The first podcast from Valencia, with regular podcasters Andy & Justin talking to Matt Sheahan of Yachting World.
Topics discussed include: The Weather, Rocky The Movie, and Armageddon The Movie. And a bit about sailing, or lack of it…
http://www.sailjuice.com/articles/sailing-talk-podcast-day-1-americas-cup
Maybe it was too much to expect. Maybe it was a symbol of the last two-and-a-half years of stop-start frustration that has marked the 33rd America’s Cup.
No racing.
Not even a sniff of it. After the whoop-whoop send-off for the two protagonists this morning, the building excitement seeped away as Day One of the 33rd America’s Cup turned to a damp squib. Alinghi 5 did their best to demonstrate the potential for racing, hoisting their sails and driving the boat as hard as possible in whatever gusts came their way, the Swiss catamaran generating 15 knots’ boat speed and raising a hull in just 5 knots’ breeze. BMW Oracle weren’t playing that game, preferring to bob around and wait for the wind to settle, which it never did.
“I heard it was 20 degrees and 14 knots’ breeze in RAK today,” was the dry comment from Alinghi’s engineering guru Dirk Kramers standing in the spitting rain of Valencia. The sodden spectators and photographers who shivered their way back from the 54-mile round trip to the start line were probably also wishing that Alinghi had got their way and that we were all sunning ourselves in Ras Al-Khaimah.
BMW Oracle’s meteorologist Chris Bedford summed up the weather: “We had a southerly breeze well offshore that was occasionally filtering into the start area. But closer to shore we had a westerly breeze for most of the afternoon. At times it was showing up to 14 knots at the top mark. So there was pressure trying to make it onto the course, but because of these two winds converging, we never had enough breeze over a 20-mile leg to get going… I think the Race Committee did a good job today.”
Now with the strict Deed of Gift rules to be abided by, we can’t look at a race until Wednesday, when the weather prognosis is not much better. Still, if you remember back to the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2007 it was nine days before the first race got away. So we might just have to learn to be patient a while longer.
© SailJuice.com: Andy Rice & the Wing Rig
Got up at 5am to see the BMW Oracle Racing dock-out.
Larry, Russell, James and the gang emerged from one of the tents like Bruce Willis and the astronauts who saved the earth in ‘Armageddon’. Larry high-fived the team. The atmosphere was pumped up. It felt like we were watching a team that believes it’s going to win, but then I didn’t see the Alinghi dock-out and maybe it was the same there.
The star of the BMW Oracle show was definitely the wing itself. It is a breathtaking sight. Can’t wait to see it in action.
© Carlo Borlenghi/ Alinghi: preparations on Alinghi 5
What they’re saying on the eve of the America’s Cup.
Harold Bennett (NZL) Principal Race Officer:
His thoughts on the weather for Race 1 day:
“At the moment it looks like a very light offshore breeze early, which will fade away and begins to look like coming from the south. That was an earlier forecast and so we don’t have a straight answer on that just now.
Does he have clear ideas in his mind about what the wind limits might be? “We will take the day as it comes and work it our from there.”
Is there any step change in technology they are using for race management since 32nd Americas’ Cup: “I think probably there is no much of an advance in terms of technology in what we are using, we use the same methods as before.”
Alain Gautier (FRA), Alinghi, on the start: “The priority boat will try to put a penalty on the other. And on these boats that can be very expensive.” “It is less important to break the start line on the gun than to start well launched with speed and without a penalty.”
James Spithill, (AUS), BMW ORACLE Racing: “It is all new to us. The boats have completely different characteristics and obviously we only have the one boat each and so we have not really been able to go out there and try as hard as we usually do. I think it will be interesting. I think they have tried to set up the start line so there will be no ‘dial-up’. I think we will see the boats turn back quite early and really try to fight for the side. The first cross is so important in match racing, however I think this time you really want o be going the right way. To do any manoeuvre in a multihull is quite expensive. I am quite excited myself, because I just can’t wait to see what happens. “
© Gilles Martin-Raget/ BMW Oracle Racing - chase boats struggling to keep up
Like supermodel Linda Evangelista, I don’t get out of bed for less than $10k. But tomorrow I’m making an exception. Get up at 5am to see BMW Oracle Racing dock out for the first race of the America’s Cup.
This is the brutal schedule. I’m sure you sympathise:
- 05:45 am: Meeting point at the Team Base (Base 
at the Darsena /
Port America’s Cup
- 06:00: Departure of shuttle transfer to the boatyard / Commercial
port.
- 06:25: Dock out show / Media Mixed Zone: possibility of flash quotes
/ Photo opportunity with the Sailing Team
- 06:40: Sailors board USA
- 07:00: USA dock out
- 07:10: Shuttle transfer back to the Team base
- 07:30 – 08:30: Coffee/breakfast media hour with design team members
at the Team base (ITA Claudio Cairoli, FRA/EN Dimitri Despierres)
-10:00: Warning signal for race one. Race start at 10:06.
© Gilles Martin-Raget/ BMW Oracle: Helicopters won't be getting this close during the Match...
Just got to Valencia, had an hour’s chat with Brad Butterworth and Rolf Vrolijk this morning at the Alinghi Base. Saw a one-man press conference with Ernesto Bertarelli (no show from Larry Ellison).
No one can quite believe this is actually going to happen, but the 33rd America’s Cup is little more than 24 hours from starting… and it could be over by Wednesday!
In fact Brad Butterworth quipped (perhaps only half jokingly) that it could be over by Monday! What with gear breakage and all.
We’ll be ramping up the blogging on SailJuiceBlog.com but we are also posting content to a new America’s Cup section at sister site SailJuice.com
CLICK HERE FOR TONS OF ARTICLES AND AUDIO ON THE 33RD AMERICA’S CUP…
Beijing gold medallists Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson have scooped the World title after a thrilling final race climax to the Star World Championship Regatta held in Rio de Janeiro.
The six-day event held at the newest Olympic venue saw difficult light wind conditions with the pair fighting for their title amongst an 81-boat-fleet boasting 11 former world champions including 33-year-old Percy himself who won the title in 2002.
Simpson commented; “It’s been a tough week with very difficult conditions so we are really pleased to have won. Brazil is the home of Star sailing so it’s a very special event for us to have won especially here.”
Yesterday saw an opportunity for the Skandia Team GBR duo to clinch the title a day early in the penultimate race having created a 19 point lead in the first four races. The Swiss pairing of Flavio Marazzi and Enrico De Maria, currently the top ranked sailors in the world, however put paid to that posting a sixth place in the race delaying the championship decision until the last days racing.
Percy and Simpson went into the final race in a comfortable position needing post a ninth or better themselves or ensure the Swiss finished the race outside the top three boats to in order secure the title. The pair employed a match racing strategy against the Swiss but with extremely shifty light winds in Rio’s Guanabara Bay, the race proved quite a challenge making for an exciting finale to the week.
Percy commented; “We started off chasing Marazzi to the unfavoured end of the course but when the wind shifted 40 degrees to the left it then became the favoured end of the course and we had managed to push them in to a good position!
“We managed to catch up so we were quite close to him in the end and then we were able to relax and enjoy the last lap of the course knowing we were world champions,” he continued.
With light airs it was all about boat speed and Percy was keen to pay tribute to his crew.
“Boat speed is 90% down to the crew and Andrew really made it easy for me this week enabling me to point the boat in any direction and go faster than anyone else,” he concluded.
In winning the regatta and world title Percy and Simpson beat defending world champions George Szabo and Rick Peters (USA) who finished in 28th as well as top Brazilian crew Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira who finished third, Greal having picked up the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award in 2009. Swiss Marazzi and De Maria finished second.
Simpson concluded; “It’s not been an easy week and we made some mistakes – it’s a good reminder for us we’ve got some work to do to be the best for 2012 but we’re really chuffed to have won.”
The Olympic champions will hold the world title for 22 months with the next world championship not taking place until December 2011 in Fremantle.
© Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR
Star sailing gold medallists Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson will be putting the newest Olympic venue through its paces when racing at the Star World Championship gets underway in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday (16 January).
After missing the 2009 Worlds in Sweden, which clashed with Simpson’s wedding, the pair are determined to assert their place in the 81-boat fleet, which boasts 11 former world champions including the 33-year-old Percy, who won the title in 2002.
“This event is a great marker for us, and missing the 2009 worlds due to my wedding means we are even hungrier for this one,” Simpson explained. “There will be no Worlds for another 22 months so it would be great to take home the title and keep it for such a long period.”
The Skandia Team GBR duo know that, with such a competitive fleet – particularly in Brazil which Percy describes as “the home of Star sailing” – winning a first world title together won’t be easy. But they’ve been logging up the training hours at the venue with a training camp in December, which included a trip up Sugar Loaf Mountain to assess the racecourse conditions and tides in the harbour.
“The Brazilians have a great Olympic pedigree in this class,” said Percy. “They boast three Star World Championship winning teams and a total of 14 Olympic medals between them!
“These guys know the water well and we need to keep an eye on them. The European teams are also here in force with the ever-strong Swedish, Swiss and French teams having put in a lot of Rio training hours ready for this event.”
“We are here to win,” added Simpson, “but there are some strong teams and medalling at the Worlds is never an easy task with only six races, one slip up can cost you dearly.”
© ianroman.com - a scene from last year's Bloody Mary, but this year's will be sub-zero....
The Bloody Mary is going ahead tomorrow, Saturday 9th January. The 37th edition of this winter dinghy pursuit race classic looks set to take place in a sunny but bone-chilling moderate north-easterly wind. It will deter some from coming, no doubt, but it won’t deter the toughest. Such is the pull of the Bloody Mary, many of Britain’s hardiest sailors will still do what it takes to get to the reservoir near Heathrow Airport.
Queen Mary Sailing Club said earlier this afternoon: “We have made the decision to proceed with holding the Bloody Mary Pursuit Race tomorrow Saturday 9th January . Competitors are reminded that it is due to be very cold and should ensure that they are adequately dressed for the conditions.”
For some still sitting on the fence about whether or not to go, there is the added incentive of the Bloody Mary being the first event of a brand new series, called the SailJuice Global Warm-Up. This new winter travellers’ series brings four of the biggest winter handicap racing events into a unified series, to find out just who is tough enough to race their way through Britain’s toughest winter in more than 15 years. With more than £2,000 of prizes up for grabs, not only for the winners but for sailors throughout the fleet, some sailors are going the extra mile to compete in this weekend’s Bloody Mary.
CLICK HERE to get the full lowdown on the SailJuice Global Warm-Up
Francis Joyon on his record breaking voyage around the world on IDEC
Yesterday we looked back at the first five years of the Nautical Noughties, the moments that stood out in the competitive sailing world. Here’s a look at the last five…
2005
A new form of sailing is born as Rohan Veal uses a set of hydrofoils to win every race of the 2005 International Moth World Championships, sometimes by more than 10 minutes.
The diminutive Ellen MacArthur makes history by setting a new singlehanded round the world record aboard her purpose-built trimaran B&Q/Castorama.
A new canting-keel monster, the ambitious Volvo Open 70, is unleashed on the Volvo Ocean Race. But Mother Nature makes her displeasure known on the very first night of the race off the coast of Spain, when Pirates of the Caribbean and Movistar crash out of leg one. The new design is fraught with problems, but there’s no doubting they’re quick as ABN Amro 2 smashes the 24-hour monohull record with a new distance of 562.96 nm.
2006
Juan Kouyoumdjian’s beamy, twin-ruddered design for Team ABN Amro shows a clean pair of heels to the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, and first-time skipper Mike Sanderson wins the race with his crew on ABN Amro One.
2007
Russell Coutts has fallen out of favour with Ernesto Bertarelli, and does not compete in the 2007 America’s Cup. But with Brad Butterworth taking up the reins, Alinghi remains a force to be reckoned with. Team New Zealand has learnt from the embarrassing mistakes of its 2003 defeat at the hands of the Swiss, and gives Alinghi a real scare, in a match that many pundits believe to have been the best America’s Cup ever. The party doesn’t last long, however after Larry Ellison takes Bertarelli to task over a one-sided protocol. And so begins more than two years of legal wrangling over the future of the America’s Cup.
2008
Francis Joyon snatches back his singlehanded round the world record from Ellen MacArthur. Click here to remind yourself of this extraordinary feat.
Highlight of the Olympic regatta in China is the unorthodox way that the Danish 49er team win their gold medal. After breaking their mast in the heinous conditions just minutes before the start of the Medal Race, the Danes hurried back to shore and borrowed the Croatian 49er, enabling them to complete the demolition derby of a ridiculously windy and wavy finale. The Spanish and Italian teams that finished behind the Danes had good cause to be disgruntled about the Danes hanging on to gold, but it was great to see the lawmakers allow the spirit of competition to prevail over the letter of the law. If only it were so in the America’s Cup!
2009
Pascal Bidégorry and the crew of Banque Populaire V travel an astounding 908 nautical miles in 24 hours whil crossing the Atlantic. The 131-foot trimaran reached a peak speed of 47.15 knots and went on to break the transatlantic record, covering the distance between New York and the Lizard Point in just 3 days, 15 hours, 25 minutes and 48 seconds.
2010
That’s the end of the SailJuice review of the Noughties. What will be the highlight of 2010? Surely it has to be the best of three match between Alinghi and BMW Oracle racing in the 33rd America’s Cup. Whatever you might think about the tortuous legal process that has taken the Cup to this point, when those two giant multihulls accelerate off the start line, it will be one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the America’s Cup.
QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD HAVE MADE IT INTO THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAST 10 YEARS AND DIDN’T? TELL ME WHAT I MISSED, AND WHY….
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