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29er World Championship - French Regain Lead
Aarhus, Denmark: The racing was close today on Kaløvig Bay with the lead for the Gold fleet changing at each race. Four races were held starting at 3pm after a postponement on shore waiting for a front to pass, but leaving behind light winds for the sailors.
In the Gold fleet, Lucas Rual and Emile Amoros (FRA) sailed a consistent day of 13-2-1-13 to regain the lead after falling yesterday in the standings. 6 knots across the course persisted through the first three races with the wind shifting 90 degrees to the north and increasing in strength to 10 knots. The conditions pushed the sailors to perform at their best and the results rewarded those who did. Nick Muller and Kai Frieseke (USA) moved up in the standings to third overall by sailing a 10-5-5-6 series while Kiwis Marcus Somerville and Jack Simpson were able to maintain second overall. Previous days leaders Jack Colley and Shaun Connor (AUS) had a more difficult day and used the last race as their discard and have dropped to 4th overall.
Silver fleet leaders are Tomas and Mads Mathisen of Norway with Bronze leaders Douglas Campbell and Cameron Seagreen from Australia. Var Osborg and Eric Collet (NOR) lead the Emerald fleet. The top female team remains Ragna and Maia Agerup of Norway.
Twenty-five nations are representing all continents with 213 entries in this highly competitive fleet.
The final race and prizegiving will be tomorrow, Friday, August 2.
Live reports and daily results can be found on www.29erworlds.org
Cowes Classics Week
Photo by Tim Jeffreys. Click on image for photo gallery.
The Royal London Yacht Club, in its 175th year, supported by the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, the Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club and the Island Sailing Club welcomed Classic Keelboats and Classic Cruisers to the 6th Cowes Classics Week from the 15 to 19 July.
We had a record entry this year of 127 boats in 11 classes which were 12mR, 8mR, Darings (glass 5.5mR), Classic Dayboats (including 6mR), Sunbeams, Squibs, Flying Fifteens, XODs, BODs, Old Gaffers and Classic Cruisers (including SCODs, and Nicholson 32s celebrating their 50th anniversary).
The classic fleet ranged from the elegant 12 metres to the delightful little Howth 17s which are gaff rigged and have a topsail. We are reliably informed that the metre classes (12s, 8s and 6s) have not raced in the same regatta since Cowes Week 1939!
This is now a truly international event with boats and crews coming from the US, Australia, France, Belgium and Ireland. The UK boats came from as far as Perthshire.
The largest classes were the Solent Sunbeams at 20 (celebrating their 90th anniversary), XODs at 38 and Classic Cruisers at 16.
The last race day, Friday dawned with a good easterly breeze and racing started on time with three races being achieved for the smaller boats enabling them to catch up so a total of six races counted for the series before discard for all the classes apart from the Classic Cruisers who had four races. The Harken prizes were awarded to the winners of the first race of the day.
The official charity this year was the Andrew Cassell Foundation for Paralympic Sailing. Friday was Andrew Cassell Foundation Race Day. Just as Weymouth geared up to host the 2012 Paralympic Games, Andy announced his project to train disabled sailors with a view to preparing them for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, from his base on the Isle of Wight. The project is being jointly run by the Andrew Cassell Foundation, Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club and the RYA. In excess of £3500 was raised during the event for the official charity.
The Overall Prize giving took place after high tea for 180 at the Royal London and the prizes were presented by Andy Cassell and his Paralympic Sonar crew Andrew Millband and Tom Avery, one of the potential sailors in Rio.
Prize Winners
12 Metre: Bartlett Cup Italia - Richard Rankin
8 Metre: Aitken Challenge Cup Saskia - Murdoch McKillop
6 metre: Kirlo half model Monsoon - David Elliott
Daring: The Loup Garou Model Dolphin - David Gower
Solent Sunbeams: Queen Victoria Anniversary Trophy, Cowes Classics Week Cup & Mike Till Painting
Fleury: Jo Burnie
Nicholson 32: Bartlett Insignia Hobbit - Tom Robeyn
SCOD: Phoenix Challenge Trophy Stirling - Jaik Tari
Classic Cruisers: Danegelf Half Model Mandamus - Rod and Sue Moody
Loch Long: Mike Till Painting Tantrum - Binnie Evans
Classic Dayboat: Maurice Wilmot Trophy Cockleshell - Jonty Sherwill
Flying 15: Calf Cup Vamoose - Robert Salmond
Old Gaffers: Old Gaffer Model Aura - Ian Malcolm
XOD: Haines Boatyard Trophy Astralita - Mike Martell
BOD: Red Funnel Plate BOD 1 Peter Summerhayes
Solent Grounding Trophy Hobbit: Tom Robeyn
Travellers Trophy: Ratsey and Laphtorn Decanter - Johnny III - Aubrey Finburgh from Lake Annecy in France
Overall Winner: Harken Trophy Solent Sunbeam Fleury - Jo Burnie
Team Oracle Allowed To Keep Boat Data Secret
America's Cup defenders Oracle will be able to keep their information advantage over the challengers, including Team New Zealand.
The Kiwis went to the International Jury to sort out the status of Oracle while it trained on the cup course, particularly in the immediate aftermath to Louis Vuitton Cup challenger races.
The challengers have to present all their performance data while under race conditions.
Oracle has access to that and can then match it against the performance of its two boats who have also been on the course.
Oracle haven't been supplying any data for their time on the course\, leaving their rivals guessing about their actual speed and performance.
The jury released its answers today to the question put to it by Team New Zealand.
The key answers came in favour of Oracle with the jury ruling that:
- Racing between the two Oracle yachts didn't constitute an America's Cup Defender Series because the defender (Oracle) had already been selected.
- Therefore Oracle didn't need to provide telemetry data while practicing on the race course. -- Duncan Johnstone, Stuff.co.nz
Let The Semi-Finals Begin
America's Cup commentator Gary Jobson gives his take on the upcoming Louis Vuitton Cup Semifinal between Luna Rossa Challenge and Artemis Racing:
The anticipation around the waterfront in San Francisco is building in advance of the Louis Vuitton Cup Semifinal series scheduled to start on Tuesday August 6. At this writing no one has any idea which of Artemis Racing or Luna Rossa will advance to the final against Emirates Team New Zealand. But in this first elimination round, one team will go forward, while the other will be finished competing.
It's important to remember the AC72 class catamarans are new for everyone. Each day the teams learn something new. One of the big questions for team managers is when to make changes to a boat. The whole concept is to sail faster, but the history of sailing shows that America's Cup teams sometimes make progress and sometimes take a step backwards. There is a long history of designers making mistakes.
In 1962, for example, Nefertiti was winning the early trials. Skipper and designer Ted Hood decided to add ballast for the August trials. Unfortunately, for his team the wind went light in August. Nefertiti was too heavy and lost.
This kind of story will certainly be in the minds of the designers here in San Francisco too. On the other side of the equation there are many stories about America's Cup teams that have made late improvements that ended up making the difference. The pressure will be on to make good decisions every day.
For all fans of the America's Cup it will be great fun to watch how each team responds to their performance on the water. You can be sure that every sailor, designer and manager will be working hard to make the correct choice. -- Gary Jobson
Copa Del Rey MAPFRE
Photo by Nico Martinez, http://www.martinezstudio.es 
Thursday was the fourth day of competition of the 32nd Copa del Rey MAPFRE in Palma de Mallorca. The fleet completed the regatta program established by the Race Committee, with two windward/leeward races for all classes except for the G.H. Mumm ORC 1 and ORC 2, which sailed a coastal race. The Mahou J80 and La Caixa X-35 classes reached their eighth race, which means they can discard their worst result of the week. "Aifos", skippered by the Prince of Spain, signed its first victory of the week and stands fourth overall in the Hublot IRC 1 class.
With only two days left until the end of the regatta, the provisional overall results are headed by British "Alegre" in the Hublot IRC 0 class, Italian "B2" in Hublot IRC 1, American "Quantum Racing" in Gaastra IRC 52, Spanish "Rats on Fire "in G.H. Mumm ORC 1, "Movistar" in G.H. Mumm ORC 2, and "Vamos Spain" in Nespresso Soto 40, Italian "Margherita" in La Caixa X-35 and Spanish "Turismo do Algarve" in Mahou J80.
The regatta program for the 32nd Copa del Rey MAPFRE continues tomorrow on its fifth day of competition. The entire fleet will compete in windward/leeward races, with the first start scheduled at 13h00. The regatta will finish on Saturday.
Full results: www.regatacopadelrey.com
* With two days of scheduled racing remaining for the 52 SUPER SERIES at Palma, Mallorca's showcase 32nd Copa del Rey MAPFRE, Quantum Racing's lead grew a little more thanks to back to back wins in typical Palma sea breeze conditions.
As a crew Quantum Racing have never won the prestigious Copa del Rey but increasingly it is looking like they are piecing together a winning campaign.
Strategist Jordi Calafat, Olympic gold medallist and America's Cup winner has only won once - last year with Jochen Schuemann on All4ONE - in more than 25 years of trying.
Tactician Terry Hutchinson's best successes on the Bay of Palma include consecutive victories in the 2008 Breitling Regatta on the MedCup Circuit then steering the 52 El Desafio to victory in the Copa del Rey in consecutive weeks.
The team, under skipper-helm Ed Baird has now won four races back to back from seven starts, today elevating themselves to be six points clear of Niklas and Catherine Zennström's Ran Racing which scored a 2,3 for the day.
32nd Copa del Rey MAPFRE - Gaastra IRC 52 Class
1. Quantum Racing (3,2,2,1,1,1,1) 11 points
2. Ran Racing (1,1,1,5.5,3,2,3) 16.5
3. Azzurra, ITA (2,4,3,7,2,7,2) 27
4. Rio, USA (6,3,5,3,7,3,7) 34
5. Provezza (5,9,4.4,5,4,4) 35
6. Interlodge (4,8,6.5,5.5,4,6,5) 39
7. Gladiator (8,5,8,2,9,5,8) 45
8. Paprec, (9,6,6.5,9,8,8,6) 52.5
9. Aquila, (7,7,9,8,6,9,9) 55
Clash Of The Titans
While the Rolex Fastnet Race's top prize is the Fastnet Challenge Trophy and Rolex chronometer for the first of the 302 boats competing under IRC Rating, another significant battle will be between the most high profile monohulls and multihulls, gunning for line honours into Plymouth.
Leading the charge among this year's record breaking entry (currently standing at 350 in total) will be two of the world's fastest offshore racing monohulls, the maxis Esimit Europa 2 and Mike Slade's ICAP Leopard. Of these the European-flagged Esimit Europa 2 is the clear favourite: Both boats are fitted with canting keels and are 100ft long, but she is some 40% lighter than ICAP Leopard.
However Esimit Europa 2's skipper, German three time Olympic medallist Jochen Schumann observes that the 100ft maxis don't have the greatest record on this course. Rambler 100 broke her keel and capsized just after rounding the Fastnet Rock in 2011 while, in her previous life as Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo, Esimit Europa 2 was forced to pull out while leading the 2007 race.
"We are unbeatable unless we break the boat," admits Schumann, adding that Esimit Europa 2's ideal conditions are light to medium. "From 12-14 knots we are fully loaded and then we start reefing and slowing down the boat. In more wind than that the VO70s could be faster reaching or downwind than we are. In heavy breeze, it will be a really tough competition."
Schumann competed in the Rolex Fastnet Race during the 1990s aboard the ILC40 Aerosail and on the IMS50 Rubin XV.
However leading these monohulls around the race course are some superfast multihulls, including the two fastest offshore race boats in the world. The 40m long trimaran, then called Banque Populaire Maxi, set a new multihull course record, reaching Plymouth first in just 32 hours 48 minutes two years ago. This boat, now called Spindrift 2, is back but in the hands of co-skippers Dona Bertarelli and Yann Guichard.
The Banque Populaire team is also back, but with another trimaran, this time the more compact 31.5m long former Groupama 3. In her previous guise this boat set a new record for sailing fastest non-stop around the world and incredibly her skipper then, Franck Cammas went on to sail her singlehanded (albeit with a shorter rig), winning the 2010 Route du Rhum.
Surprisingly, despite these two boats having been on the water, even operating out of the same homeport, for the last five years, the Rolex Fastnet Race is the first occasion they will race in anger. -- James Boyd, TheDailySail.com
ISAF Nations Cup
Middelfart, Denmark: The Nations Cup begins next week (Tuesday, August 6-10) in Middelfart, Denmark, with 10 countries represented in a highly competitive field of skippers.
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and USA will contest the Open competition and Brazil, Denmark, Norway and USA, the women's competition.
The opening ceremony will take place on the evening of Tuesday, August 6 with racing from Wednesday, August 7 to finals day on Saturday, August 10.
Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark will be contesting an exhibition match on August 8, skippering an Olympic class team of Danish legends, including Jesper Bank. He will face a crew led by one of Denmark's brightest talents, the 23-year-old Nicholas Sehested, who is ranked 12th in the world and is one of the favourites for the Nations Cup.
Hollandia Holds Firm
A challenging day of shifty wind at the Nordea Private Banking 8mR Worlds in Helsinki, Finland but Hollandia holds the lead with six races now completed.
Third day of the Nordea Private Banking 8mR Worlds started with cloudy sky starting to clear while Race Committee and the fleet were heading to the race area G from the island Liuskasaari, home for the organizing club Helsingfors Segelsällskap.
The race area is in northern side of Isosaari and covered from the open sea winds and waves
During the racing there was a collision between Katrina FIN-14 owned by Hannu Kahonen and Wanda NOR-38 owned by Magne Brekke at the gate. Wanda retired from the race after this collision and Katrina was disqualified from the race after the protest hearing.
After the sixth race was done, the worse score was excluded from boat's series and Hollandia leads overall by two points from Lafayette.
Event site: events.sailracer.org
Nord Stream Race 2013 Starts With A Match Race
The organisers of Nord Stream Race 2013 have decided to crown the start of the 800sm long-distance-regatta from Flensburg to Saint Petersburg with a Match Race-event.
The Match Race-Regatta is going to be held with almost 20 metre-long Gazprom Swan 60 yachts. Five teams from five different countries will compete directly in a one on one challenge on Thursday, 12th of September.
The races will take place right in front of the harbour mole at the Marina Sonwik in Flensburg so that spectators can be close to the action.
One of the Nord Stream Match Race competitors is Team Germany, sponsored by Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, with Dr. Johann Killinger helming. America's Cup- and Volvo Ocean Race veteran Tim Kroger will again steer Team Europe like he already did in 2012. Also entering for the second time is the current Swan 60 world champion, starting as Team Russia, as well as Team Holland who are well known from 2012. The newcomer this year is Team Turkey.
The start for the Nord Stream Race from Flensburg to Saint Petersburg will take place three days after the Match Race on 15th of September. Here the Swan 60 yachts will be joined by the ORC yachts. -- Annette Kruger
Berthold Beitz
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is greatly saddened to learn of the death of IOC Honorary Member Berthold Beitz at the age of 99.
A practitioner of sailing, shooting and rowing, Mr Beitz enjoyed a long association with the IOC and Olympic Movement. He was an IOC Member for 16 years (1972-1988), after which he became an Honorary Member. An IOC Vice-President and Executive Board Member from 1984-1988, he was also member of the following Commissions: Finance, New Sources of Financing, Olympic Movement, Preparation of the XII Olympic Congress, and Council of the Olympic Order. He was also an Honorary Chairman of the Olympic Museum Foundation from 1989.
Mr Beitz was a Member of the Board of the West German NOC (1972-2006), a Member of the Board of Directors of the Organising Committee for the XX Olympiad in Munich in 1972, and President of the Administrative Council of the Olympic sailing events in Kiel, Germany (1966-1972).
The IOC and ISAF expresses deepest sympathies to Berthold Beitz's family.
www.sailing.org/news/35439.php
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