Written by
MOVING PICTURES – In 1926 the people of Stockholm in Sweden invented a new sport…Solo Ice-Skate Sailing!
Monthly archives for February, 2012
Sail22 Grab Bag Giveaway
PRESS RELEASE – We work with some great companies in the sailing industry and they often give us goodies to promote their companies. Our cup runneth over right now as the saying goes, so it’s time for a big giveaway! We also have some extra Sail22 branded things which we added to the giveaway. Grab bags are all different and may include stickers, t-shirts, hats, visors, small bags, product samples, Sail22 Gift Certificates, a Sail22 First Aid Kit, gear, shoes and more. We are lucky to work with these great companies who support us: Harken, McLube, Ronstan, Sailrite, Ullman Sails, North Sails, Quantum Sails, Sebago, Hall Spars & Rigging, Boeshield, Gill and New England Ropes. There are 10 Grab Bags in the contest and every bag has at least three items in it!!! It’s easy to enter: CLICK HERE
For Sale
FREE XS CLASSIFIEDS – For sale is a 2006 Hobie Tiger Fromula 18 catamaran. Includes everything you need to sail it, plus cover, trailer, sail box, cat trax, SNU spin bag. This is from our XS FREE Classifieds. If you have something to sell or are looking to buy please check out our classifieds today!
Punta Del Este End Leg 3
MOVING PICTURES – Punta Del Este is the finish point for leg 3 of the Global Ocean Race. The racers will be there for about month getting the boats ready for Leg 4 which ends in Charleston NC.
RS:X Day 4 Report
MOVING PICTURES – The RS:X European windsurfing championship takes place this year in Madeira|Portugal. Here is the day 4 report. 2 races today with light winds
The Jules Verne Trophy in 3 minutes
MOVING PICTURES – 45 days of the fastest sailing in the world. Around the planet on Banque Populaire V in 45 days, distilled into just 3 minutes! By Brian Thompson
I Remember With Buddy Melges
MOVING PICTURES – MPTV host Jim Peck talks to Sailing Legend Harry “Buddy” Melges, Jr. As helmsman on America3, Buddy Melges was part of the 1992 team that took the America’s Cup yacht race.
Columbia Carbon 32
NEW DESIGNS – Plane downwind at speeds over 20 knots, a great family boat, a great buoy racer and a proven ocean racer. The quality finish, advanced innovative design, precise engineering, along with leading vacuum resin infusion construction techniques puts the C32 in a class of its own. The boat is easy to put on and off the trailer, set up and pack away after a regatta, and can be configured custom to your racing needs. (Day sailing, buoy racing or offshore racing).
It is time to stop messing around with old technology and paying to update your older boat to keep it competitive when you can have a custom state of the art boat built to your needs by a proven Yacht builder with a long track record of unparalleled excellences at a reasonable price.
Be the first one on your block to own the New Columbia Carbon 32 Hull #1 is in the water and ready for viewing. If you are interested in going for a free sea trial and see what she is made of please call for an appointment. CLICK HERE
Best Start Ever
Morgan Larson at the helm of Oman Air on day 1 © Lloyd Images
EXTREME SAILING SERIES – American Morgan Larson, new skipper of Oman Air, had an incredible start to his Extreme Sailing Series career on the opening day of Act 1 in Muscat, Oman. The forty-year-old, a passionate surfer, who lives in Oregon, USA, has an outstanding sporting CV including 3 America’s Cup campaigns and 6 World Championship titles but few pundits would have predicted the outcome today which resulted in Oman Air sharing the top of the leaderboard after 6 races alongside pre-season favourites Groupe Edmond de Rothschild: “I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest. I know there are a lot of talented teams but I think the format of the sailing suits my style.” Modest on the day but when pushed there is an underlying confidence: “I believe we can win this, but we need podium positions at every event.”
Tomorrow the 8-boat Extreme 40 fleet will race in stadium mode inside the breakwater, surrounded by the outstanding residential development known as The Wave and home to Oman Sail. Watch the racing live online from 1130 GMT for the next 3 days.
The question everyone is asking here – who will win this season? The French team skippered by Pierre Pennec is renowned for their form and have been overall runners-up for the past two years. “We won the event last year and it’s always good to ‘mark’ your territory so to be competitive 100% on day one is good,” said trimmer Hervé Cunningham. On paper, this is the team to watch. Available online tomorrow, Daily Sail editor, James Boyd’s, 2012 form guide. MORE STORY
49′er in Slow Motion
MOVING PICTURES – Slow Motion mark rounding on a 49′er. Watch the skipper walk on water.
Cold Weather Sailing in a 29′er
MOVING PICTURES – Extremely cold sailing during Gul Grand Prix in Muiden the Netherlands. At 4:15 watch what ‘not to do’ in cold water.
Fleet Gets Ready To Head South
VOLVO OCEAN RACE – Groupama sailing team continue to hold the lead and the furthest east position and at 0800 UTC this morning were charging along at an average of 18 knots — a speed only topped by PUMA Ocean racing powered by BERG and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing. On the western flange of the fleet second placed the CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand crew were working flat out to claw back miles on the leaders. CAMPER Media Crew Member (MCM) Hamish Hooper described the scenario in his latest report from the boat. “At the moment it’s a slight waiting game until all of the fleet are nose down and pointing at New Zealand when the 2000-mile drag race starts to the Doldrums and a chain of Pacific Islands to penetrate before the last push to paradise. “It’s still full throttle down charging along getting every ounce of speed out of CAMPER to claw back some ground mile by mile. “Groupama have had a tough few skeds being caught further out to the east in lighter wind, which we know all too well about the pain of after recent days,” Hooper wrote. “However, we are short of sympathy for our French counterparts. “Thanks to that we have managed to take a couple of chunks out of their lead, which gave everyone a momentary additional spring in their step. “They are now back up to full speed again, in fact in the latest sked we had the least amount of wind. “It sure is swings in roundabouts. But we push on hard,” Hooper concluded.
Cracking Carbon
MOVING PICTURES – Not what you want to hear while offshore. The sound of carbon fibre cracking is enough to fill any Volvo Ocean Race sailor with alarm, which is why the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing team were scrambling on deck last night.
Interview With Roland Gaebler – Part 2
Photo by
OLYMPIC CLASSES – Tornado President Roland Gaebler was interviewed by Martin from Cat Sailing News here are some of the questions and answers.
CSN: Have you sailed an F16? If so , how was it?
RG: Yes we did. I had the feeling I was back on a much smaller boat, personally it was just too small for us. We felt we were always about to front loop in the big waves. Maybe we sailed on the wrong boat but this was our impression. It will be great to see how the boats perform against each other in Santander at the evaluations.
CSN: The F18 is the most competitive and popular performance cat class, how do you see its future?
RG: Great racing everywhere. Okay, it has an old fashion Aluminum mast and is heavier than a Tornado but the big fleets around the world show the class is on the right track and the dealers are also pushing the class to the top. I think the F18 and A cat will be the biggest fleets in the future.
CSN:How do you see the future of cat racing and the AC ?
RG: The AC are at the top and hopefully a real flyer will come for the Olympics which will also promote our sport in the best possible way between all the other great classes. The multihull market will increase also in the leisure racing and sailing. It’s a win win situation for all of us. More boats. More jobs. More fun. The AC is the new undisputed F1 of the Multihull world and we are excited to see where they will lead our sport in the future. They really have been a media success and we have many lessons to learn from them, maybe we will see a trickle down effect into Olympic multihull sailing as they prove new technical concepts and media promotion. It is also great for us as a class to see so many previous Tornado sailors taking part in the campaigns.
CSN: If the T is not selected, which is your next option?
RG: For me the new Nacra 17 looks good, compliments to Nacra for coming up with such a boat at the right moment. So far this is my second favourite after Tornado but my only concern is that there has not yet been much testing on the water, let’s wait and see!
CSN: You will compete if an F16 is selected?
RG: No, personally this boat is far too small for us. We also believe that more than 50% of the actual mixed teams will also not sail F16 because they weight more than 140kg. It is really an excellent boat for the national and club youth programs, ISAF Youth Worlds and Youth Olympics. But I believe not for fully grown muscular female and male athletes. The Olympics should be a real sporting challenge for Olympic Athletes. I believe that 16 foot Cats are for the Youth, 18 foot is great for the leisure racing and 20 foot for the Olympics. This system has worked in harmony for the last few decades. This is the perfect configuration in cat sailing so why destroy this?
CSN: You are in a weight minimum campaign, tell us in your opinion how this affect to performance on smaller cats
RG: It’s very simple. If you are too heavy, you have no chance between 3 and 12 knots of Wind in a small cat. The “ultralights” will win the races and the Olympic Medals. If we looked to the majority of Olympic Classes for 2016 (470, skiff, windsurfing) we already have mostly boats for light sailors. We do not need another one.
CSN: I agree with you that pushing for a low min weight is not that healthy, and I think even the F16 can stand a wider range, so I don´t get why the 140kg limit- you’ve made a report on this, which were the results?
RG: We are unsure the reasoning behind the ISAF evaluation team making the 120-140kg target. A man above 80kg can only sail a Finn or stop his Olympic Dream. Same way the average weight of a Man/Olympic Male Athlete is 81kg. If you look to the light wind scenario in Rio de Janeiro, we may end up with teams up to 110kg if we use a smaller boat with less sail area. Nahid, my wife asked many mixed teams in F18, F20, Tornado and other classes about their weights and more than 70% are over the 140kg. We should have a higher minimum weight to represent real world athletes.
CSN:Final thoughts on the Trials and outcomings
RG: We can’t wait! We feel that it is bad that the new Hi Tech F18s have stopped their campaigns, we are unsure why, maybe you know more Martin? We would have loved to see more boats there! As the only class association lead boat at the trials, we feel that we are strongly positioned to offer great value as we don’t have a profit motive. Just a motive to offer spectacular ‘Olympic ring’ winning races for the public, media and IOC. It is nice to see that the AC45s are upgrading their wings with more sail area to deliver more
performance in light winds for media, spectators and sponsors. The forecast for Rio de Janeiro and the summer Olympics is mostly light winds. We are surprised the bigger boats didn’t come along to the trials. We believe that a new boat will change nothing. We must change the racing system. To get more nations we need supplied boats for ISAF World Cup Events, World- and Continental Champs and Olympics. That’s why the Laser is so successful. This system can also work for Olympic Multihull Sailing. To get the media, spectators and sponsors we need a real flyer, let Multihull win the media award again!
The decision is now with the MNAs and evaluation teams to decide what they want. Already the MNAs have lost the Star and the Elliots. Maybe they need new surfboards too. Imagine how much money they have lost in this period. Now they must decide if they want the same scenario in
Multihull with a new class or take the proven boats and quality we have. Many nations still have
Tornado’s sitting and waiting, they would have no expense.
Cessna Citation Nears End Leg 3
GLOBAL OCEAN RACE – After 28 days at sea, the leading Global Ocean Race (GOR) Class40 is closing in on the Leg 3 finish line in Punta del Este, Uruguay, following a week when tough decisions were made in the final approach to Cape Horn. Having taken the lead in the GOR, the period at the front of the fleet was short but very sweet for Marco Nannini and Hugo Ramon on Class40 Financial Crisis and by the start of Week 4 (20-26 February) of Leg 3, Conrad Colman and Adrian Kuttel were back in the lead on Cessna Citation with 450 miles remaining to the Felipe Cubillos Cape Horn Gate.
While progress through the Southern Ocean for the South African duo on Phesheya-Racing was momentarily stalled by a high pressure system producing exceptionally calm but frigid conditions in the Furious Fifties, a low pressure system forming off Antarctica forced hard strategic decisions on Cessna Citation and Financial Crisis. Colman and Kuttel opted to outrun the storm with Cessna Citation and reached at full-pace towards Drake Passage while Nannini and Ramon wisely chose a hove-to manoeuvre south-west of the cape, riding out 50-55 knots gusts withFinancial Crisis.
As Cessna Citation crossed the Felipe Cubillos Cape Horn Gate at 16:25 GMT on Wednesday winning the trophy for the first GOR Class40 around the cape, Nannini and Ramon were gearing back-up on Financial Crisis as the low pressure chased Cessna Citation out of the Southern Ocean and into the South Atlantic. Late on Thursday, Financial Crisis rounded the cape and with light airs forecast, Nannini and Ramon sailed through the Le Maire Strait with a favourable current and emerged into the South Atlantic late on Friday. MORE STORY
Courrier Dunkerque Wins in Sailing Arabia – The Tour
RACING NEWS – The crew of “Dunkerque Plaisance” have won the second edition of Sailing Arabia – The Tour. Winning four of the six races, Daniel Souben and his men, 2010 World Farr 30 Champions, four-time winners of the French Crewed Championship and double winners of the Tour de France à la Voile, sailed a superb competition and established themselves as the major protagonists in world crewed racing.
In so doing, the sailors from northern France have prepared for the 2012 M34 circuit in style and will unquestionably rank among the favourites in the Tour de France à la Voile, which will kick-off in the Urban Community of Dunkirk on 29 June-3 July for the 26th time! The Dunkirk crew’s Farr 30 adventure has culminated in the Middle East with a superb, outright victory in Sailing Arabia – The Tour. This boat, which has given them so much pleasure over recent years, will now remain in Omani waters. Daniel Souben, Nicolas Pauchet, Vincent Vandekherkove, Erwan Le Roux, Antoine Carpentier, Bertrand Castélnérac and Guillaume Berenger haven’t been particular about details over the past three weeks of competition in the Persian Gulf and the Omani race zones.
First across the finish line a total of four times, the “Courrier Dunkerque” team has demonstrated great precision, both in the way the crew drive the boat and the navigation in the true sense of the term. Up against their formidable adversaries from the Tour de France à la Voile, title holder Bertrand Pacé and Cédric Pouligny, the sailors supported by the Urban Community of Dunkirk, Veolia Environnement, the Dunes of Flanders and DK Bus, were quite simply stronger! The team from Dunkirk will now return to France in order to rediscover their M34 and warm up for the French Crewed Championship and notably the Spi Ouest France, in Brittany’s La Trinité-sur-Mer over Easter weekend.
Daniel Souben, skipper – manager of “Courrier Dunkerque”: “We’re pleased with this victory. Sailing Arabia – The Tour has a fine future ahead of it. We encountered a number of different sailing conditions and we were pretty good. This competition has been good training for us and has enabled us to prepare for our 2012 season and objectives such as the Tour de France à la Voile”.
Volvo Leg 4
MOVING PICTURES – Volvo Ocean Race leg 4 update.
World Match Racing Tour
MOVING PICTURES – Alpari Announces Title Sponsorship of World Match Racing Tour
Danish Extreme Sailing Team
EXTREME SAILING SERIES – A new team in the form of Team Trifork from Denmark can finally be unveiled today as the 8th team in the starting blocks for the first Act of the Extreme Sailing Series™ 2012 in Muscat, Oman. The team will be co-skippered by Jes Gram-Hansen on helm and Rasmus Kostner, tactician, who both come from a World Match Racing Tour and America’s Cup background, alongside the youngest member of the team, 26-year-old Jonas Hviid-Nielsen on bow combined with the Extreme 40 race experience of Pete Cummings (skipper of the winning Extreme 40 team in 2009) and Simon Hiscocks from the UK.
It has been a long journey for the Danish team that began a year ago as Jes Gram-Hansen explained: “Rasmus and myself went into different sailing programmes like RC44 and Farr 40 after the 32nd America’s Cup in Valencia but all the time our dream was to create our own team. We analysed what kind of circuit would be the one to go with, and with the changes to the America’s Cup and the Extreme Sailing Series being more and more the series to be in, we decided to try and build a team for the Extreme Sailing Series. So we invested all our money into buying a boat a year ago and then we spent most of the year in Denmark taking out business people from companies to show them what we love and what we think would be a good way to be involved in the project. We have long-support from Trifork (a software company) which we have in been a good relationship over the years along with our clothing partner, Simon Spurr, to help get us here to the start line in Muscat.” MORE STORY
RS400 Sailing
MOVING PICTURES – This is a fun clip to watch. Check out the barging start.
Follow Us!