Yachting News April Part 10

Apr 22nd 2009
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Oracle seeks America’s Cup regatta in 2011

2 hours ago

MADRID (AFP) — US syndicate Oracle said Tuesday it backs a traditional America’s Cup regatta in 2011 and has proposed this format to defenders Alinghi ahead of a meeting to discuss the next edition of yachting’s premier event.

The Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC), which represents Oracle, sent the proposal to Alinghi’s representatives the Societe Nautique de Geneve just 48 hours before the two sides meet in Geneva on Thursday.

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Golden Gate Yacht Club show’s its hand

Three days before the meeting in Geneva, the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) has declared how it would like to see the 33rd America’s Cup played out.

In a letter to his opposite at the Societe Nautique de Geneve (SNG), GGYC Commodore Marcus Young outlined two proposals by the American club.

The first is for, ‘a multi challenger regatta under a Protocol and rules (racing, technical and commercial) agreed by mutual consent, at Valencia in 2011, in your new “AC33″ Class.’
This event would be based on, ‘AC32 rules and format with cost cutting measures’, along with a ‘Board of ACM agreed by mutual consent.’

The alternative proposal states, ‘a traditional format of a separate Challenger Selection Series organized at your venue by Louis Vuitton (if they agree to this role); ie., the Challengers will provide the winner of the LV Cup, and the Challengers will re-assume the financial and organizational responsibilities for this series.’

The letter ends by requesting a deadline for a written response to these proposals within a week of the Geneva meeting.

On the face of it a multi challenger event appears to be on both parties minds. Right from the start of the process, just days after winning the Cup in 2007, Alinghi and SNG declared that in co-operation with the then Challenger of Record, the next America’s Cup would be a multi challenger event.

Although BMW Oracle has built and sailed its monster trimaran in preparation for a Deed of Gift match, a best if three head to head with Alinghi, it’s club the GGYC has also repeatedly said that it’s preferred option would be for a multi challenger event.

So where’s the problem?

Mainly in the rules that govern the match.

Broadly speaking Alinghi wants to change the way that the last event was run, it claims the changes aren’t that major. But BMW Oracle thinks otherwise and wants to use the rules that were used to run the last America’s Cup. This letter confirms that little has changed here and this could present one of the main stumbling blocks.

When it comes to the design of the boat, the former Challengers that helped develop the new rule will no doubt be relieved to see that the new AC33 boat is the weapon of choice. Going back to the drawing board for a new design would surely provide a further setback for any new Cup proposal. But in doing this, BMW Oracle has made a small time concession as it’s designers were not part of the rule development and will be playing catch up.

While an America’s Cup match in 2011 in Valencia is a far more feasible timescale when it comes to designing, building and testing a new boat, to say nothing of developing the event itself, this is just one year before the Olympics and will no doubt present some tricky decisions for some Challenger team members. In addition, another year makes for another expensive wage bill. How long can some of the Challengers hold on?

The alternative option, a Challenger run Challenger selection series where the financial and organisational responsibilities lie with that body, would appear to be a complete return to the style of event last seen in Auckland in 2002/3 and where the Defender is not permitted to sail against the Challengers.

With a proposal for one boat campaigns, (part of the cost cutting measures referred to), currently on the cards, it would seem unlikely that the SNG and Alingni would be happy to agree to sit on the sidelines and wait for the ultimate Challenger to appear for the Cup match itself.

And that’s before considering the implications of Alinghi handing over the ‘organizational responsibilities’ for a series that it developed, built and controlled in the last event.

In essence, while the two teams appear to be so close in some ways, there’s most likely still a wide river to cross before they can meet.

Yachting World – Matthew Sheahan, 21 April 2009

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and the chatter on SA is

Stricken yacht crew helicopter to Whangarei

New 6:43PM Tuesday Apr 21, 2009

The three crew of the yacht, Boundless, which was damaged in heavy seas on its journey from Brisbane to Auckland, have been airlifted to Whangarei.

Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand spokesman Ross Henderson told NZPA the trio had reactivated their emergency beacon around 12.30pm today.

“I think there was concern because of their (damaged) sails and they had problems with their communications equipment. They were also worried about fuel and didn’t think they were going to make it.”

A Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion, which first made contact with the vessel yesterday, was again sent to communicate with the crew who were about 150 nautical miles (278km) north-east of New Zealand.

With the yacht’s long-range HF radio damaged, rescuers needed to circle above to talk via short-range VHF radios.

Mr Henderson said the decision was made to get them off the yacht, and the Northland Emergency Rescue Services Trust Rescue Helicopter picked them up shortly before 5pm.

They were expected to touch down in Whangarei around 7pm where they will be met by customs officials.

The yacht was left behind, a navigational alert was sent to warn other ships of its location, and it would be up to the owners to launch a salvage mission, Mr Henderson said.

- NZPA

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“…..we had been sailing very conservatively for safety reasons (as well as tearing the frac kite in a trawl near Rangi). Ironically, the safety limits were pushed a little in the Colville Channel. We had been comfortably running with the screacher and single reefed main from Waiheke. We saw the big squall coming and had been discussing reefing deeper when the wind line came down several minutes sooner than expected. We were running at about 130-140 off the wind and beared away to flat off but the wind just kept building bloody quickly and we went down a big wave into the back of another – buried both bows fairly evenly – then went hoofs up in a pitch-pole capsize.

We dragged ourselves onto the upturned wingdeck then accessed a grab bag from a screw on port. Had a brief chat about whether to do a pan-pan or mayday. Bob had an injured shoulder with a possible break so we did the mayday thing on Ch16. It was the flare that prompted the rescue though. Also left the 406 EPIRB activated and tied onto the boat. The rescue was by the crew on Arathusa with Sniper on standby. The inflatable tender on the forward tramp was used for the transfer after the lashings were released. The Arathusa crew were awesome and gave us clothes and food before transferring to a Coastguard vessel down by the Mercs. The coastguard took us into Whitianga so Bob could get carted away in a meat truck to Thames hospital….”

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Spilt Enz – heading down under?

6 time winner of New Zealands Coastal Classic and record holder (7 hours 20 minutes51 seconds) is rumoured to return for the 2009 event.

These days Split Enz lives in the tropics, playfully dashing between the islands still wearing the record breaking sails, more later, it’s just a wish at the moment. Watch this space.

PRESS RELEASE – RC44 Championship Tour – Cagliari RC 44 Cup

Pro skippers expect a tough RC 44 contest in Cagliari

The second event of the RC 44 Championship Tour 2009 begins tomorrow in Sardinia. The event marks the beginning of DHL’s GoGreen program, aimed at compensating the carbon footprint of the RC 44 Championship Tour. Nine top level teams will compete for the title.

April 21, 2009 – The world’s best skippers involved in the RC 44 Cagliari Cup participated this morning in the event’s opening press conference, held in the beautiful Antico Palazzo di Città, the city’s town hall, in the presence of the Mayor of Cagliari, Dottore Emilio Floris.

“I think this will be a tough event”, commented the Championship Tour leader Cameron Appleton. Winner of the season opener in Lanzarote last month, Team Aqua is not necessarily the favourite of the event according to its pro skipper: “The level is very high, and anyone can win. The courses are short, and it is easy to make small & costly mistakes. But we will certainly try hard.”

Tactician onboard BMW ORACLE Racing, Russell Coutts confirmed that “the level of the Class has never been as high as in this event, and everything is possible. The boats are identical; it is therefore the driver and the team who make the difference. I think that all the teams have a chance to win some races, and many teams can win the overall ranking. I certainly hope that we will do as well as we did last year.”

Christian Binder, the pro helmsman onboard Team Austria, is obviously in different spirits: his team will participate in its first RC 44 event this week. “We are here to learn, and to see where we stand compared to the rest of the fleet”, he said. “We hope to do well, but we also know that we will need some time to fight for victory. Our goal is to learn enough experience to put up a good show in our home waters next month.”

Chairman of the Yacht Club Cagliari, host of the regatta, Alberto Floris said that he was proud to have so many of the world’s best sailors in Cagliari. “It’s a honour to have them all here, and a great opportunity to show the world that Cagliari is one of the best venues for the sport of sailing.”

The official RC 44 Class logistics provider, DHL, recently announced that they will compensate the carbon footprint of the RC 44 Championship Tour and offset the carbon dioxide emission from transportation through their GoGreen program. This action, which is fully supported by the RC 44 Class, starts with the Cagliari Cup. The offsetting is based on a calculation which will be supplied by DHL Global Forwarding at the end of 2009. An independent audit will be made by SGS, and provided to the Class at the end of the season.

“Deutsche Post DHL is the No. 1 player in the logistics industry”, said Steffen Frankenberg, Vice President Corporate Development, GoGreen Program. “As the leading logistics company we are making a concerted effort to be part of the global endeavour to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Through our climate protection program, GoGreen, we aim to improve efficiency in regard to the carbon emissions of our own as well as our subcontractors’ operations by 30 percent by 2020. That means we will reduce the carbon footprint of every letter or parcel we ship and every square meter we use by almost one-third. Our partnership with the RC 44 Championship Tour is using a more carbon- efficient transportation solution and leverages our GoGreen carbon neutral service. It is a demonstration of how our business partners and customers who are also committed to addressing climate change can minimize their environmental impacts through more climate friendly logistics solutions.”

The RC 44 Class announces a new partnership with PredictWind, one of the sharpest specialists in wind forecasts for top sailors around the world. In line with the Class’s desire to provide the best possible support to all the teams involved in the Championship Tour, this service is offered to all the teams and will give them the opportunity to benefit from a first class weather forecast.

The Cagliari Cup is organised by Yacht Club Cagliari, with the support of the City of Cagliari.

The teams involved:

(Name of team, owner, pro sailor)

Team Aqua, Chris Bake / Cameron Appleton
Team Ceeref, Igor Lah / Sébastien Col
Sea Dubai, DIMC – Yousef Lahej, Markus Wieser
BMW ORACLE Racing, Larry Ellison / Russell Coutts
Team Organika, Maciej Nawrocki / Karol Jablonski
Puerto Calero Islas Canarias, José Juan Calero / Jose Maria Ponce
Artemis, Torbjorn Tornqvist / Dean Barker
No Way Back, Pieter Heerema / Philippe Presti
Team Austria, Christian Binder / René Mangold

more here

More great images from Max Ranchi. This time a little trip down memory lane to 2007,

you can guess the event.

SAILING CARIBBEAN STYLE

It’s hell for Telefónica Blue today as they see their triple-figure lead whittled down to a miserable 30nm, but it’s heaven for the chasing pack who are still romping along and enjoying the sailing, Caribbean style. But, the time will come when they too sail into the lighter conditions that Telefónica Blue is currently experiencing.

“We have been on the receiving end now for roughly 36 hours, losing mile after mile, which is part of the game. I don’t think it will stop for at least another 20 hours, as then, finally, the others will hit the wall as well,” explained the blue boat’s skipper, Bouwe Bekking.

Telefónica Blue is now on the same latitude as the Caribbean Island of St Martin, and ‘Caribbean sailing’ is what today is all about.

“No more goggles, helmets and full foul weather gear, just Caribbean style shorts and t-shirts,” says Wouter Verbraak, Delta Lloyd’s navigator. “Add a barbeque on the back, a nice chilled bottle of white wine and some fresh yellow fin tuna and we could be cruising along just nicely,” he says.

The reality is that there no time to attend to the barbeque, no hands free to hold their plates and glasses of wine, and the heel of the boat would have things sliding through the cockpit in no time. “It would be a big mess,” says Wouter.

For Shannon Falcone on PUMA, the Caribbean Island of Antigua is his home and he chose this morning to celebrate the passing of the island by offering a drop of Rum to the five crew on deck at the time.

“Do some research into the long relationship between sailors and Rum, especially here in the Caribbean,” says PUMA’s MCM Rick Deppe, who added that the one mini-bar sized bottle shared among five probably amounted to about the same amount of alcohol as a teaspoon of cough medicine. “It sure does warm the throat though,” he added.

Onboard Telefónica Black, the crew has been taking advantage of the Caribbean conditions by drying out their clothes and having a proper body wash.

“What a relief after collecting many layers of sweat and salt,” says navigator Roger Nilson who has been tempted out of his navigation station and up on deck by the lack of spray. “We use the excess water outlet from the water maker as it functions as the perfect shower in the middle of the cockpit,” explained the newly clean navigator.

Still struggling at the back of the fleet is Green Dragon and skipper Ian Walker says that the current conditions sadly make for tactically very boring sailing. “You can only really play with some subtle angle changes or sail selection,” he says. The team desperately needs something to change in the weather to give them some opportunities. “I just hope we are close enough to capitalise on any mistakes made by those ahead,” Walker said.

Delta Lloyd claims the highest 24-hour run today, of 393 nm. She has also averaged the highest speed over the last three hours, swishing along at approximately 16.5 knots, while Telefónica Blue is only averaging 14.8. Thirty miles astern, Ericsson 4 has also slowed, while just four miles further back, Ericsson 3 and the rest of the fleet still has good breeze.

Bekking says the remainder of leg six could be relatively quick and he is hoping for a finish on Sunday during daylight, which would, of course, be an excellent way to start the Boston stopover.

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latest positions here

RC yachts have alway taken my fancy.her are some links I have found.

Thanks to a SOL yachtie

Hi Steve, Radio controlled sailing has been around for years, but seems to be growing in our area, where “regular” sailing regattas seem to be shrinking every year. Maybe it’s because I can make a suit of sails for my boat in an evening, for about $15, I don’t need regular crew, and I don’t mind racing in 40*F temps! Oh, and we can get 20 races in in a day of sailing, I can set up and break down my boat in less than 5 min, and carry it in a 2 seat sportscar.

I still sail “real” boats too