Yachting News 18th June 09

Jun 18th 2009
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TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG NINE DAY 4 QFB:

received 17.06.09 2002 GMT

Back on the water.

After just two and half days after we the hit the rock, we are finally back on the water. The repair has been completed in an extraordinarily short time and the shore crew did a fantastic job. There are not enough words or beers that we can buy to compensate the efforts that they made. Thanks guys. And thanks to the Ericsson Racing Team for letting us the work container, it has been very handy. Thanks to the people that have been helping us, thanks to the lady that works in the shop just next to where we hauled the boat for preparing the coffee twice a day and giving it to us as a present… Thank you from all the crew.

Stockholm here we come.

Gabri Olivo – MCM

Hilary Lister Sails the Irish Sea.

Hilary Lister, the inspirational Quadriplegic sailor left Fishguard at 18:35 today 13th June
bound for Arklow on the East coast of Ireland. Becoming the first Female Quadriplegic to sail
the Irish Sea solo. Hilary has so far managed to sail from Plymouth to Fishguard in her solo
sail around Britain, in a series of day sails that have lasted up to 14 hours each.

Hilary said about today’s sail “I’m extremely excited about this next stage of my round
Britain dream, I expect the sail across the Irish Sea will be both challenging and enjoyable. “
Hilary has had to overcome the financial challenges of this year to be able to finance the
Round Britain Dream and the project is still searching for a major sponsor, remembering
that the aim of the Round Britain Dream is not only to inspire and raise awareness of
disabled sailing but to raise funds for Hilary’s charity ‘Hilary’s Dream trust’ which exists to
provide assistance to disabled and disadvantaged adults with sailing dreams.

Hilary’s dream of sailing around Britain began on 16 June 2008, when she set off from
Dover, supported by her team of 4 support boat crew and 3 land crew. The Lions clubs of
The British Isles and Ireland also lent their considerable support. In a series of “day sails”,
some in excess of 50 nautical miles, Hilary sailed the entire length of the South Coast.

In Newlyn, on 13 August, due to hold ups caused mainly by the worst weather on record,
Hilary and the team reluctantly decided to postpone the rest of the journey. To date this is
the furthest that any female disabled sailor has sailed and is an amazing achievement in
itself. This is the first time that the ‘Sip and puff’ system had been tested in such challenging
conditions. Despite the setback of having to halt the attempt Hilary demonstrated her
amazing strength of character by resolving to complete the sail starting in spring 2009,
beginning at Newlyn.

more here

Spectator Technology Added to Skandia Sail For Gold.

The Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta to be held at the 2012 Olympic sailing venue, the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy, is expected to attract over 500 competitors. The event, which is also the final round of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series is a chance for competitors to experience the Olympic conditions and give the venue valuable experience at running large sailing events.

But sailing fans are also invited to watch the spectacle. Campbell James, Event Director says:

“We’ve also boosted the spectator experience for this year’s event with attractions for all the family. On finals day we will have big screen action for the spectators to watch at the Academy, and boats will also be fitted with Race-Trax tracking devices for the medal races and the screens will carry expert commentary to bring second by second action to the spectators and also live through the regatta website.

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Banque Populaire V, the largest ocean racing trimaran in the world, was launched in August 2008 in Lorient (Brittany – France). Built at sites in Cherbourg, La Rochelle and Lorient, the construction of the maxi trimaran took 250 000 man hours of work, utilsiing a total workforce of some 170 people.
Under the leadership Pascal Bidégorry, skipper of the Banque Populaire trimarans since 2004, the crew of the Maxi Banque Populaire V embarks on an ocean records campaign ready to challenge the oceans. In 2009, with a crew of 13, it will attempt to beat the established records on the North Atlantic crossing (New York to the Lizard, England) and the Jules Verne Trophy (Ushant – Ushant via the three great capes).

more detail here

Today, a new chapter begins in the Maxi Banque Populaire V’s book of records. In a few days, Pascal Bidégorry and his twelve crewmen will set sail for the United States, their sights set on achieving a new reference time for the North Atlantic crossing. As from June 18th and as soon as the weather permits, the Team Banque Populaire will set sail towards New York on an attempt to reduce the 4 days 3 hours 57 minutes and 53 seconds of the record. The stopwatch will go off on the finish line set between Ushant and Cape Lizard, revealing whether the maxi trimaran built by the Sailing Bank is to write a first line in its race against time, the beginning of a story that will reach the main plot with the Jules Verne Trophy starting next winter…

Liderança australiana na geral
Portugueses elogiados por Richard

O segundo dia de provas do Tróia Portugal Match Cup, 4ª etapa do circuito internacional World Match Racingo Tour, a realizar-se em Tróia, península de Setúbal, contou com ventos irregulares do quadrante norte, com rajadas e variações de mais de 40º na direcção. As correntes fortes no rio Sado também concorreram para tornar as provas ainda mais complexas. A melhor prestação do dia foi sem dúvida a do veterano skipper australiano Peter Gilmour que, aos 49 anos de idade, colecciona um dos mais impressionantes palmarés náuticos como skipper e treinador de diferentes equipas na Taça América, nomeadamente a do suíço Alinghi, vencedor em 2007, além de três vitórias no circuito World Match Racing Tour.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
17 JUNE 2009

FRENCH TEAM HOT ON THE HEALS OF GILMOUR

Peter Gilmour heads the Round Robin with a first day 5-0 score line

Troia, Portugal (17 June 2009) – Stage 4 of the 2009 World Match Racing Tour season, Troia Portugal Match Cup, began today off the beautiful shores of the Troia peninsular with a shifty 5-7 knot breeze which built throughout the day to 12-14 knots. Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing, Philippe Presti (FRA) and Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing team are the early leaders after 10 flights of racing.

With many of the world’s best match racing stars here sailing the SM40’s, the competition for the €50,000 prize money event has already proven fierce in the opening flights of the Round Robin stage.

The early flights all went pretty much with the form book. The young rivals Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team and Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing met in Flight 2 and as ever they were both keen to put one over on the other. Minoprio led off the line but a split tack saw Mirsky head into the pressure and the vital shift that sent him round the bow of Minoprio. “I wish I could say it was all skill, but the wind god’s looked favourably on us. It’s always nice to chalk up a win against Adam though however we do it” said Mirsky.

Ian Williams’ (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar met Team Onboard’s Bjorn Hansen (SWE) in Flight 5 to resume where they left off in Korea. After an even start Hansen led Williams into the top mark on port tack as they went for the rounding, Williams went for the inside berth, receiving a red flag, immediate penalty, for his trouble. Williams said “I thought that it was a harsh penalty, from where I was looking Bjorn was the one altering course and not giving me room to keep clear.” A downwind tussle saw Williams behind but a smoother rounding at the leeward mark enabled him to tack on to a better shift and by the top mark was overlapped on the inside. Hansen wasn’t giving up and managed to luff around the mark and accelerate over the top of Williams to take back the lead. The shifty conditions that characterised the day were still to the fore and Williams’ crew spotted more wind and a shift that helped them roll over Hansen and scrape through to victory. The rest of the day didn’t quite go Williams’ way with losses to newcomer Phil Robertson (NZL) and his WAKA Racing team and also to the French Team of Mathieu Richard.

Richard put in a solid performance, to end the day on 4-1 commenting that “We felt good today and were starting well which helped a lot. We had a great race with Ian Williams, as we always do. The key moment was on the first beat when we dialled him down then managed to slam dunk him. He tried to luff but couldn’t get to us, which really killed his speed. We look forward to tomorrow and hope to carry on the momentum.”

Overall it was a good day for the French with Philippe Presti and his French Team making the best of the conditions. Presti said “We sailed really well today, the crew work was excellent and Christian (Pontieu) was calling the tactics perfectly. I feel confident after today and am really enjoying the racing. We had a great win against Mathieu (Richard), it’s been a while since we beat him so we’re very happy.”

Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing, finished the day unbeaten with 5 wins. Amongst them was a win over fellow Perth resident Torvar Mirsky (AUS). The Mirsky Racing Team attacked from the start leading Gilmour back to the line and ending up in a nice lee bow position as the boats headed left. Gilmour showed his mastery of the SM40 by holding his lane for long enough to tack back and with a lucky left shift managing to squeeze around the top mark ahead. Mirsky came back with a better spinnaker set allowing him to get a leeward overlap. Gilmour remained unfazed, working on his boat speed and narrowly gybed across Mirsky’s bow to lead round the bottom mark. Another left shift made it easy work to the second windward mark and Gilmour eased away to take the win. After racing Gilmour said “It was quite tricky out there with the tide and shifty wind. I think a lot of teams struggled with their starting strategy today and passing lanes were hard to come by. We’re pretty happy with the way things worked out today.”

With a similar weather forecast for tomorrow everyone is looking forward more spectacular sailing in the beautiful Troia Resort.

WTF is Dave doing on the bow???

Results from Day 1
Peter Gilmour, AUS, YANMAR Racing 5-0
Philippe Presti, FRA, French Team 4-1
Mathieu Richard, FRA, French Match Racing Team 4-1
Torvar Mirsky, AUS, Mirsky Racing 3-2
Adam Minoprio, NZL, ETNZ/BlackMatch 3-2
Ian Williams, GBR, Bahrain Team Pindar 3-2
SebastienCol, FRA, French Team/K-Challenge 3-2
Bjorn Hansen, SWE, Team Onboard, 2-3
Phil Robertson, WAKA Racing, 2-3
Ian Ainslie, RSA, Team Proximo, 1-4
Alvaro Mourinho, POR, Seth Sailing Team, 0-5
Andrew Arbuzov, RUS, 0-5

more here

LIGHT AIR TACTICS RULE THE START OF GIRAGLIA DISTANCE RACE

June 17, 2009

Success was all in the hands of the tacticians aboard the 190 yachts that set out from St Tropez today. After a one-hour postponement, the race committee started the fleet in the lightest of zephyrs. The 4-6 knot northeasterly, though light and shifty, was just enough to get the Maxi and Swan 45 fleet off on their 243-nautical mile journey to Genoa via La Giraglia off the north end of Corsica.

For the following two starts, including IRC/ORC A with over 100 boats, the breeze was fickle, dropping even more and making it a struggle for some boats to clear the traffic of the start line. Further out in the bay de Canebiers, the wind picked up slightly; from here the fleet headed to a turning mark at La Fourmigue twenty nautical miles down the coast, and from there turned upwind for the next landfall of the Giraglia Rock, 130nm miles away. Luna Rossa initially led the 25-boat Maxi and Swan 45 fleet upwind shortly after the start, with Bella Mente, Container, and Ran close behind.

Photos: ROLEX/Carlo Borlenghi

>From Bella Mente, navigator Robert Hopkins reported, “We worked out of the St. Tropez Bay playing the right side as close to the rocks as we dared to pick up what little pressure there was. The course to La Fourmigue opened from Code 0 to A3 reaching, to A2 running in 12 to 15 kts, a beautiful afternoon.”

Bella Mente rounded La Fourmigue around 2:30pm local time ahead of Ran by 5 minutes, followed by Alegre, Luna Rossa, and Container further back. Hopkins added, “We started a square beat to Giraglia, but now the wind has backed from 85 to 42 degrees after one hour and we are pointing at the mark, expecting light winds until midnight when there may be a band of 15 knots pressure.”

Many in the fleet competed in the Giraglia Rolex Cup inshore races, while others such as Nicola Paoleschi on Sagamore, were here to sail in the Giraglia distance race only. Sagamore, a Sparkman & Stephens 81-foot Maxi, was built in 1995 in New Zealand and campaigned successfully around the world by its’ American owner for several years. In fact, he raced Sagamore in the 2001 edition of the Giraglia.

Paoleschi, a dentist from Tuscany, is a passionate racing/cruising sailor who has owned a succession of yachts over the years. After taking delivery of Sagamore in the US, he cruised in Maine and Newport, R.I., before putting it on a ship for La Spezia. Paoleschi is partial to the legendary design firm Sparkman & Stephens’ yachts – his first boat was a 34-footer from S&S. He recalled, “A friend of mine, Harry Morgan (from S&S) suggested Sagamore to me because it’s a fantastic boat to race, as well as to cruise. The interior is very comfortable for a race boat. We can remove part of the interior for racing, and in 1-2 days it can be ready for cruising.”

Over the past year, Sagamore has competed successfully in races around Tuscany, though this is Paoleschi’s first time competing in the Giraglia Rolex Cup. He offered, “I was waiting to have a good boat for the first time. We have a good chance to finish in Genoa in the first group – sure not to win, I don’t think so, but why not! We try – the crew are all friends, some with more experience, some others with less experience, and they can learn from the best group, so we are going to improve our crew.”

Last night at the Citadelle de Saint-Tropez for the Rolex Gala and prizegiving, 2,000 guests enjoyed a delicious dinner and entertainment including opera singers, and a dazzling fireworks display for all of the port to see. Prizes were awarded to the top three yachts from each division for the inshore racing, with the overall winner of IRC A, Grant Gordon and Klaus Diederich’s Swan 45 Fever was awarded a Rolex Submariner timepiece. In ORC B, Federico Massari’s Grand Soleil 34 Mariel won overall and received a Rolex Submariner timepiece.

more here

ISAF updates now on Twitter

The world’s elite of Olympic sailing will be meeting at the 127 year old Kieler Woche this June for the penultimate event of the 2008-09 ISAF Sailing World Cup series.
Following on from ISAF Sailing World Cup events at Melbourne, Miami, Palma, Hyeres and Medemblik, Kiel is the sixth and penultimate stop of the inaugural World Cup series. With only the World Cup finale at Weymouth to follow, racing in Kiel next week is set to be a crucial factor in determining the first ever World Cup winners. Crews are awarded points Grand Prix-style at each World Cup event, with the maximum 20 points for overall victory, 19 points for second place down to 1 point for a twentieth place finish. Added together these points determine the ISAF Sailing World Cup Standings.

Amongst the crews entered at Kiel are seven who currently lead their respective event in the World Cup Standings. However, these crews know they can take nothing for granted as they have some of the world’s top sailing talent chasing them down.

Amongst those competing is Beijing gold medallist Anna TUNNICLIFFE (USA), leader of the Laser Radial World Cup Standings and one of the stars of the series to date. Two other Olympic gold medal winning crews come from Great Britain: Paul GOODISON (GBR), who has won the last two World Cup events in the Laser; and the Star team of Iain PERCY and Andrew SIMPSON (GBR), who are making their World Cup debut at Kiel.

more here

Call for entries to Bateau Bleu 2009

By IBI Magazine

The French Nautical Industries Federation (FIN) has announced a call for entries for the 2009 Bateau Bleu Award, a competition designed to encourage the development of environmentally friendly products for recreational craft.

This year’s theme is Onboard Waste Management and is open to all projects or concepts that allow better environmental management of waste onboard sailing vessels, including storage, sorting, reduction, re-use, recycling or any other function.

Entrants are invited to submit their projects by September 30, 2009, to the bailiff Maître Alain Goulard, 3 quai Duguay Trouin, BP47, 35406 Saint-Malo CEDEX, France. The winner of the 2009 contest will receive a prize of €20,000 at this year’s Paris boat show.

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enter here

Cabo de Hornos enter the dead zone

With 580 miles of the Portimão Global Ocean Race remaining for front runner, Desafio Cabo de Hornos, the fleet leaders have now turned south-east and are heading directly for the finish line on the southern tip of Portugal as, late on Tuesday evening, the double-handed fleet hardened up in the south-westerly breeze and began their descent towards Portimão with a zone of light and highly unpredictable weather ahead.

In the latest 0620 UTC position poll on Wednesday (17/06), the Chilean duo of Felipe Cubillos and José Muñoz on Desafio Cabo de Hornos have just shown the first indication that the light breeze has arrived and having consistently polled the highest speeds in the fleet since Sunday afternoon, their pace has dropped from 11 knots to 8.5 knots in the past three hours. However, the Chilean’s ability to stay in stronger breeze has seen Cubillos and Muñoz add 63 miles to their lead over Boris Herrmann and Felix Oehme on board second place Beluga Racer in the past 24 hours and the bright red, South American Class 40 now leads the double-handed fleet by 153 miles.

Currently separated by 131 miles, Beluga Racer and the British duo of Jeremy Salvesen and David Thomson on Team Mowgli in third place have also seen speeds diminish with the German team slowing two knots to just under six knots in the latest poll and Salvesen and Thomson grinding down to 4.7 knots. While the double-handed boats head into the dead zone of the Azores High, solo sailor Michel Kleinjans is making the best speed in the fleet at nine knots as Roaring Forty – furthest south and 150 miles west of Flores in the Azores Archipelago – rides around 10 knots of south-westerly breeze directly above the centre of the high pressure system.

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The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is this Saturday, but we’re still missing something… YOU!

We rely on over 150 volunteers each year to steer the parade into safe harbor.

Would you like to march in the parade as a banner holder or marshal? Or serve as a standing marshal and watch the entire parade go by? We need you!

We’re also looking for volunteers to work with registration and merchandise. And we need a hearty crew to set-up the parade bright and early and pack it in at the end of the day.