May2005
| "Say
Cheese!"  C'mon, you're young, its warm, you have a bikini top, and you're driving at the X Yachts Elba Cup, Elba Island, Italy. Where's the smile? Maybe because she's a soldier - Antares an Italian Navy sailng team boat! Nice shot from Max Ranchi. 5/31/05 |
Nice
Start Last
week we told you about the new Mark Mills ILC 40 Tiamat (which
btw many of you seemed
to like). and now we can tell you that Tiamat was awarded
the Scottish Series Trophy in Tarbert Sunday for winning IRC Class
1 of the Bell Lawrie Scottish Series. Tiamat will be trucked back
to the Hamble immediately to compete in the IRC Nationals to be
held in Cowes this coming weekend - likely a very good test for
the boat's true potential. Photo courtesy Patrick
Roach Picture Agency.5/31/05 |
Breatheless?
|
Carve It Up!
The Open 60 Sill Veolia ripping along off Scotland in the Calais Round Britain Race. Photo from Gilles Martin-Raget. 5/27/05 |
Looks Good....
Here is a new 40' IRC Racer/Cruiser, the latest performance IRC design from Mills Design. Built by Vision Yachts, it has been designed for a client whose racing ambitions are underpinned by the desire for a dual purpose design. The racing program starts with the Scottish Series next week, and is followed by the IRC Nationals in the Solent a week later. Nice looking and we like Mark so we hope she's fast! 5/27/05 |
| OnBoard Fun It is Friday, so let's have a little fun.... Here are a couple of reports from the VO 70 Movistar as they make their way from Brazil to Spain. Enjoy. Here for your readers is another look of what 'real life' is onboard, this was the daily email sent out to the families, edited by our Aussie sailmaker Spike. Cheers, So to the sailing, well what can I say! It's very HOT. Just sitting at the nav table with two fans going I've got the ball sweat of a 1000 elephants! It is hard to sleep and the drinking water is getting hotter as the days go by. A heinous crime was committed in the early hours of this morning. Stu needed to use the head, but when he got there to his disgust there was a floater. So of course he tried to pump it out, but to no avail. - it EXPLODED !!!!!! Not too many things upset Stu, but he did not look happy. The countdown to the equator ceremonies continues, now only a couple of miles to go, the Spanish are starting to sweat... We will keep you all posted. Spike out. 5/26/05 |
| OnBoard More Fun
King Neptune & his mermaid Black Beauty visited this morning Movistar, the picture of our Olympian 49 'er gold medals winners speaks for itself. Cheers, |
Moving Along
5/27/05 |
UPDATE! Dismasted Strange Duck
The very day after we featured a nice shot of the Open 60 Bonduelle, she was dismasted while racing in the Calais Round Britain Race. All on board are fine, but clearly their race is not. This rather unfortunate photo courtesy of Gilles Martin-Raget. No matter what, these 60's are truly a different breed of animal. Fast, complex and interesting as hell, they must be a trip to race. Be sure to click on Gilles' site for some more great shots. 5/26/05 |
Indy 500 Monday is Memorial day in the States, and here at SA, we'll be taking the long weekend off. My wife and I are heading to the Indianapolis 500 as guests of Centrix Financial who are sponsoring the cars of Bruno Junqueira and Sebastien Bourdais, both of who should be very competitive. The race should be Tony Kanaan's to win, but Indy is a tough place - ask Michael Andretti, his team owner! 5/27/05 |
| The One To Beat?
The new DeVos owned, Reichel-Pugh designed, Lexus sponsored and Quantum powered and sponsored TP 52, Quantum Racing, is about ready to make some noise in the Med. Steered by Russell Coutts and with Mark Reynolds and Larry Leonard onboard, this will be the boat to watch in a very tough fleet that already has plenty of good boats to watch. It will be of great interest to see if Quantum and R/P can break up the North/Farr monopoly. We hope to have some pictures of the sails and a report from Leonard fairly soon. 5/26/05 |
| Go! Francis Joyon is probably leaving NY today (May 26, roughly around 06:00 PM GMT) on his record attempt. Alow is currently forming and should be reachable at about 100 miles off the starting line of the Transat record (Ambrose - Lizard, GB). Hope he'll be faster at Ambrose than the Rolex Transatlantic Challenge fleet, who were unlucky Sunday with 3 to 5 knots of wind on this exact same line! According to weather guru JY Bernot, who I spoke with yesterday afternoon, things can still evolve, but if it's not tomorrow, then other windows are opening anyway later this week and early next week… Time to beat : Laurent Bourgnon (60' Primagaz, 1994) : 7 days, 2h, 34 mn, 42 sec. Theoretical distance 2925 miles. IDEC might have a shot at the solo 24-hours record (Bourgnon again, same crossing, 540 miles). Jocelyn.Bleriot 5/26/05 |
Creep Show
Not really, it is just superb work from Sean Trew at the 2005 J/24 Nationals. Speaking of nice work, click on the picture and note the interesting crew work/position on the lead boat. Legal, right? 5/25/05 |
Love It / Hate It Yesterday we told you about potential legal action against the maxi Maximus. Today we got a copy of a document that If you were to receive in the mail, you would have to say to yourself, "We're fucked." If your side is sending it out however, you'd likely think, "They're fucked." Either way, it is a fucker. Enjoy. 5/25/05 |
Hey, Remember Me?
I'm the Soling! you haven't forgotten about me, have you? Apparently some haven't as the Soling Worlds are taking place in Italy as we speak. The regatta got off to a tragic start as Dutch Soling Sailor Rien Segaar died on his way to the start with his crew (his son and a friend) when he was struck by a severe heart attack. All attempts to revive him failed. Best to his family and friends. 5/24/05 |
...Gone!
Here is the last we'll ever see of the J/24 Magic Hat as it sank during the last day of the J/24 Nationals, won by Chris Snow. Photo courtesy:Scott Wirs, Rhumbline Photo. 5/24/05 |
| The Same, Only Different
From the Stone Age to the Phat Age, Stad Amsterdam and Tiara heading for the start line of the Rolex Transatlantic Challenge. Calm now, it looks like this monster fleet is about to get hammered with breeze on the nose and in the 30-40 knot range. Any bets on who drops out? This photo from Anarchist Mike Kentz. 5/24/05 |
DC and the Fat Heads Big SA fan DC was last seen driving the bastardized TP 52 Margaritaville to a DFL in the Yachting Cup here in Dago earlier this month. In apparent rare form, DC put much of the blame on their rear finish because of other boats ratings, notably Peligroso and the modified Taxi Dancer. (Curiously, Margie has had little problem doing well before against most of the same boats). It would also seem that there was some complaining centered around the new Ullman big upper girth mainsail on Staghound, an R/P 50 steered by none other than Ullman himself. Apparently Ullman has found some sort of a loop hole were they believe they can build a near square head main without penalty in PHRF. Apparently some don't see it that way and we'll try to get more info on this one. 5/24/05 |
The Next Step
It is good to be on the water again. and to leave all the buerocratic stuff behind us. Why are some countries doing so difficult regarding custom clearance? Even having the best custom brokers on your team,, still doesn't mean things are going smoothly. So after waiting for days to get the paperwork done, we just left, which meant leaving some boat equipment behind in Brasil, plus as well some personal items, because we didn't manage to stay "robbed free." But the rest the stopover was good, friendly people in the marina, and a good setup for the containers, nice for the refit . The shore team made again some very nice improvements and got the boat in top-shape . Since our departure, we have been short tacking up the coast , trying to stay clear of the small fishing boats, who prefer to fish without any lights on and having long drifting nets. We caught one, but we managed to free ourselves. For the rest not much excitement, we trim and change our sail. We expect a big shift later today, who will bring nice reaching conditions, read good miles going home. Cheers, Bouwe 5/23/05 |
Classics
Here is Hollandia’s launch on 14 May 2005. Designed by Doug Peterson & Ian Howlett and built at Vels Advanced Composites in Medemblik she is the first Int. 8-Metre built in Holland since 1927. The first Hollandia was highly successful, winning the Coppa d’Italia in her first season and silver at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. High hopes are held for the new Hollandia to have the name engraved on the Coppa d’Italia again and of course the World Cup. During the first sea trials she felt good but with metre boats there are no guarantees, we will only learn about her performance once we are in a strong and competitive environment and Flensburg certainly will provide the acid test for both boat & crew. For now the owners and crew are happy with the result, she floats on her lines and looks just great. With just two weekends left to prepare for the European Championships and the Coppa d’Italia in Flensburg the tuning of the boat might suffer but most important, she will be there and the class has a great new and exiting addition to the fleet. (Oh yeah and the owner's Aston Martin Vanquish in the picture ain't too shabby either! - Ed)
All the best, John 5/20/05 |
No Illusion
5/19/05 |
Race Report Tea Bag Skipper Billy Hardesty gives a quick review of his SDYC team's 2005 Lipton Cup victory. I would like to give a big thanks to the gang at SDYC for their terrific effort in this year's Lipton Cup. Sailing J-105s in the light air of Newport Beach can be pretty challenging. It was a small regatta with only 11 boats. Saturday's races were canceled due to no wind so the race committee moved the start time from 12:00 to 11:00. Typically this makes no sense in Southern Cali but it worked on this day. We had a tough race 1 after a mediocre start but managed to salvage a 4th after passing a couple of boats on the final run. Races 2 and 3 were very similar with pin end starts and decent leads at nearly every mark to win both races. Race 4 was tough after a very mediocre start at the pin and then Cal YC sending us back out left for more punishment. There was a big battle on the final run between 5 teams, Cal, Balboa, Southwestern, Newport, and us from San Diego YC. Everyone but us jybed early for the finish and with nothing to loose we went a little farther, kept our speed, and passed 3 boats to go from 5th to 2nd. In the final race we were a bit more conservative knowing we only had to finish in the top 8. We started up near the boat and tacked fairly early. It looked good so we kept going for a while. Bahia Corinthian was with us and they won the race. We happily followed them around in second. As for the negative discussion in the forum. The gripe is that we took some photos of another boat out during our organized practice weekend the week before the event. On a practice weekend everyone takes a risk. We risked showing our abilities, techniques, setup, etc. Fortunately we were there with a big tender and some equipment to capture the training session. Unfortunately, one of the other boats in the session didn't like our taking their photograph. Best Regards, Bill Hardesty 5/19/05 |
| You
Paid To Do This? Here are some great clips from the Global Challenge race while in the Southern Ocean. Wild! Thanks to Cal Tomlinson. 5/19/05 |
| 'Sup,
Li'l G?  Damn, how cute of a picture is that? If you have kids, you know what it is all about..... Click on the pic and take a look at that expression. This great shot, like all his work, is courtesy of our friend Sean Trew. 5/18/05 |
21x2
|
| Pressure
Drop We had heard that the VO 70 Movistar had been dropped from a crane, and that is at least partially true. Here is what skipper Bouwe Bekking told us: When putting the boat back in the water (6th of May), and luckily when a big part of the hull was in the water, the crane lost control, resulting in big splash, but no damage, just a shocked shore crew! Currently we are waiting of one specific part, which is in transit from the USA, then we depart immedialty and will do regular updates for you on the trip. Cheers, Bouwe |
| Maximus
Troubleus? 5/14
- Maximus has just radioed into Newport shipyard that they need
to be hauled immediately upon arrival (sometime Saturday night)
requesting that they need 20' draft in the haulout bay and a
hydraulics engineer on standby. Sounds as if the keel is jammed.
5/15
- We were out practicing today and saw the Maximus come in.
She is sitting in the travel lift slings still with here keel
down in a pit. Keel is stuck down. She has a laundry list of
problems which combined forced her to crawl into Newport covering
the final 500 NM in over three days. They have also pulled out
the rudder...... |
| Crunch time We hear that Alinghi's spanking new version 5 Hall Spars rig was broken during transport (loading it on the plane)? It wasn't Emirates, was it? ;) Things have ground to a halt at Alinghi as a result and have not sailed in over a week. They are using Hall. ETNZ are using Southern, same as BMW Oracle. 5/17/05 |
The Look, III
Perhaps
the ultimate look? Certainly the least demanding helmsman any
of us is likely to have sailed with! A 40-year old half-tonner,
Carinya, being steered by most flexible, reliable, easygoing
helmsman its ever had: two feet of shock cord. |
| The
Rich Sponsor.....The Rich |
| Do Some Good In concert with the money that abounds in this sport is also the opportunity to help those who are less fortunate. Most of us are familiar with the Leukemia Cup Regattas and here is a chance to get involved and to help in what is certainly a unique way. Do what you can, if you can. 5/13/05 |
Rockin' in Rio
|
Yellow
|
| A First We captured the transcript of the Robert Perry live chat that we did Monday and have it should you care to wade through it. It was actually quite fun and a big thanks to Bob and all of you who participated. Any thoughts on who you'd like to have do another one of these chats? 5/11/05 |
6.5?...looks
like a 10!
|
| VOR 5/10/05 |
The
Look, Part
2
The Look pictures and observationsin the piece further below on this page generated a lot of comments, and I now realize how wrong I was. This is The Look! Photo courtesy of DA-WOODY.COM 5/10/05 |
| The
Look There is a certain look that helmsman have, which really is a result of how a driver is "feeling" the boat. There is a symmetry between the boat and driver and it is interesting to see helmsmen assume their "look" when driving. Below we present how to look, and how not to look... 
This guy's got his swerve on - lined up, head angled - looks good. 
And this guy does not. Legs spread, bad hand and tiller position - looks bad. Any thoughts on how body language relates to helming ability? 5/9/05 |
The
Man Russell
Coutts continues to prove time and again that his the man when
it comes to this sort of thing, and he has done it again. Coutts
and his team won the Toscana Elba Cup – Trofeo Locman, stage
5 of the 2004-’05 Swedish
Match Tour, with a 3-2 victory over Australian Peter Gilmour
of the Pizza-La Sailing Team. As you may know, Swedish Match is
of course a proud sponsor of Sailing Anarchy!5/9/05 |
Why
Not....
|
| VOR
Tech Here's just a portion of what all the VOR 70's are going to carry onboard for their upcoming race around the world. We are currently negotiating to get some exclusive onboard content here at SA. Stay tuned. Communication is one of the priorities in this year’s edition of the Race. “The boats will spend several weeks sailing on their own – Pedro Campos, General Manager of the movistar team, recalls – but thanks to onboard technology, we will follow their every move as if we were there”. Every boat will be equipped with 7 state-of-the-art TV mini-cameras and an editing studio to produce the weekly 20 minutes of tape that the organization demands (on earlier editions, only 8 minutes had to be filmed every week). “Shooting, editing and sending images via satellite is going to keep me busy several hours a day when I’m not on duty), says Pepe Ribes. The Alicante-born Bowman will be in charge of choosing the best images of the VO70 “movistar”, compress then and send them through the specialized equipment onboard. This impressive display of technology aims to take this human challenge to a mass audience, through media coverage unparalleled in the history of sailing. “We have a red button on deck to capture the most relevant moments – says Ribes–. When you push it once, the cameras start shooting everything that happens. The mere thought of being able to tape what goes on at the Indian Ocean or rounding Cape Horn gives me goose bumps”. 5/6/05 |
Up
Up
Up!
|
| Why
Not This One? 5/5/05 |
| Before.....  After....  Yves Parlier radical cat before and after capsizing during a a second attempt at the 540 mile 24-hour solo record that has been held by Laurent Bourgnon since June 1994. Photo courtesy of our Spanish friend Fco. López 5/5/05 |
IOR Stone? Got an IOR leadmine that needs some upgrading? Tomorrow designer Chris Cochran from Morrelli & Melvin will present an article on what a new keel might do for the old dog! 5/5/05 |
Party On
|
| More
Ellen Jeez, does she ever rest? In a bit of a minor record, Ellen MacArthur and her 4-man crew on the big tri B&Q finished the Record SNSM at 18:32:16 GMT yesterday after completing the 284 mile passage from St Nazaire to St Malo, France. It is a new record for the Maxi class category of 1 day, 3 hours, 23 minutes and 29 seconds, not quite in the category of her "other" most recent record, however.... 5/4/05 |
Up and Down
|
Hey Baby....
|
