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SCUTTLEBUTT EUROPE #1474 - 31 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

FONCIA CAPSIZES OFF LORIENT AT 11:30 Saturday morning, in 20 plus knots and a lumpy Atlantic swell, the 60ft trimaran Foncia capsized off Lorient with Alinghi sailors onboard. Of the 10 crew onboard, Piet van Niekerk and Francesco Rapetti were airlifted to hospital, both are safe and with no serious injuries. The rest of the crew along with consultant Alain Gautier were involved in securing the boat and towing it ashore, the sailors are shaken but unhurt.

Ed Baird, who was onboard, provides some insight into what happened: "As we were bearing away, always the highest risk situation on a multi-hull, both the leeward and the central hull dug into the water and the rudders came out. From then it was out of our hands and we capsized forwards. As the mast hit the water, it broke, followed by the rear beam." He continues: "The crew reacted very quickly in getting everyone back on board, doing a head count and checking injuries before calling for help and beginning to secure the boat."

Foncia is currently being towed into the harbour upside down to be craned out and assessed for damage. "We have all been through crashes and capsizes before, this is all part of the sport," says Ed Baird, adding "however this is a temporary situation with Foncia and is not our equipment, so it is even more disappointing to us that we are involved in damaging someone else's gear. We have learned a valuable lesson here and now must get to work to fix things up for Alain."

http://www.alinghi.com

GOLD AND SILVER FOR SPAIN AT THE 49ER EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP Spanish double triumph at the 49er Europeans - Madrid 2016 with Gold for Iker Martínez & Xabi Fernandez and silver for brothers Federico & Arturo Alonso. The event, held at Club Nŕutic S'Arenal, in Majorca, enjoyed a gripping ending that finally gave the opportunity to the Basque tandem to win their third European title- second consecutive one- and the first medal for the brothers from Asturias. Third place on the podium was for Ukrainian sailors Rodion Luka & Geogiy Leonchuk.

The top ten teams of the 49er Europeans - Madrid 2016 sailed the Medal race, final race that cannot be discarded and scores double. The weather conditions in the bay of Palma on this final day underwent a radical change with respect to the previous days with East-Southeast wind from the land, constant changes of direction and speed (an average of nine knots) and smooth sea.

The Alonso brothers from Real Club Astur de Regatas de Gijon, sailed very well and after a few ups and downs crossed the line in fifth place, while the twice world champions were not lucky in the last downwind leg and finished eighth. But their main rivals finished below fifth place: Ukrainian sailors Luka & Leonchuk were ninth; Austrian team Delle Kart & Resch, seventh and US sailors Wadlow & Rast, sixth.

Iker Martínez & Xabi Fernandez were crowned European champions with two point advantage over their home rivals and team mates from the Real Federacion Espanola de Vela, Federico & Arturo Alonso. It is the third European title for the Basque tandem that won already in 2002 and last year. They have also won two European bronze medals (2000 and 2006) and a silver medal in 2001.

Final top ten: 1. Iker Martinez / Xabi Fernandez, ESP, 85 2. Federico Alonso Tellechea / Arturo Alonso Tellechea, ESP, 87 3. Rodion Luka / Geogiy Leonchuk, UKR, 91 4. Nico Delle Karth / Nikolaus Leopold Resch, AUT, 93 5. Nathan Outteridge / Ben Austin, AUS, 103 6. Tim Wadlow / Chris Rast, USA, 108 7. Pietro Sibello / Gianfranco Sibello, ITA, 113 8. Monteau Alexandre / Guillou Damien, FRA, 118 9. Jan Peter Peckolt / Hannes Peckolt, GER, 118 10. Peter Kruger Andersen / Dennis Dengso Andersen, DEN, 136

http://49er.cnarenal.com/49er/home.php

LATE AVAILABILITY FOR ANTIGUA SAILING WEEK 26th April 2nd May 2008 Ondeck, official sponsors (and preferred Yacht Charter Company) of the 41st Stanford Antigua Sailing Week have just 1 X Farr 65 & 1 X Farr 40 left ready for you to 'rock up and race' in this world class event. We also have a very limited amount of availability for individuals on one of our Farr 65s and on Team Pindar's Volvo 60. Full event management is included along with shore support and some fantastic opportunities for partying.

For more information contact sh@ondeck.co.uk or visit http://www.ondeck.co.uk

GITANA 13 ATTACKS THE NORTH PACIFIC CROSSING The stopwatch is back in action aboard Gitana 13. On standby in San Francisco since 28th February - the completion date of La Route de l'Or-, the maxi-catamaran equipped by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild set off this Saturday 29th March at 22h45'45" UT, for a record attempt between San Francisco and Yokohama.

The new holders of La Route de l'Or (New York - San Francisco), Lionel Lemonchois and his ten crew are today tackling the North Pacific crossing. They'll need to make Yokohama, Japan, in less than 14 days 22 hours 40 minutes and 41 seconds. The latter is the current reference time set by Olivier de Kersauson and his team aboard Geronimo since 27th April 2006.

"The crew has been slightly modified in relation to that of La Route de l'Or, since Jacques Vincent, Jean-Baptiste Epron, Cyril Dardashti Stefan Fodor and Kojiro Shiraishi are joining us. There were ten of us onboard Gitana 13 between New York and San Francisco, but there will be eleven of us for the North Pacific crossing. Personally, I shall have a greater involvement in the weather since the crew no longer has an appointed navigator aboard".

The presence of the Japanese sailor Kojiro Shiraishi, who was 2nd in the Velux 5 Oceans 2006-2007, will be a considerable asset for the crew of the 33 metre maxi-catamaran; especially at the approach to the Japanese coast, renowned for its complexity.

The weather is always a tricky element and the Gitana Team are keeping to their usual routine and will once again be able to count on the talent of Sylvain Mondon (Meteo France).

The current record holder, the crew of Geronimo set off on this same attempt on 12th April 2006. Olivier de Kersauson and his men snatched the previous record set by Steve Fossett back on 23rd May 1996. The American adventurer set a reference time of 19 days 15 hours 18 minutes 9 seconds on the 60 foot trimaran Lakota.

Ten years later, when Olivier de Kersauson and his ten men set off, the conditions reigning over the Pacific forced them to choose a very southerly route over the first few days at sea, distancing them from the direct course. Though Geronimo made the most of it to pass between the Hawaiian islands and rounded the mark of "Diamond Head" after 4 days and 19 hours. In so doing it established a new reference time between San Francisco and Honolulu (Hawaii). This passage off Honolulu, also proved to be an opportunity for Olivier de Kersauson and his crew to glean the record between Honolulu and Yokohama, previously owned by Steve Fossett, in 13 days and 20 hours.

The crew of Gitana 13 Lionel Lemonchois (Skipper / helm / watch leader) Jacques Vincent (helm / watch leader) Ludovic Aglaor (helm/ watch leader) Olivier Wroczynski (trimmer /computer manager) Nicolas Raynaud (trimmer/ Video manager) David Boileau (N2 / trimmer/ head of deck fittings) Leopold Lucet (Bowman/ head of supplies) Jean-Baptiste Epron (trimmer) Stefan Fodor (trimmer) Cyril Dardashti (trimmer) Kojiro Shiraishi (trimmer)

North Pacific Crossing (San Francisco - Yokohama): Time to beat - 14 days 22 hours 40 minutes 41 seconds Departure from San Francisco - Saturday 29th March at 22h45'45" UT Latest arrival date to beat the record - Sunday 13th April at 21h25'26" UT

http://www.gitana-team.com

CLASS 40 ENTRIES CONTINUE TO RISE After two decades in ocean racing, Simon Clarke is fulfilling a lifelong ambition of competing in the world of short-handed sailing. This week Clarke confirmed his Class 40 entry in The Artemis Transat that starts in just over six weeks on Sunday, 11th May.

And it might not end there, as there is the potential for three more Class 40s to enter the fray. British female sailor Miranda Merron completed a very wet and windy 1000-mile race qualifier yesterday after six days to ensure she can officially enter The Artemis Transat once the all-important sponsor has been secured. Experienced French skipper, Patrice Carpentier, and German Boris Hermann (German) are also looking for sponsors to facilitate their participation in the race, although both have paid the necessary 'pre-inscription' to keep the possibility of entry alive.

Class 40 confirmed entries:

Appart'City/ Yvan Noblet (FRA) Custo Pol/ Halvard Mabire (FRA) Fu! jifilm/ Alex Bennett (UK) Groupe Partouche/ Christophe Coatnoan (FRA) Leclerc Ville la Grande/ Jean-Philippe Saliou (FRA) Louis Duc (FRA) Mistral Loisirs-Elior/ Thierry Bouchard (FRA) Prevoir VIE/ Benoit Parnaudeau (FRA) Telecom Italia/ Giovani Soldini (ITA) Clarke Offshore Racing / Simon Clarke (GBR)

The race village at Sutton Harbour, Plymouth will open on Saturday, 3rd May until Sunday, 11th May and will include exhibitors, a tall ship, an education programme, VIP hospitality suite, media centre and a wide selection of entertainment from the inaugural Barbican Jazz and Blues Festival to street entertainers.

http://www.thetransat.com

RUM JUNGLE IS LOOKING FOR CAPTAIN AND CREW Well known as the sailors' motor yacht, Rum Jungle is a 23m charter yacht that covers many of Northern Europe's sailing regattas for corporate and private charter for up to 40 guests.

When not at yachting events, RUM JUNGLE is in London offering very high class charter on the Thames for corporate entertainment, parties and exclusive transport to the O2 entertainment complex.

We are looking for a captain (min qualification Yachmaster Commercial), mate and stewardess to join a great team for a busy 2008/9 seasons. Email jobs@rumjungle.co.uk and see website http://www.rumjungle.co.uk

POWERFUL FLEET AT YNGLING EUROPEANS Blanes, Spain: The Yngling Women Europeans in Blanes is the last Championship for the women fleet before the Olympics in China in August. Of the 15 nations racing in the Olympics 14 are participating in this Championship and 9 teams of the ISAF ranking top 10 are present.

Anna Basalkina, Vladislava Ukraintseva and Ekaterina Maximova (RUS) won the Princesa Sofia Trophy in Palma de Mallorca last week.

On Monday the practice race is scheduled followed by racing the rest of the week with the Medal Races taking place on Saturday. It has been decided that also the boats not assigned to the Medal Race will sail one Final Race with a short target time, double points and on water umpiring. It was decided during the last IYA Women Sailors meeting that the limited fleet size would provide a good oppurtunity to run two races in Medal Race Format the last day of the regatta. This will give all crews the pressure of racing in a small group for double points.

Many of the teams have arrived directly from the Princesa Sofia Trophy in Palma the Mallorca and have spent the last week training in Club Vela Blanes, just north of Barcelona. The sailors have experienced some very shifting conditions and were even surprised to find snow on the boats one morning, something very unusual in this part of Spain.

Today the sun is shining and the temperatures rising. The forecast is light winds of 8-10 knots for tomorrows practice race. From the start of the week the forecast is that the skies will gradually clear up and this will probably give the sailors sea breeze like conditions for the opening races.

The two times World Champion GBR team Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson are considered favourites but the strength and professionallity of the entire fleet makes any speculating in results very difficult. Russia with their two participating teams are showing strength. Anna Basalkina, Vladislava Ukraintseva and Ekaterina Maximova recently won the Princesa Sofia Trophy and defending European Champions Ekaterina Skudina, Diana Krutskikh and Natalia Ivanova were third in Palma with Sara Aytons team at second.

During the regatta results, images and reports will be posted at http://www.yngling.org and at the Event Website: http://cvblanes.esportcatala.com

NEW WEBSITE FOR J CLASS MEMORABILIA In the 30's, J Class owners such as King George V, Sir Thomas Lipton, Sir T.O. M. Sopwith, Harold S Vanderbilt all raced in their J Class yachts for the coveted prize of the America's Cup.

Following public demand for J Class related products, a range of books, pictures, models and DVD's are now featured on the J Class Art website paying tribute to the largest classic thoroughbred yachts, designed and built in the 1930's, some of which are racing side by side with modern new build replicas today.

The website is a focal point for people to enjoy and purchase memorabilia, images and models from a past era of yachting, at the same time celebrating the new, where the legend still lives on.

To view the range of J Class art please visit: http://www.jclassart.com

DISMASTED WESTERNAUSTRALIA2011.COM ARRIVES IN HONOLULU Ala Wai Harbour, Honolulu, Hawaii: Thirty-four days after leaving Qingdao, China, to race across the Pacific Ocean westernaustralia2011.com finally arrived in port in Honolulu, Hawaii, at 1030 local time (2030 GMT) this morning to cheers and applause from supporters gathered on the dockside.

The yacht, one of ten internationally-backed entries in the Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race, was dismasted 700 miles off the coast of Japan on 5 March and crossed the Pacific under jury rig after retiring from the 4,400-mile Race 7 of Clipper 07-08.

The yacht had to put in twice at Midway Island, at the north western-most tip of the Hawaiian island chain, the first time to take on more fuel, water and provisions to complete their journey, the second to repair their gearbox which was damaged when a trailing line fouled their propeller.

The Clipper Race Team worked closely with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure the necessary parts reached the isolated atoll, once the scene of a decisive WWII battle, now a treasured and fiercely protected wildlife haven.

Halfway across the world the replacement mast section for westernaustralia2011.com and the new mast for Durban 2010 and Beyond, the other yacht dismasted in this gruelling race across the world's largest ocean, were leaving Luxembourg on a front-loading jumbo jet after being completed over the Easter weekend in the UK. Staff at Spencer Rigging and Atlantic Spars pulled out all the stops to make sure the huge pieces of the 81-foot (24.5-metre) masts left their premises in Brixham, Devon, on schedule on Wednesday. They will be transferred to another aircraft in Los Angeles for the six-hour flight to Honolulu International Airport.

In addition to the two masts, the planes will also carry standing rigging, replacement sails, mast electrics, running rigging, rigging tools and a swaging machine. The specialist swaging machine, used to terminate the standing rigging to the fittings, is being flown out to Hawaii as it has been impossible to source one on the islands. Mast fittings for the two dismasted yachts include sets of lights, wiring, wind instruments and aerials. Two boxes of standing rigging for the two dismasted yachts will also be flown to Hawaii, amounting to more than 325 yards (300 metres) of steel cable that support the masts.

Meanwhile, replacement rigging fittings are being produced in Germany to be replaced across the fleet. Despite breaking one of their CNC tools used to manufacture the fittings, the company has sourced a new one and the order is on schedule to be completed today, and will also be flown out to Hawaii.

Clipper Ventures is also flying out four specialist riggers from the UK. Three from Spencer Rigging will arrive this evening and one from Atlantic Spars will join them on Monday to work with the Clipper maintenance team and the local riggers in order to get the fleet moving again as quickly as possible.

The restart of Race 8 from Hawaii to Santa Cruz was originally scheduled for 26 March. The current delay to the restart is anticipated to be 3-5 April.

http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com

VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT RETURNS TO CONCARNEAU The final stage of the voyage for Roland Jourdain's monohull. After being unloaded from the cargo ship on the 12th March in Zeebrugge, Belgium, which brought it back from Australia, Veolia Environnement made it safely back to its base in Concarneau. With an audible sigh of relief from the technical team who were waiting to have the boat back on home ground. Since Wednesday the building yard has been able to get on with a complete cleaning of the hull before getting it into the shelter of the Kairos hangar.

After half a world tour and a dismasting, Veolia Environnement is now going into the hands of the experts in the workshop. With 8 months to go before the start of the Vendee Globe, the countdown for the preparation of the boat for its next voyage round the world, this time without stops, officially starts now ! The programme is as follows : repairs, reliability checks and upgrades of all tlhe systems checked in the Barcelona World Race. In total 5 weeks in the hangar, with every day carefully planned, with the aim of going in the water and the new mast put in on the 15th May.

Roland Jourdain describes the most important aspects of the refit :

The hull Roland Jourdain : On the hull, we've got to repair the breakages from the dismasting. There are some minor composite repairs on the deck and the guardrails, the stanchions, the pulpit, the lifelines... they all need redoing.

The engine RJ : The engine gave us problems in the Kerguelens. It did end up starting again but we need 100% reliability this year so need to get to the bottom of what really went wrong. If we don't find the cause we'll have to change it to a more traditional one.

The rudders RJ : We've got to make sure the rudder system is reliable, that's another really important aspect. Its got nothing to do with the way they were built last year, but we still want to improve the way they lift and we'll be looking at them with a magnifying glass to make sure they are fully reinforced.

The mast RJ : It's happening in the shed next door : its the mast that's really making us scratch our heads as we still can't find the reason for it coming down. We've already spent lots of time thinking about it and looking for explanations... whilst reviewing the links between the design, its build and the cables that support it... there's a real mast epidemic at the moment, so we are looking at everything. And as we're starting all over, we're really going to push the investigations further, which means we've got a lot more thinking to do, more meetings, discussions and lots of comparisons to make.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - editor@scuttlebutteurope.com Letters are limited to 350 words. No personal attacks are permitted. We do require your name but your email address will not be published without your permission.

* From Lucia Nebel White (85 year old Sparkman and Stevens Star boat sailor): Retire the America's Cup- the "Deed of Gift " is not being lived up to. Start fresh with a new cup--and stop all this nonsense!!

* From Philippe De Troy, President, Micro Class: Boycott propaganda, not competitors.

Nations are now considering boycott of the games. Bad idea. This would add further victims to the long list of those of the Chinese regime.

Competitors and their relatives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to have their selection. If it gets lost, the competitor is lost even as a trainer for the future generations.

If the press boycotts the Olympic competitions, sponsors will no longer pay, and they are bringing the main income of the sport federations.

Just boycott any propaganda, like the Chinese media did for the incident in Olympia, show nice Chinese landscapes instead of opening and closing ceremony.

Chinese people are now encouraged to learn English. That's the best the Games are bringing, this will give them access to our world, and help them gaining democracy.

THE LAST WORD Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. -- George Bernard Shaw

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

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