Brought to you by YachtsandCruisers.com 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

SINGAPORE NAMED AS VOLVO OCEAN RACE STOPOVER
The island nation of Singapore was today confirmed as the Southeast Asian stopover for the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 with the signing of an agreement to bring the famous ocean marathon to the resort island of Sentosa.

The city state's selection as the stopover on the marathon ocean race's new route through the Middle East and Asia follows more than six months of negotiations and evaluation.

The fleet, which is scheduled to stop over in Singapore in late December 2008, will be based at the new, state-of-the-art One Degree 15 Marina Club, one of Asia's leading marinas.

This will be the first time in the race's 34-year history that the fleet will call in on Southeast Asia and follows the recent announcement of another first - the race finish in the historic Russian port of St. Petersburg.

Singapore will stage the second in-port race of the series (the first will be in Alicante, Spain, ahead of the leg one start) and it will provide a dramatic backdrop to the inshore racing.

The race route is nearing finalisation with the offshore start set for Alicante on 11 October, 2008, following an in-port race a week earlier. The race is currently scheduled to last nearly 10 months, covering more than 39,000 nautical miles and visiting up to 12 ports.

The fleet winds up its Asian section in Qingdao, China, home to next year's Olympic sailing regatta, before heading off to South America on its longest and toughest leg, covering more than 12,000 nautical miles. The fleet then heads up the U.S. east coast to Boston and then across the North Atlantic to Galway before visiting Sweden en route to St. Petersburg in late June 2009.

Six boats from the US, Russia, Spain and Sweden have now confirmed for the 2008-09 event which will be the 10th running of the Volvo Ocean Race. -- Lizzie (Green) Ward

volvooceanrace.org

THE IMOCA BATTLE HEATS UP
Back up into 2nd place since this morning, Safran is gradually reducing its deficit on the leader, Foncia (Desjoyeaux/Le Borgne), still 27 miles ahead. With 300 miles to the finish, there is still hope in the Transat Jacques Vabre

"Our goal is to extend our lead on the chasing pack, explained Charles Caudrelier at midday. We know the finish may be complicated and we're still going to be handicapped by the lack of a sail. You mustn't think that it's over as we may have a trick up our sleeve. We're having to extend further and further away, and if that takes us closer to Michel then so much the better"(Desjoyeaux on Foncia).

Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier have already got well away from Cheminees Poujoulat (Stamm/Cariou) and VM Materiaux (Le Cam/Morvan).

These two crews were still ahead of Safran on Sunday evening, but by 1600 hours this Monday, they were respectively 16 and 51 miles behind.

The SE'ly tradewinds are steadily shifting round to the East as the competitors drop down the Brazilian coast. These past 24 hours of racing won't be at all restful for the crews. Sail changes, shifting of moveable ballast, trimming and hours of helming will be on the menu all the way to the bay of Tous les Saints. Again the suspense will leave us with bated breath until Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening...

* From Nick Bubb and Tanguy de Lamotte in the Class 40 fleet:

The weekend has been filled with diesel fumes and sail repairs for Nick Bubb and Tanguy de Lamotte on board Novedia Group/S.E.T. Environnement. Nick and Tanguy are now in 5th place - they are officially listed as 4th, but as Italia Telecom currently is listed as "position unknown" we suspect that they still are up front.

Word from Tanguy Monday morning:

- A few lines to tell you that it look like we have solved the problem with the engine. We now have full charge and the engine ran "normally" last night.

- One thing Nick did not tell you in the last report were that we had to fix the tack of our big spi. The webbing were damaged so I decided to go out on the pole with my climbing harness to stitch some new webbing on, but as I was starting on the first one the remaining of the last webbing ripped and the kite flew backward behind the main and I was left alone at the end of the pole... we dropped it and put the medium spi up very quickly and I started the repair on deck: 3 new webbings on the sail tack! and 20 minutes later the big spi was up again. It has not come down since. -- www.nickbubb.com

www.jacques-vabre.com/en/s01_home/s01p01_home.php
Rankings: www.jacques-vabre.com/en/s10_classement/s10p01_class_general.php

THE LOWEST DRAG OF ALL SAILBOAT PROPELLERS
Gori propeller is the chosen brand of propeller for high performance multi hulls and grand prix yachts, including GROUPAMA III, which broke the record crossing the Atlantic in less than 4 days, with an average speed of 28.1 knots.

Gori propeller when folded does not auto rotate, and has the lowest drag of all sailboat propellers. Find out more at www.gori-propeller.com

A BIT QUIET TODAY IN VALENCIA...
There were no further developments overnight in the America's Cup, which is both good and bad.

On one front America's Cup management did not issue their statement postponing the event to 2011, as was widely believed would happen.

We have covered the situation in this edition, and the likely outcomes. Comments made by Alinghi spokesmen last week to Sail-World, and in a radio interview, on Sunday morning indicated that they would not Appeal the decision of Justice Herman Cahn, and would either get on with the event in July 2009 in Valencia as planned, or defend in a catamaran in July 2008 (and if they won would still be the Defender for a 34th Match in July 2009.)

The concerns lie with actions by BMW Oracle Racing, who have not ruled out the possibility of an Appeal on Justice Herman Cahn's decision. If that action was taken then, yes, the Cup would have to be postponed. -- Richard Gladwell, www.sail-world.com

* This morning in Valencia the high-commands of ACM and Alinghi held crisis strategy talks to try and avert the tidal-wave of negative publicity that their actions have caused. Alinghi's leaking ship internally (see the internal memo below, when have we ever seen one of these before?) is sign that the sailors and staff are ready to walk away from the team whilst Ernesto's beligerance has didvided his employees across the board with many looking for an escape route before their reputations get tarnished beyond repair.

The upshot of the meeting was that Bertarelli has been out-voted and Oracle have been allowed to stay in their base with ACM having no stomach for the nightmare situation and PR campaign that would have been launched had they followed through their plan to kick the team out today. Oracle are sitting pretty and just waiting for the postponement announcement that may not now come today - what are you waiting for guys?

Now Alinghi are going to tough it out and wait for Justice Cahn's ruling in the Supreme Court before Thanksgiving leaving the challengers and their sponsors swinging in the wind. Team New Zealand will certainly fold with the postponement. Shosholoza is looking shaky. Team Origin will run out of cash. The sponsors will walk away from the Germans and the Spanish will be playing politics desperate to keep the Cup in Valencia. In the wings, Dubai is busy tabling a bid for a multihull event next year and other venues are circling like a hungry pack over the carcass of Valencia whose politicians are getting increasingly concerned about having this mess on their plate. -- Magnus Wheatley, rule69blog.com

CORK WEEK ONLINE ENTRY
Drawing on years of experience, both as a competitor at and organiser of events, Dave Meagher, Chairman of the Cork Week Race Committee, has designed an on-line entry system for next year's event, which takes place from July 12th to 18th 2008. "Effectively, all you need is your Sail Number and a credit card and you're on your way to competing at the world's friendliest Regatta," says Meagher. The on-line system automatically picks up boat details from the IRC Database.

For those entering before February 1st 2008 , the Organising Committee have decided to maintain the 2006 Entry Fee. "Many of our competitors have been coming to Cork Week for many years and we see this as a way of recognising their loyalty to the event," Dave continued, "as a Committee, we are always looking for ways to facilitate our visitors and as an added bonus this year, we have decided to offer FREE entry to the 100th on-line entrant. "

Check out www.corkweek.ie for on-line entry and we also invite you to register to the Cork Week 2008 Newsletter in order to receive future updates.

SHORT TACKS
* The first Vintage Yachting Games are being staged in the Netherlands in September 2008 with the aim of bringing together competitors from past Olympic Classes to celebrate their glory days.

A joint venture of the International Europe, O-Jolle, Flying Dutchman, Soling and Dragon classes, the regatta is scheduled to take place in Medemblik from 20-27 September.

In the Europe class there will be both a female and male fleet.

Entries are through the National Class Associations only. -- RYA, www.rya.org.uk/NewsAndEvents/newsroom/news/vintageyachting2008.htm

The event site www.vintageyachtinggames.org has the Pre-Notice of Race and VYG Rules now available for PDF download.

* Following the call for tender about the organization of the 2009 and 2011 editions of the Mini Transat, the board of the Classe Mini, at the end of the meeting on November 18th 2007, decided to institute an annual trans-Atlantic race from 2009 and once a year for four years (contrary to every 2 years until now).

The organizing groups selected are :

- For 2009 And 2011 Editions : Grand Pavois Organisation with a course La Rochelle - Madere - Salvador De Bahia (Brazil).

- For 2010 And 2012 Editions : Winches Club with a course Douarnenez - Madere - Kourou (Guyane). -- Classe Mini Secretary, www.classemini.com

* Organisers of the Whyte & Mackay Earls Court Boat Show have announced today that the auction of Michael Perham's record breaking Cheeky Monkey will take place at 1700hrs on Thursday 6th December. World renowned yachting journalist Bob Fisher is to assume the role of 'auctioneer' at the event being held on the central stage of the show. Being the latest night of the week long show, they are aiming to attract a bumper crowd to bid on this fantastic boat.

On Wednesday 3rd January 2007 Michael Perham, who was just 14 years old at the time, sailed into the record books having sailed single handed across the Atlantic Ocean in his beloved Tide 28 yacht. Michael now has his sights set firmly on the future and needs to sell Cheeky Monkey in order to raise funds to become the youngest person to sail around the world.

* RYA TV - an exciting new free to view online video channel will be going live with its first show on Monday 19 November. The service gets underway with Dame Ellen MacArthur DBE talking about the RYAs brand new, two-day 'Basic Navigation and Safety' course.

With a new 6 to 10 minute programme scheduled every six week, RYA TV aims to bring members and website visitor's news, comment, views and issues on the work of the RYA, directly from the people who are doing it. Produced in partnership with online TV channel Yachting TV, RYA TV will be available to view through www.rya.org.uk

* The International Optimist Dinghy Association has announced the two latest recipients of development grants.

Mauritius: The beautiful Indian Ocean island has placed an order for 48 Optimists to add to the 12 already bought this year. These will be used initially for the IODA African Championship in August and then by the Mauritius Y.A. to expand its bases around the island. This is a major step forward for a country with little tradition of dinghy sailing but an active fleet of traditional pirogues. The main sponsor is Investec Bank (Mauritius) Limited.

Guatemala: To promote sailing in Central America ASOVELA is buying 18 new Optimists. President Juan E. Maegli writes: "You might be interested to know that 60% of our Opti sailors now come from very low income families from a local village at our lake. With the increased fleet (we will have around 40) we are going to be able to host the sailors from Salvador and Nicaragua (as well as the Mexicans) for regional regattas."

Earlier in the year IODA sponsored additions to the Optimist fleets of Serbia and Macedonia. Applications for 2008 grants are now being accepted. -- Robert Wilkes

Details at www.optiworld.org/ioda-develop.html

OCEAN SAFETY AWARDED SERVICING CONTRACT BY THE RNLI
Ocean Safety has won the servicing contract for all Jason's Cradle marine retrieval systems currently in use by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) across the United Kingdom. More than 80 lifeboats carry this type of retrieval system and the servicing work will be carried out through all 3 branches, Southampton, Plymouth and Glasgow.

Dave Evans, at Ocean Safety, said, "Our recent appointment by Land and Marine Products as their authorised service dealer, and this 3 year servicing contract shows our ability to respond effectively and we are really pleased to be able to directly support the RNLI lifeboats and their volunteer crews."

Further information from Ocean Safety at www.oceansafety.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 (waived for Laura Baldwin below...). No personal attacks are permitted. We do require your name but your email address will not be published without your permission.

* From Jack Dinelli: Unitil today when former ISAF president Paul Handerson wrote a 100% correct post, everyone was blaming and accusing the ISAF. Has anyone considered that those who seats in the ISAF Council are those who run the sport of sailing in their countries/areas ? and that they are aware of what the sport of sailing is in their countries/areas, which strenghts and which weakness it has ? does anyone really think that the "gurus", journalists, bloggers and experts know better then everyone the sport of sailing ? It seems to me that one thing is talking about where the sport of sailing should go or would be nice to go, another thing is where the sport of sailing can really go.

All those who are speaking, for instance, in favour of the skiff for women, have ever paid attention to the speeches of the delegates in the various ISAF committees and of the ISAF Council members coming not from USA, GBR or countries where sail is well established ? Well, you would have heard another story about the desire of the women to jump on skiff !

Here's Paul's letter to the original Scuttlebutt last night:

* From Paul Henderson, ISAF President 1994-2004: I was in the hot seat for a decade defending the selection of Olympic Classes. As President, I had to support the majority position, as Goran Petersson must do now. Every time the decision was made, all hell broke loose with all the arguments of why one piece of fiberglass and Dacron was better than the other. Looking at the sailors who sailed them, I always thought more important. It is harder to build a class structure than design a new boat.

This year is no exception except that the process is now open and how each delegate voted is public. It is ridiculous to blame ISAF, which is only the structure wherein the votes are cast. ISAF is only as good as the delegates nominated by their respective National Authorities. The final vote is next year in November and done by 39 Council Members. Council is the only committee of ISAF where alternates are allowed. Ask your National delegates why they voted the way they did and make them accountable for their actions. The ISAF process is open and transparent and allows a reassessment of the selections to be finalized next year when the classes will be set in concrete.

* From Laura Baldwin - I represented the ISAF Athletes Commission (AC) at the recent ISAF Annual Meeting. The AC comprises of a representative from each of the eleven current Olympic Classes. The role of the AC is to bridge communications between the sailors, the Class Associations and ISAF. We bring a broad range of perspectives around the table as we come from ten different Countries spread over four continents with four female and seven male opinions, we all have extensive campaigning history and everyone is super enthusiastic towards the cause. The reps were nominated by the sailors in each fleet at the 2007 ISAF World Sailing Championships and will serve on the Commission until the re-election in 2009. Our Chairperson is three times 470 World Champion, Marcelien de Koning from the Netherlands who is a great team leader.

We had our first meeting at the ISAF Secretariat in Southampton two weeks before the ISAF AGM so we didn't have all that much time to prepare. With only a half hour time slot to present our proposals to the ISAF Executive Board (EB) we chose to focus on a few of the many issues we raised at our meeting so we didn't fully address the issue of Olympic Class Selection although we did point out how important we feel it is that the sailors be involved in the selection process.

Changing an Olympic Class is traumatic for all involved; the sailors, coaches & federations after having invested extensive time, effort & resources into the sailors skills and the equipment. When the Europe was replaced by the Laser Radial in November 2004 every Europe sailor I spoke to was devastated. Over night our equipment became worthless and many didn't make the move into the Radial due to the competitive weight range being so high. The Radial has however proved to be a good move for getting more counties involved in the sport with the ease of availability of equipment and the one-design element. I feel there should be more long term commitment given to select classes to make it a safer investment for National Authorities, Clubs and the sailors themselves. Plus, any new class should be guaranteed for at least two Campaign Cycles.

My opinion of ISAF actually improved massively as a result of attending the AGM. I didn't fully understand what ISAF was or just how many people where involved in it. Everyone I spoke to was passionate about sailing and genuinely wants to do their bit for the good of the sport. There is an extensive wealth of knowledge which, with an injection of fresh ideas from the current sailors can be an awesome governing force and move forward so impressively that the IOC learns to love us as much as we love our sport. A lot of what I heard in the meetings was very positive and when it wasn't, I spoke out and was openly received. The Committee members act with good intent but are not always in touch with the current issues arising out on the waters. They where all keen to hear from the sailors and I truly believe that the organization will benefit greatly from a combination of the experienced committee members and the active races of today.

Olympic Campaigners these days commit their whole lives to the sport and make huge sacrifices to pursue the dream it's no longer something you do alongside regular working life. I therefore feel that the sailors should have more of a voice within ISAF. The aspiration of the AC is to get a seat on each of the relative ISAF Committees and to have a seat on the Council so that we may speak out and be heard directly.

Direct channels of communication are now open between members of the AC and the Chairman of each of the relative Committees plus the AC will be reporting quarterly to ISAF's Executive Board so please do get in touch with any proposals that you feel we should be addressing. A forum will soon be launched on the ISAF website where the work we do will be posted and where all may have their say. We are also here to listen to those sailors from the non-Olympic Classes.

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THE LAST WORD
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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 Artemis Transat 2008 (ex-OSTAR) plus the Extreme 40 Sailing Series for The iShares Cup.

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