Smooth Sailing
Sailing
News By A Sailor For Sailors!
In
Association with:
The
South African America’s Cup
Challenge 2007 has made
some significant strides forward since Captain Salvatore Sarno announced it
earlier this year. In fact it’s probably fair to say that many have been
surprised by just how fast and efficiently the challenge has evolved. In a very
short space of time they have a top international designer contracted and moved
to Cape Town, a training boat on the water and a full team of sailors employed.
They also scored a bit of a coup in securing the services of top international
yachtsman Paul Standbridge as the team’s Sailing Manager. Paul
recently took a bit of time out from his hectic schedule to talk to Smooth
Sailing about the campaign and his role in it.
SS: You have
been a professional sailor for how many years now?
PS: 25 Years
SS: What has
been the highlight of your career to date?
PS: It's all been one big highlight!
SS: In the last America’s Cup you were with Team GBR, a
first time cup AC Challenger, what was your role there?
PS: Sailing Manager
SS: As a first
time AC challenger was Team GBR happy with their result in the last cup?
PS: Yes, we achieved our goals.
SS:
Undoubtedly it’s harder for a first time challenger to be competitive in the AC
than an experienced team. Having done the hard yards with Team GBR last time
round would you not rather be involved in theirs, or another second time
campaign or is there an attraction in being able to start with a clean sheet?
PS: The attraction with Team Shosholoza is to be with an
African team. But yes, it is harder doing it first time round.
We are starting with a clean sheet, however, we do have a limited
budget - so the clean sheet is slightly irrelevant.
SS: I am sure
in a campaign like this there are lots of dead-end roads that a new team can
find itself going down. What lessons have you learnt from your experience with
Team GBR that you will be able to apply to the SA Challenge that will save us
time or money or make us more competitive?
PS: Yes, there are lots of dead end roads, which is why I can
help Team Shosholoza to cut huge corners, which will save time and money.
One of our faults at GBR was trying to be greedy with our second boat, which
was radical.
SS: A fairly
large team has already been assembled in Cape Town. How was this team selected?
PS: The team were primarily selected by Captain Salvatore Sarno
and Geoff Meek. All of the sailors are much younger than me and I didn't
know them. I was first in securing Henri Hiddes as our Shore Manager,
being a long-term friend and associate of mine and of the same generation.
I am now involved in the further recruitment of people now that we have a team
to build on.
SS: An
invitation for interested parties to apply for positions on the team was widely
distributed. How many applications have you had and how do you plan to deal
with these? Will you be trailing more sailors or simply assessing the merits of
their applications? Does the team have the capacity to employ any more
personnel at this stage?
PS: We've had hundreds of applications and we are very pleased
with the response. I am trialing 2 potential crew per week and will
continue to do so for one year. In year two, we will assess our crew
situation. We do have the capacity to employ more people, but we are
going to do this over an 18-month period. We have to be careful that we
get the correct people because we intend to keep everyone to the end.
SS: Team GBR was able to draw on a large pool of extremely
talented sailors for their last campaign in particular having a strong pool of
Olympians to choose from. SA doesn’t have this luxury. Can that be seen as us
starting from an already disadvantaged position or are you confident that we
can get the guys up to speed by 2007?
PS: Only using sailors from South Africa is a disadvantage from
looking globally. However, we want to try and keep it exclusively South
African and we will maintain this policy for the first year. After that,
if we are not achieving our goals, I will look globally for people with
America's Cup experience.
SS: You have a
training boat and a full sailing team, what’s the program for the rest of the year?
PS: For the first year we want to be sailing in Table Bay, four
days a week, which will include crew trialing and promotional sailing. We
intend to go to at least two overseas regattas and we hope to secure a charter
on an IACC yacht for the regattas at Marseilles and Valencia at the end of this
year.
SS: How do you see the structure and program of the team
differing from its present form a year from now?
PS: A year from now the team will follow a similar structure,
but at a much higher level and our overseas regattas will be on our boat or
either a modified RSA or perhaps our newly designed boat. We are obliged
to go to these three regattas in Europe, which is the start of the selection
process for the Louis Vuitton Cup.
SS: Finally, what do you see as being the short-term priorities
for the SA AC Challenge?
PS: Short-term priorities are fundraising, crew selection and research and development for our new boats.
SS: Thanks for
taking the time to talk to us!
At the Laser Worlds, which ended earlier, this week Gareth Blankenburg finished in a
disappointing 23rd position after being comfortably placed in the top ten
earlier in the week. I am not sure what went wrong in the second half of the
regatta but his results in the last three races were not good and included a
black flag. For the full results click www.laserchampionships.org/worlds04.
The J22 Worlds ended last weekend in Annapolis, USA. Well known SA sailor and
occasional Smooth Sailing correspondent Alon Finkelstein took part in the
regatta and sent us the following report:
“The recently completed J22 Worlds
held in Annapolis this past week can only be described as an epic regatta.
There were an incredible amount of talented sailors, ex-World Champions and 130
boats...by far the largest turn-out at a J22 Worlds! Again, the talent was
phenomenal. Chris Larson, Terry Flynn, John den Engelsman are past World
Champs, then there were local Annapolis guys like Greg Fischer (North Sails),
Scott Nixon (Quantum Sails), Dave van Cleef, Alex Cutler and Henry Filter who
are incredibly fast and have been sailing J22's for ages. There were also
people like Andrew Scott who sailed on Stars and Stripes in the last America's
Cup and Moose McKlintoc who was a trimmer on Americaone in the 2000 AC, past
Laser world champion, John Bertrand, 470 Champion Steve Hunt etc. The fleet
here in Annapolis is so big and so competitive that all the good sailors in
town (and there are many) race J22's.
I thought a bit too late about
registering as a South African. I only bought the boat 2 months ago and things
have been full-on getting ready for this event. I would have needed to change
sail numbers and country letters on the sail which to be honest I just didn't
feel like dealing with or have any spare time. Also the other 3 people on my
crew were American's so it would have been a stretch registering as a Japie
team.
With 130 boats they decided to split
the fleet into 4 groups of about 32 boats, and have 2 starts per race with 65
boats on the line per start. First start was White and Pink then second start
was Blue and Green. Then they mixed up the order so that after three races
everyone had sailed against everyone else at least once.
First day was OK for us....we tried
to be pretty conservative and avoid incidents and letters on the score-sheet.
The current was ripping and pushing everyone over. Breeze was nice...around
10-14 knots all day. We had a terrible first start and ended up counting boats
from the back, but came back well with two good starts and two races in around
20th position in the fleet of 65. Boatspeed was OK. Unfortunately we got Z
flagged in the second race which is a 20% scoring penalty. In that race there
was one general recall and then a black flag start that got away cleanly. I
don't remember exactly where we were
for the recalled start but I'm pretty sure we weren't bow out on the fleet and
pushing the line that hard, so our whole crew was very confused to see the Z
flag penalty on the score sheet at the end of the day. It's possible the RC
made an error but unfortunately no-one on the boat had much recollection of the
recalled start so we had no idea which boats were around us to call as possible
witnesses, so we decided to laugh it off, avoid the protest room and spend more
time at the bar!
Day 2 was a bit of a bummer for us.
Breeze was all over the show. They started 3 races and we were launched in the
first two races in second position just before the top mark each time. Had 2
great starts and excellent speed and smarts (my tactician is a 2 time college
All-American so he's was pointing us in the right direction more often than
not). Then they abandoned both races on the first beat while we were in second
place! Then they started another race and I knew by the law of averages we were
due for a bad start, and that's exactly what happened. Were stuck in mid-fleet
but started to make a nice recovery and fought back into the late teens. Then
the wind shut off completely, the current was still ripping and we got parked
at the weather mark fighting the current. It took us about 30 minutes to go 5
boat lengths, no exaggeration! The breeze shifted so much that we ended up
flying the chute on what should have been the upwind leg. Having abandoned the
first two attempts at a race when the breeze shifted I was sure they would blow
three horns again rather than turn the Worlds into a Mickey Mouse event.
Nevertheless there were no signals, the fleet was parked, boats pointing in all
directions etc etc. Eventually the time limit for the race expired to
thankfully put all of us out of our misery.
This marked the end of the
qualification series after which the fleet was split into gold and silver. With
almost no preparation for the regatta we were happy to make the gold fleet and
take things from there. The last time I drove a J22 in a championship regatta
was Continental Week in 1998 or 1999!
The first race in the championship
round was light and fluky. We had a good start and a good first beat rounding
with the big boys in around 15th place. Unfortunately we sailed into a whole on
the second beat and lost a bunch of boats and ended up in around 30th, only to
later discover we were Z flagged again. Another surprise to myself and everyone
on our boat as we were bow even with all the boats in our vicinity of the line,
yet we got flagged. Very frustrating! Breeze picked up to around 14 knots for
the next two races but they went badly too, with some average starts and a lot
of sailing in dirty air. We had good speed all day but made too many tactical
and boat-on-boat mistakes. Not a great day for us but at the end of it all we
only dropped one spot in the standings.
Two races were sailed on Friday, the
last day of the regatta. In the first race we got a nice start and were able to
hold our lane all the way up the beat rounding comfortably in the top 15 and
picking a few boats off on the first run. We got pushed to the left on the next
beat and the wind went hard right so we ended up losing about 15 boats and
finishing in the early 30's which was very disappointing considering our
position at the first mark. For the last race the breeze died and went right,
coming over the land making for some really shifty conditions. Again we got off
the line clean and worked our way into the front pack, and for once were able
to hold our position and earn our first top 10 place in the last race.
At the top of the fleet it was tight
between the leading contenders but eventually came down to a two horse race
between defending champion John den Engelsman from the Netherlands and local
Alec Cutler. den Engelsman was out of it in the last race so went home early
while Cutler was also deep but came flying through the fleet to finish 8th and
take 1st overall by 2 points. In third was Dave van Cleef, the local rigger.
His story is pretty amazing. With so many boats participating in the event and
all needing last minute ropes, standing rigging, spreaders etc he had something
like 70 open business orders the week before the event. That he managed to
satisfy all his customers and still finish in the top three was an amazing
achievement. In 4th place was Henry Filter, a champion Laser and Snipe sailor
who had Moose McKlintoc calling tactics and doing the middle position on his
boat. In 5th was Scott Nixon the local Quantum sails rep who is also an
incredible sailor. Past J22 World Champion Terry Flynn could only manage a 6th
overall while another past World Champ and full time pro-sailor, Chris Larson,
could only manage 22nd.
We ended up gaining 10 places
overall with our solid last day and ended up 43rd out of 130...exactly the
1/3rd mark. The first time all 4 of us sailed together was the tune up regatta
the Saturday before the event! It was not the right way to prepare for a World
Championships but having only just bought the boat I didn't want to miss out on
a Worlds in my own home town. I was glad that we did respectably, beat a lot of
the more experienced local campaigners, got the boat moving fast and gelled
quite well as a team. Although my campaign was a bit half-ass, it was better
than watching it all take place out of my office window and wishing I could
have been out there.
Pity there weren't some other South
African teams here but I guess people are focused on bigger events like the
2007 AC and Annapolis ('A drinking town with a sailing problem') doesn't have a
great reputation for windy conditions, although I'm sure the Rolex girls will
tell you otherwise. Hopefully there'll be a few SA teams for next year's Rolex
in Annapolis. There's always plenty of space at my house!”
For the full results visit the event web site at www.j22.org/worlds/.
The organisers
of the 2004 Vasco Da Gama Ocean Race are gearing up for another excellent
event. Those of you doing the wise thing and considering taking part in this
year’s race will want to pay attention to the following news from the race
organisers:
LAM MOZAMBIQUE AIRLINES CHARTER FLIGHT REQUIREMENTS:
LAM Kindly confirm the 1 way cost of a flight from
Dbn to Maputo at R800.00 ex taxes. We need to confirm the number of seats
required. If you need a ticket, please email the Race Secretary at sailsa@hit.co.za URGENTLY..!!
VISA SERVICE: Get your Passport, R100, and
complete the forms at the Race Office, and we will organise your VISA for
you. But make sure you get them there by Wednesday the 30th June
2004 or you will miss out and have to queue for Hours yourself.
CREW SHIRT SIZES: When you complete the
Entry Form, you will see a section asking for shirt sizes..... don't forget to
do this or you will all end up with XXL's or S's.
MACS SHIPPING: Macs Shipping has very kindly
agreed to look into the possibility of assisting Cape boats with Shipping. If
you require information on this service, kindly contact us immediately.
This year’s NSRI Barrel is being jointly hosted
by the Point and Royal Natal Yacht Clubs in Durban on 13 June. All classes are encouraged to take part in
this fund raising event and the organisers are looking forward to a good
turnout of keelers, cats and dinghies. After the briefing at PYC at 09.30, the
yachts will gather near O-Shed at 10.20 for the sail past and a Fun Bay Race
beginning at 11.00. Then the
festivities will take place on RNYC’s lawns, with entertainment provided by Rob
Main-Baillie, a Jumping Castle for the kids and loads of prizes are up for
grabs! All proceeds go to the NSRI.
Our Notices of Race page on the Smooth Sailing has all the NOR’s available to us. If you
have a regatta coming up and would like to make the NOR available online then
e-mail it to hethcot@iafrica.com and it will be posted and
listed in this newsletter. To get your copy simply click on the name of the
regatta you are interested in below:
|
Regatta |
Venue |
Dates |
|
Point, Royal Natal & Zululand
Yacht Clubs and Club Naval, Maputo |
December 2003 to July 2004 |
|
|
Durban Radio Boat Club |
13 June |
|
|
Pretoria Sailing Club |
19 June |
|
|
Island Sailing Club |
19 & 20 June |
|
|
Point Yacht Club |
3 to 9 July |
|
|
Lake Malawi |
7 to 15 July |
|
|
Maputo to Durban |
15 July |
|
|
Zululand Yacht Club |
23 to 25 July |
|
|
University of Cape Town Yacht
Club |
31 July & 1 August |
|
|
Newcastle Aquatic Sports Club |
7 to 9 August |
|
|
V & A Waterfront, Table Bay |
20 to 27 August |
|
|
Hermanus Yacht Club |
11 to 18 December |
|
|
Royal Cape Yacht Club |
4 January 2006 |
The Smooth Sailing Classifieds are a free service for private advertisers only. This service is not available to any commercial enterprise or service provider. To place an ad, e-mail the details to andrew@smoothsailing.co.za.
FOR SALE
For further details contact Chris Frost
Extensively
equipped for cruising.
Good
condition
Walk-on
mooring in Durban available with yacht,
Contact: Don
Sellars
Cell: 072 354
9724
E-Mail: donsellars@absamail.co.za
Posted: 25/05/04
WANTED
Yacht (GRP) for cruising
Western Cape area
23' or larger
Under R50 000
Contact: Martin Craemer
Cell: 082 399 8140
E-Mail: craemerd@mweb.co.za
Marine Diesel
Engine
30 - 50 Hp
range
Contact:
Steve Button
Cell:
082-851-8172
Email: sbutton@csir.co.za
Placed:
07/06/04
Contact: Ron Pet
Cell: 073 232 4105
E-Mail: pet@glenwoodhighschool.co.za
Placed: 07/06/04
Prepared to
pay up to R8 000-00
Contact
Gerard
Cell: 083 653
5178
Placed: 19/05/04
Andrew Heathcote
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
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