April 2004
| High Risk?
Probably not a risk at all, and certainly interesting to look at, these are the first shots of the brand new 90' Dubois Genuine Risk owned by Randall Pittman. With an extensive design program behind it, canting keel and all the other assorted benefits of a high dollar program, Early reports have GR exceeding polars, hitting 16.6 in 14 knots of wind, and 19.9 jib reaching in 18 knots. Iit will be particularly interesting to see how the boat stacks up against the MaxZ 86's.
04/30/2004 |
Rumblin'.....
.....Then Stumblin'
Antigua Sailing Week (what happened to Race Week? Insurance issues?) is in full swing, and it is chock full of action and angst - our kind of regatta! These pics, show monster mono Mari Cha IV in full effect and something considerably less so after a collision with the Volvo 60 Venom, which not only got flicked, but is unable to continue the series due to the collision - no surprise there. Morning Glory continues their early edge over Pyewackett, beating them in all four races so far. Get the dope on the series here. Thanks very much to SA friend Rick Tomlinson for these great shots. 04/28/2004 |
|
We don't have a problem, but the Stars do. Race number three was not sailed due to controversy surrounding some of the sailors weighing too much, a rash of protests, and confusing administrative decisions. Read about it here. Wonder what the heavy hitters in the above picture think about this mess? 04/28/2004 |
The Big J Granted, this boat is not going to be for everyone, but it most surely is going to be for a few of the well-heeled. To be built out of carbon and E glass by TPI, carbon rig from Hall, and an emphasis on luxury, this is likely to be a fairly impressive thing. No sprit though, so we likely won't be ordering one as the SA pimp palace. Bummer. 04/27/2004 |
Star Wars Down but not out, Paul Cayard and Phil Trinter with a broken rig from race one of the 2004 Star Worlds. After two races, Frederik Loof & Anders Ekstrom are in front. Cayard added an eighth in race two to his DNF, and Mark Reynolds has it all wrong so far with an OCS and a 31. Plus there is a controversy brewing as there are spot crew weight checks that are catching some overweight and therefore illegal. San Diego's George Szabo and crew Christian Finnsgard are right in the middle of this one and it looks a long way from being resolved. This World Championship could end up being a total disaster. Here is the story . The full worlds report can be found here. Photo F. Taccola 04/27/2004 |
| Ensenada race - Update The 57th annual Newport to Ensenada Race was held this past weekend. It is usually lots of boats, 500 or so, mostly cruising and old PHRF tubs, with a few quality exceptions, in a largely light air race. There was some nice breeze in the afternoon, but it reverted to the usual light air flop fest that evening. The standouts this year were Bill Gibbs' 52' cat Afterburner with Mark Michaelsen from The Sailing Pro Shop onboard being first to finish by 3 hours (first in class), and Alchemy the Andrews 77' first monohull to finish, and first in class as well. Afterburner deserves a special award for getting replacement rudders sent from New Zealand the week before the race after breaking their rudders on the delivery to Newport the Saturday before. All that for an Ensenada race, but it turned out to be well worth it. Well done, Bill and the gang. The race was not without some controversy, with the the J-80 DnA, starting with one class, and NOSA scoring them in another. They ended up winning the class they started in, ULDB D, and also the class they were put in, PHRF E! The winner of PHRF E protested, and so the brilliant solution was to award them both first place trophies in PHRF E, and giving the second place boat in ULDB D the win. Huh? The end result, poorly decided and executed by the race officials, hasn't made too many people happy. Results here. 04/26/2004 |
|
King Con Coming back from deep in the pack, Ed Baird rallied to win the 40th Congressional Cup and $6,000 of the $25,000 prize money. Big SA fan Terry Hutchinson finished second and Gavin Brady was up third. Peter Gilmour who lead much of the regatta ended up fourth. Allan Coutts finished last at 0 -18. Go to the Swedish Match 2004 Tour web site for the full story. Photo courtesy www.outsideimages.co.nz 04/26/2004 |
Mean Machine Ellen MacArthur and her 75 ft. Nigel Iren’s designed trimaran have arrived in Newport, RI to get ready for her attempt on the Transatlantic Record. Ellen sailed her new rig 15,000 miles on the delivery trip from Auckland, New Zealand to Newport, which also served as a major shakedown to get ready for the trip. We'll try to grab some more info from Ellen for you in the next couple of weeks. Photo courtesy BJ Porter. 04/23/2004 |
| Done and Done Steve Fossett has apparently done all he set out to do with the announcement that Cheyenne is up for sail, and the sailing aspect of his various adventures is at a close. What a great run, culminating in the outright around the world speed record. This is probably a good point to step down. Let's hope he comes back again somewhere down the road. 04/23/2004 |
| Love Line If
I was running a personal ad, it would read something like this:
"Angry, aging underachiever looking for hot Asian girl, 18-24,
who can take my wrath." 04/23/2004 |
| Anarchy and the UK Rule The Rules
But you have to know them and use them, and you know it. Want some excellent help at getting better with rules? Check out UK Sailmakers Real Time Racing Rules Quizzes on CD available at the UK Sailmakers online store. It is a fully animated disc that has everything you need. There is no reason to go out there unless you are as prepared as possible. UK can help. 04/22/2004 |
Rocky Road A couple of boats slugging it out at a very picturesque Marseilles Week 2004. Photo courtesy of G. Martin-Raget. 04/20/2004 |
| 49 Worlds
04/20/2004 |
| Get Used To It Yesterday, we told you about the Andrews 77 Alchemy hauling ass down the coast here in SoCal and now here are some of the details. The course was from Channel Islands to Newport, a 75 mile feeder race for the Newport to Ensenda Race. It was blowing a solid 25 with gusts a bit higher. Alchemy covered the course in 4 hours and change, averaging over 17 knots. They hit a top speed of 27.2 and this without their top crew. They felt they could have flown their "big" kites and gone even faster. Apparently the boat was simply planing with speeds averaging in the 20's for much of the way. Get used to it, these new maxis are going to be doing this sort of the thing all the time. All that but they still didn't win on corrected time. Something tells me they're not too distraught about that.
04/20/2004 |
| 420 All you stoners know the significance of today's date, don't you? If you were sailing a 420 while on the 420, on 4/20, at 4:20, would that be like, the greatest day ever, man? 04/20/2004 |
Flip Flop
This is Jean Le Cam's "Bonduelle" Open 60's recent self-righting test. The test (mandatory under IMOCA rules) was carried out in Cherbourg, next to the JMV shipyard which built this new Lombard-designed Vendee Globe racer (JMV also built Mari Cha IV). Here's how the test worked: The boat wasartificially capsized, then the skipper goes inside and manually activates the canting keel mechanism. When the keel reached approx. 20° of angle, the boat started to move back towards her natural position. Note that this baby has a sister-ship, Roland Jourdain's new "Sill", which will come out of the yard in a few weeks. More as we get it. Photo credit B.Stichelbaut / Bonduelle, and thanks to Jocelyn Blériot - Course Au Large. 04/19/2004 |
Tipsy
The breezy Tornado Worlds were just concluded in Mallorca, Spain. Santiago Lange and Carlos Espinola won the World Title 11 points ahead of the second, Americans John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree. Australians Darren Bundock and John Forbes finished the event in third. The 2004 Youth World Champions are French Francois Gabart and David Romain that managed excellent results in such a high level Regatta. They finished 21st overall. Check out all the results here. Photo Oscar Pipkin 04/19/2004 |
| Bad Air In
case you thought sailing had a lock on bozo TV commentators with
the likes of Gary Jobson and "Pedro" Isler, this weekend
had a couple of beauties in Big Time sports that people actually
watch. Allow me to share. The
other was the Laker-Rocket NBA broadcast on Saturday night, with
the hyperbolic Bill Walton. Kobe Bryant threw up an air ball near
the end of the game, Shaq grabbed it and slammed it home for the
game winner, yet Walton wanted us to believe that it was a pass,
and not an air ball that Kobe threw. It most certainly was not
a pass, and Walton, much like Page above, was wrong and just looked
stupid in the process. "A great pass" I believe Walton
said. A pass? Are you kidding? Perhaps he was kidding, but I don't
think so. It was a horrible three-point attempt that missed badly,
just like everything else Bryant shot that night. Yet there was
Walton, confirming to millions of viewers that he had seen something
that you did not. Uh, except it was wrong. |
| Stuff It Normally we don't do much of the stick and ball sports (and why the hell would we), but this one is irresistible. Mark McGwire, the steroid using cheating former baseball player, had this great quote about 'roids: "Well,
I'm really not in touch with any of that stuff because I usually
hear it from friends and stuff, and I tell them I don't want to
really hear about any of that stuff. I don't really have any opinion
on that stuff." 04/19/2004 |
She's
Big and, Uh, Big This is one of the first shots of the behemoth Mirabella, all 246 feet of her, actually under way. Designed by Ron Holland (who needsto design race boats?) among her endless list of almost unbelievable statistics, she sports a 300' tall carbon mast. Superlatives
aside, I don't quite get it. It's a bit ugly when it could have
been startling, its big beyond almost any rationale, and it reminds
me of a motor yacht with a mast. It's great, I guess, that somebody
has that much money to do such a thing, but its not how I would
have done it. Let's see, a 246' sportboat, with a 50' sprit, and....... 04/16/2004 |
| Pond Racing Last Saturday I packed up my newly acquired IOM R/C boat in the FX, and hauled ass up to Irvine, CA for an informal regatta at a place called Woodbridge Lake. I think 10 boats showed up and we probably sailed 8 races or so. If you've not done it, you should. It is gobs of fun, and certainly not easy. I had a couple of good races - two seconds, and a bundle of not so good ones. Like any OD class, no mistake goes unpunished and things like a couple of OCS's, fouls, touching marks, quickly puts you back in the pack. And then when you do really dumb things like move the stick the wrong direction to head up when you meant to head down, you really pay. Oh yeah, and also just like any good fleet, these guys at the pointy end of the fleet are good, and serious as a heart attack. Toys my ass. Isn't it always a wonder when one guy is just so obviously better than everyone else. No, no, not me. Steve Landeau, who posts to the forum here is that guy. Man, does he have this down. I got off the line even with him a bunch, but he just has that ability to almost always do the right thing to get out in front and stay there. Impressive and racing these things is truly good times. 04/16/2004 |
| Not Bad, Actually
This is the new Bruce Nelson designed IMS 52 just built by New England Boatworks. No, we haven't become big IMS fans all of a sudden, but it looks like Nelson managed to draw a nice looking boat without too much weirdness, something the Euros don't seem capable of doing. Btw, I decided to bury the hatchet with Bruce. I simply had a bit of a revelation that life is too short for this particular battle, and decided to end it. Don't get me wrong - I like battles and always will, but after all this with him (it has been entertaining as hell), I'd actually rather do something positive with Nelson, and he's with me on this. Jeez, who knew? 04/15/2004 |
| Ellison Has Someone Else's Balls. Two of Them Turns out Larry Ellison does a bit more than water sports. It appears that he also has an interest in collecting balls. Sometimes he keeps them. Sometimes he gives them back. Read the story here. 04/15/2004 |
Anarchy 30 MKII?
Probably not, but it certainly looks worthy of carrying the Anarchy logo, eh boys? This little beauty comes courtesy of SA friend New Zealand designer Kevin Dibley. A while back we put out the call to a number of designers to submit their idea of a 30' sportboat. The parameters were few: speedy, good looking, some offshore capability. Kevin and a few others jumped right on it, some are working on it, and some didn't even have the basic courtesy to respond. We'll tell you who the good guys are, and who are the chumps. We start with the article below. Good times. 04/14/2004 |
Zoom, Zoom Two
Tornados doing the dance from the just completed Princess Sofia
Regatta, won by Americans John Lovell and Charlie
Ogletree. 04/13/2004 |
| Exposed The various syndicates (AC, Volvo, Jules Verne) that have put their advertising packages for sale on eBay, have garnered a grand total of zero bids. This number surprises no one as there was zero chance that a company was going to spend such lofty amounts in this manner. They did however get what they really wanted and that was exposure. It was basically an advertising campaign to do what most advertising campaigns do, and that is to say, "Hey, look at us." What materializes after that is anyone's guess, although the odds still must remain pretty low that any of them will land the Big One. 04/12/2004 |
| U.S.
Dominates Multihull World!
That got your attention, didn't it? Okay maybe dominate is a bit too strong, but with American Steve Fossett's Cheyenne blistering the Around the World Sailing Record, and this just in, Americans John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree winning the Tornado Class at the Princess Sofia, the yanks are showing pretty well for themselves these days. You may check out all the Sofia results here. Photo Nico Martinez. 04/09/2004 |
| Spanish Bombs Of course the '07 America's Cup is a long way off, and perhaps a lifetime in the life of a terrorist, but is the new AC venue not absolutely ripe for a terrorist attack? Outside of the well known fact Saddam Hussein's AC effort is still afloat, does not this capitalist display of Western excess beg to be bombed, from the eyes of the terrorist? Doesn't this open, virtually unprotected, and huge venue present any number of ways to be attacked from ground, air or water? If you were a terrorist, wouldn't this be a gem of a target? You could fuck with the hated Spanish, kill some Americans, maim wealthy Euros and ruin a gross display of wealth and consumption, something the terrorists loathe? It's not a great thought, but this AC is going to be a whole new ballgame now that the world has taken a serious turn in the wrong direction. What is done to protect it will be hugely critical. 04/07/2004 |
|
Rocket, Man Does anybody remember the cool little Mull designed 22' Pocket Rocket? They were bitchin and a bit ahead of thir time, but perhaps their time is here again. Some crazy Canucks think so, as they are reintroducing the little thing. Check it out here. 04/07/2004 |
| My NewBoat Okay, the jig is up. All you that guessed that I had bought something like a Mumm 30, sorry to disappoint. My new boat is actually an International One Meter (IOM) radio controlled model boat. I kind of led you along intentionally, and if you want to hammer me for being a bit of a dick, please do.
Oh and you'll get a kick out of this, I am so out of the racing loop that on one of the numerous times I fouled somebody, one of the guys said "Don't you know rule 17?" Uh, no actually I don't remember. Jeez, I better bone up if I'm going to be one of them big time racers. Ha! The Ed 04/06/2004 |
| Cheyenne Report They Did It! The
team on Steve Fossett's 125 ft. cat crossed the finish line at
Le Stiff lighthouse on the French island of Ouessant at 4 pm local
time to absolutely smash the round-the-world sailing record. Fossett's
time of 58 days, 9 hours crushed the previous record of 64 days,
8 hours set by Frenchman Bruno Peyron in 2002. Congrats to them all, with an SA shout out to crew member Paul Van Dyke from Halsey Lidgard, builder of Cheyenne's sails. We'll look forward to an SA exclusive from him 04/05/2004 |
| Big Pimpin' A Quantum Step Further establishing that this is the place to be for sailors and advertisers alike, we really couldn't be more jazzed to announce the Quantum Sail Design Group has signed on with us as advertisers. There is no doubt about their dedication to the art, and we'll feature some of their new string, er, Smart sail technology for you shortly. Also, we're going to lean on them to provide some technical articles for you about sails, design and trim. We'll also tell you a bit more in the upcoming days, but in the meantime, click on their banner at the top of the page. 04/05/2004 |
| Big Fun! Da Kine Two The
folks at Waikiki Yacht Club want you all to know that they have
a couple of kick-ass regattas planned for this summer. The first
is the Waikiki Inshore Series, starting July 25, and the Waikiki
Offshore Series starting July 31. Boats from Melges 24's, TP 52's,
PHRF and other classes are invited. Come on brah, have some fun
in Hawaii this summer! 04/02/2004 |
|
Making Up One of the topics in the forum of late has been that of designer Leif Beiley and his past "relationship" with SA - all very funny stuff to be sure. Imagine then our complete shock when we received an e-mail from Beiley yesterday stating that he wanted to put all that behind and to be the "in-house" designer for SA!! This is nothing short of bizarre and at first we said bullshit, but upon reflection thought," why the hell not?" We need someone to write this sort of stuff, so in the spirit of moving forward, Beiley is now the SA Designer, and will write a number of articles for us about the technical side of designing. Welcome aboard, we say! 04/01/2004 |
| The Sport Weed Legal? We've got it on good authority that both the ISAF and US Sailing are about to rule that marijuana will no longer be considered a banned substance, as it is not thought of as a performance enhancing drug. Given the hard-core anti-drug and anti-doping hysteria, we find this to be incredible, but our sources are dead nuts reliable on this one. Might a new era in sailing about to be ushered in? 04/01/2004 |
| Inside SA Merger! We're hesitant to even share this because, well we think it is fairly obvious why, but it is virtually a done deal so it seemed only right to give y'all a heads-up. We are going to join forces with Scuttlebutt. As painful as that sounds, and before you all start jumping around like idiots, you need to understand that they approached us, and the deal is a good one for us. We at first replied with two simple words: Fuck off, but the money they (Tom and Craig Leweck - Craig being the suckerfish son) are throwing at us is too good to say no to. Why us? Apparently our readership numbers here are just too big to ignore, and they know that people are tiring of their lame-ass approach to covering the sport. Here's how it will work: They will incorporate some (not all) of our stories into their newsletter, and we'll include most (not all) of their stories on the front page here at SA. I know, I know, it is bizarre, and you are going to accuse us of selling out, but it is a good business decision for us. Plus I think that we could stand to grow up just a bit. And if any of you think that any of the above stories are true, you are a god damn idiot! It is after all April 1. Good times. 04/01/2004 |