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Brought to you by Yachtworld.com Europe and Boats.com Europe, 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
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Stealth Play In Final Stages Of Volvo Ocean Race Leg Two
As Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) and Telefonica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED), the first two boats to commence their approach to the finish of leg two of the Volvo Ocean Race in Cochin, have dusted off their stealth cards and, for the first time on this leg, the race is in StealthPlay.
Ericsson 4 went into StealthPlay following the 1000 GMT position report this morning, so there is no data for her. Telefonica Blue activated her stealth card immediately after the 1300 GMT report today and had 125 nm to run to the finish at 1300 GMT.
Conditions overnight have continued to test the crews with no wind at times, followed quickly by gusts of over 25 knots. Prior to going into stealth mode, Ericsson 4 had had seen the first effects of the looming light, variable winds off the coast of India and was beginning to lose miles to the rest of the fleet. However, their large cushion of 77 miles (as at 1000 GMT) should be of some comfort. In the variable winds, their estimated time of arrival could slip back late into the night.
Telefonica Blue was becalmed in big seas for nearly two hours this morning - just the sort of conditions where damage is easily done. However, suddenly the breeze picked up and the boat took off in 25 knots. "I might be soaked to the skin from the rain and seaspray, but I don't mind at all - the sea temperature is pushing 30 degrees and the prospect of a good curry and a cobra beer is only 24-hours away," wrote navigator Simon Fisher.
The Telefonica Blue team is threatening to make the final hours interesting by making a late charge at Ericsson 4. But, they're coming from a long way back, and rapidly running out of runway to make the pass.
At 1300 GMT today, PUMA was running smoothly, had overtaken Delta Lloyd (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) and was only three miles behind Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR). Ericsson 3 (Anders Lewander/SWE) was approximately 40 miles ahead. Languishing at the back of the fleet was Telefonica Black (Fernando Echavarri/ESP) with 369 miles to run and the Russians sailing Kosatka, who were adrift by more than 625 nautical miles.
* With the Volvo Ocean Race fleet poised to descend on the stopover port of Cochin, India this weekend, the race village is taking shape as the finishing touches are applied. This marks the first time in the history of the Volvo Ocean Race / Whitbread Round the World Race that an Asian stopover has featured on the itinerary.
The stopover facilities are stretched across two acres on Willingdon Island, just off Cochin proper. Infrastructure in the area has been given a serious upgrade under the watchful eye of the Cochin Port Trust's chairman, N Ramachandran.
Although India has been shaken by a terrible terrorist attack 1,000 kilometres to the north, in Mumbai, stopover officials here are determined that nothing detracts from the events scheduled over the next two weeks. Security has been stepped up but Ramachandran is expecting healthy visitor numbers through the village.
The majority of the expected 50,000 to 100,000 visitors are expected to be locals and domestic tourists from elsewhere in India, but the local organisers hope that foreigners and teams will discover what Kerala is all about. To underline their point, National Geographic Traveller magazine described the region as one of the "10 paradises of the world".
www.volvooceanrace.org
The Helly Hansen Commitment
We have taken part in almost every single round-the-world race in history. Life on the open ocean has been in our nature and founded in our heritage since 1877. We do it because we are passionate about all kinds of sailing from dinghies to yachts. Competing in offshore racing - getting feedback from the world's best sailors - not only evolves our Ocean Racing Gear, but helps us improve all our sailing gear.
Our offshore racing history started 30 years ago when we made sure the guys onboard the Berge Viking remained dry and warm in 1979. Since then, a whole bunch of heroic and adept offshore teams has worn our gear, and helped us to evolve and push the envelope in an invaluable way. Over the years we've collaborated with adept teams like Equity & Law, Phillips Innovator, The Card, Winston, Tokio, Kvaerner Innovation, D-Juice and now, in this year's Volvo Ocean Race, the two Ericsson Racing Team boats.
www.hellyhansen.com
Seahorse Sailor Of The Month
Last month's winner:
Lars Grael (BRA)
Thank you Brazil! The response to Lars' nomination was genuinely overwhelming. 'Judd is an awesome sailor and friend but Lars is too... and he's my brother in law!' - Ross Macdonald; 'Lars is our sailing hero!' - Lu Regina Kunze; 'Lars was born with salt water in the veins and a seahorse in his soul...' - Eduardo Mafra; 'Lars offers a lesson in life that all Brazil can be proud of' - Paulo Cyrillo.
This month's nominees:
Bruno Trouble (FRA)
He was not that keen at first, but when it became clear that the idea of a regatta for potential America's Cup teams in Auckland could have real appeal to both the currently directionless Cup family and also, more importantly, to Troublé's colleagues at Louis Vuitton, then the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series started to take shape. And with that confirmation has come a potential breakthrough in the Cup stalemate...
Steve White (GBR)
For several of those taking part, the biggest victory is already in the bag, just getting to the start line of the Vendee Globe. One such is Steve White, skipper of Josh Hall's ageing Imoca 60 Gartmore, now renamed Toe in the Water. When he got to Les Sables before the race start, White asked his shore crew to leave him to bring his boat into the harbour alone... and promptly by all accounts then cried his eyes out in relief at having made it.
Seahorse Sailor of the Month is sponsored by Harken McLube, Dubarry & Henri Lloyd.
Cast your vote, submit comments, even suggest a candidate for next month at
sailor.seahorsemagazine.com/seahorse-sailor-of-the-month.html
* Seahorse has a special six issue subscription offer for those who vote and/or comment on the Sailor of the Month... vote and see!
Eco‐Design: The Future Of Marine Construction?
French marine construction is a strategic sector which owes its success to the development of advanced technologies and its capacity for innovation. Today the environment is at the heart of concerns related to this industrial sector. In the Pays de la Loire Region, a specific programme has been developed by NEOPOLIA and a consortium of businesses within the domain of marine eco‐ design or 'sustainable' marine design. Its objective: to find global and optimal solutions for the protection of the environment.
A unique tooling christened Project SSD (Sustainable Ship Design) now enables a vessel's environmental profile to be determined. SSD evaluates its impact on the environment during its entire lifecycle, from the materials chosen for its construction and its assembly at the yard, to its use, its maintenance and its dismantling.
An assessment of the impact on the environment is carried out over the various stages of its life according to specific criteria: ecotoxicity of the environment, eutrophication (proliferation of algae and destruction of the flora and fauna), global warming, atmospheric acidification, ozone layer depletion, human toxicity, fine particle emissions, abiotic depletion, flow indicators (water and energy consumption, waste production). As such, the environmental profile of a military frigate, passenger ship, cargo vessel, yacht or cruiseliner can be analysed throughout their entire respective lifecycles.
A common platform has been put in place enabling all the protagonists involved in marine construction and repair to discover precisely what the impact of their production is on the environment and give them an undeniable competitive edge in the long term. The SSD project has a strategic appeal as it enables the sharing of data between companies in the same industry. It comprises one of the first global approaches to evaluating and reducing the environmental impact of a vessel.
With a budget of 300,000 Euros, half of it is financed by the DRIRE (a French regional organisation concerned with industry, research and the environment), the Pays de la Loire Region and the ADEME (an environmental agency dealing with the control of energy output) and the other half is funded by businesses within the consortium (STX France Cruise SA, STX France Solutions, Auxitec Ingenierie, Bureau Veritas, Chantiers Baudet, DCNS, MYG Decking, Protecflam, Saint‐Nazaire Marine, Shipstudio, Soreel ).
NEOPOLIA, a network of 90 industrial businesses, is the project's founder. The scheme is piloted by the SDI firm (Stirling Design International) and the company EVEA, a specialist in the environmental assessment of eco‐design approaches, ensuring the development of tooling. -- translated by Kate Jennings
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BMW Oracle Racing's Trimaran Completes Phase I Of Sea Trials
Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget, BMW Oracle Racing. Click on image for photo gallery.
San Diego, California, USA: Russell Coutts, CEO and Skipper of BMW ORACLE Racing, today announced that BOR 90, the syndicate's state-of-the-art trimaran, has successfully completed Phase I of its sea trials in San Diego.
The 90 foot high-tech trimaran now will undergo further modifications to improve performance based on the team's experiences with the trimaran on the Pacific Ocean off California since October. Over the next few months, a number of design changes will be implemented in order to make the trimaran an even faster, more responsive boat. In addition, decisions will be made about the optimum crew size and placement.
The boat will return to the water in late January for several additional months of testing in San Diego.
Coutts also announced that BMW ORACLE had begun to explore opportunities to race the trimaran. "Our racing options for sailing a multihull are not limited to the America's Cup. Indeed, a Deed of Gift race is only a default option forced on us if Alinghi declines to agree to a multi-challenger event after we win the appeal. It remains our hope that we will reach an agreement with the America's Cup Defender that will enable a traditional, multi-challenger America's Cup in monohulls.
"With that in mind, we are exploring a number of other ways to sail the boat, including match races, regattas or even an attempt at one of the sailing speed records," he said.
The Phase I sea trials followed several weeks of "shake-down" testing in Puget Sound off Anacortes, WA earlier in September.
www.bmworacleracing.com
iShares Cup Teams Take On The Arabian Extreme 40 Challenge
Four Extreme 40s, including 2008 iShares Cup entries iShares and Oman Sail, will be taking part in the inaugural Arabian Extreme 40 Challenge. The two-event series kicks off with racing in Dubai from 27-29 November, then moves to Muscat, Oman, from 2-4 December.
The Arabian Extreme 40 Challenge will be run by OC Events, and supported by Oman Sail, as an exhibition event designed to demonstrate the amazing catamarans racing in the Arabian Gulf for the first time, with a view to possibly creating a professional Arabian Series in future.
Following the same short, sharp format as the hugely successful iShares Cup European Series, racing will take place in Dubai from the Mina Seyahi, before heading to Muscat for the second event (2-4 December) for the Oman Air trophy, in conjunction with the official launch of the Oman Sail project on 2 December.
Some of the world's best yachtsmen and women will be taking part, including a host of seasoned Extreme 40 competitors from the iShares Cup. British double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson - and winner of the first 2008 iShares Cup event in Lugano, Switzerland - takes the helm of Oman Air, while top French multihull sailor Karine Fauconnier will be onboard Team Aqua, owned by Dubai-based businessman Chris Bake. Olympic Bronze medallist Chris Draper will skipper Oman Sail - who this season finished fourth in the iShares Cup, in their first year of competing - and British Olympian Hugh Styles will be helming iShares.
The international crews will include Omani sailors on every boat, as well as a lucky 'sixth man' - a unique opportunity for a VIP or journalist to get onboard the Extreme 40s during racing and be part of the action.
The final decisions on the 2009 venues will be made by the end of the year.
www.isharescup.com
Mariquita 1911
"Mariquita 1911" by Yachting Heritage presents the architects, the builders, the owners, the skippers and the crews of the incredible 19 metre class.
The book is illustrated with unpublished photographs as well as works by some of the greatest maritime painters (Martin Mackrill, Guy l'Hostie, Brian J Jones, Louis Paul, Montaigue Dawson, Jamie Medlin). For the very first time the calculation book and plans by William Fife III, Alfred Mylne, Charles Nicholson, Max Oertz complete the technical descriptions. Only 400 copies have been published for this reserved, limited and numbered edition.
A superb gift for the discerning sailor.
www.yachtingheritage.com/mariquita-email/mariquita-english.htm
* Editor: Read our review
Pushing The Boats Out At Earls Court
BBC TV London News filmed for ten minutes of live transmission this evening and were able to report an exclusive story with the news of the most expensive yacht at the Sail, Power & Watersports Show at Earls Court. A Bavaria 47 from Clipper Marine has just been sold at 177,000 GBP, following on from the earlier sale of a Bavaria 38, also on the Pool.
Paul Heys of Key Yachting has confirmed the opinions of many of the exhibitors at Earls Court. "This show provides a fantastic showcase. In my opinion, it's the best exhibition in Europe for a yacht display. We've got the pool, we've got full height masts, it's a lovely venue and it's in the right part of London."
At the other end of the boating scale, Ivan Coryn who masterminded the show's Dinghy Zone, has been enthusing about the amount of interest in the smaller boats being exhibited. These include Ian Pinnell's world championship winning 505 and Rodney Pattison's historic Olympic trial boat, the Flying Dutchman "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".
The other attraction in this Zone is the Bethwaite simulator, with the Bethwaite Tasar dinghy. Interested punters should come and have a go, sail round the course and you can race each other round the course, and even race Ian Pinnell!
The World's Biggest Boat Auction on boatbid.com has been extremely popular with 200 boats up for auction throughout the show. Daily registering and bidding on the boatbid.com auction pod at Stand H90 starts every day at 1000 and closes at 1700. Each day there are 20 boats up for auction, ranging from small family cruisers to a mock Spanish galleon. There's even a British America's Cup (GBR70), which raced in New Zealand in 2002, up for grabs.
The final day is tomorrow, Sunday 30 November, with doors open from 10:00 - 18:00 hours
www.earlscourt2008.com
* Yes, the Earls Court Boat Show is back, just - with a strange and unmemorable name and a noticeable lack of whisky sponsorship. It looks more thrown-together than last year's show, with 'stands' often consisting of boats just left on their trailers, with perhaps a folding chair alongside. And as a reminder of the hostile economic climate, there's a big gap in the pool where Select Yachts was meant to be.
But despite all that, there are some gems. The Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association has brought along a selection, including Swallow Boats' Bay Raider, the North Quay 19 and the Deben Lugger (not actually wood, but the right sort of shape).
On the pool are a couple of nice craft from Character Boats, along with Peter Graham's exquisitely extreme plank-on-edge Molly. Nordic Folkboats has come over from Denmark with a nice GRP version of the perennial favourite, alongside a swish open launch called the Nordic Cruiser.
Hidden away towards the back, we found a replica of Shackleton's James Caird being built by students from the International Boatbuilding Training College. There's also some nice marine art, and a scale model of the Beagle.
Exhibitors have the time to chat. One, while conceding the lack of visitors, added, "but those that have come have been good quality." -- Classic Boat, classicboat.co.uk
A Shosholoza Gondolier In Venice!
Click on image for photo gallery.
A most unexpected thing happened in Venice recently. A couple of Shosholoza team members were jostling among the tourists while passing a gondola station near St Marks square on a chilly grey morning when right in front of them was the all too familiar brightly coloured "Shosholoza" lettering branded across the back of a black jacket.
The wearer was big and broad shouldered but it was impossible to resist tapping him on the shoulder and introducing themselves.
They needn't have been concerned. The response couldn't have been friendlier. The wearer of the Shosholoza jacket was a gondolier, Franco Busetto, a great fan of the America's Cup and especially Shosholoza which he regarded as "his team".
"When I asked him where he'd got the jacket he said he specially went to Valencia last year to watch the racing and bought the jacket at the Shosholoza shop!" said Shosholoza Team secretary Shirley Mullins who grew up in Cape Town but has been based in Valencia, Spain, since 2005.
"He said he had seen Shosholoza on TV many times and he 'salutes' them. He liked the "beautiful boat, the bright colours and African designs." He said "it was a very unique and fantastic" team and he liked it because it was "young and strong".
"When I told him I worked for Shosholoza, he said: "Oh - you work for Captain Sarno?...you work for MSC?" And he started telling me about some of the sailors he admired, other people involved and little things about the campaign in general that he had read about or seen on TV.
"He said it made him want to come to South Africa to watch the Soccer World Cup in 2010 and see more of South Africa, - the home of Shosholoza.
"Actually I think he would be great as a grinder. Imagine having a Venetian gondolier as part of Shosholoza's grinding team!" said Shirley. -- Di Meek
www.teamshosholoza.com
On The Coffee Table This Weekend...
"J Class", written and edited Francois Chevalier and Jaccques Taglang, 450 pages, published by Yachting Heritage. Contributors include Olin Stephens, Elizabeth Meyer, Colin Baxter, Martin Black, Volker Christmann, Dominque Gabirault, Llewellyn Howland III, John Lammerts van Bueren, Guy-Roland Perrin, Theo Rye and Philippe Valetoux.
By far the heaviest book in my library, this is not a book to curl up in a chair with, you will need a bookstand to properly appreciate it.
This is one of the finest coffee table books on sailing ever published. Slipcover, silk page marker, superb paper and binding, thousands of prints and line drawings of every JBoat built and conceived. It's in English and French, with side by side text; this would be a far more interesting way to learn to read French than any other!
The print collection that accompanies the 'standard' edition is now framed on my office walls, which saved my copy from the ignomy of having a number of its pages cut out and framed.
This is a definitive work... the annexes alone include Herreshoff's Rules, the Universal Rule, Technical Data, the Class Constitution and Rules and an extensive index.
'J Class' The Book is 350 GBP
including Slip Case & Part Print Collection
yachtingheritage.com/english/products/
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The Last Word
We campaign in poetry, but when we're elected, we're forced to govern in prose. -- Mario Cuomo
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