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SCUTTLEBUTT EUROPE #1462 - WEEKEND EDITION 15-16 MARCH

Brought to you by boats.com Europe ( http://www.boats.com ) and Yachtworld.com Europe ( http://www.yachtworld.com ) Scuttlebutt Europe 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@scuttlebutteurope.com

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND THE RUMOUR MILL

TORNADO WARNINGS Sounds like things got a bit ugly at the Tornado World Championship prizegiving, after Darren Bundock's old crew John Forbes took the opportunity to have a go at Yachting New Zealand President Jan Dawson over the Tornado's ejection from the Olympic slate. Sail World's Richard Gladwell gave his verdict on the affair. Here's a snippet:

The class did itself no favours at the Worlds prizegiving with an attack on Yachting New Zealand by past ITA President John Forbes, seemingly endorsed by the new ITA President and echoed with the booing from the competitors tables as Yachting New Zealand President Jan Dawson made her way forward to make a closing address to what had otherwise been a brilliant regatta for the class.

Forbes probed, parried and quoted from a leaked email from the Yachting NZ Olympic Committee, which got onto the internet some months ago and was seized upon by the international multihull community.

The fact that the recommendation was not accepted by the YNZ Board seemed to be lost on Forbes. As too was the fact that Yachting New Zealand is one of the few organisations with the guts to have said they intend to make a submission to ISAF requesting a review of the event selection for the 2012 Olympics.

For the Multihull to make it back into the 2012 Olympics, there has to be quite a few more Yachting New Zealand's prepared to make such a stand.

Richard's comment provoked an equally eloquent rebuttal from Darren Bundock, who has this to say:

There is no doubt that John's speech was a great surprise and I think totally unexpected by everyone in the room at the presentation and when he read the first line of the submission I instantly knew which MNA had made this submission and I cringed on where he was going with it. However, after reflecting on his speech over night there is no doubt that he was completely honest and right on the money.

There is no doubt that the Tornado sailors appreciate the recent turn around from Yachting New Zealand but Yachting New Zealand's submissions and their council member help contribute to the disastrous position that Olympic sailing is in right now. No question.

It needs to be made perfectly clear to all these National Member Associations worldwide what their actions are doing to the future of the sport and the lives of the Athletes with very little consequence on the MNA's, Yachting Association boards and council members.

The recently appointed ISAF Athletes Commission (the athletes' voice) has come out with 10 of the 11 Olympic classes represented stating that the decision taken in Estoril was a bad decision and needs to be overturned. This is what the athletes want. Remember us? The sailors.

A very interesting debate, which you can read in full on Sail-World. If you're a regular SailJuice reader you'll know that my sympathies lie in good part with the multihull sailors. But as Richard Gladwell points out, when an organisation such as YNZ has shown the balls to change its mind and throw its support behind the beleaguered Tornado class, it's time to say thank you, to forget the past, and to welcome any help you can get with open arms.

The lid on the Tornado's Olympic coffin hasn't creaked shut quite yet, but I'm not sure that John Forbes's speech has done much to secure the Tornado's safe return from its undeserved grave. -- Andy Rice, http://sailjuiceblog.com

STORIES SAILORS TELL *Excerpts from a long post on Kimball Livingston's must-read blog:

So here we are on the Mysterious East coast, and Harken has just opened a new shop in Newport, so Peter, Olaf, and a passel of the usual suspects from Pewaukee are basking in the (relative) warmth of Rhode Island, where the snow is only about 10 inches deep and a day old. Wisconsin, eat your heart out. Naturally there's a launch party. I'm on the scene, coaxing Around Alone vet Tim Kent to recount tales from the fluky weather of his qualifying sail with Everest Horizontal.

Not to fall asleep with the spinnaker up, that was Tim's goal. Because the breeze was light, except for the occasional slammer squall. And I'm not someone who can come away from a night like that with every detail in place, but the story went something like this -

Naturally, Tim did fall asleep. And naturally he awoke to discover that The Squall With His Name On It had arrived.

Boat on its ear. Spreaders in the water. Spinnaker way out yonder in the south forty with the fishies. Whitecaps hissing. Lightning flashing. I said LIGHTNING FLASHING. Fast-forward then through a few I'll-never-do-that-agains and we find our man Tim scrambling into position to do the right thing. As he tells the story:

"I had a moment when I said to myself, 'Tim, stop, look at this. Just look. Hardly anybody in the world will ever see such a sight.' "

Now we're in a four-wheel drive car and snow is falling and Ted Hood is driving us from Portsmouth to Bristol via the Mount Hope Bridge ... Sailmaker, designer, builder, skipper of 1974 America's Cup defender Courageous. That's Ted Hood. In 1994 he bought back his 1959 ocean racer, Robin ("Sue, my wife, wouldn't let me name any of the kids Robin, so it had to be the boats") for $4,000. If anybody needs a reality check re. the cost of old, wood boats, consider that this one has been restored, still wins races, and has soaked up about $200,000 so far. Ted describes this first of many Robins as, "a heavy-weather hull with a light-air rig."

...looking up through the windshield at 12 Meter US19, Nefertiti, on a cradle on the hard. The snow is still coming down and Ted points to the underbody - the long keel of the day, attached rudder - and he says, "We went to the tank testing and the tank kept saying to make the keel longer, make the keel longer. So we made the keel longer. But the tank had the wrong numbers for wetted surface. When we raced-off against Weatherly [for the right to defend the America's Cup in 1962; Ted was, uniquely, designer, skipper, and sailmaker], we were faster in a breeze; they were faster in the light stuff. It came down to that. The last races of the trials were light air, so Weatherly defended."

His story.

Mine: Even the guy who landed the big one (12 years later) laments the big one that got away. Ted Hood is known as a man of few words, but that's a load of BS. Ask him, Ted, how do you feel? You'll get nothing. But he'll talk engineering till the cows come home. Watching him respond to generations-old but intelligent hardware at Herreshoff's was a revelation.

http://sailmagazine.blogspot.com

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE 1996 OLYMPICS COULD AFFECT THE LONDON GAMES IN FOUR YEARS TIME Here's how.

The repercussions of last November's decision by the world (a-hem) governing body - the International Sailing Federation - to dispense multihulls when the Olympic sailing regatta is held in Weymouth in 2012 continues to reverberate around the world.

One new line of attached is the specially created International Multihull Association, a wise-after-the-event lobby group which will try and win friends and influence people amongst the decision makers at ISAF. A reversal of the decision is sought.

Leading light of the IMA is Paul Pascoe and if ISAF has any memory it will know that it owes the Aussie. He saved their bacon at the 1996 Olympics when the sailing was held in Savannah, a splendid antebellum town, fine setting for a novel (John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) and absolutely the wrong place to hold an Olympic regatta.

The sailing waters were OK (-ish) but the logistics required to host the Olympics in the low lying wetlands amounted to a huge waste of money. Forget any idea of 'legacy'…

Three different and temporary locations had to be set up (operations, staging/transportation and marina), all for a few hundred people and a few weeks. Millions of dollars spent for a transient facility.

Pascoe's part was to dig ISAF out of a big hole when the fancy IBM results system failed to work. Trouble was the operations base where the officials, TV and media worked was 16 miles upstream from where the racing was. No one had a clue as to what was going on out on the water and the info-system was constipated because all the data had to go from Savannah to IBM's Olympic facility in Georgia and back again. A stage coach would have been faster.

Throw in the time difference for any country east of the USA, and today's racing fast became yesterday's. Hopeless. Ringing the sailor's and coaches mobile phones was how we worked for the first couple of days.

Previous ISAF president Paul Henderson could never be accused of being a great strategist, but the one-time Toronto plumber loved fire-fights. He was never happier than rolling his sleeves and trying to sort out a problem.

So he asked Pascoe, a computer man to the core and a then leading light in the Hobie class, to spirit himself and his laptop into the toilet compartment of the IBM info team trailer and do some lines of code. This was then plugged-in under the IBM's radar so as not to ruffle any feathers because of the very expensive IBM/IOC supplier rights contract.

As ISAF itself had the raw mark rounding and finish data coming in, Pascoe's restroom results program achieved what the mighty big blue could not: near real-time race information for regatta officials, coaches, media etc.

Pascoe should have got a medal himself. -- from Tim Jeffery's blog at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/timjeffery/

* Editor: I was the (far) dumber half of Pascoe's two man team, handling the webhosting, photos, commentaries and reports for the ISAF's Olympic coverage in 1996. One of my favourite moments was the first day of racing, before I'd made it to Savannah. The coaches at the "day marina" where all the dinghies launched were forbidden to be on the race course, just a mile or so away. There were no good internet connections out on the day marina (remember.. this is 1996), only the office had a phone line, and the coaches and team members had no idea about what was going on. That, of course, drove them crazy.

As Paul's feeds went live on the site, I'd print the pages showing mark roundings and finishes and fax them to the office on the day marina. The office staff would then tape the fax's to the outside of their trailer. Thousands of miles of fiber and phone lines to get instant information on what was happening a mile away. A bit surreal...

For my efforts I was inducted into SINS (Society of International Nautical Scribes) in Savannah that week, it should have been Paul, but at least he didn't get the true reward of induction... a bar bill just over $300 USD and a raging hangover.

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Colours: Signal Red, Light Grey, Sea Blue Sizes: 1 -5 RRP: 110 Euros

http://www.henrilloyd.com/marine

HISTORY INTO SPIRIT OF MYSTERY Sailor and adventurer Pete Goss is celebrating a double milestone for his latest project, which is not only straight out of history - it incorporates it too.

On 14th March 153 years ago, a 37ft wooden Mounts Bay lugger called Mystery arrived in Australia after an epic voyage from Cornwall. Pete is building Spirit of Mystery to shine a light on the bravery of the seven Cornishmen who made the heroic journey to Melbourne to escape poverty and seek out a new life in Australia.

Today, in a small boatyard in South East Cornwall, Spirit of Mystery is about to reach a major milestone in wooden boat building - completion of the planking. Spirit of Mystery has just five planks left to fit, which should be finished in the next week, keeping her well on schedule for her planned launch in June.

Spirit of Mystery is also having history literally built into it by the construction team of Chris Rees, John Albrecht and Andy Grieve. Pete has sourced a piece of oak from Nelson's Victory, teak from the Cutty Sark and a part of the rigging from the SS Great Britain.

Pete said: "Boats can develop real character and as Spirit of Mystery takes shape you can feel the spirit of history and community in her. I am getting more and more excited about the forthcoming voyage to Australia, but whilst the accommodation is more spacious and comfortable than most of the boats I am used to, the recent gales hit the boatyard hard and gave a timely reminder of what the Southern Ocean has in store for us."

A log entry from 6 March 1855 gives a taste of what the original crew of Mystery encountered: "A terrific gale of wind - heaviest so far experienced. Our gallant little boat rides the mountains of sea remarkably well." Leaving Newlyn on Saturday 18 November 1854, the Mystery travelled about 11,800 nautical miles in 116 days before arriving in Melbourne on 14 March 1855.

The project brings history to life for Cornwall Playing for Success, a charity of which Pete is a founding trustee, and the project has so far raised 10,000 GBP for the charity and the Sense of Place educational programme. Children from Cornwall Playing for Success have been down to visit the boat, see her being built and follow her progress through Pete's blog on the website - www.petegoss.com/mystery/blog.php, through which descendants of the original crew have already been in touch.

It is planned to launch Spirit of Mystery on Saturday 21st June and commence the passage in the last week of October. More information about the project and the original voyage of the Mystery can be found on Pete's website - http://www.petegoss.com

IMX-45 CHARTER AVAILABLE FOR THE 2008 NEWPORT BERMUDA RACE. Xcelsior, an X-Yacht, is sister ship to IMX-45s Temptress & Cybele, winners of 2006 Bermuda Race.

The boat is in excellent condition with race bottom. The boat will be delivered inspected and ready to sail. Included is a large and up to date sail inventory. New for 2008 are 2 new spinnakers, 1 staysail and 3 new head sails. The rating can be optimized for Bermuda Race conditions. Bermuda Race entry deadline is April 1st.

Price $45,000 USD includes boat and Watch Captain. For more on the boat, please visit http://www.yrcpartners.com or contact Todd @ (914) 777-3615 or email todd@itpros.com

VIDEOS AND PODCASTS * Wiley Nautical release the first of three exclusive Jon Emmett/Paul Goodison podcast interviews to celebrate the publication of Be Your Own Sailing Coach

Paul Goodison, double Olympian and triple European Champion, shares his racing tips with Jon Emmett, author of Be Your Own Sailing Coach. In three exclusive interviews released by Wiley Nautical, Paul Goodison, contributor to Jon's new book, offers his advice on race preparation, starting strategy and race tactics.

Jon Emmett and Paul Goodison's Race Preparation podcast can be downloaded FREE at http://www.wileynautical.com/2008/03/be-your-own-sai.html

Starting Strategy Podcast will be available to download March 20th Race Tactics Podcast will be available to download March 27th

* Bob Bitchin is the colourful owner and Editor of US yachting magazine Latitudes and Attitudes. I interviewed him at the Annapolis Sailboat Show in October for Yachting World's One Amazing Day feature which appears in the January issue, out now. Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISOeYvsYE0M

* Ian Walker, British skipper of the Green Team entry, provides a progress report on boat build and crew selection. Meanwhile Guy Swindells also talks to Andreas Hanakamp, who is at the helm of the Russian campaign, and Herbert Dercksen outlines his plans for the Extreme 40 series. -- Volvo Ocean Race: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/podcast

LAUNCHINGS * Humphreys Class 40 nears completion

The first Class 40 from Humphreys Yacht Design is nearing completion and due for launch in early April. The 'Orca 40' is being series produced in Slovenia by the Ocean Tec Company using the latest in vacuum-infusion technology.

Led by Tom Humphreys, the development work on the Class 40 has taken place in parallel with research undertaken by the Humphreys team into their design for the Russian entry to the 2008 Volvo Ocean Race, yielding a range of synergies that has helped create an innovative Class 40 that is expected to have first class performance characteristics. The process of performance optimisation has been based heavily on meteorological profiles for the transoceanic classics such as the Route du Rhum, and HYD has worked closely with Jure Jerman from the Slovenian Met Office to optimise the design based on a 10-year statistical analysis of Atlantic weather.

Ergonomics studies have also been undertaken by top offshore sailors Phil Sharp and Kristian Hajnsek, and a full scale, heeling cockpit mock-up was built to refine certain areas of the design, such as the cockpit layout. A comprehensive weight analysis was undertaken to optimise weight distribution and to ensure the design hits the minimum displacement and maximum righting moment defined by the class rules.

* Frequent Eurobutt contributor and artist Jim Bolland (see http://www.auldmug.com ) sends us these pics (click the image for full gallery) of the launch of Riccardo Simoneschi's new TP52 in New Zealand. Designed by Judel / Vrolijk & Co. it was built by Hakes Marine.

"And so to the ceremony. Two previous attempts to break the sturdy Italian bottle failed. The third attempt was, as you can see, successful! However, contact was made between the bottle and Riccardo's hand. He was in some pain afterwards. The lady belting Ricci on the hand is his girl friend Lucia Giozgetti.

"The launching was quite a performance, big crowd and getting photographs was difficult. Media scrum! That's the end of a TV sound boom bottom right. My camera is at arms length above my head."

* Melges Performance Sailboats has chosen McConaghy Boats in China to build the Melges 20. "The team of Melges and Reichel Pugh Yacht Design is a proven, winning combination many times over. Adding McConaghy Boats to the team will ensure the Melges 20 is a worldwide success," said Harry Melges, CEO of Melges Performance Sailboats. "This is a strong, long-term alliance that will deliver the greatest sailing products available."

In addition, Melges is also extremely proud to present the very first glimpse of the Melges 20 plugs and molds. Visit melges20.com to view the entire Melges 20 Photo Gallery ( http://melges20.com/photo-gallery.php ).

McConaghy Boats is recognized as one of the most prestigious international boat builders. They are a world leader in advanced, high-technology yacht building, constantly innovating, applying expertise to composite construction and numerous components. 'Wild Oats XI', 'Alfa Romeo 1' and '2' as well as 'Morning Glory' are among their most notable success stories as well as supplying 80 percent of America's Cup syndicates (including 'Alinghi') with complete steering systems and unique wheel designs.

* Auckland based Aries Pacific Limited, a member of the New Zealand Marine Industry Association, is managing the design and build of a new 52m (170') traditional schooner currently being built in Russia. Built from the best Russian oak, this yacht will also feature the latest in systems and comfort expected from a superyacht of today. She has been designed to be cruised and chartered by her owner and family all over the world. The infrastructure used to build this schooner will serve in the construction of further similar yachts which will be customized to suit the requirements of each individual client.

The design and build team unites New Zealand professionalism with Russian experience in wooden boatbuilding. This yacht, to be named 'Imperia', will be the largest privately owned yacht to be built and launched in Russia. Though traditional in appearance, she will incorporate the latest in global technology including carbon fibre masts fitted with a thin veneer of wood, designed to give the look of traditional wooden spars. All the sailing systems will be by hydraulic or electric command and the latest in communication and electronics are being fitted to the yacht to make sailing easy and effortless.

http://www.europeanseas.com/luxuryyacht-news-ariespacific.htm

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THE LAST WORD A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King. -- Emily Dickinson

The opinions expressed in Scuttlebutt Europe do not necessarily reflect those of its editors or sponsors.

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