In This Issue
• SHK Scallywag/FUKU takes Line Honours
• Code Amber for Francis Joyon and IDEC Sport
• All The Winners - Headed to ASW 2020
• Rolex Middle Sea Race: Weather Watch And Where To Watch
• Local Heroes: Punta Del Este Welcomed Into Its Home Port
• Yacht Racing Forum in Bilbao, November 25-26: last opportunities available
• One hell of a team - Kinetic Catamarans
• Ilen's Salmon's Wake Voyage
• Big guns join Star Sailors League Gold Cup
• Two More Boats: New Design Differences
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Libertist 853
• • Swan 82-006 RS 'Mayang Sari'
• • Whitbread Maxi 81 - Rothmans
• The Last Word: Shay Bradley
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
SHK Scallywag/FUKU takes Line Honours in Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club Nha Trang Rally
Hong Kong entry Orma 60 SHK Scallywag/FUKU sailed into Nha Trang, Vietnam on 17 October at 21h 19m 27s (HK time) to take the Multihull Line Honours for the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club Nha Trang Rally in an elapsed time of 30h 9m 27s.
All eyes were on the dueling trimarans; Italian Maserati Multi70 and SHK Scallywag/FUKU. Both trimarans had a wild ride; hurtling down the South China Sea in a nail biting, exhilarating run down to Vietnam.
Before the Rally, Skipper David Witt estimated SHK Scallywag/FUKU would cross the line after 28 hours and said "A smart man once told me, "win the start, stay in the run, win the race". That advice definitely paid off and Witt was very happy with the win commenting on shore in Nha Trang, "it was very wet, very tiring and hard work but we got the result in the end. I'm getting too old for that I think! It was a really good race with Maserati. We had to make a couple of decisions in the end but we got it right. Everyone is safe and the boat's in one piece. Time to have dinner and a drink."
Scallywag/FUKU Navigator, Trystan Seal, added "I think luck played on our side for sure but we also played the shift really well. We read what was in front of us really well and we came out on top."
Italian Maserati Multi70 with Giovanni Soldini at the helm, is due to arrive in Nha Trang at any moment; providing the wind holds up.
The first monohull expected to arrive is American entry J/V Maxi 72 Lucky who is chasing after Jinn, the IRC Racer 2 boat which departed 28 hours before them. If all goes to plan, Lucky is well on her way to take both the IRC 0 and IRC Overall win.
Code Amber for Francis Joyon and IDEC Sport
Francis Joyon has just moved to code amber, as he can see a favourable weather opportunity in the next 48 hours. He may set off on his attempt at the solo Mauritius Route record between Port Louis (Brittany) and Port Louis (Mauritius) on Saturday. This is the first Act in his new record-breaking campaign in Asia, referred to as the IDEC Sport Asian Tour.
If the weather opportunity is confirmed, the skipper of the IDEC Sport maxi-trimaran may leave his home port of La Trinite sur Mer on Saturday 19th October to make his way to the start line off the Citadel in Port Louis (Morbihan).
An 8800 mile long voyage, the Mauritius Route will take Francis to the island of Mauritius. Joyon will be attempting to smash his own reference time set in 2009 of 26 days, 4 hours and 13 minutes.
Francis Joyon is not one to hang around…He decided to go on stand-by from 18th October and he may well set sail now on Saturday 19th October to attempt to beat the Mauritius Route record.
Francis's weather advisor and router, who will remain ashore, Christian Dumard tells us more about this favourable weather opportunity. "It is not ideal, but is nevertheless favourable and should allow him to reach the Equator in good downwind conditions. The wind will shift to the West and then NW, which should enable him to make a quick exit from the Bay of Biscay. After that, Francis will benefit from downwind sailing to the Doldrums and should fairly quickly pick up the trade winds. It is an opportunity worth grabbing."
The first Act will be followed by three other records, this time with a crew:
Act 2: Mauritius - Ho Chi Minh (3975 miles),
Act 3: Ho Chi Minh - Shenzen - China (920 miles)
Act 4: Clipper Route between Hong Kong and London (13,000 miles).
www.idecsport.com/en/francis-joyon/
All The Winners - Headed To ASW 2020
Antigua Sailing Week (ASW) is pleased to present the winners of The Road to 2020, the invitational challenges launched at the end of Antigua Sailing Week 2019 to kick off overseas marketing of the regatta throughout the summer months.
The challenges took place with the assistance of regional yacht clubs beginning in May and concluding in September. The host venues in the US, UK and Germany were selected based on the potential to boost awareness of ASW and convert the excitement of participating in a prestigious event in idyllic conditions into increased entries for 2020.
Phil Walters - August Sky, Stevie Beckett - Cobra and Max Rieger - Mothership emerged winners in each of the invitational challenges in USA, UK & Germany respectively. And each of the victorious skippers received the prize of a lifetime to assemble a crew of up to 7 to race at Antigua Sailing Week 2020. Through the cooperation of Antigua & Barbuda Tourism Authority, Dream Yacht Charter, English Harbour Rum and National Parks Authority, the crew will receive flights, bareboat yacht charter, dockage at UNESCO Heritage Site Nelson's Dockyard Marina and entry to ASW.
Prizes were awarded in August at the Breakwater Yacht Club in Sag Harbour, New York, the venue for the US edition. While the prizes for the UK & German editions were awarded in September at the Royal Southern Yacht Club, Hamble and the Württembergischer Yacht Club, Friedrichshafen, respectively.
The 53rd edition of Antigua Sailing Week takes place April 25 - May 1, 2020 off the stunning south coast of Antigua.
Are you planning on racing at Antigua Sailing Week? Entering and pay early for the lowest rates.
Rolex Middle Sea Race: Weather Watch And Where To Watch
Less than 48 hours to the start of the 40th Rolex Middle Sea Race. The entry list currently stands at 110 yachts with a handful more endeavouring to complete the necessary paperwork in time for the start on Saturday, 19th October.
The race weather looks to be generally on the light side for the start, with an area of high pressure sitting atop the Mediterranean. Malta is threatening some showers with some localised storm cells for Saturday as the fleet exits the harbour. According to Andrea Visintini, the navigator on George David's Rambler, the red-hot favourite for line honours in the monohull fleet, the weather routing at present is for a fast, but not record-breaking run. He has some expectation that the routing may well improve closer to the start.
Once through the narrow strait, the stretch to the active volcano of Stromboli may be complicated if the lighthouse of the Mediterranean chooses the race period to erupt once again this year. For the moment, the island volcano is quiet. The northern coast of Sicily also looks to be quiet from a weather perspective. Wilder conditions may be in store at the north-western corner of Sicily on Tuesday, as low pressure develops over the western Mediterranean and accelerates the southerly wind in the area of the Sicily Strait. "It is looking like a light start with some heavier upwind conditions towards the end" commented Stefano Pelizza on PrimaVista-Lauria (ICE52, ITA), the winner of the Coastal Race.
How to follow the 40th Rolex Middle Sea Race
Race Start: Saturday, 19 October at 11:00 (CEST) Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta.
Where to watch live: various vantage points available around the Grand Harbour, including - St. Barbara's Bastion, Great Siege Bell, the Old Fisheries Building, the Valletta Waterfront, as well as the Birgu and Senglea promontories
How to watch overseas:
TV Malta (state broadcaster, free to view) will broadcast the start live in Maltese language from 10.30 CEST
Rolex Middle Sea Race Facebook page will broadcast the start live in English from 10.50 CEST
www.rolexmiddlesearace.com
Yacht Tracker: www.rolexmiddlesearace.com/tracker
Clipper Race 2: Punta Del Este Welcomed Into Its Home Port
Despite the cold evening and late hour, hundreds of local spectators, supporters and Yacht Club Punta Del Este representatives, lined the marina to welcome the Punta del Este team into its Host Port in a true fiesta style.
The team crossed the finish line of Race 2: The Commodore's Cup at 23:10:57 UTC on Sunday 13 October in ninth place. They were greeted by a sea of yellow flags representing the Team Partner's signature colours, and cheers from the crowds were matched by singing from a jubilant crew on board, who have been longing to arrive into its home port.
The race from Portimão to Punta del Este has been a rollercoaster ride for the team, who, feeling confident after victory in Race 1, risked playing its Joker on the race to double its race points. They got off to a great start but were then unlucky with the effects of the weather conditions. While they didn't take a top place on the leaderboard they did collect three bonus points along the way - being fastest in the Dell Latitude Rugged Ocean Sprint by an hour.
All eleven yachts have now completed the 5,195 nautical mile race from Portimão, Portugal to Punta del Este, Uruguay
GoToBermuda arrived into the South American sailing hub, crossing the finishing line of Race 2: The Commodore's Cup at 04:51:51 UTC in tenth followed by Imagine your Korea crossing at 06:15:32 UTC in eleventh, to complete arrivals.
Experienced sailor David Hartshorn will take over as Clipper Race Skipper of Seattle, to lead the team for the remainder of its circumnavigation. This follows the departure of Skipper Ben Keitch, who is leaving the role in Punta del Este.
Race 3 to Cape Town starts on October 23.
Yacht Racing Forum in Bilbao, November 25-26: last opportunities available
The 12th edition of the Yacht Racing Forum will take place in five weeks time and promises to be very interesting and fruitful. A limited number of exhibitor stands is still available, alongside short speaking opportunities.
The Yacht Racing Forum will bring together around 300 delegates including the sports' main decision-makers from all over the world. The leading events, venues, brands and sponsors will be in Bilbao, Spain, on November 25-26.
More than 70 speakers from all over the world have already confirmed their participation. SailGP, the America's Cup, the Ocean Race or the next Olympic Games will be presented in great detail by their key promoters, whilst a strong focus will be put on mainstream and youth sailing.
The Yacht Racing Forum will be chaired by some of the sports' best experts and moderators including Shirley Robertson, Andy Rice and Dobbs Davis, supported by Ken Read, Jeremy Pochman or Luca Rizzotti.
As usual, the Yacht Racing Forum also promises to be a great and friendly social event, with drinks receptions and a gala evening reception.
If you haven't registered yet, please do it now to help us organise the event as efficiently as possible.
Registration: www.yachtracingforum.com
One hell of a team - Kinetic Catamarans
Then again... if you look into the pedigree and track record of those involved it was never really in doubt
If you're looking for a high-performance catamaran with round-the- world voyaging capability and line honours race-winning potential, there's a new player in the market that's worthy of very serious consideration. Kinetic Catamarans, a US-based company with a shipyard in Knysna, South Africa, is building a brand new range of semi-custom, carbon fibre cruiser-racer designs with some very innovative features, world class build quality and a wellproven pedigree.
Kinetic is a joint venture between Bob Hayward, a successful entrepreneur, film studio co-founder and keen ocean sailor, and Leon Scheepers, a highly regarded boatbuilder with vast experience in multihull production. The Kinetic brand is new but the shipyard has a huge amount of expertise. It was founded by Phil Harvey, who built the iconic early Gunboats such as Tribe and Safari and more recently produced some of the world's finest full-custom multihulls at Knysna, with Scheepers managing the shipyard. 'I was having a custom 60ft carbon catamaran built by Phil Harvey when he told me he wanted to make ours his last boat,' Hayward explains. 'I can see a real opportunity and am giving the yard the capital backing to be world class. We're competitive on pricing and I'm confident we'll have a good order book. If you see a pathway to success in a sport and pastime you love, why not?'
Full article in the November issue of Seahorse
Ilen's Salmon's Wake Voyage
The Ilen Project, Limerick City, Ireland has produced a short video of its very sucessful 2019 Salmon's Wake Voyage. It recounts ocean voyaging, navigating ice fields, coastal sailing off West Greenland and the way of a big timbered traditional Irish sailing ship going about her community business.
Video by Gary Mac Mahon, Ilen Project
Big guns join Star Sailors League Gold Cup
In April the Star Sailors League, that culminates in the SSL Finals in Nassau every December to crown its annual 'star of the sailing world', announced a new giant international sailing competition: the SSL Gold Cup.
Effectively the sailing equivalent of football's FIFA World Cup is a simple but powerful concept: a competition to decide the 'world's best sailing nation.' The first SSL Gold Cup will take place in Switzerland over September-October 2021 and will then be held biennially. It will be raced aboard one design 47ft monohulls, with the aim of ensuring it tests the sailors purely with no equipment advantage. It has already been deemed a World Sailing 'Special Event'.
Since the announcement, the SSL Gold Cup now has its own 'home' located on the shore of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland. This will serve as the organisational and media hub for the SSL Gold Cup as well as the training centre. Already this season training sessions in the one design monohull have taken place for eight teams.
In addition to the 24 teams that have already been signed up, this week another five have confirmed their participation.
The next stage with the SSL Gold Cup will take place on 10th November when the team captains will announce the first two crew from the five they themselves are allowed to select. The other five will come directly from the SSL Ranking - four from the skippers ranking and one from the crew.
A the same time the Star Sailors League Gold Cup Board is analyzing the future countries involved that will be announced soon, as the entries are still open. -- Rachele Vitello
Two More Boats: New Design Differences
After 18 months of heavy secrecy shrouding anything to do with the AC75s, the 75 foot foiling monohull is quickly becoming an open affair with two new boats unveiled last week less than 48 hours apart. This brings the total to four and provides us with plenty of opportunity to analyse the differences that are already apparent.
As the Protocol of the 36th America's Cup doesn't allow the teams to shroud their boats, the new 75' monohulls were quickly snapped and "grammed" around the world for everyone - teams and fans - to comment and draw their first conclusions.
The new launches have only added to the diversity of Emirates Team New Zealand and NYYC American Magic's interpretation of the AC75 Class Rule, confirming once again the high level of freedom allowed by the current design rules.
Design teams have spent a lot of time exploring different hull shapes within the Class Rule limits, looking for a shape with minimal drag in light-wind displacement mode while also addressing the stability required to generate thrust for take-off.
With the hull having no significant limits on structure other than a handful of standard AC rule limits, the shape of the hull is where the differences are most evident.
In broad terms it's possible to pair the four boats with the Kiwis and the Italian choosing one approach and INEOS TEAM UK and American Magic going in another direction. However, experts may consider pairing the boats too simplistic. So what has been revealed so far that's out there for everyone to see?
INEOS TEAM UK's hull shape is probably the most radical in appearance; while the bottom has a very clean scow like line - similar to NYYC American Magic and opposite to Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa - the deck layout has a completely new design, with a very flat and low bow, slab sides and a straight sheerline toward the stern.
The British hull seems wider, with the foil rotation points (whose distance is fixed as per the Class Rule) appearing to be inside the hull compared to the other teams that have a dimple treatment where the carbon foil arms stick out from the hull.
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli's design has gone in the opposite direction with a boat similar but more radical than the Defender's. Despite a more traditional bow - that gives a nod to those of the old America's Cup boats - the sheerline is quite pronounced and tapers towards the transom. The bottom has a rounded-V structure in the centre ending just ahead of the rudder.
Full story on the America's Cup site
Featured Brokerage
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2003 Swan 82 'Mayang Sari'. 2,600,000 EUR VAT Paid. Located in Antibes.
One of the highest specifications and freshest of the desirable swan 82 raised salon models. MAYANG SARI has just had an extensive refit at New England Boatworks which included new blue hull paint, new carbon mast, new standing rigging, all new nav., sailing and communication electronics
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1989 Whitbread Maxi 81 - Rothmans. 190000 EUR. Located in Stockholm, Sweden.
Whitbread Maxi 81 ROTHMANS is an iconic yacht. She has been well restored and covered to be as close to the original as possible; with upgraded electronics and in very good working order. Currently being used as a private yacht, she is also a superb platform for charter.
See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly
Contact
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ben [DOT] cooper [AT] berthon [DOT] com
See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/
The Last Word
Quite literally ... the greatest last words ever from former Irish Defence Force veteran Shay Bradley, at his own funeral. Bravo!
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