OUTRAGE AT EVERY QUARTER ABOUT THE AMERICA’S CUP

Even Bob Fisher, who as a journalist has always loved being an iconoclast is disturbed by the events leading up to the next America’s Cup to be held in Bermuda in 2017. Below are the words he penned for scuttlebutt:

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Bob Fisher: Disgracing the America’s Cup
Published on April 11, 2015 |
by Editor

Bob Fisher knows the America’s Cup, perhaps better than anyone. His books and articles have covered the event since 1851, and he considers the event unmatched in its history and intrigue. But what Bob sees now occurring for the 2017 edition gives him grave concern. Here are his words to the current trustee, Golden Gate Yacht Club…

I cannot escape notice of what you are doing to the America’s Cup – it has been nothing short of a disgrace to the premier event in the sport of Sailing. You have abused it, misused it and reduced it to no more than an average regatta, losing on the way its prestige and at the same time driven away the most serious competitors.

In the last America’s Cup event, held on the waters of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, for whom you act in a management role, the two challengers that came up to the mark were those from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and the Circolo della Vela Sicilia – Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) and Luna Rossa. In the course of the past week you have made it virtually impossible for ETNZ to raise the necessary funds to continue by removing any chance of a major regatta in Auckland, and, by a huge change in the size of boat, caused the Italian team to withdraw. Is this what you really want?

Gone is all semblance of stability and adherence to rules unanimously agreed at the outset and in their place an undercurrent of commercial misunderstanding and constantly changing rules without the unanimity of the challengers as initially agreed. Both of these are a disgrace to the Cup and to yourselves.

It was brought to my notice by you, in Auckland, that it was important for a part of the Challenger Final Selection Series to be held in the City of Sails in order to generate publicity for the America’s Cup in Asia and the reason for that was a Japanese team would shortly emerge, and that this would encourage television networks to purchase the rights.

Subsequently, the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) has made it clear that ALL Challenger Selection races will be held in Bermuda, effectively slapping ETNZ in the face and reducing the Kiwis’ chances of Government sponsorship (which hung on a major AC regatta in Auckland), possibly even eliminating this team from AC35

It is unnecessary for the America’s Cup to have a television audience. For many years there was no television coverage, and later only inserts into News programmes. Televising the event began in 1983 and was carried to a new height by ESPN in 1987 in Fremantle. Even then it didn’t need catamarans on hydrofoils sailing at 40 knots to be attractive – just 12-Metre yachts in boisterous conditions with some live sound from the boats.

Now, thanks to the wizardry of Stan Honey and his colleagues, full details of the speed and direction of each of the competitors is overlaid on the live pictures of the racing. The technology of other sports has improved television for even the non-sailor, but this does not drive the America’s Cup. Money does. And there will certainly not be enough from television rights to pay for the somewhat unnecessary regattas that take place using the name of the event that has, over 164 years, taken place only 34 times.

The America’s Cup is a one-off event. It does not need promoting with pseudo regattas in the intervening years, which use its name. The Challenger Selection Trials, together with the long lost Defender Selection Trials, are adequate and the responsibility for their expense is down to the individual teams. Now there is a state of affairs in which the Defender trials have been eliminated. In the Protocol, Item 17 clearly states:

“Defender means GGYC and the sailing team that represents GGYC in AC35;”

You have excluded any chance of another US Yacht Club from competing for the Cup, maybe even giving GGYC the type of competition it needs to retain the Cup. Not even the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) felt sufficiently confident to resort to that.

Neither did the NYYC resort to changing the boats at a late date – the move from the AC-62 to the AC-48 has been very last minute and particularly hard on the teams that had set up their design groups well in advance to produce the smaller AC-62, as announced soon after the last AC match. It is hardly surprising that you have put Patrizio Bertelli’s feelings in disarray to the extent he has withdrawn Luna Rossa from AC35. His team had been working since early January 2014 at its headquarters in Cagliari with a Design Office of 40, all working on the design of a 62-footer. I suppose your comment will be: “Silly him,” but you have lost one of the biggest commercial sponsors of the Cup – just look where the Prada advertisements for Luna Rossa appear.

To throw fat on the fire, you are offering to give design and financial support to the French team, which has made little progress, and what is worse attempting to justify this with the terms of the Deed of Gift, where it indicates that the event is to be: “a friendly competition between foreign nations.” But you may well counter this with the quote from the judge of the New York Court of Appeals in the case between the Mercury Bay Boating Club and San Diego Yacht Club, who queried: “Where in the Deed of Gift does it say the America’s Cup is supposed to be fair?”

The loss of Louis Vuitton, after 30 years, is another huge loss of commercial sponsorship, but the writing for that was on the wall in San Francisco.

Everything this time around has been late, and bringing in new entries at this stage is another breach of the Protocol. I implore you to get your act together, remember the event with which you are dealing, with its glorious past, and begin to act in a proper manner.

SAILING THROUGH LIFE

This is in response to those who asked:”Who are you?” It is a least a dimension.Boats have always been a part of my life. Naturally interwoven with the story of Newport.

ICE AND WIND

“Spindrift” ex “Banque Populaire” on standby for an Atlantic record.

Spindrift 2: All dressed up but no wind to go

The maxi-trimaran Spindrift 2 left La Trinité-sur-Mer, France on May 26, arriving on June 3 in Newport, Rhode Island where the team has remained on standby to break the crewed 2880 nm North Atlantic record from New York to Lizard Point.

Led by co-skippers Dona Bertarelli and Yann Guichard, they seek to better the record of 03:15:25:48 set by their 40m (131.23-feet) trimaran in August 2009, known then as Banque Populaire 5. To be successful, their average speed must be in excess of 32.94 knots over the distance.

But now, after seven weeks on standby in Newport, there has still been no suitable weather window for which to launch their assault. As Guichard explains, these accomplished sailors have no choice but to accept the wait, unusual as it may be for an elite sportsman.

“Despite enduring the standby at home, as opposed to on the quayside, we are fully alert and mentally ready to drop everything and jump on a plane as soon as possible,” explains Yann, who sends a message to his teammates every day to keep them informed about the latest conditions.

“Dona and I are obviously following the weather very closely. Together, with team navigator Erwan Israël, we check the two daily American and European forecast updates. The first come in before 5am and, whilst there is still not really a departure window on the horizon, we inevitably check each weather update religiously. We are as ready as we can be with a good technical and sporting potential, but the weather is out of our hands. That is what makes record attempts so frustrating…but also so special. When you are on standby, it can at times be stressful, as any athlete waiting for a big match can understand. In addition, we know that when the day of reckoning comes, once we get out on the ocean, conditions will be extreme.”

Among the obstacles blocking the route has been drift ice in the Labrador Current. A harsh winter has meant that icebergs are lasting longer than normal, and while they are slowly melting, the large ice sheets are only disappearing gradually from satellite photos.

The other obstacle has been the Azores High, an anticyclone centred over the Azores and spread like an insurmountable mountain across the entire North Atlantic.

“To make the crossing in record-breaking conditions you have to leave ahead of a depression on the American coast and ride it up to Newfoundland, where you pick up another and accelerate for the rest of the crossing. You then have to stay in front of the system, which must not catch you up or wane before you reach the finish line,” adds Erwan Israël. “With such a huge, powerful anticyclone at the moment, the depressions are not making any headway, and neither can we!”

The team is prepared to remain on standby through to mid-August if necessary to find a suitable departure window. Updates here: www.spindrift-racing.com/atlantic

Copied from Sailing anarchy.

I have long felt that the accomplishments of Olivier De Kersauson were not fully appreciated. I am so pleased to see this post.

In the 2005 transatlantic race I sailed on ‘Tempest” and we used the same weather router who steered Olivier around the world. He was brilliant.

ultime warrior

Sodebo Ultime Trimaran (ex Geronimo)

At 111 feet long and 72 feet wide, the old VPLP Gerononimo was a groundbreaking racer in many ways. When Olivier De Kersauson launched her back in 2001, record breakers like Fossett and Peyron and Lewis were positive that giant catamarans were just better, and they’d proven it so clearly that many thought De Kersauson a nutter for risking so much on a boat that clearly couldn’t accomplish anything.  But 100,000 mostly trouble-free miles and a Jules Verne (and several other) major records later, the boat’s clear advantages – safety, ability to be driven hard, motion, upwindedness – emphatically ended the era of the maxi-catamaran.  Geronimo would become the basis for the most dominant record runners ever, as well as the boat that took the America’s Cup back from Alinghi: Franck Cammas’ (and now Armel Le Cle’ach’s) monstrous Groupama 2/BP6, Lionel Lemonchois’s (and then Loick Peyron, and now Yann and Dona’s) BP5/Spindrift 2, and the BMW Oracle Racing 90 all came out of VPLP’s computers and all owe their heritage heavily and directly to Geronimo.

This history lesson may bore some, but to us, ocean racing is all about history and legend, and that’s why we share it with you.  And with 2014/15 seeing Thomas Coville rebuilding, refitting, repowering, and restoring Geronimo for his own Route Du Rhum, record aspirations, and Ultime solo 100+ footer class racing, we can’t wait to see history come roaring to life again on the starting line.  Coville was just a kid when he first began racing with De Kersauson, and the brilliant Frenchman has now been part of most of the last decade’s Jules Verne Trophy runs as well as a Volvo Ocean Race victory.  His narrow Nigel Irens Sodebo trimaran came tantalizingly close to claiming the Solo RTW record, but it’s clear that Coville has given up on that concept in favor of the heavier and far more powerful Geronimo.  Above is an Yvan Zedda shot of the boat as her refit moves ahead quickly at Multiplast’s yard; go here for a full gallery, here

NASCAR SAILING

NEWS FLASH: CRASH AT EXTREME SAILING SERIES™

  • 22ND FEBRUARY 2014

NEWS FLASH: CRASH AT EXTREME SAILING SERIES™

In race five on the third day of the Extreme Sailing Series™ in Singapore, France’s Groupama sailing team (FRA) and Team Aberdeen Singapore (SIN) crashed just metres from the finish as a big gust hit the fleet on the final run to the line. In winds that were varying from 5 to 23 knots, Team Aberdeen Singapore caught the biggest gust of the day as they came into the finish line struggling to hold off the pace, ploughing into the back of the French team.

The Safety Team were immediately on site to provide assistance, and all the crews were quickly taken account of. Tanguy Cariou (FRA) onboard Groupama sailing team suffered minor facial injuries, and was taken ashore immediately for treatment. The rest of the crew onboard both Groupama and Team Aberdeen Singapore are uninjured, and the technical team are craning out the boats in Singapore’s F1 pitlane for full damage assessment. Due to the conditions, Race Director, Phil Lawrence had already called the whole day a no-Guest Sailor day, so there were no guests onboard at any time today. A full update will be available on atwww.extremesailingseries.com at 1930 SGT.

PRINCE DE BRETAGNE CAPSIZES, PETE SEEGER DIES

Lionel Lemonchois sailing Prince de Bretagne an 80 foot trimaran  capsized last night 800 miles off the coast of Brazil. A recovery/rescue plan has already been implemented.

This is  boat that started life as a 60 foot trimaran and grew into an 80 foot trimaran.

Other big news today is the death of Pete Seeger at ninety-four having lived a life anyone could be proud of.