Yachting News 15th April 2011
Wild Days Rum Tours on Waiheke Island – more details here
Greetings yachties,
I started watching the weather today for our next big adventure on Crac-A-Jac. The plan is to compete in the upcoming Auckland Tauranga Yacht Race. A distance of about 130 miles. Edwin and I are sailing 2 handed on a little 20 something foot long Bruce Farr designed 727 – Crac-A-Jac. However, we also plan to turn around at the finish and sail strait back to Auckland, without stopping a distance of about 250miles. We have a tracker organized and will be uploading mesages to facebook from the boat during the race. We are also working with SOL to have Crac-A-Jac appear on the virtual game. Log on to the facebook page to follow us during Easter weekend 
follow the chatter on crew.org…..more later…….
Open Country also has a tracker
In this issue,
GaGa,
On The Water Anarchy,
Russell Coutts,
Camper Volvo 70 – first sail,
Ran TP52 – latest images here,
Barcelona World Race,
Extreme Sailing,
Scuttlebutt Europe – latest issue here,
Yachting NZ Newsletter – latest issue here,
Sail-World USA – latest issue here,
Sail-World NZ – latest issue here,
Sail-World Australia – latest issue here,
The Other Guys – Royal Romance,
Enjoy
Russell Coutts to present in Orewa
A presentation by four time winner of the Americas Cup and Olympic gold medallist Russell Coutts is planned for Wednesday 25th May at 8pm at the Orewa College Auditorium in Orewa.
Tickets are $30 and proceeds will go towards the restoration of local heritage building – the St Stephen’s Chapel, Whangaparoa. The planned format is a video, talk by Russell on the America’s Cup, followed by an open Q & A session with an expected time frame of up to two hours.
Photos Credit: Chris Cameron
CAMPER with the Emirates Team New Zealand’s VO70 yacht for the Volvo Ocean Race went for its maiden sail on Auckland Harbour today.
The yacht left the team’s base at Viaduct Harbour in the early afternoon. The sea was calm, the wind a soft breeze – ideal conditions for a maiden sail to give the sailing crew of 11 and the12 designers, engineers and systems experts on board the chance to check the product of more than 12 months’ work.
But the light conditions denied the tv cameramen and print photographers in a chase boat the opportunity to get the action shots they were seeking of the yacht in its dramatic livery.
After 31/2 hours on the water, skipper Chris Nicholson declared himself satisfied with the yacht that he and his crew will race 38,000 miles around the world, starting in Spain on Novembers 5. “We did what we wanted to do today and that is always a plus.”
Even the photographers and cameramen were happy, even though they would have liked more wind. And they might get that before too long. The yacht will undergo further testing off Auckland over the next 10 days – and with luck providing the cameras with some action shots – before embarking on sea trials that will include visits to five east coast ports of Tauranga (April 26), Gisborne (April 29), (Wellinton(May 2), Dunedin (May 5) and Lyttelton (May 7 and 8).
On May 9, CAMPER will leave Lyttelton for a 2000 nautical mile voyage to qualify to compete in the Volvo Ocean Race.
follow the chatter on Sailing Anarchy here
Extreme Sailing Series, Act 2, Qingdao, China
Never in four years of the Extreme Sailing Series has there been so much drama in one day. In almost unprecedented conditions here in Qingdao, the public witnessed some extraordinary adrenalin fueled ‘stadium’ racing, first witnessing a major collision between The Wave, Muscat (OMAN) and Oman Air (OMAN) at the first downwind mark of the first race, and four dramatic capsizes – The Wave, Muscat (OMAN) in Race 2 and Red Bull Extreme Sailing (AUT), Team GAC Pindar (GBR) and Oman Air (OMAN) all in the final race of the day. In the first two races it was the very gusty conditions that tested some of the world’s best sailors to their limits, and beyond, with 3 to 23 knots, and up to 30 knots by the final race. “Massive day! The only way to describe it is extreme! The wind was funneling through the big buildings of the city, really puffy and shifty, it caught a lot of people out,” Will Howden, Red Bull Extreme Sailing.
“We saw a gust coming which we knew was really hard. The wind was 5 knots when we went into the gybe and 25 after. We dived immediately and then capsized. We went so quickly. All four of us were hanging on because we know what happens from the last time, so we were all safe and luckily we had lifejackets and helmets on and nobody got hurt.”
The playing field couldn’t be more level at this stage in the contest. Today there were six different winners from the day’s racing meaning that there are just six points separating the top four boats in the provisional leaderboard. Alinghi are in touching distance of the leaders and firmly in contention for the overall victory given their current standing in third position.
Despite difficult weather conditions in Qingdao, Alinghi fought through the fog and the cold to perform consistently throughout the six races. The Swiss team scored one race win and only once finished outside the top five. They now trail the leaders, Emirates Team New Zealand, by just six points ahead of tomorrow’s first day of “stadium” racing.
