Brought to you by boats.com Europe with the support of OC Events, Scuttlebutt Europe is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

SIR ROBIN SET FOR RESTART
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who was forced to turn back to Fremantle, Western Australia will restart Leg two of the Velux 5 Oceans at 2300 GMT on Tuesday night. Having successfully repaired his autopilots, Sir Robin must remain in port for a mandatory 48 hours, as stipulated by the race rules, and will be able to re-start the leg from the point at which he officially suspended racing - Rottnest Island - at this time.

Meanwhile, out on the racecourse the Bernard Stamm, the race and leg leader rounded Cape Leeuwin and ten miles to the south of land and is on his way back into the depths of the Southern Ocean. Stamm, just 30 hours into the race already holds an 87 mile lead over Japanese sailor Kojiro Shiraishi aboard Spirit Of Yukoh. Sailing the only Open 50 competing in the race, Graham Dalton is holding his own in third place against his larger, and theoretically faster, Open 60-sailing rivals.

Bernard Stamm:

"The first 24 hours were really tough. Sailing close hauled after the start we had some strong squalls and so I had to do quite a lot of manoeuvres. I was also sailing conservatively, looking after the boat to make sure I don't break anything. I now have around 40 knots of wind, sailing downwind. The conditions are really weird as the weather is really nice, but it blows like if a low pressure system was coming in. It is really surprising. I have two reefs. I'm currently doing between 17 and 20 knots and it is really wet!"

"I'm beginning to head south now that I have passed Cape Leeuwin. I can feel that the swell comes from the south. But the state of the sea is caused by the wind we have. If we had this sea in Europe, it would make a big storm. But here the waves are much longer. I still sometimes get one or two breaking waves because of the strength of the wind. I didn't get a chance to rest until a little just now. The first 24 hours are always tricky. During the refit, we have take the boat apart and then put her back together. So at the moment I am still just checking that everything is right, making sure I can trust her again. I will stay south of Australia and probably a bit more north than the direct route. But at the end I will still have to go south and will soon reach the 40 degrees latitude. I am already 35S at the moment."

www.velux5oceans.com

SAIL MELBOURNE
The Olympic Classes burst into action in Australia today as racing got underway at the ISAF Grade 1 Sail Melbourne. In light conditions, Krystal Weir (AUS) opened her account in the Laser Radial with two bullets, whilst World Champion Alessandra Sensini (ITA) was another fast starter in the Women's RS:X fleet.

No wind and a hazy sky greeted competitors on the first day of the Olympic and Invited Classes Regatta being hosted by Sandringham Yacht Club at Sail Melbourne today. By the time of the first start at 13:00, the skies had cleared and a light 6-10 knot breeze had taken hold.

Robert Godwin (GBR) took first place in the Laser fleet from Athens Olympic bronze medallists Vasilij Zbogar (SLO). It seems as though everybody was finding their feet on the course today with Ricky Ironmonger (AUS), a local sailor, well down the board in 38th place.

As RS:X sailboards took to the water, necessary winds obliged, increasing to 15 knots from the southwest. World Champion Sensini took out the first race, and going by world class form, the triple Olympic medallist looks to be the one to beat.

With the forecast tomorrow for 39 degrees and a hot northerly wind of 15-20 knots, competitors will face some tough conditions.

Sail Melbourne will be included in the first running of the ISAF World Cup series for the Olympic Classes.

www.sailmelbourne.com.au

MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN
The National Maritime Museum Cornwall is putting on an exhibition titled 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen?'

Celebrating British eccentricity and the desire to do something different, the exhibition features people and their crazy crafts involved in daring, different or just plain silly adventures.

Opening on Saturday 20 January, you'll see Tim FitzHigham's bath tub that he rowed across the English Channel from Calais to Tower Bridge in 2005 to raise money for Comic Relief.

Also on show will be Hugo Vihlen's Fathers Day, pictured, the smallest boat to have ever crossed the Atlantic, or John Fairfax's Britannia the first to row single-handed across the Atlantic.

Visitors can follow the adventures of Victorian John MacGregor, considered the father of modern canoeing. Camping in canoes during adventurous trips to Europe and the Baltic, he also took the Rob Roy canoe, featured in the exhibition, to explore the Middle East. -- from YBW.com: www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20070015100804mbynews.html

National Maritime Museum site: www.nmmc.co.uk

NX2 RACE FROM SILVA
A complete instrument system for sail and sail racing, the NX2 combines stylish high-resolution displays showing a wealth of data with a powerful server that operates Silva's unique NX2 Sail Performance software. Accessed from a PC via the high-speed FDX protocol, the Sail Performance software allows navigators to monitor all data in a variety of formats, set up the system, recalibrate transducers, and much more. So, if you want to know why your boat goes faster on one tack than the other, go to www.silva.ltd.uk and start taking control.

AMERICA'S CUP
* Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing team is leading a drive to stage the America's Cup every two years instead of four, a switch that may make it difficult for new syndicates to break into sailing's most prestigious event.

Most of the 12 teams competing this year are "strongly in favor'" of a two-year cycle because it would cut costs and provide a more regular revenue stream, said Tom Ehman, a director of the team led by Ellison, chief executive officer of Oracle Corp., the world's third-largest software maker.

"You would get more interest, more excitement, more events in a shorter period of time, more television, more revenue and less money going out the door," Ehman, a veteran of nine America's Cups, said in an interview at the London Boat Show. "It's a much better deal.''

The four-year cycle was designed to give new syndicates time to gather sponsors, boat designers and crew. Oracle and champion Alinghi, backed by biotechnology billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, are each spending more than $100 million on this year's race in Valencia, Spain, where the lineup includes newcomers from China, South Africa, Germany, Spain, Italy and France.

Two years would give new teams less time to mount a threat to those who already have their infrastructures in place, said James Pleasance, managing director of Force10 Marketing, which specializes in sailing sponsorships.

"For new challengers to raise the sort of money they need to be competitive against these very well-funded teams, it would be a tighter time frame,'' he said in an interview. "However, a shorter cycle will boost interest in the cup.'' -- Sam Sheringham in Bloomberg.com: www.bloomberg.com

* Alinghi, Defender of the 32nd America's Cup, has been allocated sail number 100, becoming the first America's Cup Class yacht to have a three digit sail number in the history of the class. SUI100, the second of two new builds permitted for this campaign, is under construction at Decision Boatyard in Vevey, Switzerland, together with a team of Alinghi boatbuilders and monitored closely by Alinghi shore crew coordinator Michel Marie and yard director Bertrand Cardis. Several members of the design team led by Chief Engineer Dirk Kramers are commuting between the yard in Vevey, the base in Valencia and Dubai, where Alinghi is carrying out a winter training camp.

The yard built both SUI64, the 2003 America's Cup winning yacht, and SUI75, the 2005 America's Cup Class Championship winner. Then in 2006, SUI91 was built and shipped to Valencia. The first of two new boats, SUI91 hasn't raced the challenger fleet yet and is currently in Dubai with SUI64 where the testing and training programme is underway.

Twenty five boatbuilders are involved in building SUI100, from both the Decision and the Alinghi camps, and the aim is to have the boat finished early in the New Year and ready for the crew to complete structural checks in Valencia and start testing the boat. -- www.alinghi.com

* Three years after having been the Tactician with Le Defi Areva in the 2003 America's Cup, Sebastien Destremau has come out of self-imposed exile, emerging aboard Team China in the 2007 America's Cup in Valencia, Spain.

Sebastien has spent the past three years as a freelance journalist and the Sailing & Development Manager at Fremantle Sailing Club in his hometown of Perth, Australia. He has focused on organizing and managing sailing events like the Clipper Race, Etchells Worlds and Velux 5 Oceans. -- www.bymnews.com/news/newsDetails.php?id=2330

RYA YACHTMASTER OF THE YEAR
RYA President, HRH The Princess Royal, awarded the prestigious RYA Yachtmaster of the Year award to Dr Philip Meakins, a General Practitioner in Southampton. Dr Meakins has over 30 years of family cruising throughout Europe and racing experience in the Solent and the Channel

Given to those who are outstanding candidates who have demonstrated exceptional competence in completing their practical exam, the Yachtmaster qualification is one of the most highly respected and recognised awards in the world.

At the pinnacle of RYA Training, a Yachtmaster is a yachtsman or woman who has the knowledge and competence to skipper a motor or sailing yacht on coastal and cross-Channel passages. A Yachtmaster must be able to cope with plain sailing as well as the most demanding situations.

Dr Meakins said: "I've always found that much of my joy of sailing comes from self-reliance in what is probably our last remaining wilderness. For this reason, I was happy for many years to carry on developing my skills outside of what I considered to be the regimented world of formal training schemes. It was refreshing to see that the RYA's Yachtmaster scheme continues to offer a way into training for those of us who have learnt from experience over many years and not just collected all the 'stamps in the book'. I'm now a great believer in good training and a big fan of the way the RYA's respected training schemes help keep the regulators in the real world".

www.rya.org.uk/NewsAndEvents/newsroom/news/ymoty.htm

NEW TRANSATLANTIC RACE FOR SUPERYACHTS
A new transatlantic race for super-sailing yachts has been announced by the organisers of the Superyacht Cup Palma, the organisation promoting a growing number of events for large sailing yachts. The new race will start from Antigua in April 2008 and is designed to attract yachts that would normally be crossing in delivery mode to re-position for the Mediterranean season.

The course then takes them to the Azores where the re-start will be for a pursuit style race to a finish point on the European mainland, yet to be announced.

The popularity of the race has been buoyed by the large number of entries already paid up for the Superyacht Cup Palma in June, designed to be staged between the Louis Vuitton challenger series for the America's Cup and the Cup match itself which starts on 23 June. There are at least 25 boats measuring in excess of 30m already signed up with the final entry hoped to be close to 60. Entries include the likes of Maltese Falcon, the J Class yacht Ranger and the cream of the world's biggest sailing yachts.

For more details see Yachting World's March edition due out at the beginning of February. Also, see http://www.thesuperyachtcup.com

www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20070012141114supersailworld.html

CLIPPER 07-08 ROUND THE WORLD YACHT RACE
Western Australia is set to defend the title of Clipper Round the World Yacht Race champions later this year when a Clipper 68 yacht representing the state takes part in the Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race.

After sailing to victory in Liverpool in July 2006, a team representing Western Australia will attempt to repeat the impressive win in Clipper 05-06. A crew of 18 sailors led by a professional skipper will race against nine other international cities in the sixth round the world yacht race for non-professional sailors operated by Clipper Ventures.

The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is now the only crewed yacht race that takes in the Southern Ocean. Leg 3 from Durban in South Africa to Fremantle in Western Australia is one of the most highly subscribed stages of the 35,000-mile round the world race.

The Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race will start from Liverpool on September 16 2007 and visit a range of international ports including Durban, Singapore, Qingdao and Fremantle before returning to Liverpool in July 2008.

www.clipper-ventures.com

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Letters are limited to 350 words. No personal attacks are permitted. We do require your name but your email address will not be published without your permission.

* From Matthew L. Thomas: Eero, you are correct. As a South African, usually living abroad, I built a Mini Transat in SA with the idea of promoting the class and adding some excitement into sailing. nothing has happened. I've now been back a year and have thrown my energies into the Royal Cape Yacht Club with some results. We got a committee member, Nick Mace, to buy to Melges 24's for sail training our youth. These are the first of their kind and hopefully it'll provide young sailors with some fun and good skills. Yes, we have a long way to go and there are many people trying to help, but only now are we starting to promote International Classes.

We need money, role models and boats and the will to produce Olympians without worrying about race, sex or background. There are many people willing to help, but it takes time and we need to address why we are not seeing sailing growing.

We have talked about rerunning the Cape to Rio and inviting the Maxi's. The Volvo has helped, but too often there is little or no follow on. I am in contact with many of the movers and shakers, so would appreciate help. Right now, Shosholoza is on our TV in a 6 part series, but we desperately need to have sailing put on the sports programs and national news.

Any help would be appreciated for sure. I look at my own campaign the difficulty I've had in raising funds. You're right,Rugby and cricket get everything. We need to have sponsors that use sailing as a vehicle for their company.

* From Robert Wilkes: While I can only applaud Eero Lehtinen's call (Eurobutt 1139) for greater investment in junior sailing in Africa, it should not be a cause for concern that there was only one non-RSA sailor at the Optimist Worlds in far-off Uruguay.

It is Optimist Class policy to promote continental and regional events to develop the skills of the younger sailing nations rather than to expose them to world class competition before they can benefit from it. Eight African countries were represented at the IODA Africans in Egypt last July and we hope to see even more at the All African Games in Algeria next summer. Incidentally the silver medallist was from the "previously disadvantaged" community.

THE LAST WORD
The higher the buildings, the lower the morals. -- Noel Coward

OC Events, www.ocevents.org , organisers of two major IMOCA 60 oceanic events, the new double-handed Barcelona World Race 2007, and the original solo transocean race, The Transat 2008 (ex-OSTAR) plus the Extreme 40 Sailing Series for The iShares Cup.

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