HOME MOVIES – Glen Roberts selfmade Hydrofoil trimaran, 15 year project, test run 2012. Description, Epoxy glass, plascore skin construction. Dimension 26ftx31ft with 3 T foils 9ft tall, with trailing flaps controlled by 3 foot pedals, powered with a 30hp longshaft suzuki 2 stroke. Next stage mast, rigging, sails and tramp. The goal is to sail level and 5ft clear of surface with a smooth fast ride.
COOL THINGS – Movie theaters are inherently awesome places to be on their own, evoking memories of past big-screen adventures and nights spent eating popcorn and candy for supper. For a new film festival in Thailand called Film on the Rocks Yao Noi, an outdoor cinema was constructed in the most unlikely of places: right on top of the water. And it just might be the most amazing place you could ever want to watch a movie.
The amazing venue is called the Archipelago Cinema and is tucked away inside a bay surrounded by towering island rocks and lush jungle plants. It’s a natural paradise, and it just happens to be the perfect spot for a floating movie theater. The lagoon itself is shallow enough that it turns into a watery beach during low tide. Once the tide shifts, the ocean once again fills the area.
MOVING PICTURES – Music video. T2p.tv brings you the best shots from cameras off board, on board, go pros and from above!
VOLVO OCEAN RACE – The fleet are spread over 2000 miles and both boats and crew members are showing signs of wear and tear. The lucky ones are still on course for Cape Horn, while others are being forced into unplanned detours.
AMERICAS CUP – Story by Suzanne McFadden- Boating NZ
Now that the America’s Cup has finally got the green flag from the city of San Francisco, a buoyant Russell Coutts has turned his focus to the water.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors have unanimously approved a much scaled-back America’s Cup plan put up by event officials for the 2013 regatta; Cup defenders Oracle Racing describing the decision as “a long-awaited outcome after months of arduous negotiation”.
Coutts, Oracle’s CEO, put it more bluntly on his Facebook page: “Good news yesterday that the politicians in San Francisco finally stopped negotiating against themselves and approved the deal with America’s Cup! Maybe we can now focus on the racing???”
Under the newly-approved agreement, America’s Cup teams will be based at Piers 30/32 and the America’s Cup village at Piers 27/29. Original plans called for the America’s Cup Event Authority to put up most of the money to repair the city’s piers in exchange for long-term development rights.
But with only four teams having entered for the event so far, the plans were reduced to the Port of San Francisco and the city paying for the pier upgrades, at an estimated cost of $US22 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Coutts still has his fingers crossed that more challengers will come to the party in the next couple of months. So far, the start-list to find a challenger for Oracle Racing reads: Emirates Team New Zealand, Prada and Artemis.
“I haven’t heard anything definite. But we’re hoping there are going to be the Koreans, maybe one of the French teams and hopefully the Chinese,” says Coutts, who’s confident there is still time, despite the June 1 entry deadline.
“They would be one-boat programmes and there is quite a good design sitting there in the standard design package that those teams can access.”
A four-time America’s Cup winner, Coutts admits in hindsight more could have been done to attract a larger fleet.
“Maybe [the boat] should have been a one-design, or the AC72 could have been smaller. It could have been a 50 foot boat -Tom Schnackenberg suggested that in the early days,” he says. “One of the problems teams have is that they are trying to build their brands.
“Do we have all the right answers this time? Absolutely not. But these problems have been around for more than two decades now.”
He doubts whether the event could have attracted a stronger fleet, believing this could be one of the closest regattas in recent history. He also doubts Oracle Racing will have the considerable design advantage many perceive they will.
“I reckon it’s going to be a lot closer than other people are predicting, you know? I reckon this America’s Cup will be more about sailing. The use of technology will be important, but the way the rule is written – with boats the same length, the same weight, the same power – I think it will be a relatively even contest compared to what we have seen in the past. On these tight courses, the manoeuvering is going to be so important.”
GLOBAL OCEAN RACE – Held at the Conrad Hotel, Punta del Este, the Global Ocean Race (GOR) Leg 3 Prize Giving was organised by the Yacht Club Punta del Este and the Uruguay Ministry of Tourism. An evening during which the GOR committed to retuning to Punta del Este for the 2013-14 GOR.
First award of the evening was the Felipe Cubillos Cape Horn Prize for the first GOR Class40 to round the infamous rock at the eastern limit of the Southern Ocean, named after the late Chilean yachtsman, philanthropist and competitor in the inaugural 2008-09 GOR, Felipe Cubillos Sigall (1962-2011). The trophy – a replica of the steel albatross statue by the Chilean sculptor, José Balcells, located on Horn Island – was presented by Luis Escobar and a team from Cofradía Náutica del Pacífico yacht club and the Desafío Levantemos Chile (Rise up Chile) charity of which Felipe Cubillos was an integral part. Felipe’s co-skipper in the 2008-09 GOR on Class40 Desafio Cabo de Hornos, José Muñoz, and his son, Felipe Cubillos Toro, presented the prizes. Having led the GOR fleet around Cape Horn after 24 days of racing through the Pacific with Cessna Citation, Conrad Colman accepted the award with Mark Blomfield standing in for Colman’s Leg 3 co-skipper, Adrian Kuttel. MORE STORY
MATCH RACING – The RC44 class kicked off in Cascais yesterday with Match Racing, teams fought in champagne conditions leaving Synergy on top with no losses and
taking the overall match racing leader board for 2012.
CLIPPER RACE – The Australian entry passed the gate at 08:53:55 UTC, completing the sprint in 25 hours 53 minutes and 42 seconds.
On board, skipper Richard Hewson reports, “I am very proud of my team and their efforts, this is a fantastic run averaging over eleven knots for the entire duration of the sprint.”
In competitive spirit Richard adds, “I believe that this time will be hard to beat and wish other yachts fair winds and the best of luck for the sprint.”
As the team waits with bated breath to see if their efforts will pay off and earn them the extra bonus point on offer, Richard explains how the strong and variable winds that have assisted their front running advantage, remain a challenge for life below deck.
“The sea and swell remain very confused making life below difficult and life in the galley an experience in itself. In these conditions it seems a helping hand is always required as demonstrated today while preparing lunch. The boat lurched and rolled over excessively, throwing the rice from the rice cooker into the lockers while also managing to spray chef Babs Yendell from head to toe. Assistant chef Gina Gourlay also got a pasting by the tomato puree as it flew across the galley. Thankfully some of the contents were still able to be scraped up and eaten for a very tasty lunch.”
He adds, “Amazingly the sun came out today and we also had more blue sky than we have seen since China. Last night, and also tonight, we can actually see the stars and the moon that make up the universe around us, giving us some comfort that we are approaching the end of an incredible set of weather systems and an incredible race.” MORE STORY
MOVING PICTURES – HyRaii is a student project from ETH Zurich
DESTOP NEWS – For this week’s agenda
1. the Rolex International Regatta à St Thomas
2. New Zealand for the Auckland Regatta
3. the Finn class European Championship
4. Marseille For the Massilia Cup
5. Coping with a storm in the Pacific
VOLVO OCEAN RACE – Whether on a boat with one, two or three hulls, alone or with a team, the 43-year-old Frenchman has been there and done it – and now on his seventh lap of the planet, Coville said it’s tougher than ever.
“I try to give everything each time,” he said. “Each time, it feels like I’m experiencing the most difficult one!
“I must be amnesic because I keep going back. It’s not that the difficulty is the only interesting challenge — there is something enjoyable about this place.”
Like his skipper Franck Cammas, Coville has made a name for himself for taking on the toughest sailing challenges known to man.
Twice has he attempted to break the world record for the fastest solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe, and he has also made two Jules Verne record attempts for the quickest crewed lap of the planet alongside Cammas.
Throw into the mix a Vendee Globe singlehanded campaign and victory in the 2005 Oryx Quest round the world race and it’s easy to see why Coville is so revered in the world of ocean racing.
But despite his wealth of experience, the challenge of sailing around the world doesn’t get any easier.
“The physical commitment is tougher than anything I have experienced until now, even on Groupama 3 for the Jules Verne trophies.
“We are way more exposed on deck. Even life inside, the proximity of leaving the 11 of us together, is harder to live with than on other projects.”
Having 10 team mates around does have its advantages from time to time though – during his solo attempts, Coville had to rely on an autopilot to steer down the huge, Southern Ocean swells if he were to get any sleep.
“I must admit that being able to come inside, go to sleep or, like now, speak on the phone, without the anxiety of leaving the boat to an autopilot, is comfortable,” he added.
“The solo sailor’s anxiety — going to sleep while leaving the boat in the hands of a technical feature, going to sleep knowing it can fail, the boat can capsize and you can die — that’s way stronger than today’s anxiety of making a mistake and breaking material. MORE STORY
MOVING PICTURES – Winds up to 50 knots do not mean “No Racing”, when it comes to the RS:x Class. Time for some speed contest then!
CLIPPER RACE – There’s a good reason Popeye the Sailor has bulging forearms. Just ask Singapore skipper, Ben Bowley. Typing his report to the Race Office this morning he explains, “I have just come off an hour on the wheel and my fingers are shaking a little from all the adrenaline pumping through my blood vessels right now.
“We have just reduced sail plan once again as the breeze kicks back in from the north west. For the last few hours while the wind was a moderately steady 35 knots of true, we had been enjoying almost continual speeds over 13 knots and Will Parbury managed a new speed record that should be pretty hard to top: 27.4 knots. Regular forays into the high teens and low 20s have been the order of the day. Unfortunately, gusts of over 50 knots of true were proving too much for even the best helms to handle a double reefed main and Yankee 2. The lactic acid build up in my forearms is testament to that!”
As the leading teams break through the 1,000 miles to go barrier, undoubtedly giving the exhausted sailors a much needed boost, the Pacific Ocean continues to throw her challenges at them.
“As the sun has now set and we see the wind filling in for the night we have opted for a much more conservative sail plan,” continues Ben. “The reason we had been flying the Yankee 2 in the first place is that this morning we noticed some nasty holes in the Yankee 3 where it had dragged across some broken hanks during setting it goose-winged. It was promptly dropped and our Mother Superior (Mererid) performed some excellent emergency surgery that should get us to Oakland at least.
“Varying wind strengths throughout the afternoon have kept our small crew very busy indeed. We are down two crew members due to injury, which effectively leaves a total of eight people between two watches when you remove the day’s mothers from the equation. As a result of this, all but the simplest of operations require both watches. There are some very sleepy heads aboard the big red bus today but we are determined not to let our second place slip this close to the end. Timmy Tough pills all round chaps!”
And maybe a tin or two of spinach. MORE STORY
VOLVO OCEAN RACE – Overnight, leaders Groupama sailing team gybed away from the south easterly track that they and second placed PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG had been sailing for several days.
Groupama Media Crew Member (MCM) Yann Riou said the gybe had taken almost two hours of hard work as the sailors first prepared the boat above and below deck with the actual maneuver requiring the entire crew on deck.
“The gybe itself was a little stressful at night especially since it’s a week we spent on that tack,” Riou wrote in his latest report from the boat. “We immediately did a visual check rigging after the gybe. Then came the optimisation of the stack, below and above deck.”
By 0400 UTC today PUMA were yet to respond continuing south east, 48 nautical miles off the lead.
In third, Team Telefónica who yesterday confirmed plans to stop for repairs in Argentina also gybed to head north east shortly before reaching the eastern edge of the ice exclusion zone.
Telefónica MCM Diego Fructuoso said that although the boat and crew were holding up well the team had nevertheless decided to pitstop for repairs to protect their chances of a leg 5 podium result.
“Right now the first two have slipped away a bit and we have to start looking behind us, namely at Abu Dhabi who are at a considerable distance but starting to close,” Fructuoso wrote.
“We are sailing as fast as we can without damaging anything and it’s very cold. We have about four days to reach our first destination and we hope that conditions are not particularly hard on the way.
“We have to defend the podium on this stage and our lead in the standings that we have worked so hard for. We are 1,400 miles to the stop and then about 1,800 to Itajaí. Let us hope that everything goes well.¨
At 0400 UTC CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand — heading for a repair stop in Chile — remained fourth on the leaderboard as fifth placed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing continued to make rapid progress to the south east having passed the central ice exclusion zone waypoint overnight.
At 0400 UTC Abu Dhabi were 1400 nm off the lead and averaging 22 knots.
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR – Sailing Spoken Here would like to present Joseph Morris, senior captain of Yale University’s co-ed sailing team, interviewing Gary Jobson about college sailing. Gary talks about what has changed in college sailing over the years and who Gary thinks are some of the memorable college sailors that stand out to him. MORE HERE
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR – 600nm, singlehanded on Pogo 2 onboard USA 806 Team Open Sailing. MORE HERE
MOVING PICTURES – On the “World on Water” it has been a big “Volvo” week. The Auckland In-Port Race, the start of Leg 5 to Itajai and drama for Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Racing’s Azzam. We report on the mayhem in the 18 Foot skiffs when most of the fleet capsized, the 32nd St Maarten Heineken Regatta, the Australian Melges 32 Championships and we show the dramatic sequence when Melges 32 boat Red is T-boned by Bronco in the 2010 World Championships.
SAILING SPOKEN HERE – Here is a good video showing sailing from a lot of views. From small boats to big boats some new and old. MORE HERE
VOLVO OCEAN RACE – With Sanya having suspended racing and two other boat needing urgent repair, this has already been an unforgiving leg.
Forecasts predict increasingly heavy weather to come .MORE STORY
HOME MOVIES - This video has 2 RC boats sailing around flying 2 hulls very impresive for their size.
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