NEVILLE CRICHTON
Boat Owner of Mini Maxi Alfa Romeo

“We try to have crew members who’ve either done the Round the World or the America’s Cup”

Being the boat owner of a Maxi is not the common thing, and certainly not being the owner of two of them. That’s the case of New Zealander Neville Crichton, who is taking part in the 28 Copa del Rey Audi Mapfre with his just rebuilt Mini Maxi Alfa Romeo.

QUESTION: Neville, why did you decide to make your debut here, in the Copa del Rey Audi Mapfre?

ANSWER: We sailed here previously twice with a maxi, with a big boat, and we loved it, we loved the hospitality of the class, we enjoyed the sailing, and the racing on the bay. That’s why we thought it was the perfect place, here we’ve got good competition, and timing wise it was good too.

Q: When was the boat put in the water?

A: The boat only came out of the shipyard two weeks ago, so there’s a lot of work to do, and in each race we are getting better and better. There’s a lot of development that needs to be done to achieve a better performance, and we are still using old sails -by the time we had to start there weren’t any new ones-. The crew has done a very good job, so the boat is competitive, I don’t think we have any advantage either over Bella Mente or Container, I think probably our crew work has been a little bit better.

Q: Which sensations does it deliver to sail with a Maxi? Why do you like them so much?

A: I love the big boats, I like the big maxis, it’s fun, it’s fast and exciting. But now there are very few other boats which will come out and sail against us, with the mini maxi the class is growing, and I see this class being very very big in Europe, so I thought that, if we wanted to be competitive this was the class to be in.

Q: Is there a pull of sailors you work with for the different regattas?

A: We know most of the good sailors in the world, and yes we have a pull of around thirty people we use in different regattas; this one has been a bit different because we’ve virtually sailed unsponsored and the money is coming out of my pocket, not sponsored, so we tried to pick crew who were actually in Europe to keep costs low. But normally, with a big boat, we have a crew of around 30 people and we pick out of that crew, and we try and keep consistency.

Q: Which experience must a Maxi crew member have?

A: We prefer people who’ve either done the Round the World or the AC; if you look at the crew on board in this regatta, they have all done one of them, and in most cases they’ve done both, so we are not taking people out from little boats.

Q:Which are your plans for the rest of the season?

A: The boat will get some work done, we’ll get it out of the water and try to optimize the rating, because we didn’t have the time to do it before this regatta, we’ll do some modifications and then it will be sailed to Sardinia.

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CONDITIONS COME GOOD FOR SPINNAKER START

Photo credit: Rolex /  Kurt Arrigo August 9, 2009

Morning dockside rumours of delays and divisions of boats having to kedge on the start line were roundly proven wrong as the Rolex Fastnet Race fleet, as well as spectators along the Cowes shoreline, enjoyed a magnificent, colourful spinnaker start. Thankfully the unfavourable forecast for the start – no wind followed by a south westerly filling in from the west – had not panned out, with instead a welcome 10 knots from the east propelling the 300 strong fleet westwards down the Solent.

First away, punching into the last of the flood tide, were the IMOCA 60s. With their ‘big gear’ unfurled seconds before the start, it was Dee Caffari’s Aviva that made the most positive start towards the pin end. However she was soon overhauled by Seb Josse on BT IMOCA 60 sailing in slightly better breeze on the island side of the course. By the 1430GMT position report, the leading IMOCA 60s were already halfway across Christchurch Bay with Mike Sanderson’s Pindar leading, narrowly ahead of Aviva, BT and Arnaud Boissieres’ Akena Verandas.

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Press release 2009/08/09 14:55:00 UTC, for immediate release.

At 14:07:02 UTC today the boat “brainaid” on www.sailonline.org was put on
TWA 0 by it’s Skipper Eddie C. Dost in protest to course changes made
to the race.

The new course does not go around Fastnet Rock anymore. www.sailonline.org was forced to change course by lawyers of the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC), because this fine British sailing club has sold the rights for online sailing to Many Players (MP) with their brummagem Virtual Regatta (VR) game.

Skipper and crew of brainaid believe the whole lawyer issue was started by MP talking the RORC into the prosecution. MP is known for bad online games, with lots of make money fast options and it matches their style to pull the weapon quickly.

With this TWA 0 (the boat does not move anymore) protest we want to make visible to the world how the big money makers threaten small communities with their evil toys. We do not need these avaricious companies on this planet. The protest is not against www.sailonline.org, but against MP and RORC.

Watch brainaid sail (and maybe win) again on the next scheduled race on www.sailonline.org. I hope my friends understand this protest as it is meant.

Eddie C. Dost – Skipper brainaid on www.sailonline.org

Support from yachties everywhere

SWE54 has joined the protest on Sailonline virtual Fastnet Race. The boat is now on TWA=0 (stopped) and will not continue this race.

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Another unhappy yachtie

QUOTE
Dear Commodore McIrvine

My name is <full name> and these days I am mostly housebound as I have become disabled with parkinson’s disease, which brought short my working life.

One of the ways in which I keep my brain active is to sail in the virtual world.

I am extremely distressed to learn that the Royal Ocean Racing Club (“RORC”) chose to flex its muscles via lawyers to prevent my “sailing” in a race yesterday being run by a very small Swedish company called Sailonline (“SOL”).

While I can appreciate that the RORC may well have contracted to pay or be paid to give its name and that of The Fastnet Race to Virtual Regatta (“VR”), a French company, let me explain why RORC’s actions yesterday were very wrong.

VR is an organisation running a childlike point-and-click sailing game(s) on the internet. Its owner, Many Players, run many such games in different sports. The games appeal to those who like point and click games that don’t require much thought. The VR games no doubt lead people to think that sailing is extremely simple. In order to succeed at VR you need to buy in to various options that will let you fix a TWA, pick a range of sails, set way points etc. Without these additional tools you can’t do well. VR claims to have tens of thousands of sailing members, but the reality is very different. In The Fastnet now, for example, at no time have I seen more than 7,700 people logged in. Mind you, if they have all paid the approx £20 for the options, VR still has made £154,000!

I started sailing on VR in 2008 with some other like-minded aviation chums in the virtual Volvo Ocean Race Game (“VORG”) and by the end of that race, there was a ghost fleet of unskippered virtual yachts in excess of 130,000. It became a joke

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Ownership of Cyberspace

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 10:48 AM PDT
Virtual racing got big exposure during the Volvo Ocean Race, which claimed to have had over 220,000 players participating in an online simulation of the race, with users competing on the same course and making decisions not unlike the actual sailing teams. The Volvo Ocean Race Game was hosted by VirtualRegatta.com, but other providers have gotten into the act, which is now complicating the ownership of cyberspace.

When the Royal Ocean Racing Club started its 608-mile Rolex Fastnet Race last Sunday, there were again online users, with the RORC having partnered with VirtualRegatta.com for their virtual race. However, a competing brand, Sailonline.org, had provided a Fastnet Race for their users too – called the Cowes-Plymouth Challenge – but in the eyes of the RORC that became one too many sheriffs for their town.

On August 9th, when all the races – both real and virtual – were starting, Sailonline.org announced they had to cancel their race after being contacted by solicitors engaged by RORC, who were seeking to protect their brands, both real and virtual.

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Aika hupaisaa, RORC on myynyt fastnetin virtuaalipelin oikeudet toisaalle ja heidän lakimiehet pyysivät lopettamaan sailonline.org:in pelin samasta kisasta. Aika huumoria

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Fastnet Race Online Rights Storm.

August 11, 2009 by admin

Some of the biggest selling video games in the world are based on sport. Companies like Electronic Arts have been built on allowing armchair competitors to play their favourite sports with the aid of a keyboard or mouse or joystick. With the advent of GPS, real-time weather and telemetry data the lines between the real sport and the virtual competition are blurring all the time.

Professional sports organisers and rights holders have also realised for a long time that video game rights are a valuable commodity. As sailing becomes more professional, organisers are also starting to realise the value of their brands, but can you protect a race that is sailed on open water?

This year, the Rolex Fastnet Race, organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club is offering an official virtual version of the race. The online version of the Rolex Fastnet Race is being provided by Manyplayers – the same company that run the popular online version of the Volvo Ocean Race. Meanwhile in Sweden, another online sailing platform – sailonline.org was promoting a virtual event that just happened to start in Cowes and finish in Plymouth running at the same time as the Fastnet Race.

The Sailonline race didn’t get very far though. The company’s website reads:

We are sorry to inform that we have to cancel the ongoing race “Cowes-Plymouth challenge 2009″ that started earlier today. Sailonline has been contacted by solicitors engaged by RORC and in order to avoid any disputes regarding rights etc we have decided to cancel our race.

What is most interesting is not that RORC finally decided to protect its commercial interests, but the reactions of sailonline players, most of whom seem to think that some kind of Corinthian spirit should prevail. It is almost impossible to imagine a company trying to run a virtual car-race based in Monaco on a certain weekend in May and not get shut down by F1, or someone trying to get away with running a virtual football game on the same day as the superbowl.

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SZABO And PETERS Win 2009 Star World Championship

©Oskar Kihlborg

Star World Championship 2009
Varberg, Sweden

The US team of George SZABO and Rick PETERS won the 2009 Star World Championship with a third place finish in the final race of the series at Varberg, Sweden.
George SZABO and Rick PETERS (USA) won the Star Worlds with an average score of six points for the five races in their scoreline, securing victory with a third place finish in today’s final race. Lars GRAEL and Ronald SEIFERT (BRA) won the race by a country mile and the junior team from Argentina, Alejo RIGONI and Juan Pablo PERCOSSI were second in the race.

Overnight leaders Hamish PEPPER and Craig MONK  (NZL) sailed their discard in the final race and finished the regatta seven points behind SZABO and PETERS. By winning today’s race, GRAEL and SEIFERT moved into third place on a countback, tied with Alexander SCHLONSKI and Frithjof KLEEN (GER). “It’s a good day for SDYC,” said Andrew CAMPBELL (USA), who like SZABO sails out of San Diego Yacht Club. CAMPBELL sailed the regatta with Magnus LILJEDAHL. CAMPBELL and LILJEDAHL were fifth for the series. Freddy LOOF and Johan TILLANDER (SWE), local favourites finished a respectable sixth and will have plenty of opportunities to go after LÖÖF’s third Star World Championship title once again.
Photo Galleries
Final Stages
Opening Races

In Saturday’s decisive final race, which began with the top-three crews separated by just one point, the American team of SZABO and PETERS started to the left of a group of contenders for this year’s title and played the shifts in the breeze that swung right as it faded. They bore away on the run in sixth place. After they sorted out their sheets and the whisker pole they could look around for their competition. They weren’t trailing right behind. They weren’t even in sight. SZABO and PETERS merely had to stay clean for the rest of the race. Instead, they bettered their score and pulled into third place by the second windward mark.

PETERS, who is always one for great lines said of their performance for the day and the week, “The other guys just haven’t been to Varberg International Speedway enough. We were 54th the first day and we went the same way every day. We didn’t change a thing.”

As SZABO peeled off his spray top and guzzled down some water on the way back into the harbour, the accomplishment sunk in. Three weeks after he was born his parents had him in a Star boat and he started steering the boat when he was 16 years old. The Quantum sailmaker form San Diego said, “I’ve looked at all of the names on that trophy over the years and thought, ‘how am I ever going to do that?’”

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The Star Worlds are finished with a spectacular win from Lars Schmidt Grael and Ronald Seifert in the last race. The new world champions are George Szabo and Rick Peters. You will find a selection of top images from this event as well as images from the town and harbour of Varberg including some underwater images from the numerous jellyfishes around the race course.

Photos by Juerg Kaufmann

Cup woes turn eye to Vuitton

4:00AM Sunday Aug 09, 2009
By Paul Lewis

The Louis Vuitton Pacific series on the Waitemata Harbour.

Photo / Paul Estcourt
Louis Vuitton Pacific Series

As the America’s Cup descends slowly into yet more court action, so the prospect of a Louis Vuitton world yachting series gathers pace – and there could yet be a regatta in Europe later this year, followed by several more in 2010, including one in Auckland.

The latest whirl of action surrounding the Cup (and the likelihood of further legal manoeuvres) brings the possibility of a world series – similar to the inaugural regatta in Auckland early this year – closer.

The absence of a conventional Cup regatta and a defender able to accommodate the needs of America’s Cup teams means the Louis Vuitton series becomes more viable. Teams wanting not just to stay alive but also to be active on the water are keen for the kind of racing seen in the Hauraki Gulf when Team NZ won the inaugural trophy in February.

There is also a strong possibility the Louis Vuitton series could become both a stand-alone series and part of the build-up to the America’s Cup, when it returns to a conventional regatta.

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Taming the beast.

James Spithill, the helmsman of BMW ORACLE Racing is the man entrusted with taming the 90-foot by 90-foot behemoth the sailing cognoscenti has dubbed ‘Dogzilla’. He appears to have been made for the challenge.

Spithill was barely out of his teens when he burst onto the America’s Cup scene as the skipper of Young Australia, a youth challenge for the oldest trophy in sport, that turned heads in 1999, in Auckland.

Although the team didn’t win often, its lack of experience and old equipment were hurdles too high to climb, they conducted themselves with maturity beyond their years and won enough battles to get noticed. Many from that team have forged careers in the America’s Cup since, including their skipper.

Today, at the ripe old age of 30, Spithill, has three America’s Cup campaigns to his credit. He was hired by BMW ORACLE Racing shortly after the end of the last event in Valencia, Spain. He’s now spending the summer in San Diego, conducting sea-trials with the team on their new trimaran.

“It’s very exciting,” Spithill says. “Everyone is refreshed and enthusiastic about this project. Not just the sailors, but the builders, the engineers, the designers, the sailmakers – everyone is doing something that hasn’t been done before or pushing the boundaries, so it’s a very exciting vibe that’s in the team. If I think of just one-boat sailing, like we’ve been doing, you’d probably become pretty bored, pretty quickly, but with this boat, we look forward to every day. There isn’t a dull moment.”

The goal is to develop a faster multihull than the Defender, Alinghi, ahead of a one-on-one America’s Cup Match scheduled for February 2010. Both teams have created cutting-edge craft that push the boundaries of what is possible on the water.

“The level that this boat is at, is nothing has been done like this before,” Spithill says with pride. “The power to weight ratio is unbelievable. Nothing any of us have seen comes close to the amount of power this boat generates – the sail plan, the mast height, and just the limits we’re pushing; no one has done this before so it’s pretty exciting. It has been a massive learning curve for all of us.”

The numbers are astounding. The length overall is 100 feet (90 feet on the waterline). The beam is similar to the waterline length, providing for a very stable platform that is as big as two basketball courts. Stable, until you consider the mast is over twice as long, at 185 feet. The mainsail is nearly 6800 square feet, the headsail 6700 square feet and the downwind sail, the gennaker, measures in at an incredible 8400 square feet. Each sail is about 30-percent bigger than on the old America’s Cup Class boats used in the last edition. The speed comparisons don’t bear thinking about, but BMW ORACLE Racing has flirted with 50 knots.

The focus for the summer has been on testing the modifications made to the boat over the spring months: “We’re testing the performance limits of the boat,” Spithill explains. “We’ve made some big changes and we’re out there each day, evaluating those.

“When we first started sailing the boat we were quite conservative. Now we’re carrying quite a lot of power out there, a lot of sail area. It’s always in the back of our minds that we have to be very careful testing this boat. One big mistake and the campaign would be over, so we have to be smart about it, but with multihulls you really do have to push to understand their limits.”

The sailing team will keep working until February, when it will meet Alinghi in what is sure to be an historic event – a best of three match for the 33rd America’s Cup.

“From a performance point of view, nothing can beat it,” Spithill says. “For us it’s an incredible opportunity. It could be a once in a lifetime thing and that makes it just an awesome experience. We’re very fortunate.” – more here

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Found a copy without those yachts in

This post is tagged Alfa Romeo, bmworacle racing, Copa del Ray, George Szabo, isaf, James Spithill, Louis Vuitton Pacific series, Neville Crichton, Rick Peters, Sailkarma, Star Worlds