Coming...

To the readers of SA very soon......And no, it is not the Flying Tiger 10M. Stay tuned.

6/28/05

Farewell

Corsair Marine co-founder and Wal-Mart billionaire heir John Walton died Monday in a plane crash in Wyoming.

Walton, 58, of Jackson, Wyo., was piloting an ultralight that crashed shortly after takeoff from the Jackson Hole Airport in Grand Teton National Park. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the cause of the afternoon crash was not known, officials said.

The plane was an experimental ultralight aircraft with a small, gasoline-powered engine and wings wrapped in fabric similar to heavy-duty sail cloth, officials said.

In March, Forbes Magazine listed John Walton as No. 11 on its list of the world's richest people with a net worth of $18.2 billion. He was tied with his brother Jim, one spot behind his bother Rob, and just ahead of his sister Alice and his mother Helen.

6/28/05

Testify

Ed,

Hey, The Beneteau Platu 25 from Michigan just sold thanks to Sailing Anarchy! Please cancel the ad. We got a lot of interest in it on SA! None on Boats.com. Way to go SA Classifieds!

Brian

First...

To Last...

That fleet racing is a bitch! Actually BMW/Oracle was neither first nor last, but their 9th place finish in race 5 illustrates the point of how difficult fleet racing is.These shots, from Gilles Martin-Raget are from the Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 5 sailed Sunday. Magnus Holmberg and his team on Victory Challenge actually won Act 5, but were hucked for carrying too much water (?), giving the win to Luna Rossa. Read all about it.

6/27/05

Winna'

American Pete Melvin has just won the A-Cat World Championships. Pete sailed a remarkably consistent series and fended off Aussie Glenn Ahsby who came on strong with three staright bullets at the end. We try to get Pete to write up a short report for y'all.

6/27/05

Beware

The US Coast Guard and several PFD makers have issued safety bulletins regarding certain models of inflatable PFD’s. Mustang, Protexion, and Stearns are all potentially affected. For those who don’t know, Stearns now owns SOSpenders and some of their models are affected as well. On some models the arming mechanism may read a false positive “armed” when the CO2 cartridge is installed improperly. There has only been one count of a false positive reading in the open market, but the PFD makers were able to re-create the problem in labs as well. Each manufacturer has provided detailed arming instructions for their PFD models affected on their respective website. The problem lies within the Halkey Roberts arming system and is explained in detail on the USCG safety alert site.

6/24/05

Air & Water

A hell of a combo, don't you think? Especially when you use it to victory. Here is the Generali Solo winner of the leg between Beaulieu Sur Mer and Porquerolles (south of France), Erwan Tabarly. Photo: Guilain Grenier - Martin-Raget Production.

6/23/05

Naughty,Naughty

We hear that Russell Coutts, sailing the Star with Beat Stegmeier for Switzerland in the Kieler Woche has been yellow flagged in yesterday's race 2 for infringing rule 42. He made a one turn penalty turn only, thus was disqualified from that race. He got the flag from America's Cup umpire Bosse Sammuelsson (SWE) and Siegfried Uecker (GER). Coutts' crew, Mr Stegmeier, was asked why they did only one turn and said, "Well the helm said one is enough ..".

6/23/05

French Lesson

American Pete Melvin is currently leading the 100 boat A-Cat World Championships going on now in Sanguinet, France. Pete is sailing the new Morelli and Melvin deigned A2, and he's 6 points in front after 5 races. 15 points separate 2nd & 3rd, so its a pretty tight regatta, with 2 days left for more intense racing.

The A2 catamaran is not only designed by Morrelli & Melvin (as well as Jeremy Laundergan), but its produced by them too, sort of. Gino Morrelli is producing the resin-infused hull at their shop in Santa Ana, while Performance Cat is finishing/marketing them.

Go Pete!

6/23/05

"Say, do you have any end-tie slips?"

The reality of being the first one in your marina with a big new multi! Actually it is L'Hydroptere in Puerto Sherry, waiting to attackthe Cadiz-San Salvador de Bahia record.....

6/23/05

Where Are They Now?

Remember 1992 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year and Olympic Silver Medalist Kevin Mahaney who was also the founder and skipper of the America's Cup defense team Young America in '95? It seems like an eternity since we thought of him, but he is indeed staying active. Good on ya mate.

6/23/05

A Little Cheese With Your Whine?

Hey we like the ScuttleEuro boys (unlike the ScuttleYanks), but we couldn't resist mocking this one. Jeez Adrienne, some Frog flicks a few butts in the drink and you write a letter??

* From Adrienne Cahalan: We are very happy that Olivier and his crew are in Australia and will attempt to break the round the Australia record. I wish him good luck but am sad that he does not respect our beautiful country enough to stop throwing his cigarette buts over the side of his yacht into our waters while he has been here getting ready to go. I can only hope that on his way round Australia he and his crew keep their garbage (including cigarette butts) on board the yacht until the end and helps keep clean our beautiful waters and beaches.

6/23/05

Into the Night

The Open 60 trimaran Heartsease Laurus Roc, skippered by Lars Svensson, took multihull honors at the finish line of the Marion to Bermuda race at 0500:17 Tuesday June 21. This is the first multihull division in Marion to Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race history. Lars Svensson is a famous heart surgeon in the USA who is also in charge of the Heartsease Foundation.

6/22/05

Woody Winner

Yesterday we asked you to identify the cat in the picture below, and one of you Anarchists, as usual, hit it out of the park - nice work!

That's definitely Steve Dashew's 32' D Classs catamaran Beowulf (I think #IV) during the upwind Ensenada race ( I think 1971). I worked for her builder, Skip Hawley, just as this Beowulf was being finished, and Skip never built anything in just one weekend! The hulls really where just a stretched Tornado; with 10 feet of straight line extension of the hull templates added in the middle. The bows where just slightly more plumed than the Tornado's. He sailed her with 2 different setups: the one in the photo are with 16' of beam and 420' of sail. The other setup was with 18 or 20' of beam and the D Class maximum of 500' of sail. This smaller setup was surprisingly the faster of the two. I sailed aboard her just once, limping her back to Fish Harbor after Steve had misjudged taking a C Class cat's stern and ripping a yard or so off of Beowulf's bow. Still an awesome ride. His previous Beowulf was also an awesome boat. A C Class cat with a 10 or 12" diameter mast with a sail off of both windward and leeward sides - forming a big hollow wing. He spectacularly cartwheeled her to destruction during a Yachting Magazine "One-of-a-Kind" regatta in Chicago.

6/22/05

Tiger Tender?

You say you've got a new Flying Tiger 10 meter on order? You say you are going to need a little sumpin' sumpin' to chill out on after the regattas? Well here ya go bunky - it is the new Stevens 53 built by - you guessed it - the same builders doing the FT 10M. Click on the pic and get a closer look. Nice!

6/22/05

In the Works

Dinghy Anarchy

Our growing reach and a realization that most dinghy sailors do not have a place to call home, we will be starting a Dinghy Anarchy forum in the next couple weeks here at SA. Our intent is not to fracture the forums more than we already have(!), but to create one place for all types of dinghy enthusiasts to congregate. We have not done a particularly good job (okay, we sucked) giving the dinghy nation much ink, but we hope to start doing a better job with this new forum as a launching point.

Oh yeah, we have title sponsors in place already! This should be a good thing and hope that you small boaters will embrace it.

6/21/05

Trouble...

The Bavaria Yachtbau company, known mostly for building cruisers, have also gone into the more racer-oriented business, with mixed results, primarily because of one sailor dying when a Bavaria 42 Match lost its keel in the Adriatic Sea. There are allegations of other such yachts showing problems as well, so in an attempt to assess blame and damage control, the company Adriatic Challenge, which owns 20 of the Match 42's has put out this statement about where they see the blame of the keel problem(s) to lie. Despite an obvious language problem, this is a very direct press releases and we suspect that there will be much more to come.

We know some of you guys can add to the story.....

6/21/05

Solo

The Generali Solo is under way in France with 23 solo sailors racing Beneteau Figaros in a mix of five nonstop offshore legs [the longest 240 miles] and seven days of inshore racing. Single-handed racing remains one of the supreme tests of the sport and this looks like a tough event. For those who have raced solo, share your experiences with us.

6/20/05

The Ed's Day Job

Some of you have asked what my "real job" is and if you consider working in radio a "real job", then there you have it. I am a talk show host and producer for KLSD, a progressive talk radio station here in Dago. Here I am hard at work flapping my lips at a live remote broadcast this weekend. Good Times.

Photo courtesy of Pamela Kraemer

6/20/05

Trick or Treat?

Is this cool looking 27' sporty about to become a reality?
We'll let you know......

17-Jun-2005

Russell Coutts with Beat Stegmair will compete during the Kiel Week in the Star Class. He starts for Switzerland.The USA's lone representative is George Szabo. The racing gets under way Saturday. More information: www.kielerwoche.de

17-Jun-2005

According to Alexa, an Internet traffic ranking company, we are the 23,480 most visited site in the world, and most importantly, the most visited sailing site anywhere! Pretty impressive and a testimony to the fact that there are a whole lot of you who like what we do. Thanks to our community, supporters and advertisers for helping put us on the map. May I also use this opportunity to once again tell all you doubters, haters, naysayers and dicks to kiss my ass? Thank you very much. The Ed

17-Jun-2005

2 For The Road

A couple of brand new Rocket 22's on their way to their new homes in California with two more debuting at Whidbey Island Race Week in July. I believe they have six of these little beauties sold so far. Not bad.

6/14/05

Too Cool

There is just something so cool about watching these big tri's fleet race off the coast of Corsica. Here's what a reader says about Corsica:

Corsica is a land of rebels, anarchists, anti-papists, fools and heroes. Towers high on sea, big mountains, deep valleys, green rivers and large forests and a great, great sea! A miscellaneous mix of people, cultures, languages from Genoa, Barcelona, Pisa, Roman and Punicum, something a bit ungovernable. She is like Africa: if you go, you'll never go back completely..

This shot from Gilles Martin-Raget of the Corsica 60 ft Multihull Grand Prix.

6/13/05

PirateS

This is one reason why I would never go cruising. No way.

6/10/05

For Sale

NEW 30 Ft PHRF Flyer $30,000 obo. You have all seen the plug for this boat @ TF Green Providence Airport (above pic)......now hull # 2 is for sale. Ideal for a fast PHRF racer, and somebody that wants to complete this boat. Designed by Richard Roake. Built by New England Boat Works - the guys who built IACC S&S and Toshiba W60 etc. http://www.boatjunkie.com/30.htm

6/10/05

VOR

Black Paul

We hear that Paul Cayard will be the skipper of the Disney-sponsored Volvo Ocean Race entry, the Black Pearl. He certainly has proven himself in this race, hasn't he? But with new boats, new people and a late start compared to at least a couple other teams, can he do it again? Post your comments here.

6/9/05

Wild Poll

Thanks to a bunch of anarchists venturing over at the Wild Thing site, we are tops. This poll is a few weeks old, but what the hell - it says something, no?

6/9/05

Dupes

Yesterday we told you we thought Pyewacket was headed to Seattle to a new owner. Wrong. The "new" owner, we hear, who currently owns an SC 52, has instead bought a newer SC 52. Seems a strange move, but there you have it.

6/9/05

Pain Box

If you didn't know better, you'd think this boat is fast. And it of course is not, unless you think IMS boats are fast, and we don't. This beauty is a Grand Soleil 42R, winner of the Audi IMS Mediterranean Championships, held in Punta Ala, Italy. Perhaps it is fitting to know that Ideal Standard, the sponsor of the Grand Soleil 42 pictured, is mainly a toilet bowl manufacturer!

Yet another nice shot from our newest photographer associate, Max Ranchi.

6/7/05

Happy Birthday

A bit belated, but somewhat amazingly, The F-27 was launched 20 years ago, on May 28th, 1985, and to date 450 of these now revolutionary Ian Farrier designs were built. Quite a story, quite a boat, and the Farrier line continues on to this day, with Ian currently working on a new F-32.

6/7/05

Mumm's the Word

The Mumm 30 class has a new World Champ and it is Pierre-Loic Berthet and crew aboard Bouyges Telecom. Sailed in La Trinite sur Mer, top US finisher was Deneen Demourkas in sixth, winning the last race of the regatta, and finishing just one point behind defending champ Richard Perini. (We have an Innerview with Deneen on tap). The full results can be found here.

Photo © Jean-Marie Liot.

6/6/05

Vidiot

Speed Freak

Probably not the best promotional video ever put together, but get a load of how powered up this facker is! Talk about the perfect San Diego boat, the Sea Cart 30 looks how we think a tri should look. Thanks to Trevor Baylis for the head's up.

6/4/05

New York, New York

You may know that the NYYC is looking to offer a new 43' to be called the NYYC. They want an IRC competitive cruiser/racer that will be a decent one design as well as capable of going offshore. What you may not know is that the final design contestants are Farr, Mark Mills, and Frers/Swan. Apparently they each gave presentations at Harbour Court 3 weeks ago. We do not know how it went, but we do know that Swan offered the Swan 45 class to the NYYC, but the thinking is that it really isn’t what they want… and not even at the reduced price they offered new boats at…It may come down to Mills or Farr - hard to make a bad choice between those two, but one has to wonder if the political clout of Farr gives them the edge? Take look at the Farr and Mills offerings, and offer your opinions here.

6/3/05

Your Ad Here

Considering how far SA has come, we're surprised by very little, but the results that people get in our Classified section are remarkable. Example received 5/31/05:

Thank you for your assistance in selling my Antrim 27. The boat was sold, and is now closed through the advertisement I placed in Sailing Anarchy. Thanks again for your help!

Roger Wales

6/3/05

Hook 'Em Horns

Here's the gals going at it at the ICSA Women's Championships, hosted by the University of Texas Sailing Team. Yee-ha!
This fun shot from GTSphotos.

6/2/05

Bad Day
Yachting along up the Irish Sea, big bang, rudder falls off, boat starts to sink, liferaft does not inflate, friends who passed by 1 hour ago hear mayday, return to launch their dinghy, crew step off dryshod, board rescue yacht, sit and watch their yacht sink. Happy ending, etc. Could have been very different. Very experienced sailors well respected been at it a long time,and have been racing since IOR days. Good story, true story, real pictures.

6/1/05