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12 Mar 2010 07:55
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Today was a lay day, though most every competitor went out for a training session, with Dalton, Funk, Bora and Bear working on adding some speed to their packages to move the US Air Force up in the standings. Already, 3 US competitors are in the top 6, and they're all looking for the podium. In a development class like the Moth, a lay day means not only fixing what broke and resting your body a bit - it also means perfecting some of the experiments that might be rolling around in the average engineer/sailors brain, and the sight of dozens of foils laying around the grassy field at DOSC made it clear that there was plenty of shaping, sanding, and painting to do. Unfortunately for the foils, there's not much you can do about the two main obstacles on the course: Plastic bags and fully grown manta rays. It's not just the 2-point battle for first place between the crafty vet and the upstart Laser kid that fascinates so far. You've got some real nationalistic action going on; GBR, USA, UAE, SUI, AUS, with fans around the world watching this stuff, as well as meaningful battles all over the board as we are just short of the halfway point. Like young Marcel Herrera and Alex Buerger, two UAE friends who bought Moths at the same time and train together out of the DOSC. They're both too young to drink, even in a place where alcohol would be legal, but they sure can sail, and are separated in the "junior" division by only one point With Linsday Bergan off the course due to a minor (we hope) back injury, Swede Emma Aspington and German/UAE resident Kirsten Sommer are battling for ladies' honors, with just 4 points separating the girls after 7 races.
Joy Dunigan of Melges Boats serves beer at dockside to Melges sailors returning from the first day of racing in the Audi Melges 20 Winter Series Event III at the Bacardi Miami Sailing Week. Okay, if beer isn't why we race, maybe this is? Naw....
Congrats Joy - you are our scotw! Pic thanks to Kit Temple.
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12 Mar 2010 00:35
icy03/12/10
Of all the great photos we've seen over the years, we've not seen any quite like these. From anarchist atelier, "Lake of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
The wind blew up to 130 kph and the temperature was -3°C.
The images are before, during and after the storm.
Here's a little perspective. The pictures are from Aldo Fischer." Btw, the duck above seems pretty nonplussed...otwa
committee club03/12/10I've raced in my share of big championship events, but never have I been on the committee boat to feel the pressure aboard at the moment of the start. Until yesterday, when a light bulb went off in the head of OTW coverage boat driver desert dingo, and we radioed PRO David Campbell-James, who graciously allowed us to raft up to the committee boat for the start of race seven.
But that wasn't enough for us, and On-The-Water Anarchy production geek Aaron pushed our cameraman and me aboard the RC boat to get the kind of footage that is rarely seen, and pretty much never allowed. And amazingly, the only complaint from James was that I needed to learn to moderate my voice as I called the start for the live feed from next to his head. No surprise there! I've gotten that complaint before, in fact Clean told me the same thing just the other day. But of course the RC needs to communicate with one another during the sequence, so I shut up and put the mic next to him to catch his intensity as he did his high-pressure duties. After the start, Campbell-James showed me his anemometer speeds (13.3 high and 9.5 average), and we talked about the racing until the returning boats sent us scurrying.
Here is the footage from the start
The incident finally convinced me that, (despite the opinion of some that the only thing that matters is the racing), the PRO, DOSC, and Class really 'get it' when it comes to Sailing Anarchy's style of coverage. A cutting edge Class helping to provide the world with cutting edge coverage of a cutting edge boat. A match made in heaven. I'm not sure if we'll be allowed on again, but we'll give it a shot. (David, if you read this, I promise to whisper - I've been practicing all day).
Laid?
Today was a lay day, though most every competitor went out for a training session, with Dalton, Funk, Bora and Bear working on adding some speed to their packages to move the US Air Force up in the standings. Already, 3 US competitors are in the top 6, and they're all looking for the podium. In a development class like the Moth, a lay day means not only fixing what broke and resting your body a bit - it also means perfecting some of the experiments that might be rolling around in the average engineer/sailors brain, and the sight of dozens of foils laying around the grassy field at DOSC made it clear that there was plenty of shaping, sanding, and painting to do. Unfortunately for the foils, there's not much you can do about the two main obstacles on the course: Plastic bags and fully grown manta rays.
Battle Royale
It's not just the 2-point battle for first place between the crafty vet and the upstart Laser kid that fascinates so far. You've got some real nationalistic action going on; GBR, USA, UAE, SUI, AUS, with fans around the world watching this stuff, as well as meaningful battles all over the board as we are just short of the halfway point. Like young Marcel Herrera and Alex Buerger, two UAE friends who bought Moths at the same time and train together out of the DOSC. They're both too young to drink, even in a place where alcohol would be legal, but they sure can sail, and are separated in the "junior" division by only one point
With Linsday Bergan off the course due to a minor (we hope) back injury, Swede Emma Aspington and German/UAE resident Kirsten Buerger are battling for ladies' honors, with just 4 points separating the girls after 7 races.
Check out the current standings here, and be sure to say 'thanks' by visiting Puma Ocean Racing and CST Composites. Remember that CST's offer for 15% off any carbon-fibre dinghy is still in effect until the end of the week if you mention the CST 'phrase of the day, which you can find in the DAY 4 THREAD. We'll be posting everything we do in the Puma Moth Worlds Anarchy OTWA Forum right here, and keep your eyes on the Puma Moth Worlds Anarchy Special Report site for the live racing videos, a schedule for all our coverage, a quick source for our best content.Photos by Meredith Block, and you can browse her huge photo galley of all the racing and racers right here -JC
community
find it03/12/10
I have been searching the Internet unsuccessfully for a sailboat called Mr. Bill’s Dog my father used to race all over the world. I have been on some of the largest sailboat forums asking all the right questions about the boat and posting information to once again have the chance to see Mr. Bill’s Dog. The boat was designed by Bruce Kelley, and built by Lovfauld Marine located in Florida. In 1976, my father Mike McKillip began sailing. One of his clients was sailing a three-quarter ton sailboat named ‘Fun.’ My father really got into the sport and bought a sailboat and started racing. The year before my father was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He was told that he had about five years to do what he wanted and that the doctors really didn’t know how the MS was going to affect him.
In 1977 he was sailing every weekend, and my two brothers and I would spend the weekends at the cabin at Grand Lake while dad went racing. 1977 was a good learning year for my dad, as he won the PORC in San Diego and placed 3rd in the three-quarter ton Torc in Corpus Christi, Tex.
In 1978 he had placed second in the one-quarter ton North Americans located in New Orleans, and placed first in 1978 at the Mini-Ton North American in Dallas sailing a Lindenburg 22 named Sauerkraut. In 1978 dad started talking to Bruce Kelley about designing a Mini-Ton boat. The boat was built by Lovfauld Marine in Florida in 10 weeks. It was a cold molded boat from what I have been told.
“1979 my father was losing the use of his legs and was complaining about how the bottoms of his feet were feeling. I remember him going to Dallas for treatments. He would come home from Dallas and Houston and would spend weeks in the bed trying to recover from the doctors” exploratory treatments. Despite the medical problems, 1979 was again another great year of sailing for my dad. He won the 1979 Mini Ton North American in Marina Del Ray, and again in 1980 in Annapolis. At this point the Mini-Ton association was becoming very strong and my father was invited to the World Championships in Scotland.
By this time my dad had taken a turn for the worse and was now walking with a cane. I remember him taking us all to Hawaii for Christmas in 1979. By the time we all got back he now had to use crutches, and he decided to let the crew of the boat take her to Scotland.
In 1980 the crew of Mr. Bill’s Dog had won the World Championship. Dad seemed like he was on top of the world, but he was stricken with the MS. At this point in our lives things started to change. The expensive cars and houses were being sold to pay for medical bills. The boats were all sold, and the cabin at the lake was also sold. I have fond memories of Grand Lake; I also remember my oldest brother taking my father over his shoulder and having to carry him down the catwalk to the dock with Max, our English bulldog, sitting on the beach eating rocks.
My father was a fighter and wouldn’t let the Multiple Sclerosis keep him down. He was a fine arts major from the University of Tulsa and had learned to use a head mouse so he could paint on the computer. He had a showing at Philbrook Museum in Tulsa. It seemed that he was keeping his mind off of the MS and back on the sport he loved, sailing.
In 2003 my wife and I bought a 1975 San Juan 24 sailboat from the local MS Society. My father had remembered the boat from his sailing days, and my wife and I loved going over to my parents home and telling my father what we had learned on the boat. In 2004 we bought a Capri 25, which needed some work done to it, and I would love going over to the house and telling dad again what I was up to. I was repairing the boat for our annual MS Close Regatta that was to be held on September 10, 2005. It was June of 2005 when I received the news that my father had only about a month to live. I spent every day at his bedside or at the lake trying to get the boat into the water.
July 1, 2005, my dad passed away at 59 years old with us all at his side. His last request was for him to be set out to sea. He wanted his ashes spread into the Gulf of Mexico off of Corpus Christi. “Not in the bay,” he said “but in the ocean” where he used to sail. On my father’s birthday my mother felt it was her time to let my father go. Mike Braney lived down in Corpus along with a great friend of my parents Mark Foster. Braney and Mark had set us up with a great place to stay, and we set out to sea on dad’s birthday, spreading his ashes into the Gulf. We had a relaxing day back at Corpus.
I sail our boat because of my father. He never really had the chance to teach me how to sail. But I would sit by his bedside and listen to him tell me what I needed to do. Without him in my life I would have never had the sensation of the wind blowing across my face. When I walk outside and I feel the winds picking up, I think of him. I know that he would have given anything to be sitting by my side on the weather rail.
For whoever has the boat Mr. Bill’s Dog, you hold a very important part of the lives and history of the McKillips. Keep her in good shape, and sail her fast.
I lost my father Michael McKillip to Multiple Sclerosis, a potentially debilitating disease in which one’s immune system eats away at the protective sheath that covers the nerves.
Later this year will be the 31st year that Windycrest Sailing Club holds the MS Close Regatta. The Regatta will be held in September.
For more information about how one can support the MS Society, please visit a local MS Chapter or Windycrest Sailing Club Windycrest Sailing Club is located on Keystone Lake just a 30 minute drive from Tulsa.
This article was written by the son of Mike McKillip, a Tulsan and Regatta sailor who won the World Championship in 1980 in Scotland while suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. Chris McKillip writes of his memories of his late father and his love for and successes at sailing. His son hopes to repeat his father’s sailing successes and fight MS by supporting the MS Close Regatta at Keystone Lake in Sept. Thanks to GTS newspapers.
Jump in. See if you can help find Mr. Bill's Dog.
not sailing
icy too03/12/10Long time anarchist Ashley Perrin gives us the latest on her world, one most of us can only look at longingly from our desks. Ashley is only 31, but has amassed over 70,000 ocean miles on everything from IACC yachts to Moore 24s, and has scored big in the Newport Bermuda, the Round Britain and Ireland, the Rolex Transatlantic Race, the Caribbean 600, and the Fastnet. She decided to take a 'sabbatical ' from racing yachts this year, and is now working in Antarctica for the British Antarctic Survey running a fleet of RIB's at a base on Adelaide Island.
I looked back over my blog for the last month and half since I wrote for SA last to see what I had got up to down South besides the daily diving and boating in support of the scientific research that is going on.
We have had two visits from the US Antarctic program ships the Gould and Palmer. The Palmer supported the Larissa Project that was partly based here on station with their Twin Otter flying them onto the Larsen Ice Shelf and bringing back ice cores. The Gould took 20 of us on a day cruise out into Marguerite Bay and calibrated our CTD (chlorophyll, temperature and depth) instrument. I was able to get permission from the captain to climb the science mast (it has been a while since I was able to get up a mast) and I took pictures of the ship from 80 feet up. The Gould also participated in our Oil Spills Exercise where we pretended to contain an oil spill coming from the ship with booms and set up a skimmer to suck the fuel off the surface into tanks onshore.
At the beginning of February my mother talked to my friends down here and persuaded them to carry on the family tradition on my birthday of throwing me in a cold bath in my PJ’s. They took it to the next level and attacked me after the morning boating meeting throwing me fully clothed into the dive store bath which was full of -1C salt water from Ryder Bay. Thanks guys! 15 minutes later still salty I was on the RIB supervising a dive and never really got warm that day.
Mid February I was flying the twin otter on instruments in the cloud back from my week in the field at 71S concentrating hard - it takes a lot for a beginner! Flying reminds me of sailing in the fog except you have the added dimension of controlling not only heel and direction but your height. A call came through on the aero HF from the operations tower on base asking me about my sailing experience. Apparently Skip Novak was sailing past base in his yacht Pelagic and the guys in our operation tower started telling him about my sailing but realized they didn’t know too much about what I did.
As I landed the plane at base (under instruction from Steve the BAS pilot) I saw a yacht tucked in between two of the islands in the bay. After lunch we had a dive to do at Rose Gardens a half mile from the yacht. Getting the name Ada II off the stern we called them on channel 16. Out popped a woman who straight away I recognized as Isabelle Autissier and we ended up on the boat for tea and biscuits in our dive kit! It did feel a bit surreal to be sitting in on a real boat for so many months talking to one of the legends of yacht racing. Nobody on base really understood what I was going on about!
As I was away from station when the ½ marathon was run for charity I participated by skiing 29.1km on the flat runway at Fossil Bluff in mountaineering skis finishing at 9pm after stopping to refuel two planes as they came through. It was hard work but we ended up raising around 500 pounds so it was well worth it.
With the wharf being rebuilt the crane that we normally use to launch the boats was in use so we had to beach launch using the tractor. Launching off the beach sounds so easy however down here it requires a bulldozer to first clear the beach of the large pieces of brash ice before you can even get the trailer to the water.
My primary dive buddy Terri (the marine assistant) and I beat the season record with a dive of one hour long. I couldn’t feel my hands or feet for a few hours after that one. Who says I am not competitive! We were collecting latanula’s which is a mollusk that buries in the sediment requiring a lot of digging to remove. Diving has continued to be disrupted by Leopard seals in fact one day we had five sitting on ice floes off the wharf. The Orca pod is still in the bay which again stops diving we witnessed the parents showing the young how to hunt – they took out a crabby seal 100 feet from us. That's a seal skeleton in Ryder Bay.
I am trying to stay fit for Round Britain race in June with my little brother so I have continued to summit as many peaks as possible at the weekends my favorite being Leonie which is an Island out in the Bay. Learning the new to me sport of ice climbing and alpine mountaineering has been a lot of fun. I have had to dodge fur seals on my daily 6:45am 10km bike rides - it is pretty surreal to have a seal biting at your bike tires. The fur seals were not as prevalent this year thank goodness as they are much more mobile then the elephant seals, weddells and crabbies.
Winter is closing in, gone is the 24 hour sunlight of the mid summer and it now gets dark at 9:30pm and isn’t light until 7am. In the evenings I have been spending more time in the woodwork shop learning how to turn bowls on the lathe and making kids toys for my nieces and nephews. The planes have all left for Canada where they spend the southern winter. We are now down to 48 people on base it will go down to 22 for the 6.5 months of winter.
In three weeks I will be leaving Rothera on a 14 day cruise aboard the RRS Ernest Shackleton heading to the Falklands via all the other stations including Signy Island, Bird Island, South Georgia and one of the German Bases. Amazing to think I am being paid to do this! In the meantime I am busy answering copious emails as I organize to do the Double handed Round Britain and Ireland Race with my 23 year old brother and the Pacific Cup on a Quest 33 from the Bay. The outside world and yacht racing calls me back.otwa
young guns03/12/10
Clean and JC sat down with five Moth Worlds sailors from age 15 to 24 to get their take on getting more young people into high-performance classes, what it's like to spend so much time with older sailors at the top of their game, and whether they want to go into sailing as a career. They are some smart and well-spoken kids, and it's worth a listen.collegiate
on course03/12/10
This year, two major events will be taking place in Australia which will set a new course for Australian Sailing. The Sydney University Sailing Club in 2009 hosted two major events in the form of a fleet racing regatta held in April and then a teams racing regatta held in September. The success of these events and their high attendance has show that university sailing has a renewed place in Australia university sport. From the 70s to the 90s, there was a large inter-varsity championship that took place annually but changes to government regulation had a significant impact on the amount of university spending on sports and co-circular activities in universities. Without the necessary fund, the championship completely stopped with only a hand full of university clubs remaining active. In 2010, the events of 2009 will been further developed. The Australian University Fleet Racing Championships will be held at Great Lakes Sailing Club (just south of Forster, NSW) from April 8th-10th. The fleet racing takes place under yardstick making the event truly accessible to any boat and sail boards. Over 100 boats are expected.
In November last year, the member universities of Australian University Sport, the peak body of university sport in Australia, voted to introduce sailing as an exhibition event at the 2010 Australian University Games (AUG) in Perth, September. The AUG is Australian’s largest sporting event each year and is attended by thousands of university students who compete in 31 sports and now sailing. The new Sailing championship will be divided into two disciplines. The format of the first discipline is still under discussion but is expected to be made up of fleet racing in the early stages with a match racing finals series. The second discipline will build on the event of 2009 in the form of a teams racing series.
Inter-varsity sailing in Australia was once a big thing and has made a big contribution towards the success of Australian sailors today. While it’s still early days, a number of the universities that abandoned their clubs have now begun to support their re-establishment. The funding arrangements of universities make it hard to build or renew clubs but the success of the new championships, we can expect university sailing to support a new generation of Australian Sailors.
For notice or race details of the fleet racing championship and AUG, go to www.usydsailing.com you can also stay up to date with news via facebook at the "Australian University Sailing Events" Group.
Thanks to anarchist Tom.
scotw
why men sail
Joy Dunigan of Melges Boats serves beer at dockside to Melges
sailors returning from the first day of racing in the Audi Melges 20 Winter
Series Event III at the Bacardi Miami Sailing Week. Congrats Joy - you are our scotw!
Pic thanks to Kit Temple.
03/12/10
big pimpin'
Open Sailing will be having a Grand Opening for it’s new location at 4695 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey, CA on Saturday March 13th & Sunday March 14th. Stop by and check out the Open 5.70, Open 6.50 and other boats as well as our new retail store which includes Tacktick, Karver, Gill and more. If you haven't seen an Open boat up close, and are in the LA area this weekend, stop by and do so. They really are interesting boats and truly something different for your consideration.
03/12/10
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11 Mar 2010 05:12
Many applaud this....And while he's not swimming, here are a couple of Clean's interviews from today.
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10 Mar 2010 23:22
flat enough for ya?03/11/10
A lot of you fast boat guys know how flat fast mainsails have to be, but we'd bet most of you can't believe how flat these sails actually are. Ace photog Ian Roman shows you what Team Origin's IACC main looks from today's LVT, in which we think one paid skipper beat another in boats that no one cares about...
the real bora03/11/10
This Farr 80 crashed near Trieste today with 188 km/h gusts of local E-NE winds called "Bora". Insult to injury...And this is what happened in Greece the day before.
testify03/11/10We are pretty happy with the results people seem to get from our classified section. Here's another happy customer...
Once again (for what the forth of fifth time????), I was able to sell one of my boats on Sailing Anarchy within weeks of posting it. Its just amazing. I'm in Michigan and had to turn down offers from Vancouver BC and Mexico City, to sell the boat to a couple from Montreal. Incredible. Why people waste their money on Yacht World I will never understand. - Anarchist Doug.
kid stuff
down mexico way03/11/10
From 12 year-old Jessica - geez her parents let her read this SA trash?...The Richmond Yacht Club article on the front page (see turn off, tune in, trap out) inspired me to turn over my paper I was required to write to make up for missed school days in my Language Arts class.. On Wednesday the 3rd, 2010, I flew to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to race in an Optimist sailing dinghy regatta at the Vallarta Yacht Club (VYC). When we got to the airport it was very confusing. All of the shuttle buses wanted to take us to our hotel. My rig, sails and blades where delivered with the sails for the San Diego to PV race. We were staying at the Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta, they have some awesome water slides! Our room was nice but the beds were short so my feet stuck out the end and I am only 12. We saw that at the Vallarta yacht club has my club burgee hanging in it already. The next day was a practice day; it was exciting because the boats were just empty hulls.
When you charter an opti in the U.S. the boat comes
with every thing from air bags to wind indicators. This was taken care of
by the Jr. Sailing director Hector Guzmon who has done some Transpac
Racing. Later that day my brother Gavin & I went swimming in the pool and
went down the water slides. Then dried off and went with a member from LAYC
Captain Rob Wallace down the canals by motor launch to a cool restaurant
called Fajita Republic. There are crocodiles on this river, we did not see
any.
On the first day of the regatta we got stickers for our boats,
name tags, and event t-shirts. The opening ceremony had the Mexican
national anthem, it was a long song. There where a huge fleet of optis and
lasers. The skippers meeting was in Spanish also which did not make any sense to me, but they sort of translated for our team. We launched at 11:30am and the races were postponed to 12:30. It was very light that day with a slight chop. There are turtles in the bay right where we sail and some Pacific Humpback whales but I did not see any. They held 3 light air races that day and a dinner. They don’t have russet potatoes in P.V.! After dinner I reviewed our races with my team mates Oliver Stalhi (13) & Cameron Feves (10). There was also about nine USA sailors from Houston. We found an under water cave in the pool. But we could not play very long to keep some energy for racing; I had burned my knees on the race course, but slept like a rock that night. The second day of the regatta was not much different from the first.
Except...They had the Mexican Marines walking around with machine guns because it was Wesmex’s 25th anniversary and the president of Mexico (Felipe De Jesus CALDERON Hinojosa) was an official at the regatta. The Marines and medics thought they should help out with the kid regatta to make the visitors and children safe. It was cool to have all your gear protected like that.We had 4 races and the last race had a 90 degree wind shift to the left. It was a messed up race! Hey, I did pretty well in that race and the water is so very warm. That night there was a great party on the beach with games of tag, Mexican football, & raffle. I tried to tire out my competition. The last day was a whirlwind of chaos. On the water the wind went from 2 knots to 18 in 5 minutes! That means changing your sailing trim and driving. In the heavy wind I did really well getting a 15th & a 14th. My brother got blown right off the course, but his scores from the light air racing made up for not starting. Sadly, we had to fly right home and not attend the award ceremony, there where a lot of sailors from the big MEXORC boats on that flight. I am not sure how I did overall but the experience was huge, One of my team won the C fleet and one Houston boy won named Dane, the people at this regatta were very nice to us in every way, I made friends. This was the first time I sailed in a race outside of the United States. What would help young kids in California is not to have such a regional association bias about different kid boats and events, support them all! Offer us access to more races in different places. About the Race.
The Organizing Authority (OA) is the Vallarta Yacht Club (VYC) in conjunction with Copa Mexico Organizing Committee under the authority of the Federación Mexicana de Vela (the Mexican Sailing Federation) and the Asociación Mexicana de Vela de Clase Optimist (Mexican Optimist Class Sailing Association). The results of the races will serve as the Mexican national qualifications of the Optimist class sailors to form the Mexico team that will represent Mexico in the 2010 IODA North American Championship and the IODA European Championship. This race was also part of part of a larger Regata Copa Mexico Edicion Nextel Bi-centenario. MEXORC series regatta
really cleanMany applaud this....
03/11/10big pimpin'
class 4003/11/10
It has been four years since the Akilaria Class 40 went into production and more than 30 boats have been built to date. There are currently two models in production; the standard version which is suited to dual purpose and a generation three, full on race version.The standard production version Akilaria continues to leave its mark on the Class 40 global racing circuit with a long string of victories over the years. Perhaps the most remarkable is the success of the German yacht Beluga Racer winning the inaugural Portimão Global Ocean Race. Beluga Racer, one of the earlier standard version Akilaria’s to hit the water, dominated the event winning the first two legs of this global circumnavigation race against some much newer competition. At one point on the first leg from Portugal to Cape Town, South Africa, Beluga Racer led the fleet by over 700 miles. In the end, after running into an errant high pressure system off the South African coast, Beluga Racer managed to stave off a last minute charge from Desafio Cabo de Hornos, a brand new Guillaume Verdier designed Class 40 to win by just over two hours. Co-skippers Boris Herrmann and Felix Oehme were quick to praise the boat.
“To be honest all we had to do was point the boat in the right direction,” Boris said. “The Akilaria 40 sails itself and seemingly knows how to find the groove and once it settles into it, the boat just takes off. It’s very easy on our autopilots and even downwind, when we reached speeds well into the 20s, the boat handled beautifully without straining the pilots, myself or Felix. We just stood in the cockpit and enjoyed the ride.”
While a successful around-the-world race is a good proving ground for just about any boat, the Akilaria Class 40 is also dominating the shorter races. There has been an Akilaria on the podium in almost every Class 40 event going back to 2007. For a detailed look at all the recent victories go to www.akilaria.com and click on the “news” tabThere is a good reason for the consistent high performance of the Akilaria Class 40s. It is a result of the pragmatic thinking of French designer Marc Lombard. “We wanted a boat that was powerful yet simple and comfortable to sail,” he said. “The Akilaria 40 is extremely stable. It’s a very beamy boat with 750 liters of water ballast and plenty of sail area. It’s more powerful, more stable, faster and lighter than a Figaro boat and I feel that its potential is quite enormous.”
With meticulous outfitting at Maine Yacht Center under the professional eye of Brian Harris, the sole USA importer of the Akilaria 40, Lombard's dream of a fun, fast, affordable Class 40, perfect for the US market is a reality. For more information contact Brian Harris at brian@maineyacht.com or +1 207 842 9000.
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10 Mar 2010 18:09
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10 Mar 2010 07:47
, and stay with us all week for this fun regatta - we will continue to bring it. -John Casey.
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09 Mar 2010 20:57
jonesing too03/10/10
Snow has a way of making people want to go sailing really, really bad. Here's a little more jonesing, this one from Madison Wisconsin.
Sometimes living in the mid-west is tough...Anarchist Steve.
second class03/10/10In April, 2009, President Obama created two classes of citizens – First class: those with relatives in Cuba and Second Class: those without. With the stroke of his pen, he eliminated the Bush restrictions on travel to Cuba for the First Class Citizens and allowed them to bring unlimited funds for their relatives. Second class: El Zippo. I thought this was a perfect example of “Change” and “Hopefully” began to plan the Islands in the Stream Regatta for Gulfstream Sailing Club. I had been crew in the Sarasota to Havana race in 1994 and have never been treated better after a sailboat race. (They dramatically demonstrated the shortages brought about by the evils of socialism. One night, we saw the floor show that was going into the Copacabana the next week. Sixteen dancers, eight costumes.)
Our event was to consist of four races; a coastal from various ports on the east coast to Key West scored time on time, an overnight offshore across the Gulf Stream to Marina Hemingway, revival of the prestigious Regata Castillo del Morro, a coastal race from Marina Hemingway to Havana (2 laps), and an offshore back to Key West, scheduled for May of this year. Another group was coming from Sarasota, sponsored by the Sarasota Yacht Club charitable foundation, to participate in the coastal race.
Our plan was that this was not to be just a regatta with a typical yadda yadda post race barbecue/beerfest, but a significant cultural event including donations of sails and gear for the Cuban Olympic Team, coaching of Cuban sailors, Cuban sailors participating on U. S. yachts for the Regata Castillo del San Marco, meeting with various cultural groups in Cuba, including some that their government is not very friendly with, and the post race party to be held at a workers’ hostel with us bringing the food, since food is still very scarce in Cuba.. The Cubans met our every request with grace and understanding.
There were, of course, some U. S. Government hoops to jump through: In August, I applied for a USCG Marine Event Permit only to be told this month they’ve changed the rules, we don’t need one. I applied for a Commerce Department Permit to export our committee boat (even though it’s coming right back, it’s considered an export) and prepared our application under the Office of Financial Asset Control regulations of the Treasury Department. (There are specific provisions under OFAC that permit participation in organized sporting events, which last I heard sailing is.) Oh, and a Coast Guard Permit to Enter Cuban Waters, which requires the other two permits.
The Commerce Department just advised, permission denied. So much for the hopey changey stuff, as ex-Governor Caribou Barbie calls it. My own take is that the President’s plate is overloaded right now without having to worry about a very vocal exile community in an important State and congressional elections just around the corner.
So, the Regatta is off for this year. It would have been a really interesting event. We’ll keep trying. Sarasota Yacht Club canceled their race also. Any of you Canadians going to Cuba, please tell everyone we’ll miss ‘em, have a Cuba Libre for us, and we hope to see everyone next year. - BLOWHARD
ups and downs03/10/10
Fast foiling to barely moving, leaders to DNS, Day 2 of the Puma Moth Worlds has certainly had its ups and downs! The first race today saw a northwesterly of about seven knots which had the fleet foiling off the line. However, it dropped and shifted right, and after a number of left-siders gybe-tacked (gacked) and headed on over to the right, the whole fleet fell off their foils. Andrew McDougall continued his winning ways, calling a perfect layline to the top mark and outpacing the fleet, winning by about 100 yards after the skewed race was shortened. after 1. He had a slight hiccup in the second race of the day (11), but bounced back in style with a 2 in the last race, giving him 15 points, which keeps him in the lead by nine points at the moment. Can he keep this pace up?
2006 Moth World Champion, the speedy Simon Payne, scored a deuce in the first race of the day and followed it up with a bullet in the second. Just when he had it fully dialed in, his soft Mach 2 spar broke while in top five position on the first beat, which landed him a DNF (45) for the last race. When he gets to throw the 45 tomorrow he’ll likely rocket up the leader board.
US sailor and former Olympic laser helpful Brad Funk (pictured above) came roaring to life in the last race of the day with a bullet going away. This race had plenty of pressure and full foiling was in effect. He kept his lead through the three-lapper by banging the right-side and staying real fluid around the corners. At 25 points, he is only one point away from second place, Michael Lennon, who is quietly keeping it consistent. Michael and fourth place Scott Babbage are the only two who have all single digit finishes.
2009 Moth World Champ and US Sailing Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, Bora Gulari, had a tough go of it in the last race when he managed to pick up two plastic bags. From what I’ve heard, there is no short supply of foil draggers off the Dubai coast with quite a few competitors hooking up garbage. Class president Mark Robinson picked up one, and one racer actually picked up the same blue bag on two different laps! Bora was a solid top three during the race, but still managed to come back to seventh. He is one point in front of the second place finisher from the 2009 Worlds and current European Champion, Arnaud Psarofaghis. Bora and Arnaud are both known for their high wind skill and top speeds, which they haven’t been able to showcase so far at this World Championship. The forecast isn’t for the wind to stiffen up this week, so they’ll need to grind it out and find a way to win.
Chris Graham who won the lead-in regatta, the UAE Nationals, is currently in fifth place. He gave us an earful twice today when he thought the RIB Mer and Petey were on repeatedly cut across the course laying a high wake for him to sail through. In marginal foiling conditions, boat wakes wreak havoc on Moths. Of course, we had no friggin clue what he was talking about since we were a little busy doing a live show called On The Water Anarchy. Clean gave it back to him in style and he foiled off. As it turns out, Shirley Robertson’s CNN Mainsail boat, which is identical to our photo boat, was doing whatever they felt they needed to get their big money shot, and that included running ahead of the boats on their layline all the way to the finish. For once, we weren’t the ones stirring it up! I’m actually a little disappointed about that. I hope we haven’t lost our touch after getting almost tossed from everywhere we went in Valencia.
The 2010 Puma Moth Worlds is only beginning though. Anything can happen on the race course from breakage to flippage, and we still have plenty of time to piss someone off by the end. On our production side, Mer is working the photo angle, Petey and Felipe are busting out vids, Aaron is uploading and keeping the live feed and internet running, and Clean is directing the show. Our coverage starts tomorrow at one o’clock our time, 4 AM on the East Coast. We have more interviews cued up, one with PRO David Campbell-James, and George Peet gave a run-through of the current foiling Moth. Our live broadcast schedule, endless photos, videos, and much more are available via the microsite , and stay with us all week for this fun regatta - we will continue to bring it.A big thanks to Puma, CST Composites, and Dubai Offshore Sailing Club for their great support. Results here.
newbie
03/10/10
Speaking of Moth's, here 15-year-old Jack Sheering during his first time out on the Mach 2. Jack and his parents placed the winning bid for the Mach 2 that McConaghy donated to Variety Club during the recent Audi Victoria Regatta. Think he's hooked now?on board
miami midfleet03/10/10The brilliant and beautiful Molly Baxter checks in after a mediocre finish in a monster of a fleet with Team Argo. The Melges 32 is all that's left of the US Grand Prix fleet, a shame for some but certainly not for the thriving and spectacular fleet, not the least of which because it includes sailors like Mrs. Baxter.
Miami Race Week just wrapped up, and aside from the cold weather, it proved to be another fantastic event. The last day brought similar conditions to what we saw all week – choppy waves and cool temperatures with 10-20 knot northerlies. Going into Sunday, Jean-Francois Cruette's Teasing Machine was only 4 points ahead of Bliksem, followed by Star and Full Throttle closely behind. There were plenty of boats over early in the two last races and conditions made it very difficult to be consistent. With a handful of past Melges 24 World Champs aboard, Teasing Machine opened up the last day with an 11th place which then had to become their drop race, and Bliksem finished in 14th, allowing Full Throttle and Star (who finished 4th and 2nd respectively), to jump into the heated battle for the lead as they entered the last race. Pieter Taselaar's boys did the one thing they couldn't afford: They hit the weather mark and had to spin. Eventually they would bounce back to 5th, but it was only enough to avoid getting worse than 4th for the event.
Teasing Machine sailed a consistent last race finishing 6th, enough to stay on top and Full Throttle and Star were able to jump ahead of Bliksem for 2nd and 3rd place overall. John Porter’s Full Throttle team looked sharp after a two year hiatus, and Star has been at the top of the Melges 32 class many times before so their 3rd was no big surprise. Vince Porter pointed out that the finish in race 9, where Full Throttle nipped Argo at the finish, was the difference between second and fourth overall. Team Red helmed by Joe Woods with Laser Gold medalist Paul Goodison on tactics from Great Britain won the Florida Grand Prix which is awarded to the boat with the lowest combined scores at the Melges 32 Gold Cup, Key West Race Week and the Miami Grand Prix.
The level of sailing in the 32 class is still rising almost vertically with professionalism and long pre-regatta training becoming de rigeur. The fleet was incredibly close in speed from top to bottom in Miami. It was funny when our main trimmer Chad Corning said as we were approaching the weather mark of the last race, “everyone will be arriving at the weather mark at the same time”. This is a fleet where literally every boat was sporting world -class talent. Tactician Andrew Campbell & Ninkasi finished 8th, Ed Baird’s first M32 event on Volpe finished 10th, Jud Smith & Lake Effect (who won a race) came in 19th out of 23. The boat I was on, Jason Carroll’s Argo with tactician John Baxter, narrowly edged out Phil Lotz’s Arethusa, with Richard Clarke calling tactics, the same role he had when crowned Melges 24 World Champion sailing with Chris Larson. At this event, nearly a third of the entrants are from outside the US and we are sure to see more and more teams from across the pond in anticipation to the Melges 32 Worlds this September in San Francisco. With such cool boats to sail it’s no wonder why this class is having so much fun while growing so quickly.
I have to admit that it was nice to see Teasing Machine at the top; they are a great group of guys from France and clearly trained hard for this win [you can meet owner Jean-Francois Cruette during this Cocktail Hour show from last year's Porto Cervo M32 Worlds. Part 1 Part 2Part 3 -ed] After a disappointing 13th in Key West, they bounced back hard and their coach AJ (Andreas Josenhans) undoubtedly had something to do with their wheels. It was really cool to see AJ motoring up to the French team with a huge proud smile at the end of the event looking at his team who had clearly worked hard. The next Melges 32 event is at Charleston Race Week and then the M32 East Coast Champs at American YC in Rye.
A big thanks from the whole crew to Argo’s sponsor - Sound Boatworks – for outfitting us in great SLAM gear and providing top service at this event. Until next time…
-MB
Sharon Green Photorace report
board youth03/10/10
The Techno 293 North American Championships held Mar 5-7 in Merritt Island, Florida saw eight tight races in 4-15 knot winds. This event was the North American country qualifier for the first IOC Youth Olympic Games to be held in Singapore, August 14-26. Two countries were selected in both youth men's and youth women's divisions.
Mexico dominated the youth men’s in 1st, 2nd, and 4th positions with Ignacio Berenguer Lleonart leading the way. Alejandro Monilor qualified Puerto Rico in the second country slot for the Youth Olympic Games by finishing 3rd overall. Top American and 5th overall was 2007 Optimist National Champion, Ian Stokes, from Norfolk, VA.
The junior women's was dominated by the new Techno 293 North American Champion, Marion Lepert, from St. Francis YC in San Francisco. However, due to IOC eligibility requirements (she does not have her full U.S. citizenship), Marion was not eligible to qualify USA for the Youth Olympics. Therefore the top two qualifiers in junior women’s are Audrey Caron from Canada and Margot Samson from USA (Clearwater, FL).
The future looks bright for USA in the Under 15 Division with 12 year old Rasmus Sayre (Vineyard Haven, MA) taking the North American Championship U15 crown, and hot shot Opti sailor, Luke Muller (Ft. Pierce, FL), in third.
These kids will be getting ready for the U.S. National Champs in San Francisco in July in preparation for the World Championships coming to St. Francis YC in 2011.
For more information and full results, click here. -
09 Mar 2010 01:42
Turn off, tune in, trap out. Loads more
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08 Mar 2010 20:58
the win
a-mac daddy03/09/10
So Andrew McDougall won the first race of the Puma 2010 Moth Worlds going away today. And he's 56 years old! That is amazing to us and a total testimony to people who perform at a high level without excuses. The SA team are covering the event live from Dubai, and here Clean and John Casey chat with A-Mac after his win. Great stuff if we do so say ourselves...The SA Moth page is here.
turn off, tune in, trap out03/09/10Okay so one of our favorite guys is Jeremy Leonard from Surf City Sailing - he just seems to get what this sport is all about. Dig it.
Today while you guys were sitting on your duffs pondering the future of sailing, the fine folks at Richmond Yacht Club were doing something to ensure that the future is bright. The RYC held their annual Sail a Small Boat day and it was proof, yet again, that you don’t have to have a multi-million dollar mega-yacht to have a great time on the water.
Though the wind was light, about 25 small boats, countless volunteers, and about 100 participants showed up and enjoyed this sunny day in the Richmond Riviera. The boats ranged from the tiny Open Bic to Ultimate 20s to Optis to Hobie 20s, FDs, Snipes, I14s and all kinds of other boats. According to Eric Arens, past RYC commodore and on-site organizer for the SaSBD, “The goal is to get new people into boats, and to get sailors into different kinds of boats.” And that they did with great success!
As it should be, being small boats and all, the show was dominated by youth. The vast majority of the boats had someone on board that was under 20, with many boats fully crewed by kids ranging from about 5 to 19 years old. The consensus that I’ve been hearing from yacht clubs all over the place is that their youth sailing programs are thriving. It’s a good thing too because, let’s face it, sailing as a whole is getting kind of old. Steve Lowry, head of the High School sailing program for RYC mirrors what I’ve seen, “We’re out almost every weekend racing against High Schools all over the bay area, and as with any youth program it goes in cycles, right now we’re on an up-tick. We’ve got a brand new junior director that’s doing an awesome job.” Good! So our sport isn’t going to go extinct; and we owe that to all of the people that volunteer their time getting kids on the water.
Talking to Steve got me thinking. Why the hell are these kids the only ones here, and not hordes of others? I decided to ask the youth and get their perspective; after all they should know what their peers are up to, because they seem to have their noses in some kind of device texting each other all the time. I made my way toward the 29ers to ask a couple of young dudes, what’s up, and the answer? “They’re playing video games.” WTF? You’re kidding me, right?
Apparently not. According to my young friends Molly and Jonathan 15 and 14 respectively, “They’re home playing Call of Duty, most people aren’t motivated to sail, it takes more effort.”
Really? I had to confirm, so I went and asked three more 29er teams from San Francisco Yacht Club and St Francis, all with ages ranging from 16 to 19, and sure enough, at least one member from each team said that their friends were home playing video games. Sure there were other things like homework, and hanging out with friends mentioned, but not with the frequency of video games.
OK, with one possible problem identified, I asked all of them a follow up question, “How do we get more youth on the water?” I asked James and Antione, both 16 year old 29er sailors and Antoine suggested, “We have more of these,” referring to the SaSBD. Overlooking the sea of masts, James followed, “Yeah this is really great!” The 29er youth team of Reid and Annie, both 17, had some insights into how we get more young people on boats, Reid suggests, “ I think it’s cool to have days like this where you can go out with some guy that really knows how to sail an awesome boat. This is really cool how many different boats there are here.”
And to strengthen what Clean is attempting with his recent OTWA videos, Finn, a 19 year-old 29er sailor suggests, “ Make more fast boats like these, and make more cool videos… without elevator music.”There you have it, straight from the source(es). Every yacht club in the world should do what Richmond Yacht Club did this weekend so successfully. Have a Small Boat Day! Invite friends, bring the family, have a great day, that’s what it’s all about. I expect to see this place stacked next year.
And to all of the youth of this plugged-in society we live in, ponder this slogan that Timothy Leary coined in the 60s that I borrowed and changed.
Turn off, tune in, trap out. Load more pics here.
Thanks RYC!
syd the kid
03/09/10
Very cool to see something new coming out of Sydney Yachts. This a new 37' designed by Jason Ker, who has promised a write-up for us soon. We understand there will be two versions - cruisy, and racy. Looks promising...on board
the big guns03/09/10
Angus Ball and a crew of lifelong friends, aboard the new Gunboat 66 COCO DE MER, took top honors in the Gunboat Class at the Heineken St Maarten Regatta. The COCO team, more accustomed to racing their Wayfarer one design dinghy back home in the UK, showed up a week early, and quickly got up to speed with their Gunboat 66.COCO did not exactly have a cakewalk. The brand new Gunboat 66 GAZELLE made her racing debut on Friday, and did a horizon job on the Gunboat fleet in the Round the Island Race. GAZELLE’s team led by former RAF fighter pilot George Begg, seemed to always be on the numbers, and had help from Gunboat founder Peter Johnstone, and Seahorse Magazine Editor Andrew Hurst.
Sailing with only five aboard, Ball’s team had great starts, sailed consistently well, and showed pace whenever their gigantic screecher was up, sometimes sailing a knot or two faster than GAZELLE. COCO took Saturday’s race to Marigot Bay, and set up a showdown for the Sunday finale back to Simpson Bay.
Sunday’s race was a three way battle between the two stunning Gunboat 66’s and their renown older sister, the Gunboat 62 SAFARI. These three Gunboats traded the lead on the beat to Tintamarre Island, while trading tacks with the maxis RAMBLER, TITAN, and HIGHLAND FLING as they sailed through in the moderate conditions. The reach to Anguilla saw COCO reel in GAZELLE and pass her at the gybe mark.
The lead would change several more times down the run to St Maarten, but the drama began as these two teams closed in on the final two short legs to the finish off Simpson Bay. COCO flew her asymmetric on the hot and tight final reach and overtook GAZELLE. With a costly douse required, GAZELLE took back the lead. In hull flying mode upwind, GAZELLE’s screecher head unfurled. A turn downwind to drop the flogging sail, allowed COCO to nip GAZELLE for the race and the regatta by 40 seconds.
This year’s Heineken St Maarten Regatta featured a lot of unlikely conditions. The normally strong Easterly tradewinds were replaced by mild Southerlies and Northerlies. The usual local knowledge would only apply once ashore. Regardless of the conditions, the Heineken St Maarten Regatta has clearly established itself as THE Caribbean Regatta, and remains the choice of the Gunboat Class. Featuring point to point races, high profile International racing programs, great parties, and a carnival of sailing atmosphere, more fun is packed into three days than can be imagined. Just as you reach a point when you need to take a break, you find yourself on a plane home filled with other exhausted and smiling sailors.
otwa
getting there03/09/10
Okay, so it is safe to say that the quality of some of our OTWA video has been, um, less than brilliant. But take a look at today's wrap up video - I think this is the team's best work to date. Big props to the Rev Petey for his killer work. More coming!life of lia
why?03/09/10Some people are just different. they do different things for different reasons. Things that other might view as insane. Lia Ditton is doing something different. like rowing 2,500 nautical miles. We're just sayin'...
I ask Mick occasionally why he’s out here. I tease him and ask if he was having some kind of mid-life crisis. ‘If I wasn’t having one before, I’m having one now!’
Over the past 2 months, I’ve had 620 hours of thinking time! Who has such a luxury? So what have I learned during all that time at the open university? Good question. I had never tried to think-feel my arms and I probably won’t be signing up for 10 days of think-feeling again. However, the experience did leave its mark. Most importantly the Vipashna mantra stuck. ‘Patience and Persistence and you are BOUND to be successful.’
Rattling off a saying and actually putting it into practice are two different things, but 60 odd days trying to row across the Atlantic I think could definitely be classed as a good test. If we thought we were graduates of life, we became pupils once again, at the ocean academy.
Caring, sharing, considerate – these are relatively new words to our relationship, but they’re establishing themselves. It’s never too late. ‘Patience and persistence…’ On an ocean stage, Mick has grown a beard and also, hopefully, a dear friendship. Now it’s just time to wrap up the act and finish crossing the page. Here's her blog.
moore has less
03/09/10
Almost anyway. Photoboy was on the spot in Frisco this weekend to catch this great sequence... big pimpin'
weta again03/09/10
It’s time to see the real thing to see what the press is all about. Weta trimaran was awarded Sailing World’s 2009 Boat of the Year award and active fleets are growing throughout the US. Come see the Weta and go for a sail at any of the upcoming coming demo days and events below. (Plus we are hoping for a Weta class at the SA Worlds in Coronado, Sept 23-26 - Ed)
West Coast – for information contact Dave (415) 686 4583 – dave@wetawest.com – www.wetawest.comSan Francisco – StFYC Spring Dinghy Regatta – March 13 & 14 – Boats available for charter
San Diego – demo day – Friday March 19th Coronado
San Diego – NOOD Regatta – March 20 & 21 – Boats available for charter
Oakland Strictly Sail Boat Show – April 15 through 18th. Come see the WetaWest team with Wetas on display and in the water.East Coast – for information contact Jon (252) 202-6880 - jon@norbanks.com - www.norbanks.com
North East – demos available at the Multihull Source
Kent Island, Maryland - Bay Bridge Boat Show - April 22-25! Come see the Nor'Banks Weta Team with Weta's on display!
North Carolina - Demos are available in Duck, NC at Nor’Banks Sailing Center
British Virgin Islands – Highland Spring HIHO regatta now includes Weta fleet with charter boats available. June/July race dates. -
08 Mar 2010 12:35
otwa dubai daze03/08/10
Diverse information, well-intentioned advice, and outright misinformation we received during the weeks leading up to our Dubai trip to cover the Puma Moth World Champs made it hard to know what to expect from this desert city. We heard the emirate called "a third world country with lots of shiny bits", a "desert oasis with amazing opulence", an entrepreneur's paradise, and much more. We were told to keep Mer covered up and out of her uniform; shorts and tank tops, that the border was one of the strictest in the world, that there was no drinking at all, and that partying was restricted to tourists, who were routinely searched and jailed for having poppy seeds or a tiny crumb of marijuana in their bags. A travel agent told us that we'd be crazy to rent a car in such a dangerous place and that driving here was "not for the faint of heart." We heard of dust, heat, sand covering everything, endless traffic and construction, women covered head to toe and unable to speak to foreigners, and that the prices for everything were beyond obscene. And of course we heard of the malls and Free Trade Zones that covered thousands of acres, sporting indoor driving ranges, indoor ski mountains, and food courts where you could eat food from a hundred countries. In short, we expected something of a rough ride as our crew of six got set to bring you comprehensive coverage of the most important regatta there is for one of the most exciting and chill classes in the world. And given the difficulties we dealt with in Valencia, truly a third-world city at times, we were a bit nervous to deal with it all over again. My heart can only take so much stress.And then we arrived. And like most exotic places, we found the conventional wisdom wrong. Our hotel is reasonably priced and staffed by some of the nicest people you could want to meet. We rented a big, pimped out car for a song, and everywhere we've gone, we've met helpful and friendly people anxious to show how hospitable they are, and to share tips and history about their country. In spite of an economy in shambles and a building boom in limbo, in spite of huge differences in religion, race, dress, language - or perhaps because of it, the locals are proud, and it makes you want to know more about them and their country.
We've seen hot chicks in surprising quantities, drunk ourselves stupid once or twice, and even found sort of/kind of high speed internet, though dealing with the government-owned mobile phone monopoly was the kind of nightmare that we were worried about and isn't a particularly pleasant experience. Filling the gas tank of our Ford Flex is the opposite, though - quite pleasant indeed. The price of gasoline makes you want to leave the car running all the time. An interesting factoid: The UAE Dirham is pegged to the Dollar, with each US buck being worth 3.7 of the Emirati version. That is about exactly how many liters of gasoline make a gallon, which makes knowing the price of fuel quite simple, and astonishing. It's less than a dollar fifty a gallon.
The Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, the host of the Worlds, is a jewel of the waterfront, with a laid-back attitude, seriously good food, and a membership that totally support Sailing Anarchy, with an army of volunteers pulling out all the stops to make sure this event - and our coverage of it - is awesome. It's almost relaxing, despite our usual 8 AM to 5 AM workdays, and a hell of a long way from Alinghi and ACM's approach to media relations. Refreshing, really.
To Foil Or Not To Foil The Worlds itself is shaping up to be a supremely interesting battle of wits, weather, and worldliness. With a forecast that is fairly typical - light to moderate breeze, generally flat water, and the likelihood of at least a few low-riding (off the foils) races, we see four main contenders to take the title in the world's most spotlit singlehander:
Simon Payne: Looking to regain the title he won in 2006, Si Payne is perhaps the most dogged competitor in the fleet. Aggressive as hell and never giving up, his bum knee and slightly lagging boathandling will hurt him if we get some races in the teens. Then again, promptly after tearing up a recurring bum knee last year in Cascade Locks, he went on to win the next race by a huge margin. Mentally as tough as they get.
Chris Graham: Small, softspoken, and as good a guy as you could want to meet, this local went out and sailed a calm Nationals to a victory in conditions from 4 knots to 20. Along with Glenn Raphael, Chris was responsible for bringing Puma to the dance, as well as helping cheerlead the local fleet to its current 15-strong numbers. Chris knows the water and has the size and boatspeed to do the deed in the light stuff here, but has to conquer his own reluctance to believe he can actually win it if he is going to actually win it.
Andrew "Amac" McDougall: You all know him by now - the 'elder statesman' of the fleet who is fitter than half the 20 somethings - Amac is the father of the moth's rebirth and its ascent to its prestigious position on the world stage. Amac designed the Bladerider, the Mach 2, the sails sported by much of the fleet, and the foils on most of them. And he's fast - blisteringly so, as long as he is on the foils. But he falls off during tacks, something he cannot afford to do in this fleet of flyers. Fresh off total domination and a string of bullets at the recent Australian nationals, he's got what it takes in the medium and heavy air, but that boathandling and older bones than the rest of the fleet may bite him in the proverbial arse.
Bora Gulari: If you know Amac, you probably feel like Bora is a member of the family. A regular on these pages as the Turk behind the US Air Force's flying power and the current World Champion, Gulari showed downwind wheels during the '09 Worlds that nobody could come close to, and he's been training almost non-stop ever since. But there's a wrinkle: Neither Bora nor the rest of the US contingent has spent much time training in sub-foiling conditions at all, because, as he puts it, "the Moth is what it is today because it foils," and that's what Gulari does best. But many forget that Bora is one of the truly gifted light-air sailors and finders of private puffs in other fleets he races in as tactician or driver, the same skills that he'll need if he's to hold off the lighter sailors above before the afternoon sea breeze starts fanning the desert dust.
See It, Smell It, Taste It Thanks to the vision of Puma, Puma Ocean Racing and , we'll be coming to you fully live from the course starting with the first race tomorrow at 1500 local/1100 GMT/0600 EST with video, photos, and text commentary from the one race of the day. You can follow along on the Puma Moth Worlds Anarchy Special Report Site, keep tabs of all the developments in the forums, and chat live to our coverage team which now includes the excellent John Casey, the pro cat racer who proved his SA mettle and humorous color commentating abilities during the harrowing conditions during 10 days of Valencia shitfight just last month.
Catch up on all the action and the gorgeous imagery from Meredith Block from the past few days from the Pre-World UAE Nationals, the MarineTech Slalom for cash, and practice, prep, and a Cocktail Hour with some of the above rockets on the Runup Thread here. And if you're in the market for a carbon dinghy spar, be sure to watch the Day 1 Thread for the CST Composites 'Keyword Of The Day," which will get you a 15% discount off any dinghy spar that they make.
And get ready for flight.
on board steak it is03/08/10Gavin Brady gives you an onboard report from the Farr 80' Beau Geste from the RORC Caribbean 600 in which they won first overall under IRC, line honors trophy (for monohulls) and class trophy for IRC Super Zero.
The 22nd of February was the start of the Caribbean 600 run by the RORC off the island of Antigua. The race course has twelve legs taking the fleet as far north to St Maarten and as far south as Guadeloupe before finishing back at Antigua.
In this part of the world the trade winds are very reliable. Yachts for hundreds of years sailed this area of the world for the same reason as the RORC organized and marketed this new event. But in true fashion as soon as we got to the start in Antigua the locals were saying it is never like this as we looked out at no wind. A very large cold front was working its way south east and this was shutting off the trade winds. So much for our new re-cut sails and max crew weight on the rail as we set ourselves up with a windy race.
The race started in a moderate 14 knots from 110 which was not too far away from the normal winds so we made good use of these conditions, sailing a few downwind and reaching legs to Barbuda, Nevis Island, Saba Island, St Barths and finally the bottom of the course around St Maarten. We got to the bottom of St Maarten in record time and the wind was still holding close to the trade wind direction at 120.
The longest leg of 160 miles is from St Maarten to Guadeloupe and in a true trade wind direction is a reach. But at 110 wind direction and the wind moving right to 160 it was now a true upwind leg. So it was time to have the full crew on the rail for 18 hours which made Karl and myself very unpopular. The feeling on the rail got better when one of Karl’s mates said if we win he will buy the team a steak dinner but if we get second it would be a hamburger. We wanted steak!
Over the past year we have found that weight on the rail does not make a big difference to performance of Beau Geste when we are reaching. This is due to the deep keel and twin rudders. We can let the boat heel over to 30 degrees and the boat just keeps going faster. However upwind or target heel angle is 22 degrees, Beau Geste like many new racing boats with a very flat bottom gets out of balance if we heel over the target number going unwind. So upwind we have to have all the crew hiking on the rail and this means on the rail - not in the windward bunk.Right in our path was Montserrat an active volcano that is 870 meters high. The wind shadow of this volcano is very large. As a rule of thumb we use factor of seven when working out how far to stay away from the wind shadow of an island. With the volcano being 870 meters high we need to be 3.5 miles to leeward or sail extra distance and get to windward of it. The wind was forecasted to go as far right as 215 turning the last half of the upwind leg a reach. The timing of this shift was not on our side. The wind did shift right but only to 170 making it upwind all the way to Les Saints off the coast of Guadeloupe. By the time we got to Les Saints just after dark we had built up a 40 mile lead over the second boat. This was shorted lived as the wind dropped out and a small land breeze of 5 knots and a large left over sea state slowed Beau Geste to 1 knot of boat speed. We had to work very hard to keep moving and try get away from Les Saints and get back into the gradient winds further down the course. It was a very painful three hours but we finally got back into the old wind. Now the new rudders were paying for themselves as we reached at 20 knots of boat speed in 18 knots of wind with the code zero up.
The fleet had made back a lot of time as we sat in the no wind zone but their turn was coming. This area of no wind off Les Saints was not going anywhere. The second boat had sailed back within 8 miles of us but as we set a spinnaker at Desirade Island at breakfast the second place boat had no wind and sat over 60 miles astern.
The wind was still clocking right and getting lighter as we sailed down to Barbuda. At 3pm the gap between Beau Geste and the second place boat was now 100 miles. This confirmed the wind to the south was shutting down and If we did not finish the remaining 90 miles of the race before 2am we would also be is these very light winds.
After Barbuda we had a 50 mile upwind leg to Redonda Island before the last 40 mile to the finish. As we rounded Redonda it was clear we had a big problem on our hands. Montserrat, the active volcano, was back in the game as it was only eight miles from Redonda and with the wind at 270 we had to sail under Montserrat wind shadow get to the finish. Twenty miles from the finish we had the spinnaker up on starboard gybe when all of a sudden we started to smell the ash from Montserrat. Within two minutes we had 5 knots of wind and it was getting worse. We had to gybe and get out of the wind shadow and get back into the old wind. The next problem was reef sticking out from Antigua and this would force us back onto starboard and into the wind shadow and ash.
Five miles from the reef we decided to give it another shot and gybe back to starboard and try to sail across the wind shadow but there was no way through it as the wind died to 2 knots again. We had to gybe back to port and get back into the old wind and just keep Beau Geste moving.
Our only option was to sail to the reef and drop the spinnaker. Then put up the code zero and reach into the finish sailing a longer distance in more wind. This would also mean we would have to sail along the edge of a large reef just under the surface in the dark. The gamble paid off as we sailed along the edge of the reef with the code zero up in 3 knots of wind. We were able to build our own apparent wind and Beau Geste was sailing at 8 knots of boat speed.
Karl drove Beau Geste across the finish line to victory winning line honors and handicap. I do not think anyone was ready for how much work this race was going to be. It was nice to race offshore with no wet weather gear but we did more sail changes than our last 3000 mile race across the Atlantic. Our next race will be the Newport to Bermuda Race in June which should be a reach. We are getting our upwind sails ready to go for the first comments the locals will say to us when we arrive: "It is not normally like this."
round two?
03/08/10
The word is that someone high up at POR said they are "getting the team up and running." Additionally observed were people working on Avanti, the Puma training boat, in the shed at Newport Shipyard. Also a delivery of Puma containers arrived at NSY a few days ago.
Here Puma Avanti is hanging in the travel lift ready for splash down... wide world of (sport)boats03/08/10It would take wilful ignorance to miss the speed at which course racing is changing in the US, and the most obvious impact in the sport today is coming from sportboats, big and small. From the diminuitive Open 5.7 and RSK-6 all the way up through the Melges 32 and FT-10, sailors are voting with their wallets and schedules, and these fast, light, easy-to-trailer rides are providing possibly the only silver lining in the economic clouds darkening participation in sailing today.
Let's look at some examples:
Big Boat Blues The geniuses that run the Miami Grand Prix booted anything under about 35 feet from their regatta three years ago to focus exclusively on exclusivity, choosing big boat IRC and one-design classes while ousting the largest fleet and biggest supporter of the event, the Melges 24 along with almost a hundred other small boats. Little did they know that this single move would start a movement. Yet even before the economic meltdown, the writing was on the wall: Smaller, simpler, quicker raceboats were obviously the future, while the Farr 40s and Mumm 30s that made up the majority of the big boat fleet were taking their last Grand Prix breaths. Fast forward to 2010, and one class makes up nearly the entire regatta - at twenty-three boats, there are twice as many of these big sporties as there are all other entries in all other classes. Is it any surprise that Melges 32 Class insiders are talking about running their own 2011 race?
Twenties Roaring For a decade, twenty footers were excluded from many of winter's big events - notably, Miami and Key West - but that has all changed with a vengeance, altering the racing landscape forever. From this year's successful Charlotte (FL) Harbor Regatta to the Shake-A-Leg regattas for both Melgi and Vipers, to the marketing and exposure muscle involved in the Bacardi Cup's inviting the Vipers and Melges 20s and 24s to their dance, to the sportboat explosion in Charleston, a new winter circuit has formed in less than a year. Even Premier racing tried to get in on the action with an open invitation from Key West Race Week to the 20s last September that no one paid attention to, perhaps because the new paradigm is all about value and user-friendly racing; something that Key West hasn't had in many years. Meanwhile, the new circuit has created a plethora of racing options for other boats as well - the St. Pete NOOD suffered massively from just this problem this year, down another 20% to barely more than a hundred boats. The most common reason given for those who blew off the suckhole that is Tampa Bay? "It was time for a change." Word. And let's not even get into the whole Key West debacle - we'll save that for another day.
World Championship of the World Sailing Anarchy's inaugural San Diego ISAF regatta proved a massive success - so much so that our original entry cap had to be stretched once or twice. And with a few months notice, more than 60 sportboats showed up to race in two fleets, and 2010 should undoubtedly be bigger. But other than allowing only sportboats, not allowing separate one-design starts, and heavily discouraging protests, did this regatta do anything differently than the slew of events that are bleeding entries up and down both coasts? It didn't, and smart event organizers are paying attention, figuring out how to capitalize on a trend that continues to gather steam. Hell, even the Chicago Yacht Club - hardly a beacon of progressive thought - is inviting a sportboat class to race the Mackinac Race. Sacrilege! More on the 2010 SA Worlds tomorrow.
Thirty Two Pickup There are definitely two tiers to the sporty revolution. The Vipers, Opens, Melges 20 and 24, Rocket 22 and similar allow a normal dude to buy and race 'em. For 75 grand you've got a new boat and a bunch of events to do, and for half that, you've got a newish boat and plenty of change in your pocket for Motel 6s near the marina and a few sails. The thing is, the coming of small sporty revolution was telegraphed - it wasn't a surprise to anyone that was paying attention. But the outrageous growth of the Melges 32? That continues to be a surprise. 20+ boat fleets in Europe? Certo! Growing fleets on both coasts of the US? Yep. Class racing in Sydney Harbor? Looks like it, mate. All for a single-purpose boat that costs 200 grand out the door and another 200 grand to race for a season - and get your ass kicked! And while this may seem obscene to those of us that make our sailing gloves last another regatta despite huge holes on the thumb, realize that the owners who've sold their Swan 42 (6 of them?), TP52, STP65, Farr 40, or whatever to step into a 32 are making the identical decision for the identical reasons of the J/35 owner selling to step into a Viper: Faster. More Fun. Better racing. Less People. Less Money.
Southern Fried No discussion of US Sportboating would be complete without mentioning the one regatta that has managed to not only stave off the 30-50% attendance drops experienced by so many others, but it's grown year after year, setting record after record. That is, of course, Charleston Race Week, which already counts 155 entries more than a month from its start, more than half of which are true sportboats (and if you count J/80s as sportboats, it's well over a hundred entries). Organizers expect around 180 boats, but already CRW is the biggest multi-class keelboat regatta in the South for the second year running, and it shows no signs of letting up, regardless of the economy. And they owe it all to the sportboats. CRW do-it-all guy Danny Havens told us that "we have the usually big and very strong PHRF classes for 2010, and for the first time, an IRC class, but we can't deny that the sportboats have really put Charleston Race Week on the national and international map." Charleston will likely see one of the biggest Melges 24 classes of the North American year, with around 40 likely to attend, as well as 30+ Vipers, 10-12 Melges 20s, and the aforementioned two dozen J/80s. More germane to this article is the Mixed Sportboat Class - a Charleston first that includes an FT-10, Viper 830, Azzurra 310, Thompson 730, and probably a handful of Melges 32s.
Do Your Thang We are not saying that sportboats are the end-all, be-all of racing - in fact, a lot of low-cost, focus-on-fun regattas are doing very well and good on 'em. Hell, some folks like a cabin, some folks like to cruise their raceboat or race their cruising boat, some folks are intimidated by speed and power, and an increasing number of laid-back sailors are turning out time and again for government-mark reaching races.
But it is impossible to ignore the fact that top drawer racing in the US has migrated first to one-design, and then to sportboats, and if you're talking about growth in closed-course racing, there is really only one game in town. And it ain't IRC or Farr 40s.
Our advice? Don't find yourself on the wrong side of the shift.
the uss george w. bush
No need to name a destroyer after the former chimp in chief, we found his boat. Photo thanks to Rapt Photos. 03/08/10
bad manWe see these kind of stories all too often in other kinds of kids' sports. Looks like sailing is no longer immune... The Edison Sailing Center in Florida has suspended lessons indefinitely after its executive director was arrested Thursday, accused of sending sexually explicit letters to a girl who was his student. Lee County sheriff's deputies arrested Steve Olive, 58, on Thursday at his North Fort Myers home. He remained in jail Thursday night.Besides his role as executive director of the Fort Myers-based sailing school, Olive also is listed as coach of the sailing club at FGCU. The investigation began Feb. 26 when the sheriff's office found out the girl, who has not been identified because of her age, allegedly received obscene letters and written material from Olive.
According to the sheriff's office, Olive had been sending the letters - described in an arrest report as graphic, vulgar and highly detailed in nature - for several weeks. From the news-press.com. The rest of the story is
03/08/10
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