we get may not necessarily be the championship winning boat or reflect the absolute speed performance of the boat but will be an accumulated average. 'If a boat is consistently used as a youth training boat within club sailing then it will never really be sailed to a high consistent level. 'On the other hand a class which is more actively sailed in open meetings, where sailors get to test their skills more keenly the average club boat may be sailed to a higher level than average.' This will result in certain classes having a higher than average performance factor and others a lower average, meaning that classes will continually over achieve against the RYA published number and others under. The method of collecting the data from the clubs has meant that the Portsmouth Number list published this year is closer to the National Average performance factor of each of the classes, but still needs to be tweaked by each club to allow for their own local adjustment factors. On its own, the PN list aims to give a starting point for club racing. One thing missing from this years' number list will be the cruiser numbers. The RYA have not received enough data from clubs to be able to publish a PN list for this area of racing and instead have been working on replacement scheme built on slightly different foundations. The National Handicapping for Cruisers or NHC, has been built up and developed over the past three months with welcome assistance from a variety of partners. NHC moves away from the traditional process of collecting club data but instead works on a formula and measurement system to build up a base list. This base list will contain more than 1,200 different boat types. An important part of NHC is the adjustment process and the RYA is grateful to be working with Sailwave and HAL who have developed their programs alongside the RYA and will be releasing new versions of their programs at the same time as the RYA release the base list. See www.rya.org.uk/racing/Pages/portsmouthyardstick.aspx and www.rya.org.uk/racing/Pages/NHC.aspx
Extreme Sailing Series 2014-2017 Host Venue Bid Process Commences
With Singapore, China, UK, and Brazil already committed to 2014 as part of multi-year deals, there are up to four Host Venue slots available in the bid process to make up an eight or nine Act global circuit for 2014 and beyond. Most of the 2013 venues whose contracts end this year, have nonetheless expressed their own desire to see the circuit return. Bids will be evaluated, first and foremost, on the venues ability to deliver a suitable and ideally 'iconic' venue that can facilitate the 'stadium' racing concept, allowing the Series to maintain the highest level of sporting integrity. Strong support from local government, tourism boards and authorities, the ability to attract tens of thousands of spectators and a solid regional and national marketing and communications plan will also be key criteria for selection. The closing date for the tender process is 26th April 2013, by the 2nd May a shortlist of up to 10 potential new venues will be confirmed and final confirmations made by July ahead of announcing publicly the 2014 Extreme Sailing Series circuit dates and venues in the Autumn.
For The Record
Record: Monohull; Las Palmas to Guadeloupe The WSSR Council announces the establishment of a new World Record.
Record: Monohull: New York to San Francisco. Comments: Benchmark time set by Yves Parlier in 1998 of 57d 3h 2m 45s
John Reed
Athens Eurolymp Week Dominated By Greek Sailors
With 400 competitors representing six countries, the 50-point ISAF graded event stirred up some intense competition as the battle for the National Championship titles ensued. Bulgaria's Dimitar Vangelov was the only sailor to half the Greek domination as he finished second in the Finn class behind Finn European Champion and three time Athens Eurolymp Finn class winner Ioannis Mitakis. Across the six race series Mitakis was deadly and won every single race to secure an emphatic victory. Nikos Chrysos (GRE) blew the Laser field apart to take a resounding 20 point victory whilst Vasileia Karachaliou (GRE) also dominated the Laser Radial. In the Men's 470 Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis (GRE) took the victory by five points and the Women's 420 saw Eleftheria Georgakopoulou and Marietta Moraitou (GRE) take the honours. There were also regatta victories for Stelios Sotiriou and Alfonso Panagiotidis (GRE) in the 49er, Nikolaus Paterakis (GRE) in the 2.4mR, Orestis Papadopoulos (GRE) in the Laser 4.7, Anastasia Gkari (GRE) in the Optimist Girls and Telis Athanasopoulos (GRE) in the Optimist Boys. Results: www.eio.gr/euro2013index.htm
Industry News
The sport of sailing offers sponsors a wide variety of options to promote their products and services to a desirable demographic with great brand associations. But many sailors aren't doing themselves any favours when it comes to approaching companies for sponsorship. In order to help sailors, teams, event organisers and clubs get their share of the sponsorship budgets of companies Pilote Media - publishers of the Dark Blue Book and yachtsponsorship.com have designed a Sponsorship Workshop. The first one-day event will be hosted by the Royal Southern Yacht Club in the UK on Saturday the 18th of May. The standard delegate rate is £99.00, but there are 35 early bird tickets available at £75.00. There are also team or group discounts. For further details and tickets, click here --------------------------------------------- Demonstrating a strong endorsement from leading political figures in the UAE, the 21st edition of Dubai International Boat Show was attended by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai. Held at the Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC) from March 5-9, more than 780 exhibiting brands and companies participated in the show; 126 of these were new exhibitors. Over the five days 11 global and 20 regional launches took place, notably KaiserWerft's launch of a 30m (99ft) yacht, Sanlorenzo's launch of a 40m (131ft) yacht and VanDutch's world launch of a 17m (55ft) boat. UAE-based manufacturer Gulf Craft also revealed at the show that it had started the construction of a new Majesty 155 superyacht, which at 47m (155ft) will be the yard's largest build to date. A quieter, more slow-paced environment than the Miami, Ft Lauderdale or Dusseldorf shows, the event provided ample opportunities for unrushed meetings and quality networking, although with only one official party - on the opening night - perhaps some of the evenings could have been better exploited. With exhibitors staying in hotels across Dubai there was less of a social focal point for evening activities. IBI News: https://plus.ibinews.com --------------------------------------------- The 2013 Stockholm International Boat Show closed on Sunday with positive results and a rise in the total number of visitors. Some 94,370 people attended this year's show, several hundred more than in 2012. "It's a surprisingly good result, but we have definitely done everything in our power to market and promote the show in all possible ways," says Thomas Sandberg, project manager of the show. "Many of the visitors seemed to visit the show for the first time. And a lot of exhibitors have reported strong interest in buying boats again." Vatt Stockholm, representing motorboat brands Chris-Craft, Boston Whaler and Pursuit, sold 13 boats at the show. "We had a lot of signed contracts at the show and more to work on afterwards. For us, the quality of the visitors was very good," says Goran Andersson at Vatt. IBI News: https://plus.ibinews.com --------------------------------------------- A major Swedish boatbuilder is the latest victim of the economic downturn. Najad Yachts, and parent company Nord West Yachts have gone bankrupt with the loss of 150 jobs. As the yard - 50 kilometres north of Gothenburg - ran into financial difficulty it had been visited by officials armed with seizure notices to place upon unpaid for equipment. A leading industry source told YM: 'It's bad news for the whole industry, but many were puzzled by Najad's behaviour - they were attending Boat Shows right up until the last minute and everyone was asking how could they afford it? If they were going to re-structure then they should have started that back in the autumn because by doing it now - if indeed that's the plan - will mean it will take six months and that will miss them a whole season.' At least one UK customer has a yacht in build at the yard, but under Swedish law the yacht must be finished and offered to the customer. --------------------------------------------- Lewmar is pleased to announce that it has chosen Sailing Stuff to represent itself in India; the first distributor within this expanding territory. Sailing Stuff was founded in 2009 and has since taken on a number of high profile marine brands, covering sails, spars, composites and clothing. The addition of Lewmar products to their portfolio rounds out their ability to offer full package solutions to both professionals and consumers alike.
Letters To The Editor -
* From Dane Ralston: In your article re the RORC Easter Challenge you quote EWO as saying "It's the only event of its kind in the UK and I've not seen it done anywhere else in the world,". Actually since imitation is the best form of flattery we started a very similar regatta in Scotland 4-5 years ago along exactly the same lines as the Easter Challenge indeed going so far as to import one of the same coaches in the shape of Mr Barry Dunning. Its called the Icebreaker Regatta appropriately enough and entries can be made at www.fairlieyachtclub.org.uk It has been very well attended growing in popularity every year and has been greatly supported by not only the sailors but by North sails, Hyde sails and Saturn sails as well as the regatta sponsors Sunbird and Geronimo Sailing. Run by the Fairlie Yacht Club with the Legend (in his own lunch box) that is Pete Wright as PRO this years event is taking place out of Ardrossan on the 13th and 14th April. The more the merrier. Although make sure your ship is properly pimped as Uncle Barry does not like to see boats not ready to race hard from the gun.
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