In This Issue
• Hempel World Cup Series Miami
• 18ft Skiffs Australian Championship, Races 3 and 4
• Everyone’s (hard) at it - North Sails
• World Sailing Show
• Dutch Challenge Celebrates Base Opening
• Pineapple Cup PHRF Fleet Start
• 2019 WASZP Games
• N2E 2019 - Better Racing with ULBD Classes
• Featured Brokerage
• The Last Word: Hyman G. Rickover
Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News (formerly 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 editor [AT] eurosailnews [DOT] com
Hempel World Cup Series Miami
The 2019 World Cup Series Miami, held out of Coconut Grove from 29 to 3 February, will see nine defending champions return to Biscayne Bay determined to defend their titles.
2019 marks the 30th edition of an Olympic sailing regatta in Miami and, with 650 sailors from 60 nations registered to race across ten events, it’s expected to be another strong year of competition.
Of the 2018 Miami gold medallists, Giles Scott (GBR) is the only athlete not competing this year. Across the ten events, there are 34 Olympic medallists racing alongside numerous World and World Cup podium finishers, and the best sailors will be vying for a World Cup medal as the race to Tokyo 2020 continues.
Australia’s Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin will come into Miami as favourites in the Nacra 17 after securing gold at the first round of the Hempel World Cup Series in Enoshima, Japan last September.
Waterhouse and Darmanin overthrew Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti (ITA) in the Medal Race to claim a hard-earned title - but exactly one year ago, the competition was slightly less stressful for the Aussies. Racing on the Biscayne Bay waters in 2018, Waterhouse and Darmanin controlled the fleet all week long and simply needed to finish the Medal Race to secure gold. They did that with ease and are back to defend their title.
Santiago Lange and Cecilia Carranza Saroli (ARG) and Thomas Zajac and Barbara Matz (AUT) joined them on the podium in 2018 and also return this year.
Further contenders in the 31-boat Nacra 17 fleet include Samuel Albrecht and Gabriela Nicolino de Sá (BRA), Iker Martinez and Olga Maslivets (ESP), John Gimson and Anna Burnet (GBR) and Bora Gulari and Louisa Chafee (USA).
Racing is scheduled to commence on Tuesday 29 January and run through to Sunday 3 February.
Results page: sailing.org/worldcup/results/index.php
18ft Skiffs Australian Championship, Races 3 and 4
Click on image for photo gallery.
Sydney Harbour: In contrast to the almost non-existant wind which ruined the first day's racing in the Australian 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour last Sunday, a southerly wind of more than 25-knots today provided excellent conditions for some fast, action-packed racing on Day 2.
Winds were so strong that every team had problems during the two windward-return races staged in Rose Bay.
The strong Smeg team of Michael Coxon, Ricky Bridge and Mike McKensey handled the conditions brilliantly while many others around them floundered or capsized.
After trailing Bing Lee (Micah Lane) at the windward mark early in the race, Smeg's downwind speed enabled her to grab the lead and the skiff was not headed over the rest of the course.
At the end of the three laps, Smeg crossed the finish line 1m58s ahead of second placed The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines (Aron Everett, Tom Clout, Reece Goldsmith), with Appliancesonline.com.au (Brett Van Munster, Phil Marshall, Kurt Fatouris0 another 35s back in third place.
As the battered fleet regrouped for the second race of the day, four of the original 18 starters were missing.
Once again, Bing Lee and Smeg led the fleet to the first windward mark but an unexpected capsize by the Smeg crew left Bing Lee to try and fend off the challenge by the Winning Group skiff.
The experience of John Winning Jr., Sam Newton and Seve Jarvin was clearly on display and the Winning Group was soon in front, then led the fleet over the next two laps of the course.
With victory in sight the Winning Group's crew prepared for the final gybe only to capsize and leave Micah Lane, Peter Harris and Scott Babbage to take the honours in Bing Lee.
Despite the mishap in Race 4, Winning Group leads the points on 8, followed by Bing Lee on 11, The Kitchen Maker-Caesarstone on 12 Smeg 13, The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines 18 and Appliancesonline.com.au on 21.
Race 5 of the championship will be sailed next Sunday. -- Frank Quealey
Live streaming is available on 18FootersTV
The JJ Giltinan Championship will be sailed on Sydney Harbour from March 2-10.
Everyone’s (hard) at it - North Sails
There are few areas of raceboat technology harder to keep secret than the latest sail designs and engineering solutions. One of the hottest - and most publicly visible - areas of development right now is perfecting a cable-free headsail that not only goes fast… but that also lasts
There has been a significant amount of hype and hyperbole about the development of headsails without furling torque-cables, and, like most good ideas, this concept has been around for a while. At North Sails their designers began working on this concept with Oracle Team USA and Emirates Team New Zealand during the 34th America’s Cup, when radical boat designs placed extreme loads on the 3Di headsails. The design and engineering challenge was to deliver a solution where headsail loads were redistributed from the torque cable/headstay and shared with the sail. Known within the North offices as Load Sharing Technology this feature, when paired with a 3Di Helix Luff, is North Sails’ answer to what others may call the cable-less headsail concept.
North’s head of engineering and design JB Braun explains, ‘trying to reduce loads on boats and rigs while maintaining headstay tension has begun a trend and has opened up design ideas to rethinking the significance of luff cables, and in the case of Helix sails, to transition load out of a traditional anti-torsion cable and redistribute it into the sail. 3Di technology is better suited to the sharing application because all 3Di sails are engineered with tapes laid in varying orientation and depth to optimise load distribution throughout the sail. 3Di’s intrinsic load sharing properties, coupled with a Helix Luff effectively move load reliance away from a cable/headstay and into the sail structure thus potentially reducing the overall loading.
Full article in the February issue of Seahorse
World Sailing Show
In 1968, one race changed the world as nine skippers headed off into the unknown in their bids to be the first and the fastest solo sailors to complete an unaided lap of the planet under sail.
Fifty years later, a re-run of the Sunday Times Golden Globe looks set to make headlines once again as the first two skippers head towards the finish after 29,000 miles and over 200 days alone. We look back at this extraordinary event, as well as the race that started it all.
We also find out what the next fully crewed race around the world will look like as race formerly known as the Volvo Ocean Race announces big changes ahead.
Plus, the fastest cats in sailing get released into the wild as SailGP prepares for its inaugural event in Sydney. Staying in Australia we look back at the battle of the big guns in this year’s Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race.
This issue:
The Golden Globe - The race that changed the world
IMOCA & the new Ocean Race goes public
SailGP - The fastest cats into the wild
Battle of the big guns - The Rolex Sydney Hobart Race
Dutch Challenge Celebrates Base Opening
Team The Netherlands celebrated the opening of their base in Scheveningen / The Hague on 23 January. Skipper Simeon Tienpont announced that Carolijn Brouwer will helm. Brouwer and Marie Riou became the first women to win the Volvo Ocean Race, on board Dong Feng for the 2017-18 edition.
The team hopes to sign America's Cup veteran Dirk Kramer, yacht designer and structural engineer, to head up the design team. The Dutch challenge has strong support from several research organizations in The Netherlands, which will reduce their cash needs. The team will be in a race against time to have an AC75 ready for the first AC World Series regatta, announced for October 2019 at Luna Rossa's home port of Cagliari, Sardinia.
There has been no confirmation of whether the team's challenge is contingent upon an America's Cup World Series being awarded to The Hague.
Since last week, the America's Cup website added a link for the team, pointing to the website of the Royal Maas Sailing and Rowing Association. -- Jack Griffin
Pineapple Cup PHRF Fleet Start
6 teams started the 2019 Pineapple Cup - Montego Bay Race at 11:05 ET today under cloudy skies in 20 knot southerly with 5-7 foot swells. The Class40 Dragon was first across followed closely by Senara and Sin Duda! Over 120 sailors from 13 countries including Volvo Ocean Race and America's Cup champions are taking part in this 34th edition of the 811-nautical mile race. Tracking will update every 30 minutes at: http://pineapplecup.com. The IRC and Multihull fleets start tomorrow at 2pm ET.
Nigel Knowles, Commodore of the Montego Bay Yacht Club “Because we have a two start race, I'm thrilled to be able to see the first start and then be a participant in the second start tomorrow. To have 13 countries competing alongside the number of Jamaicans including the team [Conviction] from Royal Jamaica Yacht Club and my yacht club is fantastic. I am very much looking forward to seeing all the teams in Jamaica as we give them our world famous Montego Bay Yacht Club welcome.”
Hugh Piggin, Race Director, “The teams are off on a screaming reach through the Gulf Stream for the next six hours...it's going to be fast and wet. The big question mark is the passage of the front sitting just off the Florida coast and when it will overtake the fleet. Once the front passes, there will be a transition period to westerly winds the teams will have to deal with."
One of the oldest offshore races on the calendar, The Pineapple Cup - Montego Bay Race started in 1961, making 2019 the 34th edition of the venerable 811 nautical mile race.
Immediately after the start, racers cross the Gulf Stream for the Northwest Providence Channel. The middle of the race offers a fetch down the eastern side of the Bahamas Island Chain toward the tip of Cuba. The final stretch is typically a sailor’s dream: a 240-mile downwind sleigh ride from Cuba’s eastern tip, known as the Windward Passage, to the finish at Montego Bay.
2019 WASZP Games
After celebrating Australia Day in Perth the only way the WASZP fleet knows how, we launched back into racing today. Australia Day was a real treat, with Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club providing a party yacht for the WASZP fleet to enjoy a raft up in Rocky Bay, a Perth tradition. The culture in this fleet is amazing and the tight knit community is one that is quite unbelievable given the fleet is only 2 years old!
With a beautiful seabreeze coming in again (it does this every day), the race officer Geoff Brown made the wise decision to complete 3 races, leaving only 1 to sail tomorrow and it is all to play for. The standard has lifted incredibly over the past 8 days since the beginning of the Australian Nationals, with today providing 3 separate heat winners and leaders Rory Hunter and Tom Trotman not having a race win.
In the first race of the day Hunter sailed conservatively and kept a loose cover on Trotman around the course resulting in a 7th and 9th for the pair. However this manoeuvre nearly backfired with Alexander Hogheim from Norway moving into contention. This suddnely meant Hunter had to sail aggressively again and with Trotman finishing 2nd to Hogheim and Hunter in 3rd. Trotman, then finished the day with a 2nd to keep the pressure on Hunter going into the final day.
The pressure will be on from the start with placings able to shuffle right through the top 6 to sort out the final podium positions. In other divisions, Brad Devine is leading the over 45 masters, Elise Beavis is leading Female, Hunter is 1st Junior under 21 and young Tommy Devine is leading the 6.9m rigs.
Top five after 11 races
1. Chris Thomas the 2nd, Rory Hunter, GBR, 26 points
2. Diversity, Tom Trotman, AUS, 29
3. Forward WIP, Alexander Hogheim, NOR, 35
4. Maungauika , Bruce Curson, NZL, 41
5. Kriszti, Tamas Szamody, HUN, 46
N2E 2019 - Better Racing with ULBD Classes
Newport Beach, California: To give racers the opportunity to sail with boats that perform most similar to their own at the upcoming Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race, officials will create ULDB and non-ULDB classes.
The Newport Ocean Sailing Association, organizers of the coastal classic, typically provides tight class breaks simply because it is a major event with a lot of boats. But the separation of planing and non-planing boats will account for the large variety of sailboats that perform very differently from each other when wind conditions change.
For participants, tighter ratings mean that sailing skills will have more effect on the outcome than random weather events, which of course means more fun and well-earned wins.
“This is just one of several innovations we are adding to this year’s Newport to Ensenada race,” said Commodore Daniel Hodge. “Quality of race results is important to a lot of our participants. It cannot be called fair handicapping when the wind picks up and the light boats in your class take off. We think the new ULDB classes will provide for much better racing.”
The 72nd running of the iconic N2E includes a choice of three courses to meet every sailor’s skill level, distance goals, desires, and capabilities; Newport to Ensenada (N2E), Newport to San Diego (N2SD), and Newport to Dana Point (N2DP). Trophies are awarded to racers in more than 40 classes of cruisers, multihulls, monohulls; ocean and nearshore sailboats or every type.
Featured Brokerage
2015 King Marine Botin 65. 2900000 EUR. Located in Spain.
There were no costs spared in building this magnificent racer, from her design and construction to the addition of high tech equipment. During the winter of 2016, she was intensively prepared for racing. She now has a stable heading in any wind and easily hydroplanes in 10 knots.
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
Contact
BERNARD GALLAY Yacht Brokerage
info [AT] bernard-gallay [DOT] com
www.bernard-gallay.com
Tel +33 (0) 467 66 39 93
-----------------------------------------
2018 Grand Soleil 34. 185,000 tax not paid EUR. Located in Cowes, Isle of Wight.
A re-styling of the original Grand Soleil 34, the Skyron designed 2018 model is a sleek performance cruiser.
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
Contact
Key Yachting Ltd
44 (0)2380 455669
info [AT] keyyachting [DOT] com
www.keyyachting.com
-----------------------------------------
2008 Swan 90-703 'B5'. 4,500,000 EUR. Located in Genoa, Italy
The yacht has been bought one year ago after a successful previous life as a racing yacht, which proved to be the best way to contain her usage and preserve her systems along the years, as the real time spent at sea has been reduced to a minimum.
See listing details in Nautor's Swan Brokerage
Contact
Nautor's Swan Brokerage - Lorenzo Bortolotti
brokerage [AT] nautorswan [DOT] com
Tel. +377 97 97 95 07
nautorswanbrokerage.com
See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/
The Last Word
Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect. If a subordinate always agrees with his superior he is a useless part of the organization. -- Hyman G. Rickover
Editorial and letter submissions to editor [AT] scuttlebutteurope [DOT] com
Advertising inquiries to Graeme Beeson: gb [AT] beesonstone [DOT] com or see www.scuttlebutteurope.com/advertise.html