SailJuice Blog

If you want a job done well, do it yourself. Isn’t that what they say? Larry Ellison clearly took this advice to heart when he beat some of the world’s best match racers to win the RC44 Cagliari Cup yesterday, including some of his own handsomely-paid full-time employees. Yes, he had Russell Coutts on board calling tactics and a bunch of other pros from his own BMW Oracle Racing team, but there’s only so much help a helmsman can get. In match racing you have to make decisions in the blink of an eye, so all credit to Larry, age 63 ½.

“I am very lucky because it is an owner’s class with pro sailors steering the match and Russell let me steer his boat,” said the sexagenarian billionaire. “I think that this is an amazing accomplishment, and… Read the rest

I went racing with Alinghi today aboard one of their Extreme 40 catamarans in Valencia. Ed Baird was steering on my boat (and before you ask, no, he didn’t capsize), with Rodney Ardern, Lorenzo Mazza and Pieter van Nieuwenhuizen doing the hard work up front.

On the black boat, Murray Jones was steering with Brad Butterworth on mainsheet. Ed and crew blitzed the starts and won today’s informal series 5-0.

This was all part of a media day run by Alinghi, branded ‘Back to Sailing’. Although the dark cloud of legal uncertainty continues to hang over the 33rd America’s Cup, the sailing and design teams at Alinghi are full bore into learning and researching the weird and wonderful possibilities of a multi race in boats measuring 90ft by 90ft.

Now, I had thought those dimensions were maximum limits,… Read the rest

What an awesome result for the Polish team Mateusz Kusnierewicz and Dominik Zycki winning the Star Worlds. But how relevant is beating a 104-boat fleet compared with the Olympic challenge of short course racing against a fleet of just 16? Iain Percy is hoping that the answer is “not very”. He and crew Bart Simpson (pictured mid-gybe by Fried Elliot) had a shocking week in Miami, albeit in a borrowed boat. They won one race, but the rest of the week was a catalogue of disaster – broken shroud, OCS, you name it.

“It’s just been one of those weeks where it’s all been decided with a throw of the dice – and we’ve thrown a lot of ones and not many sixes!” said Percy afterwards.
So where’s the silver lining for the Brits? Well, back in 2000… Read the rest

According to readers of US website Scuttlebutt whose Olympic Events 2012 poll concluded recently, the keelboats shouldn’t make the cut for Weymouth. Below are the results.

Ironically, this result comes in a week when 104 Stars are competing at their World Championships in Miami. That is a phenomenal turn-out and speaks volumes for the health of the class, although of course Miami is the spiritual home of the Star fleet. Turnouts here are always going to be good.

The strength in depth of the competition is impressive too. Former Finn Olympic Champion Mateusz Kusnierewicz and his Polish team mate Dominik Zycki (shown below in Fried Elliott’s photo) turned in an outstanding performance to win the first two heats, only to drop to 8th overall after scoring 44th in the third heat. There are some very good sailors finding themselves… Read the rest

What a week for Jacques Rogge and the flickering Olympic flame. It makes our complaints about the sailing events for 2012 look rather trivial by comparison.

But that’s not going to stop us banging on about our favourite subject! It has been a busy week out there in the webosphere in the way of debate and discussion about Olympic Events for 2012. Scuttlebutt has been running a two-part poll to gauge what its readers would do if they were sitting around the ISAF Council table in Qingdao for the Mid-Year Meeting this May.

This was the premise for phase one of the Scuttlebutt poll:

“In our poll, we assumed that the majority voted not to reaffirm the decision, so we then voted on whether the selected events for the Men and Women needed to be changed. The yes-no target was… Read the rest

Not everyone has welcomed ISAF’s new submission with open arms. The UK Catamaran Racing Association’s Simon Morgan sent SailJuice this response to the submission, and Simon questions some of the language used by ISAF in this new document.

Here is Simon’s interpretation of things:

This is a welcome move in the right direction by ISAF, but it may sadly turn into a public relations disaster, the more closely it is publicly examined, because the leadership’s proposal is legally imprecise and open to suspicion of bias, to which its Members have now become highly sensitised.

Firstly, ISAF Members (MNA’s) should be congratulated for responding to the public concerns of the sailing community. It is impressive not only how widespread but also how comprehensive are their initiatives in seeking a better solution. They include submissions from 15 countries and 2 international classes… Read the rest

The Royal Yachting Association has welcomed the International Sailing Federation’s move to reconsider the slate of sailing events for the 2012 Olympic Games.

It’s press statement says:

A controversial decision by ISAF Council during its annual conference in November 2007 led to the decision not to include a modern high performance dinghy for women, the expulsion of the multihull event and the introduction of a match racing format for the women’s keelboat event.

The RYA lobbied ISAF and fellow Member National Authorities, believing that the decisions taken were not in the best interests of the sport of sailing throughout the world, and requested that ISAF reviewed its decision on three grounds:

• That the current list of events will not maximise media interest.
• That the decisions are likely to attract fewer nations and young sailors into the sport of sailing

… Read the rest

The list of Equipment Submissions for the 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition makes interesting and/or alarming reading, depending on your preferred flavour of sailing craft. Scroll to the bottom of this blog post and click on the images to see the list, or else download the pdf document here….

equipment-2012-sailjuice.pdf

The Ministry of Sports Affairs in Oman is putting a cat among the pigeons with multiple submissions of multihull classes as possible contenders for the two-person dinghy slots.

I can see another ‘keel yacht’ argument developing along similar lines to the America’s Cup debate of a few months back. Indeed it has already begun with the Hobie Class Executive Director David Forbes’ letter to Scuttlebutt this morning. Does a two-hulled sailing boat have equal claim as a monohull to the term ‘dinghy’? I doubt that was the intention, but it… Read the rest

Congratulations to Penny Clark, who has just been selected as GBR’s Olympic representative in the Laser Radial. This brings to an end the four-way battle for selection in one of the few classes where Great Britain’s chances are not all that strong. Having said that, Penny did win a bronze on Qingdao waters two years ago at the first Test Regatta.

Having recently won a surprise Bronze medal at the Women’s Laser Radial World Championships, Andrea Brewster will doubtless be disappointed that this wasn’t enough to keep her selection hopes alive. But Penny Clark has been the more consistent performer and this is doubtless what has given her the place ahead of her three team mates and rivals. The other two in the frame were Charlotte Dobson and Lizzie Vickers.

The British Olympic Association also announced the rest of the… Read the rest

If you’ve just put your Tornado up for sale, then withdraw it from the market immediately!

ISAF has just published a new submission that might interest you.

Yes, it’s official. The Events for the 2012 Olympics are back on the agenda.

Here is what the new Submission says:

REPORTING COMMITTEE – EXECUTIVE

Submission: M06-08

OTHER COMMITTEE – EVENTS

2012 Olympic Events

A submission from the Executive Committee

Proposal:

That Council reaffirm their decision on the 2012 Olympic Events made in November
2007 by a simple majority vote.

Upon reaffirmation, the matter will be concluded and all submissions made whether
accepted as urgent or not urgent, will be considered to have been dealt with.

Should Council vote not to reaffirm the decision, two separate votes will then follow:

1. Should the selected events for the Men… Read the rest