In This Issue
• Eight Gold Stars Lead The Way
• VOLVO European Championships for the 49er, 49erFX and NACRA 17
• FSE Robline becomes Robline
• Two bullet opener for Jethou at Rolex Capri Sailing Week
• Teasing Machine Crew Means Business at Transatlantic Race 2019
• The Ocean Race - Part 2: Developing one class for multiple events
• What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine
• Ultimes threaten Rolex Fastnet Race record destruction
• Paris 2024 Equipment top of the agenda at 2019 Mid-Year Meeting
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Nautor Swan 60/001 - CONCERTO
• • J/V Maxi 72 MOMO
• • GLOBE ex IMOCA 60
• The Last Word: Sinclair Lewis
Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News 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
Eight Gold Stars Lead The Way
The opening day of the first ever combined Star Sailors League Breeze Grand Slam and Star European Championships dawned with a change in conditions from the blue skies and sunshine, which had filled the skies over Rival del Garda, Italy, for the practice race.
With little-to-no breeze in the morning, the reliable Ora wind dutifully arrived somewhat earlier than usual and was already blowing hard by the time some of the legends of the fleet had concluded a formal press conference at 11am.
With the cold breeze firmly in and grey skies covering the beautiful Lake Garda, it was a hesitant fleet who headed out to the race course with many choosing a last minute coffee in the Yacht Club bar before finally getting into their sailing kit and making their way to the race area.
Once onto the racecourse, however, it was a slightly different picture. With the Ora funneling up the lake and Riva del Garda located on the very northernmost shore, the wind was slightly more moderate when the sailors reached the startline - though it still looked like it was going to be a tough day at the office with the wind holding in the high teens.
If there was to be an overriding narrative of the day's sailing then it would be that Cayard was looking particularly strong on the upwinds and Scheidt a force to be reckoned with on the downwinds. That being the case, it was little surprise to see the American at the front of the fleet at the final windward mark of the day, but Scheidt closely followed him with another American, Eric Doyle and his crew Payson Infelise, having worked their way into the top three. "On the last downwind we all gybed early and I went left, thinking I would protect that side," explained Cayard after the finish"But Robert [Schedit] and Eric [Doyle] found a bit more pressure than us and just sailed round the outside." So it was, that the Brazillian picked up the second race to add to his third, with Doyle in second and Cayard in third.
Top ten:
1. Robert Scheidt / Henry Boening, BRA
2. Paul Cayard / Arthur Lopes, USA
3. Mateusz Kusznierewicz / Frederico Melo, POL
4. Eric Doyle / Payson Infelise, USA
5. Fredrik Loof / Brian Fatih, SWE
6. Xavier Rohart / Pierre-Alexis Ponsot, FRA
7. Eivind Melleby / Joshua Revkin, NOR
8. Augie Diaz / Bruno Prada, USA
9. Alexey Zhivotovskiy / Lev Shnyr, RUS
10. Ante Razmilovic / Brian Hammersley, ,GBR
VOLVO European Championships for the 49er, 49erFX and NACRA 17
The Danes and Argentineans made good moves up the scoreboard on the final day of Nacra 17 qualifying today. Lin Cenholt and CP Lubeck scored 4,1,3 to hold fourth overall, on equal points with the third-placed Italians, Vittorio Bissaro and Maele Frascari. Scoring an equally potent 1,3,4 were Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco, the Argentineans in 5th overall after three spectacular days and nine races of qualifying.
The only non-Italian team in a podium position is the second-placed British team of John Gimson and Anna Burnet who believe they're reaping the rewards of a long winter of training in the Uruguayan summer of the southern hemisphere.
Meanwhile some big names languish further down the leaderboard, including the four-time World Champions from France, Billy Besson and Marie Riou, who copped a points penalty after failing to take a knife out on the boat for yesterday's racing, thereby breaking a class safety rule. The French sit in 14th overall, on equal points with Nathan and Haylee Outteridge.
The breeze softened a little today, but that just meant the standard of the racing got harder on day 3 of the 49er Europeans in Weymouth. Unlike the previous two days of high-wave action, there was little risk of pitchpoling in the 10 to 12 knot breezes out in Weymouth Bay. But that just put a greater emphasis on good starts, excellent straight-line speed, and catching the best of the subtle changes in the breeze.
Today was the day to make it out of the 96-boat qualifying fleet, which has been spread across three flights, and win a ticket into the 25-boat gold fleet.
Lighter winds in Portland Harbour led to closer racing in the 49erFX fleet for day 3 of the Europeans. The top three boats all had a below-average race out of the three they contested today. The problem for the rest of the fleet is that for the Brazilians, Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze, their 'below-average' score was a 6th, which they are now dropping from their results. With nine races of qualifying now complete, the reigning Olympic Champions are counting four race wins, three seconds and one third place.
However, with the top 25 moving through to the gold fleet racing for the coming days, a four-point lead over the second-placed Brits, Charlotte Dobson and Saskia Tidey, really doesn't amount to much of a buffer.
Top five by class:
Nacra 17 Top 5 - Full Results
1. Ruggero Tita, Caterina Banti, ITA, 12
2. John Gimson, Anna Burnett, GBR, 17
3. Vittorio Bissaro, Maelle Frascari, ITA, 21
4. Lin Cenholt, CP Lubeck, DEN, 21
5. Mateo Majdalani, Eugenia Bosco, ARG, 24
49erFX Top 5 - Full Results
1. Martine Grael, Kahena Kunze, BRA, 13
2. Charlotte Dobson, Saskia Tidey, GBR, 17
3. Annemiek Bekkering, Annette Duetz, NED, 18
4. Alex Maloney, Molly Meech, NZL, 22
5. Vilma Bobeck, Malin Tengstrom, SWE, 35
49er Top 5 - Full Results
1. Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, NZL, 17
2. Diego Botin, Iago Marra, ESP, 18
3. Logan Dunning Beck, Oscar Gunn, NZL, 28
4. Justus Schmidt, Max Boeme, GER, 30
5 . Will Phillips, Sam Phillips, AUS, 34
FSE Robline becomes Robline
For those who did not realize it yet, there is a new brand name at the market - Robline. Having its heritage in the 1990s where company TEUFELBERGER acquired FSE, the German yachting brand, and the yachting line segment of Roblon, the Danish rope manufacturer. Together they became FSE Robline back in the days.
To not stop moving forward TEUFELBERGER decided to give this brand a new appealing look - Robline features now the colours monsun grey and cucuum instead of red and blue. Why? Because we want to be forerunners and stand out from the crowd!
www.roblineropes.com/en/
www.teufelberger.com/en/
Two bullet opener for Jethou at Rolex Capri Sailing Week
Three days since the Regata dei Tre Golfi finished, Rolex Capri Sailing Week resumed on the Gulf of Naples today with two inshore races for the Maxi fleet.
Sadly instead of Capri's usual 'beginning of summer' conditions, the sky was overcast and competitors spent the morning scrabbling for thermals to brave the unseasonal cold temperatures. The race area was set up north of Capri's Marina Grande with the weather mark positioned off the end of the Sorrento Peninsula's northern shore. Thanks to the cloud action overhead and the proximity of the peninsula the wind was both shifty and up and down, peaking at 20+ knots at the top mark towards the end of the afternoon. A significant left hand shift approaching the top mark repeatedly saw starboard tackers failing to lay the windward mark.
The racing division belonged to Sir Peter Ogden and his all-black Jethou, now with an elongated stern increasing her LOA from 72 to 77ft. In both races she successfully saw off both Alex Schaerer's Regatta dei Tre Golfi line honours winner Caol Ila R and the larger Vesper, the maxZ86 chartered by American Jim Swartz.
Replacing legendary multiple America's Cup-winning tactician Brad Butterworth on board Jethou is Paul Campbell-James.
After two races behind Jethou, Roberto Lacorte's Mills Vismara 62 SuperNikka and Caol Ila R are tied on points in second and third respectively.
In the Racer-Cruiser maxi class, it is much tighter at the top with Aldo Parisotto's Mylius 65 FD Oscar3 leading by one point from Benoît de Froidmont's Wally 60 Wallyño and Jean-Pierre Barjon's Swan 601 Lorina 1895 with the Mylius 18E35 Fra Diavolo of Vincenzo Addessi a further point back.
www.internationalmaxiassociation.com
Teasing Machine Crew Means Business at Transatlantic Race 2019
Few boats in this year's Transatlantic Race are expected to be more competitive than Teasing Machine, Eric de Turckheim's two-year-old Nivelt/Muratet-designed custom 54-footer. In fact, if Mother Nature smiles on the 50-footers then Teasing Machine could well take home overall honors. In 2017, after coming home third in the brutal Rolex Middle Sea Race, she won the RORC's Transatlantic Race from Lanzarote to Grenada. She followed that up with a third place in last year's race from Bermuda to Hamburg. These two events formed the Atlantic Anniversary Regatta, which Teasing Machine won outright.
Born into a sailing family, de Turckheim has the sea in his veins. His mother Tonia was a member of the Royal Ocean Racing Club and raced offshore during the late 1960s and early 1970s. His first experiences on the water were at age six, sailing from the family home on Île de Ré, close to La Rochelle. He sailed dinghies throughout his youth before moving into offshore racing at age 18. But then, in 1976, he was forced to set aside his passion to complete his French national service obligation. That was followed by a meteoric professional career that saw him co-found Trafigura, which today is one of the world's leading independent commodity trading and logistics houses.
In 2009, having cast off many of his corporate shackles, de Turckheim returned to sailing aboard a Melges 32, which he raced for three seasons. But his passion for offshore racing soon prevailed, and he teamed up with another Ile de Ré resident, Volvo Ocean Race winner Laurent Pagès (Groupama 4, 2011-'12) and old friend Bernard Nivelt, who designed one of his mother's yachts. They would create the one-off A13 from Archambault, a 43-footer that was campaigned both incessantly and successfully.
Two years ago, de Turckheim returned to Nivelt and design partner Alexis Muratet for his present Teasing Machine, a one-off 54-footer built at King Marine in Spain. Her overall victory in the Atlantic Anniversary Regatta is proof that the powerful hull shape with soft chines is properly optimized for crewed offshore racing.
Above the water she does resemble the recent Volvo Ocean Race yachts, with a similar deck layout and twin companionways with the pit in between. But significantly she is designed to the IRC Rule. Here the most major area of optimization is her keel. Not only is this fixed but it also lacks a ballast bulb. Indeed, she is fitted with an old school, but IRC-friendly, heavy fin keel.
The Ocean Race - Part 2: Developing one class for multiple events
For the first time in almost 30 years The Ocean Race will feature two classes - the Volvo 65 and IMOCA60. Having a choice of boat widens the options for start-up and existing professional teams
The concept was tried in the 1993/94 Whitbread Race, as organisers attempted to transition from the traditional fleet into a single class fleet - the Whitbread 60. The move was controversial with sparks flying between the leading maxi skipper, Grant Dalton, and the leading W60 skipper Chris Dickson as to who was the fastest, with Dickson claiming that the W60 had been "dumbed-down" so they were less competitive on the fast downwind legs.
The scenario is unlikely to be repeated in The Ocean Race.
The VO65's - the one-design fleet used for the last two editions- are back by popular demand for their third lap of the planet, which helps to prove the point of sustainability and re-use.
The Ocean Race is also embracing the popular IMOCA60 - arguably the most popular short-handed trans-oceanic racing class, which is well established, well administered, and with a good fleet of used boats for entry-level teams.
"What we are trying to do with the IMOCA60 is to invest and drive one offshore class to be going across a multiple of races," explains Mason.
Richard Gladwell's full article in Sail-World.com: www.sail-world.com
Seahorse June 2019
What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine
Orphan child no more?
Did the code zero really first appear on the dock in Southampton at the start of the 1993/94 Whitbread Round the World Race or was it a re-boot of something that had been around for quite a while? Brian Hancock
Making the harder stuff easy
They say the stopwatch never lies and now Spinlock have produced something equally infallible to monitor the real state of your sail wardrobe
Under the radar
Look aboard some of the world's fastest and largest yachts and you may not immediately identify the logo on the instrument displays...
ORC - A more pragmatic approach
... is paying dividends. Andy Claughton
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Ultimes threaten Rolex Fastnet Race record destruction
Unless there is a flat calm, it is very likely that the outright record will fall in this August's edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club's premium event, the Rolex Fastnet Race. For leading the charge in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, with a fleet of 300-350 competing, will be the world's fastest offshore boats - the Ultimes.
In the last windy Rolex Fastnet Race in 2011, the Loick Peyron-skippered Banque Populaire V blasted around the 608 mile course in 1 day, 8 hours and 48 minutes. But for the mighty 131ft (40m) long trimaran (later re-christened Spindrift 2) her average speed, a mere 18.53 knots, was like she was towing buckets. Two years earlier she had managed the 2880 mile west to east Atlantic crossing, averaging 32.94 knots.
Today, while her transatlantic record may remain tough to beat, Banque Populaire V is old technology. Modern day Ultime trimarans at 100ft long may be shorter but, mostly thanks to their new foiling technology, are substantially faster. And this year's Rolex Fastnet Race will feature at least three of them.
Francois Gabart: MACIF, all 30 x 21m of her, can fly in around 13 knots of wind but optimum conditions are 15-18 knots - more than this and the sea state becomes too lumpy. In her sweet spot MACIF has already touched 49.4 knots (in the Route du Rhum, singlehanded under autopilot) although he admits this is not the goal. "Our target is to average more than 40 knots." A 40 knots Rolex Fastnet Race would take just over 15 hours!
Franck Cammas-Charles Caudrelier co-skipper set-up on board the rebuilt Edmond de Rothschild, following its bow breakage in last autumn's Route du Rhum.
The latest Ultime, Thomas Coville's Sodebo Ultim 3. Coville is remarkable for having competing in almost every major sailing event from the America's Cup and Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race (winning with Groupama 4) to the Mini, IMOCA 60, ORMA 60 and for more than a decade in giant multihulls, on which in 2016 he set a new solo round the world record (later broken by Gabart).
Paris 2024 Equipment top of the agenda at 2019 Mid-Year Meeting
Chelsea Football Club, London, Great Britain will host World Sailing delegates from 17-19 May for the 2019 edition of World Sailing's Mid-Year Meeting.
World Sailing's Events Committee and Equipment Committee will meet on Friday 17 and Saturday 18 May before the Council, the main decision making body of the world governing body, bring the session to a close on Sunday 19 May. An audio and main screen feed of all the meetings will be available on the World Sailing TV YouTube Channel - https://youtube.com/worldsailingtv.
Leading up to the meeting, the selection of Equipment for the Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Competition has been a major talking point with decisions to be made in London and then in Bermuda at the Annual Conference in November.
World Sailing's proposals for governance reform and the events strategy for 2021-2028 will also be discussed alongside three urgent submissions.
Paris 2024 - Selection of Equipment
Three Events and Equipment have been confirmed for the Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Competition with Equipment decisions to be made for the remaining seven Events. At the 2018 Annual Conference, the following Events were approved:
Men's Windsurfer - RS:X*
Women's Windsurfer - RS:X*
Men's One Person Dinghy - TBC
Women's One Person Dinghy - TBC
Mixed Kiteboard - TBC
Mixed Two Person Dinghy - TBC
Women's Skiff - 49erFX
Men's Skiff - 49er
Mixed Two Person Multihull - Nacra 17
Mixed Two Person Offshore Keelboat - TBC
*subject to ongoing equipment re-evaluation
The Men's and Women's Windsurfer were put under the re-evaluation process. The authority for the re-evaluation procedure is World Sailing's Board of Directors who shall make the final recommendations to World Sailing's Council.
The second process is the selection of new Equipment. For new Events and for those where the outcome of an earlier re-evaluation is to select Equipment, World Sailing's Equipment Committee will make a recommendation to Council.
Events under this process include the Mixed Two Person Dinghy, the Mixed Kiteboard, the Mixed Two Person Offshore Keelboat and the Men's and Women's One Person Dinghy following its re-evaluation.
For all Events, except for the Mixed Two Person Offshore Keelboat, the reports and recommendations from the appointed Evaluation Panels to the Equipment Committee will be reviewed at World Sailing's Mid-Year Meeting in May.
www.sailing.org/meetings/mid-year-2019.php
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The Last Word
Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize. -- Sinclair Lewis
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