Yachting News 26th June 09

Jun 25th 2009
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29 August 1958 – 25 June 2009

‘King of Pop’ Found Unconscious at Home
By THE NEW YORK TIMES 5 minutes ago

A person with knowledge of the situation said that Michael Jackson has died after being rushed to a Los Angeles Hospital on Thursday, The A.P. reports. He was 50.

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Showbiz website TMZ.com, the LA Times, Associated Press, BBC and Press Association have all reported that Jackson has died.

The singer was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation and was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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Yachting News from around the world and around the corner

Horus Superyacht Cup opens tomorrow

By IBI Magazine/Yachting World

Eighteen sailing yachts have arrived in Palma de Mallorca for the 14th running of the Horus Superyacht Cup.

The fleet, which includes the 47.4m (156ft) Hyperion, 32m (105ft) Gliss, 28.6m (94ft) Open Season, 46m (151ft) Windrose of Amsterdam, 35m (115ft) Sojana and the 25m (82ft) Tripp-designed Black Pearl, lies stern-to in a new location, the Muelle Viego.

The total length of the entrants is some 2,145ft, or more than half a kilometre. Mari Cha 111 has travelled the furthest to get to Palma (13,000km from Tahiti), the oldest design is Sunshine (1900) and the newest is Black Pearl, a Bill Tripp sloop that was launched last year.

Govern de les Isles de Balears, the local government authority, has recognised that superyacht events like this are valuable to the local economy and have got behind the SYC. They are also driving an initiative with the Antiguan government to foster co-operation between the two islands to the mutual benefit of the yachting industry.

Mallorca and Antigua see a natural twinning opportunity with regattas and associated businesses and are lobbying their governments to set up formal links.

(25 June 2009)

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PUMA Leads As Volvo Fleet Heads To Russia

PUMA, who is now assured second place overall, led the Volvo fleet out of Sandhamn, on the outer edge of the Stockholm archipelago today – a spectacular day where conditions were perfect for the start of the tenth and final leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 to St Petersburg in Russia.

Sailing confidently in 10 -12 knots of breeze, PUMA, Telefónica Blue and Ericsson 4 were the front runners off the start line and a huge spectator crowd needed no excuse to get out on the water and watch what these ocean greyhounds do best. A steady breeze and flat water ensured plenty of white water spilled from the bows as the boats started a leg for the last time, fully powered up and under a cloudless sky.

Leading round both buoys marking the traditional ‘sausage’ before heading to out to sea, the crew of PUMA had set the black boat up perfectly and extended their lead, while behind, Bouwe Bekking’s bowmen wrestled with their heavy code zero sail, which had remained furled and unused on the bow and was slowing the blue boat down. Green Dragon scorched past overall race winner Ericsson 4, who had the pressure put on by sister ship Ericsson 3, while Telefónica Black and Delta Lloyd were in the second string.

Team Russia joined the pack once the racing fleet had completed the inshore loop, to sail, but not to race, homewards to St Petersburg, with owner Oleg Zherebtsov working the bow as he did in the earlier legs of the race.

Although speeds were good as the fleet left Sweden behind, the leg is expected to be predominantly upwind to Russia and race rules allow for Race Director, Jack Lloyd, to shorten the 400-mile course if necessary. The fleet must arrive in St Petersburg on Saturday morning in order to clear customs and pass through two bridges, which will be raised specially in order to let the fleet into the historic city.

PUMA has now clinched second place overall, their performance improving hugely in the second half of the race. Telefónica Blue will take third after losing the battle for second when they finished last in leg nine after going aground in Marstrand, while Ericsson 4 is the runaway leader, winning the race with a leg to spare.

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Photos credit: Rolex / Kurt Arrigo

Rolex Farr 40 World Championship
Porto Cervo, Sardinia, ITA

KEEPING CLEAN

June 24, 2009

Porto Cervo put on one of the feasts for which it is famous in the sailing world. A cobalt blue sky as an antipasti, solid warm breeze for the primi piatti, decent waves for the secondi and the dolce were three excellent races. All on day one of the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship 2009. Barking Mad (USA) sits atop the heap this evening, with a narrow three-point lead over the 2008 Worlds sparring partners Mascalzone Latino (ITA) and Joe Fly (ITA). Today was all about keeping clean and trying to stay mean. Some got it right, others did not.

The three race winners were Barking Mad, Nerone (ITA) and Transfusion (AUS). All three sit in the top five and will be happy to have held it together on a day when only four boats posted results inside the top ten in each race. American owner, Jim Richardson, and his Australian counterpart, Guido Belgiorno-Nettis, are flying the flag for the international contingent and will be pleased with their day’s work. Massimo Mezzaroma has reason to be content too, but will be ruing the 13th posted in race three by Nerone. Ominously, current World Champion, Vincenzo Onorato on Mascalzone, sits in second place after quietly going about his business to score a 2, 10, 2.

All three races were held in a breeze that varied between 16 and 22 knots over the day, but stayed pretty consistently from the west. All three races were won from the front and clearly getting of the line cleanly, in good position was key. The second key to a successful day was minimising the points spread. According to Vasco Vascotto, tactician on Nerone the left hand side of the course looked the best, certainly for the first two races where their tactic of winning the pin worked well. In the third race, Nerone went hard left again and was more than a little disappointed to find itself the wrong side of a shift, which bumped the crew hard down the rankings to mid-fleet.

For Giovanni Maspero and Joe Fly the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds is their first Farr 40 event of the season, so to be the only yacht in the fleet to post front-five results in each race must be pleasing. However, the crew with the biggest grins at the end of the day appeared to be the Australians on Transfusion. Belgiorno-Nettis was suitably impressed with his team’s performance, “it was a wonderful day with tremendous conditions here at the Costa Smeralda. A little bit of building pressure and the boat was perfect. We made a few mistakes in the first couple of races where we didn’t quite clear the start as we would like, but we’re also here to figure out how it all works. This is the first time we’ve competed against the big boys of the class.”

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400 MILES TO THE FINISH

It was like the end of a school term at the skippers’ press conference in Stockholm today as the Volvo Ocean Race fleet prepares to tackle Leg 10, a final, short, sprint to the overall finish line in St. Petersburg.

With just 400 miles remaining in a race around the world that measures over 37,000 nautical miles, and the leaderboard almost entirely decided, the finish line – the real one – is now in sight.

One leaderboard duel does remain. With a maximum of eight points available to the winner of the leg, PUMA leads Telefonica Blue by 6.5 points in the battle to finish second overall in the race.

The forecast is promising for the start on Thursday afternoon. A light Northeasterly breeze of 8-10 knots is expected. But as the leg progresses, the wind is forecast to ease. It could be a long 400 miles.

“This weather forecast is not perfect for us,” said PUMA skipper Ken Read. “We don’t want it to turn into a light air crap shoot because anything can happen that way. Telefonica can go and win the leg by 100 miles if they want; (but) we just have to beat one boat.”

“I think, realistically, they have sewn it up,” countered Telefonica Blue skipper Bouwe Bekking. “But it’s yacht racing and hopefully they sail the wrong way, come last and we come first. There would be a lot written if that happened. We’ll certainly be pushing hard for a win.”

Also making an appearance at the press conference today was Team Russia skipper Stig Westergaard, who brought the Russian boat, Kosatka, into Stockholm last night. They haven’t competed since Leg 3 and the team is now engaged in a race against time to get rule compliant ahead of the start.

With Ericsson 4 having mathematically won the Volvo Ocean Race on the leg into Stockholm, the rest of the teams are sailing for pride. And, according to Telefonica Black skipper Fernando Echavarri, that will be motivation enough.

“This is the last chance we have to win a leg and we’ll try to do that,” he said. “It’s more about personal pressure and trying to finish with a leg win, rather than pressure on the overall standing. It’s going to be good (weather) conditions for our boats so we’ll try to do our best to arrive in St Petersburg in the top position.”

Ericsson 4 skipper Torben Grael agreed it will be a competitive race: “We all owe it to our sponsors to get a good result and we are all very competitive people. A win is important to us.”

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Dave Kneale / Volvo Ocean Race

500 more images here

There was just a light breeze by the time the Belgian yacht Genesis spotted the white-hulled sailboat adrift in the middle of the Atlantic.

The drifting boat, a French vessel named L’Actuel, was upright, the mainsail still on the mast. The headsail was torn and partly furled. Lines trailed in the water.

There was no one aboard, and the satellite phone and survival gear had been left behind.

The discovery of the empty yacht on Sunday, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest landfall, leaves a mystery about the fate of its crew, two French sailing enthusiasts, who had left Newfoundland on May 24.

‘There was no signs of anybody on board. … Anything could have happened,’ said Jeri Grychowski, a spokeswoman for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax.

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Welcome to the 2011 Around Australia Ocean Race and Rally

Sailing around Australia – Slot Reservations now coming in.

Sailing around Australia is one of those things every sailor wants to do during their life. Australia is the largest island continent to sail around. Surprisingly, it’s only a small band of yachtsmen and yachtswomen that have done it.

The last fleet race around Australia took place 21 years ago as part of the bicentennial celebrations. Why not a regular race or rally around Australia since?
Map of Australia – 2011 Around Australia Ocean Race and Rally for Cruisers

Western Australian company Ocean Events is on a mission to do something about this. Welcome to the 2011 Around Australia Ocean Race and Rally.

Ocean Events is promoting the event with a team of Australian yachting people including Denis Thompson Australia’s most experienced yacht race manager, and the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria and other yacht clubs and prominent yacht owners contributing to the event logistics.

Bob Williams, Director of Ocean Events– ‘Sailing around Australia is one of the world’s great adventures. Why is there not a regular race or rally? We think the tyranny of distance. A conventional approach is to set one major port as the start and finish port. Wherever the location it will be too distant from home and discourage many potential participants. Large fleet numbers are necessary for viability’.

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