Greetings yachties,
In this issue;
Oman Sailing
Heol 7.4 – Düsseldorf 2010
World Match Racing Tour – US$250,000
Hublot PalmaVela
Anna Tunniclffe
Herreshoff Marine Museum January Visit
Chocolate Sponsorship
Rolex Miami OCR Friday 2.4 Metres
Bavaria38 Motor boat – Düsseldorf
Indian Solo Sailor – Dilip Donde
Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta Friday Laser Radials
SailRacer is back
The Rutland Challenge – John Merricks Tiger Trophy
Shimano: The Hunt for Big Fish
1000 Days at Sea – Reid Stowe
Where is the Tasman Trespasser 11 now?
Latest images from Gilles Martin-Raget
NikitA / Никита – Машина (клип высокое качество)
Enjoy
World Match Racing Tour Introduces $250,000 Tour Bonus For 2010
Adam Minoprio holds the ISAF Match Racing World Championship Trophy aloft. Reigning ISAF Match Racing World Champion Adam Minoprio has confirmed his participation on the 2010 World Tour.
©Brendon O’Hagan/Subzero Images
The incentive to compete in the world’s premier sailing series just got bigger: a US$250,000 overall prize pool for the top nine teams with a $50,000 bonus for the outright winner of next year’s World Match Racing Tour is now on offer. Tour Chairman Patrick Lim announced the news at the World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco in December to add to a tour that already offers the biggest prize money of any yacht racing series in the world.
The Tour’s final event of the year, the Monsoon Cup in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, has always been an exciting but tense and nervous affair for the teams still in with a chance of lifting the coveted ISAF Match Racing World Championship Trophy. But in 2010 sailors will also be fighting it out for their share of the quarter of a million dollar bonus, just to add to the pressure on what will be a down to the wire fight for the ISAF Match Racing World Championship.
Newly crowned World Champions, Adam Minoprio (NZL) and his BlackMatch crew have accepted their WMRT Tour Card, so they will be back, no doubt their ambition will be to win again the ISAF Match Racing World Championship and securing a major share of US$250,000 that is there for the taking. 2010 will be a year not to be missed.
Hublot PalmaVela 2009
Anna Tunnicliffe Wins
Miami, FL
Today was a full day of racing against the Aussies to advance to the Finals at the 2010 Rolex Miami OCR. It felt like a long day of racing despite only sailing six races. Every race was very close, thanks to the shifty and puffy winds. You could never guarantee a win because the other team could get a shift and be right back in the race.
Hiking Hard : Looking For Wind Shifts
Photo: (c) Walter Cooper, January 2010
We wrapped up the Quarter finals first thing this morning with a win against Lucinda Whitty, from Australia to advance to the Semi finals. After having two wins from yesterday’s quarter-finals racing, we had to win one of the three scheduled races this morning. The race started with us being behind, but we pulled a fake gybe on her downwind, tricking her into gybing, which resulted in her being awarded a penalty during the subsequent luff. This happened just before the finish, so we gybed away and led to the finish line.
Debbie Setting The Spinnaker Pole
Photo: (c) Walter Cooper, January 2010
The next round was against Lucinda’s teammate, and 2009 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Champion, Nicky Souter. We had five fantastic races with her and came out ahead in the end with a 3-2 record. We won the first two races and felt good about how things were going. But Nicky and team turned it around and handed us two losses to tie up the series. So everything came down to the last race. And what a race it was! The race started, and we had a good start at the pin end. We pinched the Aussies off and they tacked away. We got the first shift and controlled the first beat. Downwind, we made a bad tactical call and they had got around us by the leeward mark. Upwind we played the shifts corretly, managed to get our bow back in front of her, and now we could control her coming into the top mark again. This time at the top mark, we stuck to our guns, and held our course after our set. They gybed away and held their course. We gybed to match their course but kept our wind clear behind us, so it wouldn’t be affected by their sail shadow. The downwind leg took a long time, with surges from both boats in the puffs. As we got closer to the line, we saw the boat end slightly favoured, but our nerves were still racing. When we crossed the line our flag went up first and our team let out a huge cheer and sigh of relief. We also got some kind words from the Aussies as well, which was great to hear.
British Brand Backs Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy.
While on the face of it, chocolate might not seem like an obvious sponsorship fit with sailing, those who do it know that we have all resorted to a chocolate hit of energy once in a while.
So perhaps it’s not so surprising afterall that The Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy (WPNSA), the venue for the sailing competition at the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, has announced a five year deal with Cadbury.
John Tweed, Chief Executive, the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy:
‘The Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy team are very inspired by Cadbury’s new involvement at this international sailing venue and we are looking forward to incorporating a fun sporting spirit into future events and legacy programme activities’.
OCC Awards for Dee Caffari and Mike Perham
British yachtswoman Dee Caffari, the first woman to sail solo around the world both ways, and teenage solo circumnavigator Mike Perham are both recipients of the Ocean Cruising Club’s prestigious Awards of Merit for 2009.
Dee Caffari has won an OCC Award of Merit
Dee Caffari from Southampton, first sailed around the world skippering a yacht in the 2004/5 BT Global Challenge, then completed the same ‘wrong way’ course against the prevailing winds alone in record time in 2006 aboard the yacht Aviva. In February last year she completed the gruelling 2008/2009, east-about Vendée Globe race, finishing in sixth position to set a second world record.
Meanwhile, 17-year-old Mike Perham from Potters Bar, returned to a heroes welcome at Portsmouth last August for becoming the youngest person to sail solo around the world, assisted and with stops.
Indian Navy Solo Sailor
It has been over a week since we reached Port Stanley and time seems to have flown by. The repairs are progressing well and looks like we will be able to sail out on 01 Feb as planned. A short sortie to test the autopilots this morning went off well except for the tricky coming alongside in gale force wind, which seem to to be a norm here rather than an exception! As mentioned in the last blog, we were in time to meet up with Ocean Watch of “Around Americas” fame and see them off on their next leg.
SailRacer is back, now as an unique and powerful database of sailing results.
Not only will you be able to see the results for individual events but also search our massive database of around 2,000 events and over 37,000 sailors. Want to see how an individual sailor or boat has performed, SailRacer offers an unique perspective, you can even compare sailors against each other in the Head2Head section.
For clubs, classes and event organisers, it is easy to upload your results and promote your events. You can even embed the power of SailRacer into your own website and offer the same powerful search facilities for your results, please contact us to request a Free account. You can even add your event reports and photos, to show your class at its best. So if you are involved in Dinghy and smallboat sailing please send us your reports and results.
The SailRacer Event Management System allows event organisers to quickly create Micro Websites for their competitions and easily accept online entries.
So if you are into Dinghy Sailing or Dinghy Racing, SailRacer is for you.
The Rutland Challenge for the John Merricks Tiger Trophy is one of the UK’s premier winter sailing regattas now in its 17th year.
The format of the event has not changed since the Tiger Trophy was adopted as a regatta to raise money for the John Merricks Sailing Trust (JMST) with a large proportion of the entry fee going directly to the JMST, Three races are sailed back to back on Saturday and the fleet will be divided into fast and slow handicap fleets, but all sailing the same course. This enables average lap times to be established over the whole fleet and an overall winner decided. Following the TIGER DINNER on Saturday evening, the annual Tiger Trophy Pursuit race on Sunday is non-discardable and has for many years been the downfall of some exceptional sailors. The final challenge to win all four races and the special £1000 bounty has still not been met.
1000 Days non-stop at Sea
The year 2009 began on Day 619 with Reid facing gale winds in the Southern Pacific ocean as he made his way to Cape Horn. He safely rounded the Horn as the best sailors in the world raced right by competing for the Vendee Globe. Shortly after on day 661, as Reid sailed through heavy seas in the South Atlantic, a wave briefly capsized the schooner, leaving Reid safe, but shaken and more cautious than ever. Despite these challenges, he found the inner strength to continue on into the calmer waters of the Atlantic where he drew the shape of a heart with the course that he sailed. It was a creation inspired by Reid’s love of life, the ocean, the divine, and humanity.
Months went by until Day 800 was reached and Reid found himself in a place where he could rest for a while, not sew sails all the time, and engage in painting more. Another hundred days flew by filled with schooner maintenance and spiritual contemplations. Then he had a curious visitor, a blue heron. Most blue herons are shore birds, but one had found its way hundreds of miles from land. The blue heron, it seemed, wanted company and landed on the Anne. A short, but beautiful friendship blossomed between Reid and the heron. However, ten days later it died, and Reid sailed on.
Reid existed in a timeless place. He often said so and we on land knew it must be true since he always made a point of double-checking with us to see if the day or hour he thought he had was correct. On Day 964, Reid broke the record for the longest non-stop solo sea voyage in history. No one past or present, accompanied or alone, has been at sea without stopping or re-supplying for this long. Fortunately, he was able to share his experience with the world almost every day until Day 970 when the last working computer broke down. Now Reid will have to send his blogs in the spoken form through satellite telephone. On the positive side, we are still in regular communication with him, though it is limited due to the high cost of phone minutes.
As 2009 gives rise to 2010, Reid’s goal of staying at sea for 1000 Days is looking like an inevitable reality. Day 1000 falls on Jan. 16, 2010, but Reid will be staying out longer due to the fact that returning to NYC in winter weather makes for tricky sailing. Instead, he will return in the middle of June propelled by calmer winds.
We hope to see you there as Reid makes his return from the ocean back to civilization and we hop that you continue to follow this amazing voyage as Reid voyages beyond 1000 Days at sea.
Looking at the progress map Shaun finally got taken east last night. He was really positive about this as yesterday he put in some hard slog! He is now approximately 600km east of Australia and so is roughly a quarter of the way! The plan from here is to go slightly more south, around 35deg S, where the winds prevail west.
A quick physical check sees Quincey feeling a 9/10 however the rash on his bum is pretty horrific as is the state of hands which are rather shredded. He also has a solid 2mm growth of beard on his face! And in case you were worried, his gap can still fit a $2 coin!
Unfortunately the weather for the next few days looks fairly average with some strong easterly winds forecast but with the aid of the sea anchor, supplied by W A Coppins Ltd, he shouldn’t be knocked back.
Photos by Gilles Martin-Raget
Wow!
Good breeze today and the sailing team is taking full advantage of it. Off the mooring at 08:30, they still haven’t returned as of late afternoon.
Our photography team was taking advantage of the conditions as well, getting in a helicopter this morning. Below are the – as usual – stunning results.
This post is tagged 2.4 Metres, Abby Sunderland, Adam Minoprio, Anna Tunnicliffe (USA), Bavaria38 Motor boat, blackmatch, Cadbury, Chains ropes & anchors, Dee Caffari, Dilip Donde, Düsseldorf, Gilles Martin-Raget, Heol 7.4, Herreshoff Marine Museum, Hublot PalmaVela, Indian Solo Sailor, Jessica Watson, John Merricks Tiger Trophy, Laser Radials, mike perham, Nikita - Verevki, NikitA / Никита - Машина (клип высокое качество), Oman Sailing, Reid Stowe, Rolex Miami OCR, SailRacer, Shimano, Star Worlds, Tasman Trespasser 11, The Rutland Challenge, World Match Racing Tour 2010, YachtSponsorship
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