Greetings yachties,

It’s been a very busy week, Stewart sprints on Monday, late night Tuesday, last Wednesday of the year race, Rum Racing on Thursday and long business lunch Friday. So if you are wondering when the next yachting news will be published ???? I’m building it now.

Abu Dhabi show moves to Yas Marina

The Monsoon Cup – On TV??? (The event is all over including the shouting and now its on TV- Keep up guys)

A Waiting Game For The Next 24 Hours

Where is Jessica Watson now? – Lucky Not Lonely!

Earth Watch – Coral reefs

Sir Russell & Brad – mates

Google Goggles

Jules Verne Trophy – Maxi Banque Populaire V go Code Red

Blue Water Black Magic – Photos

Aussie 18′s

International Kiteboarding Association

Container Door 292cm Trailer axel 293cm

Commander Dilip Donde

Enjoy

Abu Dhabi show moves to Yas Marina

By IBI Magazine

The 2nd Abu Dhabi Yacht Show (ADYS) will be held at Yas Marina next year instead of its usual location at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC).

Franck Dailles, group director at event organiser Informa Yacht Group (IYG), says the new venue was needed to cope with the increased number of exhibitors and yacht entries for the 2010 show.

Covering 115,000sq m, Yas Marina has 143 berths and can house vessels from 15m-75m (49ft-246ft) in length. Yachts of over 130m (427ft) can be berthed in facilities alongside Yas Yacht Club, outside the marina.

The 2010 Abu Dhabi Yacht Show runs from February 25-27, 2010.

more here

The Monsoon Cup will be airing on Sky Channel 433 in the UK and Ireland tonight Tuesday 15/12/09 at 23.00hrs.  It will then be repeated on Sky Channel 437 at 23.00hrs Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

In addition to this TVNZ will be transmitting an hour long special on the Monsoon Cup at 14.00hrs local time on Sunday 20/12/09

For viewers outside of the UK and New Zealand coverage is available online at www.wmrt.org/sailtv or www.sail.tv

Tour Standings
1. Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing 138 Points
2. Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team 97 Points
3. Ben Ainslie, (GBR) Team Origin 95 Points
4. Peter Gilmour     (AUS) YANMAR 93 Points
5. Mathieu Richard (FRA), French Match Racing Team Racing 89 Points
6. Ian Williams (GBR) Team Pindar 83 Points
7. Sebastien Col, (FRA) French Match Racing Team 55 Points
8. Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team 48 Points

more later

A Waiting Game For The Next 24 Hours

There was no day of rest in Victoria today, as Etihad Stadium maxi owner and skipper Grant Wharington and a number of people from his crew hooked up on a conference call with New Zealand based, Southern Spars team, a world leader in the design and construction of carbon fibre masts.

One of the engineers gave up his Sunday morning to overlay the boat rig plans of the mast that is now at the bottom of Bass Strait and the replacement mast belonging to Alfa Romeo’s Neville Crichton to determine how the replacement mast can be worked into the Etihad Stadium maxi layout.

At this stage, the ever optimistic Wharington, believes that it could be do-able.

“Based on what we saw with the rig plans today, there are no insurmountable problems with the use of the replacement mast at this stage” he said.

“Our next challenge however, is the transport, and we have a few people working on some possible solutions to that problem – we’ll know more later tonight”

Southern Spars will be working overnight on their report and assessment of the situation and the timeframe available, and will deliver their findings tomorrow.

“The Southern Spars team will come back to us tomorrow with an analysis and recommendation – as well as some very tight timelines should we be able to go ahead with getting and installing the replacement mast” said Grant.

more here

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Lucky Not Lonely!

For the first time in over two weeks I saw something man made other than Ella’s Pink Lady (drum roll please!). It was a small white piece of plastic that floated by this morning while we were becalmed for a short while. Not all that exciting, but it made me think about just how completely in the middle of nowhere I really am and about how every mile is taking us further into a pretty much empty stretch of ocean. It’s still strange to think that I’m probably hundreds of miles from the nearest person, in fact it’s now almost two months since I’ve seen anyone. Sure I’ve seen other boats but none of them have come close enough toactually make out the crew.

more here

The Cup Part 5 here

Americas Cup TV here

Jules Verne Trophy

The Maxi Banque Populaire V is entering the stand-by period!
It has been a bit more than a year since the Maxi Banque Populaire V has been launched and this incredible multihull is now ready to conquer the Jules Verne Trophy. After having triumphed over the Atlantic and on the 24 hour distance, Pascal Bidégorry and his crew are now prepared to set off and steal Bruno Peyron’s record established in 2005 aboard the maxi catamaran Orange 2.  From now on, the skipper of Maxi Banque Populaire V and his Team scrutinize any weather opportunity to undertake this circumnavigation around the globe in less than 50 days, 16 hours and 20 minutes.

In time and in good shape!

After a two month refit and one month of training and of physical preparation, Pascal Bidégorry is a satisfied and confident skipper: “I’m so glad to be here, with everything we have accomplished. I am really pleased and appreciate the work achieved by the whole Team of Banque Populaire. We just took the appropriate time to reach the right level of preparation and we actually fully comply with the planning” explained Pascal. They are even ahead of schedule with the stand-by mode being announced 3 days before the planned date. The skipper carried on: “we have tried in recent weeks to step back from everything that can happen on board and all our embedded systems. We knew they were effective but there were still some issues to solve in the perspective of sailing around the world on this boat. Today, I feel everybody serene.”

Entering the South

According to Pascal, in order to determine the best weather window, it is paramount to reach the roaring forties as quickly as possible, which means exit the Bay of Biscay quickly, then cross the Doldrums and go through the St Helen highs without having to divert. “We are trying to get a long term overview of the conditions to get into the south. Being ahead of Orange 2 is what really matters to us, and not only at the Doldrums. Nonetheless, weather forecasts in the southern hemisphere are actually very complex and not that interesting.” After Groupama 3’s departure last week on it attempt to break the record, Pascal and his team had a closer look at the expected conditions. “The window they have selected was not inspiring us that much” clarified Pascal. “We did not see any hurry in leaving that quickly especially as weather systems in the South do not seem to be fairly settled. I really have no regrets in not departing together but we are indeed following Groupama 3 with great interest and analyzing the weather sequences heading south.”

Pascal Bidegorry has selected an incredible crew to attempt this record with him. Those sailors, doted of high human values and versatile experience, competitiveness and technical skills, will be joined up by Thierry Chabagny, an accomplished Figaro sailor.
From this Thursday 12 November, they are now all entering into RED code in their departure procedure. If a favorable weather window is identified, they would then switch to ORANGE code, meaning there would be a chance of departure within the next 48 to 72 hours. In the case the window is confirmed, the team then switches to GREEN code and can depart within the next 24 to 48 hours.

more here

more here too

more here

Newly crowned NSW champions Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas continued their excellent form when they brought Thurlow Fisher-City home a comfortable winner of the Syd Barnett Jr. Memorial Trophy race on Sydney Harbour today.   The trio gave a near perfect performance in the 18-20 knot southerly wind to defeat Yandoo, guest skippered by Trevor Barnabas, and crewed by Andrew Hay and Gary Phillips. While the pair staged an exciting duel throughout the race, the Thurlow Fisher-City team finished too strongly to take victory by 1m27s.

Third home was Thurlow Fisher-Bankstown, Bruce Savage, which finished a further 1m4s behind Yandoo. The strong wind took a toll on the fleet with leading contenders Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin) and Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris) both forced out with gear damage. With the 3-buoys handicap system in operation for today’s race, the fleet was closely bunched for the first spinnaker run from Clarke Island to Obelisk Bay. By the end of the run Rag & Famish Hotel (with her #1 rig) held the lead from Yandoo, appliancesonline (John Winning Jr.), Thurlow Fisher-Bankstown, Thurlow Fisher-City and De’Longhi (Simon Nearn).

more photos here

Yandoo’s smaller #2 rig was an advantage on the work to the Rose Bay YA mark. Rag & Famish Hotel and Yandoo went around the mark together but Yandoo was a clear leader as the fleet completed the first lap of the course. Thurlow Fisher-City made her move on the following windward leg back to the 3-buoys Clarke Island mark where she gained a 15s break on the chasers. Yandoo, Smeg (Nick Press) and Rag & Famish all went around together, followed by De’Longhi, Thurlow Fisher-Bankstown, Fisher & Paykel (Andrew Cuddihy) and appliancesonline. Smeg and Yandoo crews each set spinnakers shortly after rounding this mark while Coxon and his crew decided to 2-sail reach before setting their spinnaker.

The move was a winner and from that point Thurlow Fisher-City was never really in danger of defeat despite the persistence of Yandoo whose crew pushed hard to the very end. There will now be a break over the Christmas-New Year period before racing resumes with Race 1 of the Australian Championship on Sunday, 10 January.

more here

The Flying 18s

The International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) announced today, that following a decision of the IKA Executive Committee, the PKRA Freestyle Tour will exclusively lead towards the 2010 Freestyle World Title.

This is following discussions about a clear structure in world wide freestyle competition kiteboarding. Thus the PKRA tour is awarding the Freestyle World Championship Title in 2010, while the continental titles for Asia and Europe are awarded through the Asian and European Continental Tours.

The IKA freestyle world ranking system will still combine all world ranking events into one united ranking, including national, continental and world tour events. Competitors thus find a clear pathway from their local and national events up to the world tour stops.

“We ultimatively achieved our goal to unify the various freestyle rankings into a clear structure. The PKRA tour offers great venues, good organization and has undisputable the best riders. So the logical step was to award their tour the freestyle world title”, Richard Gowers from the British Kitesurfing Association and freshly elected chairman of the class, stated.

Executive Secretary Markus Schwendtner added, that “the plan was to bring all international competition together under one unified set of rules and judging guidelines, which we now have achieved already in 2010. This season was a transition period, and 2010 will be great.”

more here

Container Door 292cm Trailer axel 293cm

Nothing is ever easy! Getting TT2 into the container bound for Australia was going to be no exception. On arriving at ExpressLogistics at 2pm with bundles of excitement that i was on my way to the start line I unclipped the trailer started to roll her up the ramp and into her home for the next few weeks. Easy does not describe the next 24 hours…. first i had to remove the lights…I tried again to no avail, the wheel arches came off….I tried again to no avail. It was now 6 pm and the fellas at express needed to go home so off i went back home for a bit of brain storming. I arrived and after being told icant put the container on its side and strop TT2 in a solution was needed. I desperately wanted the Boat to stay on the trailer basically because boats and fork lifts dont mix. I also needed it to be semi road worthy to obtain my Australian registration so i could drive the Boat up to Coffs Harbour. Solution = grind off wheel arches and wheel steps, drive around 8 different mechanics and ask to buy space saver tires (skinny ones) as space savers have 4 holes in them and my trailer had 5 bolts i needed to grind a new hole in the space saver and bolt them on with a note saying don’t drive any where!!! TT2 slotted in with the squeaking of rubber I am happy to say she is on her wat to Sydney! Thanks Geoff and Dave from Express Logistics ( Now Toll)

more here

infonews.co.nz

Indian Navy Commander Donde gets Royal NZ Navy escort out of Christchurch

By Christchurch City Council

CHRISTCHURCH

The Sea Cadets Corps and a flotilla of yachts will see off the solo voyager from Lyttleton at midday tomorrow.

Commander Dilip Donde, the first Indian attempting to sail around the world solo, will depart Lyttelton tomorrow midday for the third leg of his journey.

He will be farewelled by the local Indian community and escorted out of the harbour by the Sea Cadet Corps and several local yachts.

From Christchurch the Commander sails to Falkland Islands and Cape of Good Hope in South Africa before arriving back in Mumbai on or about 25 May 2010.

The Commander left Mumbai in the INSV Mhadei on 19 August this year, commencing the first ever attempt by an Indian to circumnavigate the globe by sail.

The Commander arrived in Christchurch last month after leaving Freemantle, Australia on 1 November.

more here

I was told to look for mermaids before I started and today we were actually chased by a creature that would come closest to being described as a mermaid! A seal kept chasing us for over 15 minutes, coming quite close, stopping, taking a good look with its head bobbing above the water and as it fell behind, chasing us again. The sea was calm and we were doing an easy 6 kts. It was quite a sight, seeing it jump out of water and also swimming underwater when it would come close to the transom. A totally different experience than being followed by a dolphin.

This post is tagged Blue Water Black Magic, brad butterworth, Commander Dilip Donde, Google Goggles, International Kiteboarding Association, Jessica Watson, Jules Verne Trophy, Maxi Banque Populaire V, Rolex Sydney Hobart 2009, Sir Russell Couts, yachtyakka yacht club