Yachting News 8th March 2010
Greetings yachties,
Welcome to yachtyakka, all the best yachting stories from the best yachting websites with a little humour to keep the deadshits, wallies and wankers out.
New Zealand Women’s Match Racing Championship
Taipan – Australian National Maritime Museum
Shetland Round Britain and Ireland Race
Tasman Trespasser 11 – Where is Shaun now?
Slam Dunk Wins
Louis Vuitton Trophy
Abby Sunderland
Carnage at the top mark UAE Championship- Puma Moth Worlds
SNG writes to GGYC regarding the ongoing litigation
Jules Verne Trophy around Cape Horn
Barker Wins
Nespresso Cup
E-Marineworld
Enjoy
Australian Katie Pellew (nee Spithill) won the one and only race in the finals against rival and fellow Australian and reigning World Champion Nicky Souter to win the LIVESPORT TELECOM New Zealand Women’s Match Racing Championship.
The Race Committee was unable to complete any further races in the final series in the allocated time.
In the petit-final between the top two Kiwi teams Sam Osborne (NZL) beat Stephanie Hazard (NZL) by 46 seconds and claim third place overall.
Earlier in the semi finals, Nicky Souter (AUS), the reigning ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Champion, chose to sail Hazard and this left Katie Pellew (AUS) to race Osborne.
Souter won the first, Hazard won the second and Souter the third to take her spot in the semi finals. Pellew beat Osborne two races to nil, to join her Australian counterpart.
This morning’s racing began on time at 09.30 and the Race Committee had four flights of round robin two to complete before they could move into semi finals and finals. They achieved this just before 14:00, so it meant a reduced finals series was required.
Taipan – Australian National Maritime Museum
It’s a family affair
The number of entrants for this year’s Shetland Round Britain and Ireland Race is the biggest for over 20 years with a line-up of 57 boats including four father and son teams.
This is Shetland Islands Council’s second time sponsoring the RB&I, having first sponsored the race in 2006.
The Race is going to be a real family affair as four father and son teams have signed up to take part in this epic adventure which happens every four years.
The entry list will be closed at 60 or the boats will not fit into some of the harbours which are a feature of this classic event. The race starts in just over three months on 6 June from Plymouth Sound.
There are prizes for all classes as well as a special one, the Hasler Trophy, for the first family crew to reach Plymouth on corrected time. The father and son teams are:
- William and Ned Mumford who will be sailing Flair 11, an MG 335. William is a regular contender in the Shetland Round Britain and Ireland, having taken part three times. He is the MD of Plymouth motor dealership Mumfords. Ned is a student who has been watching his father sail away since he was very small.
North // Day 47
![DSC014321 []](http://yachtyakka.co.nz/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DSC014321-.jpg "DSC014321 []")
Saturday, March 6, 2010
A mixed bag out on the Tasman today. Strong SE were predicted and Shaun expected to be pushed west quite far however the wind was inconsistent and during the morning he was able to hold his position. Later in the afternoon the gusts strengthened making rowing with no spare oars rather risky.
South easterly winds are expected till Tuesday. Until then Shaun will try limit his Northerly movement since the further north, the more the wind prevails east. Once this adverse weather has passed we will hopefully have a better understanding of where he will land and when.
Keep the messages of support flowing. He needs them now more than ever in this the toughest part of the trip.
Slam Dunk wins the Appletons 2010 Elliott 5.9 Nationals…….again!
After an action packed final day of racing at the 2010 Elliott 5.9 Champs, no one was immediately certain who had won! But after the numbers were done Slam Dunk (Cameron Horne, Brett Elliott and Miles Addy – Auckland) had won the contest by one point as the second discard coming in after the final race worked to her advantage.
Finally a light easterly beat back the SW. The boats from the eastern side of the course, Brzo, Icebreaker and Frivolous Fish came through to fill the minor placings at the end of the shortened course. Voodoo held second for a time but was unable to get to the new breeze, finishing fifth.
This appeared to see the end of Voodoo’s chance at the title, now too many points back to bridge to the leaders, Ice Breaker and Slam Dunk, and seemingly little chance of getting in all the remaining races.
The following race saw Burling take advantage of Slam Dunks points position and match race them off the course in light conditions. Soon, the pair were half a leg behind the fleet. While Voodoo sailed away to a comfortable win ahead of Brzo and Sub 60, interest then centred on whether Slam Dunk could get past Ice Breaker and then as the breeze softened again, whether the pair could finish within the required 15 minutes of the race winner. They couldn’t, both scoring DNF, and so the points position changed again – Brzo and Voodoo were back in the hunt.
Live racing here
Defending champion Barker predicts tough competition at Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland
Louis Vuitton Trophy teams drew for race pairings at a press conference and cocktail evening at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron tonight, ahead of the first day of competition tomorrow.
The draw, before a packed house in the Squadron’s Westhaven clubhouse, also decided which teams will enjoy the preferred starboard entry before their starts.
The pairings for the first races tomorrow of the seven-day round robin are: Mascalzone Latino Audi Team (NZL92) vs. ALL4ONE (NZL84), Azzurra (NZL92) vs. TEAMORIGIN (NZL84), Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL92) vs. Artemis (NZL84), ALEPH Sailing Team (NZL92) vs Synergy Russian Sailing Team (NZL84).
The eight teams completed their second day of boat orientation and training in mixed conditions today in the waters off the mouth of Auckland Harbour. The crews encountered calms at times in the convergence zone at the harbour mouth as weak sea breezes from the Pacific and Tasman coasts fought to get established.
The forecast for the first day of racing is for light southeasterlies, increasing during the day. Winds are expected to increase later in the week.
Dean Barker, skipper of host team Emirates Team New Zealand, and the winner of last year’s Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, said his team had its work cut out for it.
“The fantastic thing about this event this year is that the standard has got better,” Barker said. “I think it’s a lot higher. Many of the teams have been training in the Version 5 boats in preparation, so I think the bar has been lifted. We have to keep pushing to get as better as everyone else is. All of the teams sitting here have the opportunity to win every time they line up.”
Teams train without incident on first practice day in Auckland
One of the oldest names in recent America’s Cup history went out and trained today on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour with one of the newest Cup hopefuls.
Italy’s Azzurra, a name first made famous in Newport, RI, in 1983, joined with the Synergy Russian Sailing Team as the first pair of boats to test their skills aboard the two Emirates Team New Zealand boats they will race for the next two weeks.
Favored by brilliant blue skies and a puffy easterly breeze that backed to the south, each of the eight teams here in Auckland for the Louis Vuitton Trophy took turns transferring aboard the race boats for two all-too-brief hours of familiarization and training. They’ll repeat the same process on Monday before racing starts with the first of seven days of round robin competition.
“We needed a good practice day in decent breeze and today was very good. We got the rust off the crew,” said Tommaso Chieffi, tactician aboard Azzurra, after returning to the dock in the Louis Vuitton Village. “We had the opportunity in Valencia to train in light air but today we could try a few manoeuvres in bigger breeze.
A bit of wind!
The winds shifted around so I’ve stopped heading SW. I can now head SE which is a big relief, I was beginning to get worried about running into New Zealand sometime during the night! Well, I’m not really that close to New Zealand, but it feels good to be heading more directly towards where it is that I’m supposed to be going.
The winds also picked up to a nice 15 knots. I’m finally moving and going at a steady 8 knots. The past few days I had been going about 4 knots which isn’t exactly standing still but 8 knots is the kind of speed where you can look at the speed gauge with out feeling depressed!
It has gotten really cold out here recently. It must be all the cold fronts that are around here bringing cold air from down south. Last night it got down to 70 degrees! Seventy degrees probably doesn’t count as “really cold”, but I did have to put a jacket on! Its been really nice having it so much cooler out. Its made everything a lot easier including blogging. It had been so hot and miserable down below that I just ducked down below to write my blogs real quick and then was back outside dumping buckets of water over my head! With the cooler weather I’ve been able to spend a lot more time down below now, and its been nice.
Most everything on board is working at the moment, so I haven’t had a whole lot to do. I’ve been working with Scott, from my team to try and sort out some small auto pilot problems,
SNG writes to GGYC regarding the ongoing litigation
Société Nautique de Genève writes to the Golden Gate Yacht Club requesting that – for the good of the sport – the GGYC agrees to end all litigation concerning the 33rd America’s Cup and all prior Cups…
The SNG reiterates that it stands ready to withdraw its challenges to the Deed compliance of GGYC’s boat, and to exchange a mutual release regarding all claims arising out of the 33rd America’s Cup and all prior Cups.
To read the letter in full, please click here.
Into the light…
Jules Verne Trophy 2009 – 2010
Offshore of the coast of Argentina, Groupama 3 is continuing her ascent of the Southern Atlantic in weather conditions which are not enabling her to battle on equal terms with the current Jules Verne Trophy champion. This will remain the case over the next few days for a crew who loves a fight…
Flat seas, sunshine and rising temperatures: such are the sailing conditions aboard Groupama 3; the perfect ambiance for any navigator suffice to say. However, they aren’t good enough for the ten sailors, who are tackling their 34th day at sea in their bid to conquer the Jules Verne Trophy. Indeed the crew are dreaming of hearing the hull whistling through the water, the vibrating carbon, the spray slapping against their faces and the miles gained in relation to their virtual rival.
“You’ve caught us just at the right time as the sailing conditions have dramatically changed this very instant. It’s a really interesting phenomenon and one that is well known and great to see. It’s an oceanic transition of the marine current, which equates to a temperature change from 6° to 12° within a distance of just 40 or 50 miles. We’ve also had a very fast variation in wind strength and sea state! The sea is pretty flat, the wind has kicked in again and we’re once again making the kind of speeds Groupama 3 is familiar with. This boat is absolutely magical and we have a fantastic early morning light and an extraordinary sunrise! I love moments like these, it’s really enjoyable!
Valencia Sailing
Dean Barker wins Omega Auckland match race
The best was definitely left to last in the Omega Auckland Match Racing Regatta, which saw Dean Barker of Emirates Team New Zealand overcome a scratchy beginning to the regatta to beat British Team Origin skipper Ben Ainslie in an enthralling final.
Ainslie was the big performer in the round robins, losing just two matches, while Barker struggled and at one stage looked unlikely to make the final four. However, their fortunes reversed when the second round robin could not be completed, bringing into play a countback system, which saw Barker advance.
“We scraped into the semi-final on a countback, much to our surprise,” admitted Barker. “We had the boat packed up and we were not really expecting to be still racing. For once the tie-breaker worked in our favour.”
After winning the lead-up regatta, Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker and his crew turn their attention to the main event of the Auckland Festival of Sailing.
The Louis Vuitton Trophy world circuit’s Auckland stop, which features eight teams boasting plenty of America’s Cup experience, begins on Tuesday and runs through to the final on March 21.
Many of the sailors taking part also competed in the four-day Auckland Match Racing Regatta, which concluded on Saturday with Barker making the most of a weather-assisted reprieve to claim the title.
The Team NZ crew had been in danger of missing out on the semifinals after lying sixth with two rounds of the round-robin to go.
However, lack of wind on Saturday morning prevented the remaining races from going ahead, and officials were forced into a recalculation of the points table, which lifted Barker into the top four.
When the breeze picked up in the afternoon, Barker downed compatriot Adam Minoprio, the world match racing champion, 2-0 in one semifinal.
He then repeated the scoreline in the final against Briton Ben Ainslie, who had been the runaway leader in the round-robin phase.
Advertisement
“I guess you just try to sail your best at the end and fortunately for us we did just enough to scrape in,” Barker said.
He said Ainslie, a three-time Olympic champion who was formerly Team NZ’s back-up helmsman, had definitely been
the benchmark over the course of the regatta.
“It’s a funny thing –sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t,” he said.
“We were lucky that, when we needed to have a bit of momentum, we got it together.”
Like Barker, Ainslie, now with British America’s Cup syndicate Team Origin, will also be fighting out the Louis Vuitton Trophy.
Barker said the standard of competition over the past week had provided good preparation for the upcoming regatta.
“Any match-racing experience is invaluable,” he said.
“You always learn something and it’s good for the team to be out racing. Obviously, it’s a different challenge with the bigger boats and a bit further out in the harbour next week.”
E-Marineworld Skips formerly known as Quickskips, have won the Warneet Around French Island Race including handicap and line honours back to back 2009 and 2010.
On Saturday 27th February, 2010, the 34th Warneet around French Island race (WAFIR) was held. This 37 mile race kicked off at 8.30am with 27 monohulls and 7 multihulls competing.
The Multihull yachts all began the race under spinnaker 30 minutes after the Monohulls. It was a slow start, but with a wind change 30 minutes into the race it was kites down. George Bulka was out for a win on his new weapon, a 7.2 metre home made and designed catamaran called Skedaddle, until the wind came up and he just seemed to stop! As he disappeared out the back door bets were had by nearby boats, was the Skedaddle crew putting in a reef in just 15 knots? We will just never know!
