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Another One Race Day
Photo by LUNA ROSSA/Carlo Borlenghi. Click on image for photo gallery.
Another one-race day at San Francisco as wind and tide conspired against the race committee's best endeavours to get the second race away.
They came close to succeeding. The boats were well into the two-minute start sequence when the plug was pulled for the third day in succession.
Emirates Team New Zealand started today one point away from taking the America's Cup to New Zealand.
The team ended the day in exactly the same position as it started it, but with a win in the one race sailed, Oracle put another point on the board.
The team lost race 12, the only race to be held today. Oracle gained another point and now trails New Zealand eight points to two. The first team to nine wins the America's Cup. Oracle won the start and led to the finish. The delta was 31s.
Standings (first to 9 points wins)
Emirates Team New Zealand - 8
Oracle Team USA - 2
Race 12 performance data
Course: 5 Legs/10.16 nautical miles
Elapsed time: OTUSA - 23:49, ETNZ - 24:20
Delta: OTUSA +:31
Total distance sailed: OTUSA - 11.8 NM, ETNZ - 11.6 NM
Average speed: OTUSA - 29.90 knots (34 mph), ETNZ - 29.01 knots (33 mph)
Top speed: OTUSA - 42.62 knots (49 mph), ETNZ - 41.24 knots (47 mph)
Windspeed: Average - 14.8 knots, Peak - 16.3 knots
Number of tacks/gybes: OTUSA - 10/6, ETNZ - 10/8
Clipper Race: Brest, France - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Derry-Londonderry-Doire crossed the line at 11.17 UTC winning a valuable 3 points as the entry continues to extend its lead in the race. Henri Lloyd crossed the line in second place at 1203 UTC with Mission performance chasing their tail in third place at 1445UTC winning 3, 2, 1 points retrospectively.
Sean McCarter, skipper of Derry~Londonderry~Doire shared his elation after securing a valuable 3 points yesterday.
"We wanted the points badly to make up for an unlucky finish in Race 1 when the course was shortened. We had no idea Mission Performance and Henri Lloyd would push so hard, I guess they were in the exact same position as ourselves after Race 1.
We were pretty much flat out and on the edge for 48 hours. This is mentally draining as well as physically.
During the last 24 hours Henri Lloyd, Qingdao and Invest Africa have all activated Stealth Mode hiding their position from the rest of the fleet for the next 24 hours.
Positions will be broadcast at 0000UTC on 19 September (today) and then will be hidden from the fleet (and on the Race Viewer) through the 0600, 1200 and 1800UTC schedules, before being broadcast again at 0000UTC on 20 September (tomorrow).
You can keep an eye on the fleets progress by checking the Official Race Viewer yb.tl/clipper2013-leg2
To catch up with all of our skippers, you can read the daily skipper reports : www.clipperroundtheworld.com
Visit Gottifredi Maffioli At Monaco Yacht Show - Stand QS33 - Darse Sud
From 25th to 28th September Gottifredi Maffioli will be exhibiting at Monaco Yacht Show presenting the new Mega Yacht line. The know-how and the technologies developed in many years of experience in world class racing and record breaking maxi multihulls are now available to the sophisticated and demanding market of luxury mega yachts.
A great example of Gottifredi Maffioli approach designing new products is the captive winch line. The brand new CAPTIVIA78 is available in three different options to better fit the type of hardware on your boat.
Captivia78 STD is the first rope to be specifically designed for the use on captive winches, it features a very solid construction which is optimized to avoid cover milking and deliver excellent abrasion resistance, while remaining flexible.
Captivia78 XT-GRIP and Captivia78 XTR. These two version of Captivia78 are the reference in the captive winch lines offer. The use of the Dyneema® SK78 XBO fiber brings the concept of the Captivia78 to a higher level of performance. Specifically designed for high-load captive winch applications on maxi yachts, this two lines deliver superior fatigue resistance and durability. Each of the two types is optimized for the use on a specific model of captive winch.
www.gottifredimaffioli.com/eng/index.php
Melges 32 World Championship
Porto Rotondo, Italy: After only one race, the 2013 Melges 32 World Championship hosted by the Yacht Club Porto Rotondo (YCPR) in coordination with Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (YCCS), B.Plan Sports & Events (BPSE) and Melges Europe, looks to International Class Vice Chairman Richard Goransson and tactician Hamish Pepper aboard Helly Hansen Inga From Sweden for overall event leadership. Following in second place is Andrea Pozzi's Bombarda Racing with Lorenzo Bressani calling tactics, then Filippo Pacinotti on Brontolo HH with tactician Nathan Wilmot in third.
The only heat of the day was nothing short of spectacular as the extreme conditions put competitors on high alert for a great race.
As expected, the breeze built throughout Race One and prior to starting Race Two, it quickly exceeded the class maximum wind speed. Knowing that it would not be immediate, PRO Hank Stuart sent the teams ashore to wait in hopes it would diminish enough in the afternoon enabling at least one more race. After more than a couple of hours, Stuart announced that conditions looked promising, sending the fleet afloat around three-forty-five in the afternoon with a warning scheduled for five o'clock.
Shortly thereafter, the conditions grew more intense preventing any further racing on Thursday. Some under jib only, others under tow, teams made their way back to the dock in the 30+ knot breeze.
Top Ten Results (After One Race)
1. Richard Goransson/Hamish Pepper, Helly Hansen Inga From Sweden
2. Andrea Pozzi/Lorenzo Bressani, Bombarda
3. Filippo Pacinotti/Nathan Wilmot, Brontolo HH
4. Alessandro Rombelli/Paul Goodison, Azimut by STIG
5. Jason Carroll/Cameron Appleton, ARGO
6 Deneen Demourkas/Francesco Bruni, Groovederci
7. Naofumi Kamei/Manuel Weiller, Mamma Aiuto!
8. Vincenzo Onorato/Gabriele Benussi, Mascalzone Latino
9. Edoardo Lupi/Pietro Sibello, Torpyone
10. Keisuke Suzuki/Chris Nicolson, Swing
Official Timekeeper of the Volvo Ocean Race In 2014-15
Swiss watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen has signed a new deal as the Volvo Ocean Race's Official Timekeeper for 2014-15 - and will sponsor the prestigious IWC Schaffhausen 24-hour Speed Record Challenge for the second consecutive edition - after the company renewed its partnership with sailing's toughest event.
The 12th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicante, Spain on 4 October 2014 and will finish in Gothenburg, Sweden on 27 June 2015. The full route will take the teams 39,379 nautical miles around the planet in sport's ultimate test of character.
As in the last edition, IWC Schaffhausen will not only act as the Official Timekeeper but also as sponsor of the prestigious IWC Schaffhausen 24-hour Speed Record Challenge. This prize goes to the team that covers the greatest distance in any period of 24 hours during each stage of the race.
At the end of the race, the Swiss watch manufacturer will reward every member of the crew that sets the fastest 24-hour speed record over the course of the entire race with a watch. In the 2011-12 race, IWC presented each member of the CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand crew with the Portuguese Yacht Club Chronograph Edition "Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012" after the team covered 566 nautical miles in a 24-hour period on the leg between Lisbon and Lorient.
IWC also announced on Tuesday it is renewing its partnership with the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing team who will once again be skippered by Britain's double Olympic medallist Ian Walker.
www.iwc.com
www.volvooceanrace.com
Fast And Fun.. The 52 Way
Rob Weiland (cautiously) celebrates a batch of new builds that are now in the pipeline
Things are going well for the 52 Super Series and the TP52 Class. Both in Palma (Copa del Rey) and Porto Cervo (Settimana delle Bocche) we have nine boats racing. Five teams from five different countries confirmed during Copa del Rey that they will be building new for 2014 or 2015. I quietly expect we can double this number before racing starts in 2015, but I am not going to put my head on the block about that just yet. Four or five of the existing boats will also still be around in 2015, which would lead to close to 15 boats competing in the 52 Super Series during 2015. Am I dreaming? Time will tell.
Right now it is maximum pressure to get both the 2014 and 2015 TP52 Rule in place; the guys from the BotÃn design office are pushing us hard to get the rule details they need for the first design built to the 2015 TP52 Rule - for Brazil's Eduardo de Souza Ramos, twice an Olympic sailor in the Star.
The cunning plan is to build fully to the 2015 Rule but to rein the boat - Phoenix - in a little for 2014 to be on a par with the existing fleet. This will require draft to be reduced by 15cm, adding 200kg of weight and sailing with a rod headstay and 2014 mainsail dimensions. Draft can easily be reduced by sinking the fin 15cm into the bulb and then for 2015 extended again by means of a spacer. Weight is a bit of lead and sails get replaced each year anyway. So in the end the only item that is a real extra cost will be the rod headstay.
Full article in Seahorse magazine: www.seahorsemagazine.com
To subscribe to Seahorse Digital £30 for one year with discount promo code SB2 click www.seahorse.co.uk/shop/digital
Busy Weeks Ahead for the IMOCA 60s
With an initial training session from 9 to 11 September and a second from 17 to 19, before switching to the Trophee Azimut in Lorient on 20, 21 and 22 September, the IMOCA sailors certainly aren't standing idle in their preparations for the Transat Jacques Vabre.
The four crews attending the first session at Finistere's offshore training centre have been fleshed out by a fifth duo made up of Marc Guillemot and Pascal Bidegorry aboard Safran. For Marc, it will have been a particularly studious week, as he took up the role of patron of the Challenge Safran from Friday 13, which gathered together over 110 crews from the group in nearby Concarneau.
Two new crews
There have been some fresh entries for the Transat Jacques Vabre too. Bertrand de Broc will be taking the start line aboard Votre Nom autour du Monde pour l'UNICEF, where he'll pair up with Arnaud Boissieres.
Louis Burton also plans to take the start in Le Havre aboard Bureau Vallee. He's opted to team up with Guillaume Le Brec, who may not be as well known amongst the general public, but is perfectly at ease on an IMOCA as he's part of Jean-Pierre Dick's shore crew and has overseen the whole of Virbac - Paprec 3's preparation. Right now, Louis Burton has decided to launch into participatory funding in order to balance his budget.
Upcoming IMOCA programme:
17 - 19 September: training session
20 - 22 September: Trophee Azimut in Lorient
9 - 11 October: training session
Historic Maps Of California As An Island Are Now Online
Here's one for all the nautical history buffs out there...
The maps, of course, depict a mistake: They show California as an island off the coast of North America, reflecting the beliefs of some explorers and cartographers from the 17th and 18th centuries. But the maps' beauty and oddity had attracted the attention of Glen McLaughlin, a Northern California businessman who began buying and collecting hundreds of them over the last four decades.
McLaughlin last year turned over his unusual collection to Stanford University's Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections in an arrangement that was part sale and part donation. And now the public can see and download 731 of the maps thanks to a digitizing project at the school.
The online repository is expected to attract viewers interested in early California history, or at least the imaginations of European explorers of the region. Spurred in part by fantastical descriptions in an early 16th century novel, Spanish travelers originally searched for an island supposedly populated by cannibalistic Amazons with plentiful jewels and gold.
See and download: lib.stanford.edu/california-as-an-island/
From LATimes by way of Blue Water Sailing: bwsailing.com
Do Ireland's One Design Sailing Classes Need A 2014 Pop-Up Regatta?
Pop-up shops, pop-up restaurants - they're everywhere. Or if they're not exactly everywhere, at least we've seen enough of them to know that the idea has a certain appeal when traditional ways of doing business have suffered in recession, with out-of-town multiples knocking the traditional retail trade for six.
So who's on for a pop-up regatta? As we slip into the Autumn leagues and look back on one of the best and busiest Irish sailing seasons in years, it only serves to emphasise the fact that the programme for next year is so quiet as to be almost invisible.
Perhaps it's an exaggeration to talk of next year's programme as being empty. But it's certainly sparse compared to 2013's seemingly endless and brilliant tableau
It really has been a vintage year. But by and large, where the more prominent events featured racing, it was cruiser-racing which was dominant. And Ireland's enthusiasm for this branch of sailing received something of an international boost recently with the RORC measurement office praising the way in which we have successfully combined full-on IRC competition with the less extreme rating system provided by ECHO.
Anyone who thinks that racing a comfortable cruiser is not really sport at all is much mistaken. There's a special challenge to it - getting the best possible performance out of a boat which provides genuine liveaboard amenities is extremely satisfying. And in the Dublin context of sociable sailing, there are many who pop down to Dun Laoghaire harbour for the convenient promise of a race sailing with friends, people who might not otherwise sail at all.
And they certainly wouldn't dream of having a small boat of their own, and racing in a one design class. The hassle and the discomfort, not to mention the extra physical demands and expense, can make for a very unfavourable comparison with crewing on a cruiser where able and congenial crewmembers are always welcome.
But one design racing is an equally valid form of our sport, and in compiling a list of boats which can provide one design sport in Ireland, we were astonished to find the figure hitting the 39 mark. As for the variety of boat types, eclectic only begins to describe it.
WM Nixon's full editorial in Afloat magazine:
afloat.ie/blogs/sailing-saturday-with-wm-nixon
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* From Simon McClean, Anglesey: With the typical Americas Cup challenge now costing many millions of dollars, does a race lasting 23 minutes really represent value for money, let alone the state of the art in match racing?
The statistics you kindly provided yesterday are illuminating.
A 10.16 mile race consisting of 5 legs, each of which averages just over 2 miles and lasting four minutes apiece seems to my simplistic mind to be more of a drag contest than a true match race.
As a sponsor I'd be feeling a little short changed but as a yachter I'm simply left wondering if there is some room for longer races somewhere within the Deed of Gift.
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The Last Word
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