Charleston Race Week sailors kept ashore

April 17, 2011 - Charleston Race Week - While every sailor's first concern is having enough wind for exciting racing, today Mother Nature served up a helping of southerly breeze that for the majority of sailors was too hefty to handle. Certainly, the race committee saw it that way and canceled competition for all of the sailors in this 270-boat fleet.'With forecasts of winds into the 30s by early afternoon, we made the tough decision to abandon racing this morning at 8:30 a.m.,' said Randy Draftz, Race Director for 2011 Sperry Top-Sider Charleston Race Week. While a few hardcore sailors grumbled at the loss of a day's racing, the vast majority appreciated the race committee's prudence.

'Most of the teams here don't get to race in this much wind with these strong currents, and trying to get around the course on a day like today could really ruin the week for a lot of sailors,' said San Francisco Olympic 49er hopeful Jonny Goldsberry, whose Brick House team leads the Melges 24 Class.

'We love these conditions, but most of our team sails hundreds of days a year in this stuff, and we're totally comfortable in these winds. But we're probably not representative of the majority.' Draftz, a long time racer himself, said that he 'knows how important it is to get races in after traveling a long way, but not at the expense of the safety of all of our friends out there.'

Flags snapped to attention in stiff gusts on the end of the Charleston Harbor Marina - Charleston Race Week 2011 - © Meredith Block/ Sperry Top-Sider Charleston Race Week 2011

Goldsberry and a few other crews showed just what professional sailors can do in near-gale conditions., His team, along with six other Melges 24 sportboats (including the top three competitors in that class at the regatta), headed out around 11:00 for some makeshift racing. Fortunately for them, these are the kind of winds that are routine in Corpus Christi, TX, the location for next months Melges 24 World Championship.

Following the Melges in the blustery conditions, an eight boat cadre of photography, coach, and media boats had difficulty keeping up with the sailboats as they raced downwind from Fort Sumter to Mt. Pleasant. The boats' hulls crashed through the waves and left roostertails rising up out of the water as they flirted with speeds up to 21 knots of speed. 'I haven't seen anything this exciting in ages,' said renowned sailing photographer Billy Black. 'What a great way to spend a morning.'

Tomorrow's forecast calls for a much more manageable 5 to 10 knots of northerly wind. That's something that competitor Keith Magnussen of San Diego said he'll be happy to see. 'The heavier boats had a real upwind advantage on us yesterday, but our boat, Rented Mule (a Viper 830), just flies in the light air.'

Full Throttle (Chicago, IL) crosses Hedgehog (Bermuda) practicing in 20-25 knots - Charleston Race Week 2011 - © Meredith Block/ Sperry Top-Sider Charleston Race Week 2011

Most of the teams were quick to re-plan their days after the racing was cancelled. 'I think a few dozen Detroit-based sailors were headed to a nearby sports bar to watch the Redwings NHL game,' said Thac Nguyen, of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Others were off to enjoy go cart racing at a nearby amusement park, go shopping on Charleston's famed King Street, or try their hand at bowling. 'There's certainly no lack of things to do on a Saturday in Charleston,' said another Detroiter, Karl Kuspa.

The mood around the regatta headquarters at the Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina remained light and positive, especially among the two dozen sailors who braved the conditions for some white-knuckle practice rides. Multiple J/24 World Champion Anthony Kotoun of Newport, RI was one of them, and the Virgin Islands native who has sailed the past four Charleston Race Weeks, shared his thoughts on Charleston Race Week:

'I just love this regatta,' he said. When pressed on why, he mentioned the parallels with Caribbean regattas. 'I just came back from sailing in St. Thomas at the Rolex Regatta, the BVI at the Spring Regatta and St. Maarten for the Heineken event, and Sperry Top-Sider Charleston Race Week is the only event in the country that's got a flavor like those.' Kotoun cited 'great breezes, beautiful surroundings, and the regatta village here on the beach that's really something you don't see anywhere but the Caribbean.'

Charleston Race Week 2011 - © Meredith Block/ Sperry Top-Sider Charleston Race Week 2011

Koutoun also praised the variety of conditions that Charleston Harbor presents due to the changing tides and the harbor's singular geography. 'Yesterday, we had an ebb in the morning and all the guys in our fleet had to figure out that left was the way to go, but in the afternoon, we all needed to change our strategy and sail as close to the beach as we could. That just keeps it interesting from a tactical perspective.'

Racing will resume tomorrow, with inshore racing moved up to a 10:30 a.m. start to guarantee the maximum number of races run on the final day of Sperry Top-Sider Charleston Race Week 2011. Those sailors racing offshore will begin sailing at 10:00 a.m. as before.
source: www.sail-world.com

Charleston Race Week: Today's sailing canceled due to weather

April 16, 2011 - All sailboat races scheduled for today as part of Charleston Race Week have been canceled. Race Director Randy Draftz made the decision this morning not to send the sailors out after conferring with the Coast Guard regarding both the offshore and inshore conditions.

Conditions offshore were expected to be 30 mph winds and seas from 6 to 9 feet. Inshore, the winds are expected to build similarly in strength and the harbor is apt to be very choppy during the ebbing tide.

Plans are to resume racing on Sunday. Check back here for updates.
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First to show herself

April 17th 2011 - This morning, almost a year to the day that Camper and Emirates Team New Zealand confirmed their entry in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011/12, Camper, the team’s Volvo Open 70, was towed out of the shed at Cookson Boats where she has been in build for the past nine months.Designed by the Emirates Team New Zealand design team led by Principal Designer Marcelino Botin, Camper has been under construction since August at the world's leading boat builder in Auckland, owned by Mick Cookson.

For the past 12 months a core group from Emirates Team New Zealand has been working hard to ensure that the build has been kept on time, and on budget.
“This is a great day for us as a team. Everyone has given 100% to ensure that we have met all our deadlines and have been able to deliver Camper on time, just nine months after we first started the build project,” commented Emirates Team New Zealand Managing Director Grant Dalton.

“To be able to stand back and see the amazing job that they guys have done and now see her in her full livery, is quite humbling. I am very excited about going out sailing towards the end of this week,” he concluded.

For Camper, this is their first foray into ocean racing, and the company’s Founder and Chairman, Lorenzo Fluxá is equally excited about today’s event: “This is quite an historical moment for everyone at Camper and the start of a new adventure for our brand. The boat build has been a great experience for all of us, so precise in its execution that all we can do is congratulate all those involved in bringing ‘ the Camper’ to life.”

It was a short drive over Auckland’s Harbour Bridge to the shore base in the Viaduct, where the team is now entering the final phase of the build. The shore crew will bring the final components together from the team’s base in Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour. The remaining systems and keel will be fitted before Camper is lowered in the water by travel lift, where the mast will be stepped and the sails loaded. The team look forward to the boat’s first sail, when the full extent of her new livery will be revealed.

So experts - what do we think of her design?
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Tasmanian selected as skipper for 2011/12 Clipper Race

Richard Hewson, 31, from Hobart, Tasmania has been selected as one of ten elite skippers who will each lead a team in this year’s Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race. Richard will be the only professional sailor on board one of a matched fleet of stripped down, 68-foot ocean racing yachts and will command a non-professional crew as they compete in the gruelling 40,000-mile race around the globe.Richard has always had a love of sailing and when the race sets off from the UK in August this year he will be on his way to fulfilling a lifetime ambition.

Richard says, “To race around the world has been a dream since I was a small child and a goal I have been preparing for my entire life. There are few opportunities available where you get given a racing yacht and a crew to compete in one of the most challenging yacht races in the world.
“Not only is the Clipper Race an awesome challenge, but the comradeship and friendships developed in a race like this are amazing. I cannot wait until the gun goes off at the start of the first leg in August.”

Under Richard’s professional guidance will be a crew who come from all walks of life, from train drivers to IT specialists, nurses to chief executives, many of whom had never sailed before applying to take part. To date more than 40 different nationalities are represented by Clipper crew and Clipper 11-12 will see 28 Australians compete in the challenging eleven month race.

Richard was first introduced to sailing by his family. “I began sailing on our family yacht before I could crawl and spent most of my early years on the water. At the age of six I found a small dinghy on the rocks and my father and I patched it up and I used to bob around the local bay but it didn’t go fast enough,” recalls Richard.

From this point onwards there was no turning back and soon the Tasmanian sailor was racing dinghies on a regular basis, competing at local, state, national and international regattas.

“I started racing keel boats when I left school and have been focusing on ocean racing ever since,” explains Richard. “When I was 14 a friend and I bought an old 30-foot wooden boat and restored her. I had always wanted to sail offshore, so as soon as she was relatively seaworthy I sailed her up the east coast of Tasmania and as far offshore as I could until I could not see land.”

A love of being on the water led to Richard’s first career in the Royal Australian Navy where he started as a Seaman Officer before qualifying as a Mine Clearance Diving Officer. This was followed by work on super yachts in the Caribbean before going on to work on large tankers as a Chief Mate. Richard now wishes to make sailing his full time career.

“Clipper skippers have a fantastic reputation of sailing good campaigns throughout the Clipper Race and progressing into their sailing careers. Many have gone on to conquer some of the most competitive and toughest races in the world.

“My ultimate ambition is to sail solo around the world,” he adds. “Clipper in itself is a massive challenge and provides a fantastic platform for developing a solo round the world campaign.”

The Clipper Race celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, the first edition having been run in 1996. It was established by legendary yachtsman, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who, in 1969, became the first man to sail solo and non-stop around the world. He wanted to make ocean racing available to everyone, regardless of nationality or background, and since that first race almost 3,000 ordinary people have taken the opportunity to step outside of their comfort zone and do something truly extraordinary by taking on nature in the raw and racing around the world under sail.

Sir Robin comments, “Leading a team in a race around the world is one of the hardest and most challenging jobs that any skipper could ever undertake and we’re confident Richard and the other nine skippers are up to this challenge. They have all been through a lengthy and rigorous selection process and we have chosen a group of exceptional individuals as our race skippers. They have the ability to draw the line between competitiveness and safety while, at the same time, motivating the crew to retain their focus during races lasting several weeks at a time, whether it be through roaring gales and towering seas or the frustration of tricky calm spells.”

Followers of the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race can look forward to some exciting and exhilarating racing when the event gets underway this August. During the 40,000-mile race the fleet will stop at 15 ports around the world before arriving back in the UK in July 2012. For the first time the route includes an extra leg that will take the fleet from the west coast of Australia rounding Cape Leeuwin en route to New Zealand and then on to Australia’s east coast.

The search is already underway for suitably qualified men and women to follow in the footsteps of these ten skippers in the next edition of the race which will start in 2013 and will be raced on the brand new fleet of 70-foot yachts that have been specially commissioned. Skippers wishing to register their interest in applying for one of the most prestigious positions in sailing should email sirrobinknoxjohnston@clipper-ventures.com.
source: www.mysailing.com.au

Loki leads fleet to Newcastle

A fleet of 18 lined up for the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 213 nautical mile Audi Sydney Offshore Newcastle Yacht Race today for the midday start and Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki powered off the start at the pin end to lead the yachts as they left Sydney Harbour and turned left for Newcastle on the NSW coast. With the breeze just east of south at around 10-12 knots blowing, Loki and Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffin, which was mid line, looked the boats to beat. However, Loki reach North Head and swapped the Code Zero, for a big masthead kite and found her legs, putting more time between herself and the rest of the fleet.

Loki headed out to sea averaging 11 knots reaching a maximum of 14 knots,” navigator Michael Bellingham reported at 1.14pm.

Sailing towards Watsons Bay, some two minutes behind already, Ragamuffin was fending off a challenge from Colin and Gladys Woods’ Pretty Fly III, as the two set kites off South Head and also headed out to sea.
Southern Excellence, the Volvo 60 owned by Andrew Wenham, was next to exit Sydney Heads, her Audi backstay flag flying gaily in the breeze as she hugged the coastline.

Sam Haynes did a good job with his Rogers 46, Pirelli Celestial, sailing her to fourth place, with Santana 3 (Nick Johnston) following in Pirelli’s wake.

“As we head north, the breeze has settled at around 10 knots from the south-east. Inshore, forward and to leeward there’s a large rain cell and the observations say ‘no wind there’, so the strategy is to stay wide,” Bellingham reported from Loki.

“We have Ragamuffin to leeward and aft and Pretty Fly III to windward and aft. The yachts offshore appear to be doing better.”

At 8.00am this morning, Michael Logan Senior Duty Forecaster for the Bureau of Meteorology did not give the fleet the news they wanted to hear, although conditions for the latter part of the race on Sunday did bring a smile to the faces of those sailing on smaller yachts, who realise the advantage of late stronger winds.

Logan told those assembled at the CYCA official briefing this morning: “expect a light east-sou-easterly for the start, around 5 knots, but no more than 10. By 7.00pm this evening there still won’t be a lot of strength, you’ll be lucky to get 10 knots.”

From there, Logan said, the breeze would swing east-nor-east and that when the sun went down, winds would drop right out and the fleet could expect a light land breeze tonight and tomorrow.

By Saturday afternoon, a light sea breeze will hit the fleet, coming to those boats further north first. Logan said it would be a little stronger, perhaps up to 12 knots, rising to possibly 15 knots on Sunday, favouring the smaller yachts still racing.

Loki, the Reichel/Pugh 63 is in the race of her life, sailing master Gordon Maguire explaining after the official briefing that Loki winning the prestigious Blue Water Pointscore for 2010-2011, was not a foregone conclusion. “We need to finish ninth overall or better in this race and have Victoire finish second or worse. There’s eight points between us,” he said.

“Blue Water Pointscore victory is not pre-destined – the deal isn’t done,” Maguire said. “This is not the ideal scenario for us, it’s actually the worst, with the forecast we got. We’ll have to be putting our best foot forward; we won’t be taking our foot off the gas.

Maguire, at the helm of Loki, was doing exactly as they planned, trying put as much distance between them and the smaller boats in the fleet before the winds drop out tonight, if predictions prove correct.

“We’ll have to make our own destiny, it’s not about what Victoire does, it’s about what we do. We have to sail smart the whole way. With the current forecast, there’s a 50/50 chance between us and Victoire,” he said.

Victoire’s Phil Eadie responded: “There will be opportunities with the forecast. Between the light and skittish breeze and the current, it’s a matter of whether to stay in close to the coast or go out – that will be the key,” the well-established navigator said.

For Tasman Pointscore leader, the Radford 12, Copernicus, the weather forecast is a blessing. “We’re looking forward to the stronger breeze late in the race to pull us in,” crew member Duncan McRae. “The forecast’s good for us,” he said.

Darryl Hodgkinson’s Beneteau First 45, Victoire, is second in that pointscore too, so will be breathing down the neck of both Loki and Copernicus. Syd Fischer’s TP52, Ragamuffin, leads the Cape Byron Pointscore from Colin and Gladys Woods’ Cookson 50, Pretty Fly III.

The Audi Sydney Offshore Newcastle Yacht Race, organised by CYCA, is the final race of the Blue Water Pointscore and the Tasman Series for the PHS trophy.

The Yellowbrick tracker units have access to over 66 satellites worldwide that will continue to deliver yacht positions to the race website every 10 minutes. Line honours positions and provisional handicap results can be viewed at any time from the Standings section of the race website.

To follow the race from the start visit the official race website http://sydneynewcastle.cyca.com.au or on follow it on Twitter http://twitter.com/asonyr
source: yachte.com