Alinghi Looks to Make "Beast of a Boat"

Thursday - April 24 2008 - 0939 PST - Alinghi’s design team coordinator, Grant Simmer, explained where the Defender stands in terms of preparations for a multi-hull Deed of Gift Match:

"This challenge is obviously very different to what most of us in the Alinghi design office are used to - bar Dirk Kramers who was involved in the 88 Stars & Stripes campaign - but we are looking at building a big beast of a boat and the loads are off the scale compared to most of the boats we've been involved with." He adds:

"The engineering people are both concerned and excited about what they are doing - obviously from a naval architecture point of view; this is an extremely fast and exciting boat." With a look forward at the upcoming season, Grant said: "We are saying that we are getting ready to do this DOG match; we are working towards the DOG match; this is who is going to be in the team with us and this is roughly our schedule to get it done."

The team is preparing to start the build process in Switzerland.

Day Two of World Match Racing Tour

Thursday - April 24 2008 - 0915 PST - An unusually light and shifty northerly breeze today prevented the intended completion of round robin action in the World Match Racing Tour for both Groups A and B in Day Two of the Brasil Sailing Cup. Only the six skippers and teams from Group B were able to race today, and a bailer problem with one of the SM40's used in the competition kept two pairs from racing to conclude this round.

But the outcome one of these matches will determine the winner of the round robin, and therefore the placings of the top three teams who will advance to the Quarter Finals, along with the top two who will emerge from the Repechage in order to advance. World Match Racing Tour veteran Paolo Cian (ITA) and his Team Shosholoza, who finished with four wins in this round, are hoping Peter Wibroe (DEN), the reigning European Match Race Champion, defeats another WMRT veteran Bjorn Hansen (SWE) and his Alandia Sailing Team, as Hansen today defeated Cian, and would therefore win a tie-break.

Of his only loss in the round, Cian said "We felt we had full control of the pre-start, but Bjorn was just able to sneak in at the pin at the start, and the left side of the course was favored. But otherwise I think we sailed well." Cian finished third here in Vitoria in last November's 2007 edition of the Brasil Sailing Cup, so he's looking for a strong finish in this year's contest. Image © Bruno Miani.

BMW Oracle Leading in Cagliari RC 44 Cup

Thursday - April 24 2008 - 0850 PST - With four wins and one defeat, Team Banco Espirito Santo, BMW ORACLE Racing and Ceeref lead the match racing event of the Cagliari RC 44 Cup. With up to 25 knots of wind under a great sunshine, racers said the day was simply superb.

Whoever thinks that match racing should be competed on board slow boats should come to Cagliari and watch the ten RC 44's match-racing in 25 knots of wind, surfing down the waves and yet crossing the arrival line merely separated by a handful of seconds.

This is indeed what happened throughout the day in Cagliari on day one of the RC 44 Cup. The ten boats and their (mainly) pro skippers offered up great sailing off the coast of Cagliari, in no less than 21 matches in the best possible conditions.

Leader of the event after day one, Larry Ellison and his crew onboard BMW ORACLE Racing impressed a lot of people by the quality of their performance in those difficult conditions. They started the day with a win against Cameron Appleton's Team Aqua, crossing the arrival line eight seconds before their opponent after a very intense match. Even closer, the match between James Spithill's Team Ceeref and Ben Ainslie, onboard Team Banco Espirito Santo and won by Spithill by a mere three second. But the closest of all matches took place in the next flight, in a dual between Cro-A-Sail (Morten Henriksen) and BMW ORACLE Racing: one second between the two boats on the finish line and a joyfully celebration for the Croatians.

At the end of the day, three teams share the same number of points in the leader board of the match race event: Team Banco Espirito Santo, BMW ORACLE Racing and Ceeref. However, Ellison's team is the provisional leader thanks to victories against its direct opponents. A great achievement for the only non-professional helmsman involved today.

Five flights are yet to be sailed and the game remains open. Indeed, Team Aqua (Cameron Appleton) and Cro-A-Sail have both won three matches and are still well in the game. Photo Gilles Martin-Raget.

The Young and Restless

Wednesday - April 23 2007 - 1013 PST - Here's an update from the unique and effervescent Sam Davies who is preparing for the Vendee Globe:

After 2 days of solo training at Port La Foret, I am totally exhausted, but very happy! The big good news is that ROXY has made huge gains this winter! The two new assymetric daggerboards have changed our upwind performance significantly. Yesterday, I managed to stay with the new boats for a whole upwind leg in 8-14 knots of wind!

Yesterday involved some spinnaker work and sailing in gentler breezes, but the effort required for managing all the manouvers (even in only 10 to 15 knots) is considerable! Two spinnaker hoists and drops, two starts, several tacks..... in one day is enough for me!

We are now in final preparations for the Artemis Transat, with Roxy back at "home" in Lorient. Time is rushing past too quickly at the moment: in just one weeks time we will be leaving France for Plymouth! Photo courtesy of Sam Davies.

Injured Clippers Back in the Race

Wednesday - April 23 2007 - 0945 PST - In the Clipper Round the World RaceDurban 2010 and Beyond and westernaustralia2011.com arrived in Santa Cruz this afternoon at the end of their 2,080-mile passage from Hawaii. The two southern hemisphere teams were delayed leaving the Hawaiian island of Oahu due to essential work on their new rigs, after both yachts were dismasted in the previous race from Qingdao, China. The final bit of rig tuning will be carried out on the two 68-foot racing yachts tomorrow, so that both teams are ready for the race restart on Thursday 24 April.

Speaking from the dockside Durban 2010 and Beyond skipper, Ricky Chalmers, said, "It was supposed to be a nice and easy passage here to Santa Cruz. The plan was to take our time in order to train the crew, get things sorted out and tune the rig. However, we left Hawaii and within two days we had 40 knots of wind for over a week. After that it calmed down a bit and for the last week we had much milder conditions and were able carry out some work on the rig."

With a race restart scheduled for Thursday the teams are now focussed on achieving their final preparations in order to be ready for Race 9 from Santa Cruz to Panama. "Two days is a bit of a tight one for us," says Ricky. "We've done a lot of jobs in the past couple of days so we don't need to do a deep clean and everything has already been sorted out food wise. All in all it's not too bad really, a few things left to do on the rig which we should have sorted by the end of the day tomorrow."

World Match Racing in Brazil

Wednesday - April 23 2007 - 0935 PST - VITORIA, Espirito Santos, Brasil – Brilliant sunshine and a steady 10-12 knot easterly breeze gave the perfect start to today's first day of match race competition in the Brasil Sailing Cup, the year's first event of the World Match Racing Tour. Ian Williams (GBR) and his Team Pindar are showing their World Champion style, being undefeated among their five other rivals in Group A, while WMRT veteran Magnus Holmberg (SWE) shares the top of the leader board also on three wins.

Among the six teams in Group B, Paolo Cian (ITA) of Team Shosholoza and Bjorn Hansen (SWE) of Alandia Sailing Team emerged undefeated in their two flights of the day. Group B will be first to resume round-robin competition in the morning.

"We had a good day today but it wasn't all straight forward," said Holmberg. "We had a tough match against Adam Minoprio, he won the start and led round the first mark, and then we had a luffing duel down the run but couldn't get around him. It was close at the last mark and we just managed to pass him down the run to the finish." Minoprio (NZL) of Emirates Team New Zealand, BlackMatch Racing is just one of several new and talented teams entering WMRT competition in this event.

GGYC Looking to Squash Alinghi Appeal

Wednesday - April 23 2007 - 0910 PST - While we here at XS understand that the AC court drama is both boring and at times depressing - we are obliged to let you all know when we here something going on. Yesterday the GGYC filed for the court to dismiss Alinghi's appeal saying that it's a bunch of bunk. The motion is 18 pages long, but it basically says, "C'mon Judge - make them knock it off already."

Puma on the Road

Wednesday - April 23 2007 - 0854 PST - The PUMA entry has taken to the road on the latest stage of its preparations for the 2008-09 race.

The new generation Volvo Open 70 made the 20-mile journey from Goetz Custom Boats in Bristol, Rhode Island to the Newport shipyard in Newport, prior to going in the water.

What is a usually a 25-minute trip for a passenger car took more than two hours under the power of a Volvo VT800 truck. Setting off at 4am and after negotiating a closed two-lane bridge, streets signs, narrow turns and over curbs, the boat arrived just before dawn.

"This was certainly an important milestone for PUMA Ocean Racing and our new boat," said PUMA skipper Ken Read. "We still have a lot of work ahead of us."

PUMA Ocean Racing will reveal the name and look of its boat on May 12th when the yacht will be christened in Boston Harbour at the The Institute of Contemporary Art. The team's website will launch in early May.

Babes on Waves - Sexy Sailing Lessons

Tuesday - April 21 2008 - 1419 PST - Oh sweet Jackie - tell me again where the winch is?

Young Skipper Throws Hat in Vendee Ring

Tuesday - April 21 2008 - 1044 PST - Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty has become the seventeenth person to register officially for the Vendée Globe. The young skipper and designer from Normandy has officially become part of what's regarded as the most arduous race in existence . His monohull, Maisonneuve, is currently undergoing a winter refit, which should finish shortly in Lorient, with the help of the round the world yachtsman, Hervé Laurent. Jean-Baptiste will just be thirty years old this year.

The Stars Turn Out for the Cagliari Cup

Tuesday - April 21 2008 - 1030 PST - With recently crowned World Champions Mateusz Kusznierewicz (Star) and Vincenzo Onorato (Farr 40), the second regatta of the RC 44 Championship Tour 2008 promises to be a star-studded sailing event. Indeed, Ben Ainslie, Russell Coutts, James Spithill, Sébastien Col, Larry Ellison, Cameron Appleton and many more will fight hard for the title on board ten strict one design RC 44's in the venue of Cagliari.

The Cagliari Cup will start on Wednesday April 23 with the match racing event. Unbeaten in match racing since two regattas, Team Ceeref (Igor Lah / James Spithill) is the logical favourite of this event. After a full round robin, hopefully completed in two days, the team owners will take the helm for three days of fleet racing; a contest that is probably more open than the match. A long distance race - the DHL Trophy - will allow the fleet to discover the beauties of Cagliari's surroundings. The winner of this race will be awarded with the DHL Trophy, whilst the points of the regatta will be incorporated in the fleet race ranking.

Ellison and Coutts Racing the RC 44

Tuesday - April 21 2008 - 1025 PST - BMW ORACLE Racing competes in the team's first competition of the 2008 season starting tomorrow at the RC 44 Cagliari Cup in Italy. Skipper Russell Coutts and team owner Larry Ellison are sharing afterguard duties in their first regatta together.

"This is Larry's first time sailing the RC 44s and he is really enjoying it," said BMW ORACLE Racing skipper Russell Coutts. "On our first day of training yesterday, we saw 25 knots of fresh sea breeze off the Sardinia coast. We had a great time shaking down the boat and tuning up with some practice starts and drop set maneuvers. Larry is looking forward to helming this week in both the match racing against the pro skippers and in the fleet racing events against the other owner/drivers. It's a competitive fleet here and promises to be great racing."

Lovell and Ogletree Work Out Kinks for Olympic Run

Tuesday - April 21 2008 - 0954 PST - From Olympic contender Charlie Ogletree:

With my hand and forearm bandaged and adequate levels of pain medicine, off we went for another heavy air day of racing after receiving clearance from The U.S. Sailing Team Doctor, Scott Weiss. Johnny and I were back on course looking forward to more breezy races and plenty of action.

Race one was 16-20 knots and big waves. It was tough going and I'm not necessarily talking about the conditions. We had a great start and sailed a good first beat, but we noticed we were off the pace for the rest of the race. The first beats of any race really reward good starts and smart sailing and boat speed plays a minor role. After the first mark where the racecourse opens up, speed is essential to bring home a top result. We noticed we were slipping back and the first thought that goes through your mind is "what are we doing wrong?" At this level some of you would think we are so perfect that we'd naturally start looking at the boat and gear first for the problem, but this is not true. It took us all of two to three seconds of analysis it figure it wasn't us and it must be the boat. We are not surprised because it takes time to get a new boat up to speed and it doesn't help that our mast and sails, that we spent the entire fall developing, didn't arrive in time for the New Zealand World Championship and we are forced to use a spare mast from another team.

The Tornado is not like a monohull. It is more difficult to tune. Because the alignment of the hulls, dagger boards, rudders and cross beams are critical to the performance, any one of these only needs to be out by a fraction to impact the boat speed. And it takes time to get it right because it may look good onshore but the hulls and cross beams are constantly flexing and twisting in different wind strengths and especially in big waves that only over time spent on the water and fine-tuning onshore will we know the set up is perfect. This is one reason you see many of the top teams sailing older boats and why we are trying this boat out here and not at the Olympics.

Race Two was 19-22 knots and even bigger waves. The land influenced the wind and it was very shifty. This race we had a less than perfect start and had to battled back the entire race. We proved once and for all getting a marginal start did not improve our speed, but it gave us more opportunities to nail some good wind shifts to finish 11th. Not a top finish for us normally, but in this event it has been our best result yet. We have been dieting and developing our sails for the light winds of China and it seems we are paying for it here in the heavy winds.

Tomorrow's forecast is for Mistral winds 20-30 knots! Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget / FFV © 2008

Clipper Race Welcomes New Blood in Cally

Tuesday - April 21 2008 - 0932 PST - Today marked crew changeover day for the Clipper Round the World Race teams in Santa Cruz as new crew joining for the next race to Panama, began arriving at Santa Cruz Harbor Some of them are about to join the Clipper Race for the first time, whereas others, like Liverpool 08 crew member Doris Severinghous, are returning to their boats having already competed in an earlier leg of the race. "I'm really excited to be here!" exclaimed Doris. "I've already participated in the race from Fremantle to Singapore and Qingdao and I can't wait to get back onboard."

Of the 27 different nationalities represented in the Clipper Race, Doris is one of four American crew members taking part and used to live and work in San Jose, a short distance from the city of Santa Cruz. "Joining the race here in Santa Cruz has given me the opportunity to catch up with some of my old friends and show them round the boat," explained Doris. "It's great for them to be able to see where I'll be spending the next few weeks."

Brasil Sailing Cup Starts Tomorrow

Tuesday - April 21 2008 - 0920 PST - Anticipation runs high today for tomorrow's start of the Brasil Sailing Cup in Vitoria, Brazil, the first event of nine of the 2008 World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) season. As with all WMRT events, an impressive slate of 12 skippers and their crews representing America's Cup teams, top-ranked positions on the ISAF Match Race Ranking List, and up-and-coming aspirants who have won qualifying events are all poised for battling each other for their share of WMRT ranking points and a piece of the US$150,000 prize money purse.

"We're very excited for the start of tomorrow's racing," said Justino Sa Machado, Event Director of the Brasil Sailing Cup. "We learned much from having our first event here in Vitoria in last year's edition in November, so this year’s racing should be even more exciting as we try to bring the action even closer to the spectators on shore." The venue here is a spectacular amphitheater of a small bay enclosed by a long strand of beach in the pre-start area, with a narrow passage at the bay's entrance framed by two rocky headlands that protrude into the South Atlantic Ocean.

Youngest Solo Circumnavigator Ever?

Monday - April 21 2008 - 1425 PST - Sometime in May, 16-year old Zac Sunderland, a kid who already has 15,000 sea miles under his belt, will be casting off from the shores of Los Angeles California in an attempt to be the youngest person to ever circle the globe alone.

The son of a shipwright, Zac, a confident young man, feels both physically and mentally prepared for the journey. He's had the dream ever since he was a little boy cruising extensively with his family aboard a 51' Aleutian.

He'll make the journey aboard an Islander 36 that he and his father have transformed into a bulletproof bluewater traveler.

"I will know this boat inside and out like the back of my hand as I have crawled in every space imaginable no matter the size or location," says Zac, commenting on this preparatory stage. While Sunderland has a good amount of smaller sponsors lending equipment and services - he is still hoping for some substantial sponsorship.

"Don Huseman from www.keelboltrepair.com and UK Halsey Sails are sponsoring Zac with a new main sail, 2 new genoas, storm sail and gennaker," says Zac's mother and publicist Marianne Sunderland. "Now would be a great time for that main sponsor to hop on board and place their logo on those brand new sails!" To find out more about Zac's story go to www.zacsunderland.com. Photo Pat Reynolds.

Last Chance to Sign Up for XS Ensenada

Monday - April 21 2008 - 1407 PST - If you're anywhere near Southern California - grab your passport and get ready to take a spinnaker run (maybe) down to Ensenada in the 61st Newport to Ensenada Race. There's only one more day left to sign up for the 125-mile international coastal contest - and XS is hoping for full fleet. Go to www.nosa.org to work out the details. Photo of Ensenada at Sunrise, Pat Reynolds.

Golding and Thompson Out of Transat

Monday - April 21 2008 - 1049 PST - Two of the top British favourites have been forced to withdraw from The Transat. First, Mike Golding, because Ecover 3’s keel blade will not be ready in time to think about taking part in the single-handed English transatlantic race. Then, Brian Thompson, who due to delays in the construction of the new mast for his Open 60 Pindar, will also not be able to be on the start line for The Artemis Transat, which is due to begin from Plymouth on 11th May.

Aussie Laser Builder Take on New Line

Monday - April 21 2008 - 1025 PST - Laser builder Performance Sailcraft Australia has taken on the successful RS Sailboat range from Britain, and is now licensed to build and distribute all of the RS range in the Asia Pacific region.

The RS Sailboats line-up includes junior learn-to-sail and racing classes in rotomoulded thermoplastic, as well as high performance GRP (fibreglass) one-design dinghies for one and two-person crews.

"We were very particular about choosing the right brand to complement the Laser range," says Chris Caldecoat, PSA's Operations Manager. "It had to have one-design capabilities, international status and support from Yachting Federations worldwide."

Charleston Race Week Concludes in a Breeze

Monday - April 21 2008 - 0950 PST - For the third straight day, weather gods smiled on a fleet of nearly 150 racing sailboats on 70-degree water in and around Charleston. Sailors basked in the sun for a short postponement this morning as they waited for the sea breeze to fill - and fill it did, just like clockwork. Both the offshore and harbor courses raced their final race in 10-14 knots of cool ocean air, and unpredictable shifts forced the overall winners of this marquis event to earn every hard-fought point.

Travis Wiesleder and his all-pro crew on Carloan.com won the coveted Charleston Race Week Cup Perpetual Trophy for winning the most competitive One-Design class - this year, an easy choice for the 27-boat Melges 24 division. Carloan.com started off this morning in a tie with Kristen Lane's Out House, from Marin, California. "We needed one good start today, and we got it," said Carloan tactician and top OD sailor Scott Nixon. This talent-laden class is always competitive, and at a big event like Charleston, it's doubly so. Even with a crew that included Nixon, Justin Chambers, and the legendary Skip Dieball, Wiesleder was "just one piece of sea breeze away from 2nd place," but they took that sea breeze and turned it into the top prize at the event, which included a Raymarine electronics package worth over three thousand dollars. For full results go to charlestonraceweek.com. Photo Tim Wilkes.