Greetings yachties,

BlackMatch – World Match Race Champions 2009

Des Top News 55

World Yacht Racing Forum

100% Marine launches in New Zealand

Alinghi-Odlo

Imperia Winter Regatta

Who is Jack Schitt?

Ice party

A Brush with Sail – sailors released

Wild Oats XI ‘Race Ready’ after 24 hour Offshore Trial

Monsoon Cup – watch it live

Enjoy

Countdown to World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco.

There’s one week to go to the World Yacht Racing Forum and Pilote Media will be there. We’ll be ‘tweeting’ key messages using the hashtag #WYRF and also tracking down some of the Yacht Racing world’s Who’s Who for video interviews.

Organisers expect over 400 delegates for the second World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco. This year, as well as running alongside the well established Motorsport Forum there will also be a Yacht Racing Design & Technology Symposium and the 1st International Superyacht Coatings Conference.

WYRF Chairman and World Champion Sailor Peter Gilmour will then officially open the Forum on Wednesday 9 December and the “voice of sailing”, New Zealander Peter Montgomery, will once again be the Forum’s principal moderator alongside TV presenter Richard Simmonds. The Forum has also invited panellists from outside the sport such as CEO of Championship Forumula 1 team Brawn GP, Nick Fry, to join a panel discussion on what the sport of sailing can learn from other sports.

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100% Marine launches in New Zealand

By IBI Magazine

A new marine electronics company has opened in Auckland, New Zealand.

Owned and operated by New Zealander Ben Rennell in cooperation with one of Europe’s largest marine electronics retailers, 100% Marine offers a large of marine electronics such as GPS, plotters, autopilots, instrumentation, AIS, onboard IT satellite communications products and more.

The company operates from a showroom in the suburb of Ellerslie and is backed by a website featuring more than 4,500 products.

“Our global partnership gives us access to a customer support network and a niche market buying power that’s unrivalled in New Zealand today,” says Rennell. “We can deliver a huge range of products with a much more efficient route to market — ultimately giving New Zealand boaties access to bigger choice and better prices than ever before.”

100% Marine also distributes Digital Yacht products throughout Australasia, including marine and portable PCs, chartplotters, autopilots, AIS devices and more.

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Odlo, Alinghi’s official clothing provider, will present the new Alinghi-Odlo technical clothing collection at the Salon Nautique de Paris tomorrow morning. Loïck Peyron, Alinghi sailing team member, will join Yves Loisance, Odlo France manager and Tomi Wuethrich, Sport Manager of Odlo International, at the presentation of the new range.

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Imperia Winter Regatta Hosts YOG European Qualifier

Photo ©bytechamps.org

Imperia Winter Regatta 2009
Imperia, Italy

The 20th Imperia Winter Regatta gets underway in Italy today, incorporating the Byte CII European Championship, the second continental qualifier for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.
Everything’s ready for the beginning of the 20th edition of Imperia Winter Regatta in Oneglia Harbour with the organization of Yacht Club Imperia.

On Thursday the fleets of 420 (open and women) and Byte CII sailors will complete their registration and the boats will be measured:27 different countries (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lituania, Monaco, Netherland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine) will be represented at the event.

The races will start on Friday 4 December on two different race areas in front of Imperia Oneglia town: a maximum of 16 races will be sailed for the Byte CII class (the event will come to an end on Monday 7), while 420s will finish on Sunday 6 with a maximum of nine races.

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Who is Jack Schitt?

The lineage is finally revealed! Many people are at a loss for a response when someone says: “You don’t know Jack Schitt.”

Now you can intellectually handle the situation: Jack is the only son of Awe Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, married O. Schitt, the owner of Needeep N. Schitt. They had one son, Jack. In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt. The Deeply religious couple produced six children: Holie Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Giva Schitt, Bull Schitt, and the twins Deap Schitt and Dip Schitt.

Against her parents objection, Deap Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school dropout. After being married for 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced. Noe Schitt later remarried Ted Sherlock and, because her kids were still living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was then known as Noe Schitt Sherlock.

Meanwhile, Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt and they produced a son of nervous disposition, Chicken Schitt.

Two of the other six children, Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt, were inseparable throughout childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony.

The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens Wedding.
The Schitt-Happens children were Daawg, Byrd, Hoarse and Bull.

Bull Schitt, the prodigal son, left home to tour the world. He recently returned from Italy with his new Italian bride, Pisa Schitt.

So now when someone says “You don’t know Jack Schitt”, You can correct them!

Saeed Harib, Managing Director of Dubai International Marine Club, welcomed the five sailors who were released today from Iranian custody. On hearing that the sailors were coming to Dubai, Saeed Harib dispatched a boat from DIMC to pick the sailors up and escort them to an orderly arrival in the DIMC Marina.

‘Media attention had risen dramatically during the day and there was no solid information. But when we found out where they were we did our best to protect them inside DIMC which has the set up and support necessary,’ said Harib. ‘When they arrived we allowed a short photo opportunity and then set up a security barricade to allow them to go to the spa to take a shower and relax a bit before a short press conference.’

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Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI

Bob Oatley’s 30.48 metre long supermaxi, Wild Oats XI, which will this year face its strongest ever challenge for supremacy in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yach Race, has been declared ‘absolutely race ready’ by skipper Mark Richards following an intense 24-hour sailing trial off Sydney.

The 200 nautical mile test was also recognised as Wild Oats XI’s offshore qualifier for the classic.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Richards said when he stepped ashore from the yacht at Woolwich Dock, on Sydney Harbour, this morning. “It was without doubt the most productive and exciting time we’ve had on the water since we completed the modifications to the yacht. Everything just clicked into place.”

During the winter months the yacht was lengthened by half a metre and underwent many modifications and refinements, most aimed at reducing weight and increasing speed.

Wild Oats XI, which in 2005 set the course record time of 1 day 18 hours 40 minutes 10 seconds for the 628 nautical mile course to Hobart, will this year be going for an unprecedented fifth consecutive line honours. But to be successful Richards and his team will have to put down challenges from the most impressive line-up of supermaxis the world has seen. There will be six other big boats measuring in at between 30 and 30.48 metres that will be out to end Wild Oats XI’s unbroken chain of line honours.
“We’re not kidding ourselves; this will be the toughest ever contest when it comes to being first to Hobart,” Richards said. “If we are to defend our crown we have to be perfectly prepared, and that’s what the past 24 hours was all about.

“It was pretty rough when we left Sydney yesterday. There was a big swell coming out of the south, so initially we pushed the boat to the limit by sailing upwind, treating it as though we were racing to Hobart in a strong southerly wind. We managed to get airborne off a few waves and much to our delight everything came through unscathed.

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watch live here

Kiwi leads Monsoon Cup going into final round

The Monsoon Cup, the final event of the nine stage 2009 World Match Racing Tour, will commence on the Pulau Duyong Basin course in Kuala Terengganu on Thursday and the stage is set for an epic battle.

Heavy monsoon rains have been falling in eastern Malaysia for the last week and on Wednesday the World Tour’s top match racing crews were on the water acclimatising to the conditions.

The leader of the 2009 Tour, New Zealander Adam Minoprio is wary of the elements.

“We are set for a very challenging event this week and there is a lot at stake, the biggest prize money of any sailing event in the world (around US$450,000) and the 2009 World Match Racing Championship, Minoprio said.

‘”Interesting times! With all this rain the river current is running pretty hard, so there will be a lot of current across the course.

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Hi all from BlackMatch,

Firstly we hope you all have had a chance to check out the live action on our website and with the round robin resuming there is plenty more sailing to come. With on board cameraman, commentary from the legendary PJ Montgomery, new ‘bow and mast cams’ and some matches that even feature on board commentary from Andy Green, there is a real up close and personal feeling to the racing, so if you don’t mind the odd expletive from Adam please get online and check it out.

With typical ‘Monsoon’ conditions on the opening day, we battled torrential rain, huge currents and 15 knot breezes to finish with a 3-1 scorecard. Despite the rain, conditions here in Terengganu were great for racing and the umpires were kept busy with plenty of penalties as the 12 teams pushed it to the limit. First up we had world number 5 Damien Iehl and after completely controlling him throughout the start managing to shut him out at the boat end of the start line, we made a silly mistake by hesitating to tack and by the time we went for it the Frenchman got a small piece of us. The result was a ‘red flag’ penalty to be done immediately and essentially game over, with such a one sided race course.

After the disappointment of our first race the team regathered and won the next 3 races in row, including a very exciting race against Ben Ainslie. Adam again did a great job in the start and completely controlled the America’s Cup helmsman, forcing a penalty on him and coming of the start line even. Left hand pressure however kept the British team in the race and they held a small lead at the top mark. We knew we had to keep it close to prevent them from gaining a big enough lead to do their penalty turn and going into the final run we had closed the gap substantially, also managing to gain the ‘right of way’ right hand side of the course which locked them out to windward and secured a great win for us.

BlackMatch is Adam Minoprio, Nick Blackman, Tom Powrie, Dan Mclean and David Swete. We would like to yet again thank our sponsor Fedex Express and we welcome David Ross and his wife Therese from Fedex to Terengganu this week to enjoy the racing. We would also like to welcome our Maori friend Nigel Smith and his wife Debbie Fowler this week and we are hoping the odd dockside Haka will help keep the team motivated. To Emirates Team New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron thank you for your support.

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Valencia Sailing

Monsoon Cup – Day 2 – Flight 9: Who can stop Phil Robertson?

Well, it’s three out of three for the young New Zealand skipper, Phil Robertson. He started the day beating Mirsky, he then moved on to Peter Gilmour and now the world’s current number one ranked sailor couldn’t catch up with his aggressive tactics. Adam Minoprio was forced to a bad start, hitting the line at a slower pace and on the disadvantaged left side. Robertson went on to win the race, leading from start to finish.

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Kiwi Phil Robertson and his Team New Zealand WAKA Racing scored some impressive scalps on day two in Malaysia
©Sander van der Borch/Subzero Images

WORLD CHAMPION OUT, WHO ELSE?

World Champion Ian Williams is set to leave the Monsoon Cup early whereas new comer Phil Robertson moves through to the quarter-finals.

K.Terengganu, Malaysia (3 December, 2009) – After the monsoon drama of the first day, the toughest racing day so far in the history of the regatta, this morning the competitors had time to focus on the leader board.

At the end of the round robin series, (there are four more flights) four skippers will exit the regatta, leaving the top eight to contest the quarter-finals.

At the start of racing on day two of the Monsoon Cup the Asian Match Racing champion, New Zealander Phil Robertson, was 1-3. His single victory yesterday was against Ian Williams and he had been singled out as one of the teams who could miss the cut.

Dockside this morning Robertson was feeling the pressure but was definitely optimistic. ‘Two of the races we lost yesterday were our own mistakes. We are aiming to do better today!’

Mathematically a team needs six wins to get through to the quarter-finals, so Robertson and his WAKA Racing crew had work to do.

However Robertson did not expect to beat Peter Gilmour the defending Monsoon Cup champion. Gilmour was aggressive in the starting box, but impressively Robertson outgunned him. Gilmour attracted two penalties in the pre-start; one a red flag meaning he had to take one penalty immediately. Game over.

Sailing against the World Tour ranked number two Torvar Mirsky, Robertson forced the Australian to the left side of the starting line. Robertson was fast to the right hand current elevator and sailed to victory.

Then came the Kiwi match up – Robertson against fellow New Zealander Adam Minoprio, who is the Tour leader.

Minoprio and his crew were confident ahead of the match, but Robertson took control in the pre-start and grabbed the right hand side of the course. They were sailing bow to stern when the two boats reached the current at the top mark. Robertson was just a length ahead but down the run he extended to three lengths. He held the lead and went on to win.

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This post is tagged 100% Marine, A Brush with Sail, alinghi, blackmatch, Des Top News, Ice party, Imperia Winter Regatta, Jack Schitt, Monsoon Cup, new zealand, ODLO, Wild Oats XI, world yacht racing forum, yachtyakka yacht club