Scuttlebutt Poll:

Boat Trackers – How do you feel?

August 14, 2009

From Joe Hummel “Archimedes II”, C&C 110:
“The Chicago Race to Mackinac this year was another for the books: long, slow, with big losses and gains to be made playing the shore breezes vs. offshore vs. Michigan shoreline vs. Wisconsin shoreline. During the 100th running (last year) of the Chicago Mac, onboard boat trackers were required and provided a great way for family and friends to follow the race at home online. They also allowed those competitors with internet access the ability to track each other during the race.

“This year, trackers were optional for the Chicago Mac, and about 1/3 of the fleet opted out. Personally, I’m a fan of the trackers, since I find it (a) valuable tactical info, and (b) it helps keep the crew in the game whether leading or following. However, it seems unfair that those without trackers benefit from the tactical info yet remain invisible to us. I’m okay with that, and will continue to carry a tracker as long as they are available, but I’m curious how the ‘buttheads out there feel about GPS trackers.”

Great question, so lets frame this dialogue in the context of a distance race where the boats will lose sight of each other. Please reply to the questions below and post additional comments if desired:

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C’est la lutte finale

Pas d’écarts ou si peu. Un suspense aussi énorme qu’inévitable. De l’air pour l’entame mais une grosse panne de vent annoncée en Manche. Un marathon de 511 milles pour écrire la dernière page, décisive, de cette 40e Solitaire du Figaro. Ce dimanche à 13h, on place ces quelques ingrédients premier choix dans une marmite irlandaise et on donne le coup de canon de la lutte finale vers Dieppe. Allons revoir la Normandie.
Reprenons. A Dingle, le soleil vient tout juste de se rappeler qu’il existe et on voit enfin la colline de l’autre côté du port. Son taux d’hygrométrie est satisfaisant. Elle est donc fort logiquement verte et diablement jolie. Quelques coureurs et un nombre non négligeable de suiveurs ont vérifié hier que l’Office de tourisme n’exagère pas quand il comptabilise 52 pubs pour moins de 2000 habitants.

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Skippers meeting

The skippers meeting for the Archipelago Raid 2009 was held this morning by Race Manager Christine Salén. 26 teams from 13 nationalities will compete this year. 20 teams have done the race before and six of them are doing it for the first time. The race will start from Lidingö and head north through the Stockholm archipelago and cross over to Åland. The race will continue north around Åland on to Finland and then return and finish back at Lidingö, on Saturday 22nd of August. The race consists of two legs per day, the first one starting around 05.00 in the morning. There will be some compulsory checkpoints for the fleet within each leg. The fleet will gather every night in a head quarter where the sailors will get some food and rest before the restart. The earlier they get to the headquarter, the more rest they will receive. Each team can be followed through the “Be Safe” tracking system giving each boats position during the race which will be shown on the web-site. Just click on “Tracking!” on the right hand side of the web-site. Stay tuned!

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Archipelago Raid

- sail orienteering in the world’s most beautiful archipelagoes

STOCKHOLM August 11 2009-08-07 – It’s time for the ninth edition of the Archipelago Raid – the  world’s greatest and most extreme orienteering sailing race, in which an international field of teams race through the Stockholm archipelago, Aland islands and Finnish archipelago. It’s a tough and exhausting test of skill and stamina where complex navigation is made all the more difficult by the effects of sleep deprivation.

The race starts on August 17th and finishes on August 22nd 2009 at the conference centre At Sea on the island of Lidingö outside Stockholm. The race will pass through the Stockholm archipelago, through the Aland Islands, thence to the archipelago outside Finnish Turku before returning to Lidingö. The boats are all Formula 18 catamarans: very fast 5.5 meter twin-hull craft sailed by two crew.

The competition’s uniqueness comes from the fact that the competitors must pick their way through the countless islands which the race route encompasses, briefly stopping at between 20 and 25 checkpoints along the way. A checkpoint could be a lighthouse, beach, dock or other geographical feature, and the racers can choose what they believe to be the fastest route between checkpoints. The main idea is for the race to be as mentally and physically stressful as possible, therefore some of the stages of the race are very long in order to necessitate round-the-clock sailing. There are occasional short stops, but any respite for the crews will be lessened by having to carry out maintenance on the boats. Sleep will be in short supply, snatched in the open air.

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© Th. Martinez

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© Th. Martinez

Sir Russell Coutts

2003 – ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award

2000 – Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit

1996 – World Trophy for Oceania

1995 – Commander of the British Empire (CBE)
Sperry World Sailor of the Year
Halberg Award
ISAF World Sailor of the Year Award

1994 – Silberne Lorbeerlatt, German National Award

1985 – Member of the British Empire (MBE)

1984 – New Zealand Yachtsman of the Year

Arise, Sir Peter, Sir Russell, Sir Colin

4:00AM Saturday Aug 15, 2009
By Audrey Young

Sir Peter Snell (left), Sir Russell Coutts and Sir Colin Meads after yesterday’s ceremony at Old St Paul’s. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Peter Snell came from Dallas, Russell Coutts came from Valencia … and Colin Meads came from Te Kuiti.

And after a ceremony at Old St Paul’s in Wellington to mark the conversion of their former honours into knighthoods, the sporting greats stepped out as Sir Peter, Sir Russell and Sir Colin.

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Alinghi 5 docked out of its temporary base in Genoa, Italy, this afternoon for its first hours of saltwater sailing. Conditions for the first outing were ideal: a light southwesterly breeze and flat seas. “Today was the first day in saltwater for Alinghi 5 and even though conditions were light; everything was good. We are happy to be in Italy for this period of our training programme; it’s a place where everyone would like to live! We have received a great welcome from Genoa and huge support from the Amico yard and the Yacht Club Italiano and we look forward to some more sailing next Monday with a little more breeze,” said team skipper Brad Butterworth.

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NZL Wins Splash World Champs

Declan Burn from Picton is the new Splash World Champion, securing the world title at the regatta just concluded in Pwllheli, Wales. There were 111 entries from eight nations.

The combined results of the New Zealand sailors have won them the Nations Trophy for the highest scoring national team. The 2009 team is on a par with the 2008 New Zealand Splash team which also came away with the world title, going to Taipa’s Ben Lutze, and the Nations Trophy.
Burn won the title convincingly with a 17 point margin at the regatta end. Club mates of Burns at the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club, Scott Fyffe and Josh Edmonds finished 5th and 7th respectively. James Little was also inside the top ten in 9th place.

“Declan went into the final day of the regatta with a 32 point lead and only had to sail conservatively to hold his lead,” reports his father, Rob Burn from Pwllheli. “A 21st in race one was enough to secure the Championship without sailing the last race, he did anyway and finished 17th, just behind team mates Josh and Scott.”

“The forecast was for a strong, building breeze throughout the day. By breakfast time it was well and truly up, the sailors launched on time and reached out onto the course very quickly. The swell was building as the wind rose so all knew they were in for a hard day ahead.”

“The first race wasn’t so good for most of the Kiwis; Declan had a heart stopping capsize but recovered quickly, Scott Fyfe also. The waves were large by then and the downwind was either exhilarating or terrifying. Some of the Kiwis wished there was another race as they were getting to grips with the conditions,” says Rob Burn.

“The Kiwi Team has really enjoyed Pwllheli, the camaraderie of the Sailing club and mixing with all the other competitors, parents and supporters.”

New Zealanders won the Splash World Championships in 2006, when Blair Tuke took the title, and also in 2008 when Ben Lutze from Taipa, Northland became Splash world champion. New World Champ, Declan Burn, was a part of the 2008 team also finishing 16th at last year’s Splash World Championships sailed in Portugal.

A popular youth class in parts of New Zealand, in Belgium and the Netherlands, the Splash is a single-handed dinghy typically sailed by up and coming talent between the ages of 14 to 18 years.

New Zealand will host the 2010 Splash World Championships off Takapuna in Auckland.

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1st Declan Burn
5th Scott Fyffe
7th Josh Edmonds
9th James Little
11th Michael Cate
35th Hamish Powrie
38th Jordan McKenzie-Brown
40th Melissa Gibbs
48th Bradley Taylor-Swan
105th (43rd Silver Fleet) Sebastian Masters

Flying in the Big Dinghy – 15 08 09

I got my much-needed sleep in the early hours of the morning as the wind built up to a beautiful 14knots – music to my ears, the type that calms and reassures. This evening I’m making a solid 9knots towards my next waypoint and I’m grinning from ear to ear.

Late this evening I dropped the Genneker as I came up to the wind a bit more -the apparent wind speed had risen a little to high for the strength of the sail. After going through my now very practiced routine of dropping it and bagging it up inside the forepeak I let loose the Solent and started kicking my heels once more.

I love just how responsive Totallymoney.com is through the water. She just feels like one great big dinghy a lot of the time! After receiving my latest routing, I saw that I needed to head a little further north and so, after dropping the Genneker, I sheeted on, pumped in a little ballast and Totallymoney.com shot off blast reaching at a steady 12knots. Spray was flying over her bow constantly but Totallymoney.com was rock solid as she skipped over the water.

I love the feel of being nicely powered up as the girl just jumps across the water; it’s as if there’s a big bit of elastic between us and home. There’s also the great feeling of sitting inside, de-accelerating and knowing that you’ve just carved up a great plume of spray in the air as Totallymoney.com ploughs through the wave and get ready to jump into the next trough. How I miss the Southern Ocean, where this happened almost constantly!

Although we’re now storming along at 12knots, I’m actually only doing 9knots over ground. That’s thanks to a nice counter current of 3knots! Hopefully I’ll be able to lose this sometime soon.

It’s now going to get quite a bit colder from tonight on as the wind veers round to the NW. Also, as I head north and skirt close to the grand banks of Newfoundland the water temperature is going to drop a fair bit, thanks to the currents coming down from up north.

Right, the kettle’s boiling now, time for another of my delicious freeze-dried din dins.

©MikePerham2009

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Audi MedCup ~ Portimão ’09

TP52 – Audi MedCup – Portimão
Paul Cayard
Saturday, August 15, 2009

Just finished our first day of training over here in Portugal. Very light wind made it difficult to get much done. We checked our masthead genoa and a few light jibs and tuned the rig.

We are onto our weight checks too. It is fairly hot here, 30C, so you don’t want to have to dehydrate the crew on a race day if we get checked by the measurers.

The racing starts on Wednesday so we have three more days of training. Same crew as in Cagliari. We are making some small changes to or sails, rig and the way we set them, in an effort to make a small improvement in our performance.

The forecast for the next few days is light the decent wind on Wednesday. That will be perfect if it pans out.

Portimao is a nice small resort town on the south coast of Portugal. This is my third time here and I really like it. It is not as hot as Spain and Italy which is pleasant. The fresh fish is excellent. It is mid August in Europe so plenty of people here on vacation and at the beach. Might have to go for a look (I mean swim) later.

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Postscards to Portimao

The Portugal Trophy fleet for the 2009 Audi MedCup Circuit is all but assembled in the Marina of Portimao on the Algarve with all ten TP52 Series entries either at the dock, sailing or nearby. Of the five GP42 Series boats only the Circuit leading Islas Canarias Puerto Calero and Turismo Madrid have yet to arrive.

Winds have been very light out on the race area. Yesterday there were five TP52’s out practising and tuning up in a breeze which scarcely mustered five or six knots at the very most in the warm sunshine.

The Portugal Trophy regatta falls at a busy and interesting time for the top professional sailors who race on both the TP52 Series and GP42 Series, and there are still key sailors due to fly in from a very diverse range of events, once again underlining the talent level on the World’s Leading Regatta Circuit.

Only one Audi MedCup sailor arrives in Portimao having set a world speed record since the Region of Sardinia Trophy, Bribon’s navigator Marcel Van Triest (NED) was navigator on Pascal Bidegorry’s North Atlantic record beating Banque Populaire. Banque Pop set an incredible pace, sailing 908.2 miles in 24 hours – an incredible new record – en route to skimming 12 hours, 32 minutes and six seconds off the previous mark, to cross the Atlantic in 3 days 15 hours 25 minutes and 48 seconds.

Fresh from winning the Fastnet Race on corrected time, Matador’s navigator Steve Hayles (GBR) is cock a hoop at winning the 608 miles ocean classic as navigator on Niklas and Catherine Zennstrom’s Rán. Audi MedCup TP52 crew on board the winning boat included Cristabella’s Tim Powell (GBR), who skippers Rán, Audi Q8’s veteran main sheet trimmer Lou Varney (GBR) and Emirates Team New Zealand’s Richard Meacham (NZL) as well as ETNZ coach Richard Bouzaid (NZL).

On the line honours winner, Mike Slade’s Farr 100 Leopard was Emirates Team New Zealand’s Ray Davies (NZL) and Phil Jameson (NZL), from Ericsson Racing Team’s round the world winning crew who joins Quantum Racing (USA) here.

Among the other prominent Audi MedCup sailors on top Fastnet boats were Nacho Postigo (ESP), navigating the STP 65 Luna Rossa to second overall under IRC, along with Paul Westlake (AUS), mainsail trimmer on Matador (ARG) and Mark Mendelblatt (USA), strategist off Quantum Racing (USA). On Beau Geste, which finished eighth, was Cristabella’s navigator Nat Ives (GBR).

While those, and others might be described as earning a crust as pro sailors on the Fastnet, those who will have spent the intervening period since Cagliari spending their hard earned on their own sailing, include the International Moth devotees who will are in flight back from Cascade Locks, Oregon where the World Championships finished yesterday. Emirates Team New Zealand’s navigator Kevin Hall (USA) finished in tenth place, just ahead of Charlie McKee (USA) previously with Audi Q8. Quantum Racing’s Morgan Larson (USA) finished in 18th place.

And the highly regarded Star World Championships, which finished a week ago in Sweden, saw Artemis’ strategist Hamish Pepper (NZL), 2006 Star world champion, prove he is on his game with second overall, sailing with Craig Monk, whilst local Portuguese skipper-helm of Bigamist VII finished 12th and Quantum Racing’s Mendelblatt, finished 15th.

Back in Cagliaria, Sardinia Nerone won the Farr 40 European Championships immediately after the Region of Sardinia Trophy with Roma Mk 2′s boat captain Pablo Torrado on board and Bribon’s Victor Marinho (ESP).

Meantime, speaking of Star world champions, 1988 Star champion Paul Cayard (USA), tactician of Artemis, will carry on hitting the gym when and where he can this week in preparation for his tilt at the 505 World Championships on his home waters of St Francis YC, crewing for Howie Hamlin, at the worlds which start next Sunday, 23rd.

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Final Day Press Release/Report

Submitted by nige on Sat, 08/15/2009 – 15:45

Gulari Takes Convincing Win In The

2009 CST Composites Moth World Championships

33-year old Bora Gulari handily took two races in the final day of the 2009 CST Moth World Championship, winning the event and becoming the first American in 33 years to win the title. Racing got underway about 11am in 14-15 knots, the lightest breeze of the week, in very flat water and under cloudy skies.

“I can’t believe I’ve done it,” said Gulari, from Detroit, MI. “It’s been a fantastic competition and everyone here has been great. I worked hard for this, and put in a lot of time training with George Peet and I couldn’t have done it without his motivation. He’d get me out there and keep me on it all year. It feels wonderful to be in top place. Arnaud is an awesome sailor and has sailed so well, and Nathan, well, he’s the smartest out there on the course and he pushed me so hard. It’s been so great to sail with these guys.

Once he knew he’d taken the first race, Gulari turned the fun dial up and relaxed into the last race, enjoying the lead down the first beat. Missing a tack going into the top mark set him back about five positions and he rounded the mark behind Psarofasghis, Payne, Bergan and Outteridge, so was in top company for the first run. From back in fifth, the downwind sensation wound it up down the track to cross first for the final time in this competition, bringing his event wins to seven, almost half of the races sailed. “Rounding that mark in fifth, although I was in relax mode, I just took off, I don’t know what happens but it’s an amazing feeling to be able to run like I can on this boat.”

Dalton Bergan, finishing fourth, sailed a fast and tactical event, and along with Olympic Laser sailor Brad Funk, these two tidily supported the American effort in the top ten. Long the domain of the Australians and Europeans, this event has cemented the Americans as a force to be reckoned with in the international Moth fleet. The Australian Bladerider team also made a significant dent at the top of the fleet with four Aussies making top ten.

Top Ten Finishers Overall: Bora Gulari (USA) 24 points, Nathan Outteridge (AUS) 36 points, Arnaud Psarofaghis (SUI) 40 points, Dalton Bergan (USA) 49 points, Simon Payne (GBR) 66 points, Rohan Veal (AUS) 82 points, Scott Babbage (AUS) 100 points, Brad Funk (USA) 105 points, Rob Gough (AUS) 108 points, and Kevin Hall (NZL) 141 points.

Quotes from the Boats

Nathan Outteridge (AUS)
In the first race I got up to second behind Bora and it was obvious he was going to win so I was trying to cruise home in second and did a jibe, the foils stalled and I capsized so I ended up fifth which put me very close to Arnaud so the in the last race it was all on. When Arnaud had that massive lead and I was back in fifth I was a bit worried but I just kept cool and tried to sail back into the fleet. I climbed back to first at the top mark but then Bora just went past me again downwind. He’s going really fast and he’s done a lot of work so his win is well deserved. When Rohan gave me the chance to come and sail with the Bladerider team and be involved in, I jumped at it because I had gaps in my 49er schedule and the Farr 40 stuff that I do. Everyone is asking me if I am going to make the 2010 Worlds (March in Dubai), and at the moment I have massive conflicts with some of my other events because I am going to see if I can’t figure it out. It’s such an awesome event to be involved in. We have the Worlds in Australia in 2011 in Belmont, which is where I’m from, and one of the reasons I was getting into the Moth, so I will definitely do those. I just got into it two years earlier than I was expecting but that’s turned out to be a really good thing because I know what the level is and I’m not far off it, I’ll keep working away at it.

Arnaud Psarofaghis (SUI)
I’m pretty happy with the results. The first race I was behind Nathan and he capsized on a jibe so I took two points on him there so he finished fifth and I finished third. On the last race I decided I was going to just go for the wind and sail away from him so I could have some boats between us. I did a brilliant first beat and sailed very tactically to get to the top mark first, but when I bore away the wind was very light so I struggled a bit to go down, then I lost my first place on the last upwind because I missed the layline one more time – I didn’t learn from yesterday – and Nathan finished one place ahead of me. I finished fourth in last year’s Worlds so I’m moving forward. This year’s been much more intense and the level is much higher than last year. This year was more about speed. This year there is about ten boats who could win a race versus four last year, so it’s much more interesting. Every boat is going progressively faster so it was much more difficult this year.

Charlie McKee USA
(Sailing with a broken hand on the final day, an injury sustained during a crash on Day 4): My goal was top ten, I didn’t quite achieve that (11th overall), but the people I was around racing were all amazing sailors and we had a great time. We weren’t quite with the top – there were definitely different fleets and within each fleet everyone was having amazing racing. The top seven were much better than everyone else, and our 8th to 15th group was filled with fantastic sailors. We had some great duels which made it super fun. I think everyone felt that way throughout the fleet. When you’re in the 30s, you look around and you look at the names on the board and the caliber of the sailors – I’ve never been to a regatta like this, where there’s so much talent deep in the fleet. As the sailing improved during the week it got way harder for me. At the beginning of the week I was just rolling around in 12th place and I’d look behind and there’d be no-one there for a long way, and if I got a 14th or 15th, that was like getting a last. By today, all those guys from 15th to 30th, you make one mistake and they’d mow you down. To see that there’s that kind of improvement – it’s partly the steepness of the learning curve but it’s mostly just the caliber of the sailors who are so good and only just learning to sail the Moth because it’s so fun.

Simon Payne (GBR)
(Still wearing a knee brace today): It was fantastic consistently being in the top five and racing with the guys at the top. Today we changed lead among the five of us up and down the course, and it was just great. I thought I could have done a 4th but with Dalton leading that first race, there wasn’t much I could have done. It was so close, and to have two Americans in the top 5, that’s fantastic.

Nigel Oswald (USA) (Event Chair, talking about the event): The numbers are down on last year but the quality of sailing has gone up significantly. The mix at the top of the racing was exciting, with the exception of Bora, there wasn’t any one person winning all the races, as in the last few years there has been a dominant few at the top. I’m really happy with the way the event has turned out and now it’s over, happy to be able to relax. Sailing for me personally was up and down but my preparation in a new boat has been negligible, and my main aim was to just try to get better throughout the regatta and see if I could get a couple of good races in. I had a bunch of low teens results on yesterday after some of these guys helped me get my boat set up my boat so I think I’ve met my expectations. It’s been great.

Andrew McDougall (AUS) (designer of the Bladerider and Mach2 Moth):
I’m usually the boat guy at these events but there’s not been too many issues which means we’re getting it right. I think there’s 14 Mach 2s at this event. I’ve always got spare parts with me, but there’s really been not that many breakages at all, so guys have been able to work on their game more than worry about their boats. It’s been a fantastic event with just such high level sailing, although speaking for myself, the conditions have been too shifty, I’m not keen on sailing in this kind of shifty breeze.

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This post is tagged Archipelago Raid, audi med cup, Declan Burn, James Little, Josh Edmonds, Michael Cate, mike perham, paul cayard, Pwllheli Whales, Scott Fyfe, Sir Colin Meads, Sir Peter Snell, Sir Russell Coutts, Splash Worlds