Indholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2016 i Sailing World

WHILE IT’S THE line-honors winner that always steals the spotlight, including our own, it must be stated that Paul Clitheroe’s TP52, Balance, of Australia, was declared the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race’s overall winner on corrected time. By all accounts, Balance sailed a superb race, but not surprisingly, its victory was overshadowed by the accomplishments of the biggest, coolest boat in the marina, the one owned by the supermodel wife and billionaire. We are, of course, talking about Jim Clark and Kristy Hinze-Clark’s Comanche, which captivated the media’s attention despite almost dropping out of the race. Their story is a good one, though, because the stakes of such a program are proportional to its daily operating costs. After finishing in Hobart, Comanche’s skipper, Ken Read, told the media that the boat…

PROFESSIONAL MATCH racing was floundering. The sailors were bored, the boats were old, and most teams were barely able to connect one championship to the next. Young teams starving at the bottom of the world rankings had scant access to the World Match Racing Tour’s main stage. Furthermore, the discipline was disconnected from the America’s Cup, sailing’s ultimate one-on-one. To make it relevant again, match racing needed a savior. Along came 48-year-old entrepreneur Hakan Svensson, the tour’s new owner. He didn’t buy it to rescue it, however. He bought it as a means to enable younger pro sailors, to provide them, as he puts it, with a “pathway to the top.” At the entrance to this winding path sits the M32 catamaran, built by Aston Harald, which is also owned…

IF A DESIGNER WANTED to create a faster monohull, options were once limited to righting moment, increasing form stability, stripping weight or increasing sail area. And while canting keels and water ballast produce exceptionally fast steeds, such vessels are complex and mechanically tender. Hugh Welbourn’s Dynamic Stability Systems now provide a more practical alternative. Boats with DSS use either two independent foils or a single carbon-fiber foil that can be extended athwartships — port and starboard — through a midship foil trunk via powered rollers. The horizontal foil provides increasing amounts of vertical lift and stability as the boat accelerates. These foils do not have adjustable flaps on their trailing edges, thus presenting an unchanging foil profile to the water. Users can laterally deploy or retract foil surface area for…

Overall we had a busy and successful year in 2015, and have continued to make progress as we embark on 2016. We focused our attention on four key areas: 1) Member engagement, 2) improving our core programs, 3) initiatives that will positively impact the future of sailing, and 4) positioning our economic engine to generate resources for the future. US Sailing spent a good deal of time supporting and listening to our members. We hosted 12 regional symposiums across the country, an engaging NSPS in New Orleans, a summit that brought leaders together from across the country to discuss growing sailing, and a conference for the disabled sailing community. We attended boating safety conferences, set up coffee bars at major regattas to connect with sailors, supported all of our National…

After consistently climbing the standings at regular-season college sailing regattas over the past few years, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy sailing team finally felt a payoff when they finished second place at the 2015 National Championship, something that the team had not done in decades. What made the podium finish even sweeter was when their women’s A-division skipper, Nikole Barnes, came back from a last-place finish in A division at the Sperry ICSA Women’s Championship to place third in B division at the Coed Championship, helping her team capture their keeper finish. With such a comeback, it became apparent during those nationals that the Coast Guard Bears are solid and on the rise. “I see only an upward trend, and I feel like we are here to stay,” says Brian…

I NEVER REALLY TOOK notes when I was racing Lasers, because the boat was more about feel and being present in the moment. When I moved to the 470, however, that quickly changed. The 470 is such a technical boat, and having spent most of my earlier years in Optis, Lasers and collegiate boats, I was concerned with the level of detail that it demands. I remember when my crew, Briana Provancha, introduced me to the boat over Thanksgiving break in 2010, and how I even ended up taking notes on how to rig the boat because it was such a foreign concept. A lot has happened since 2010. Briana and I have steadily climbed the Olympic 470 ranks, winning gold at the final Olympic test event. Our success has…

Carbon fiber has a very high strength-to-weight ratio and higher stiffness compared to many other reinforcing fabrics. These special properties make it ideal for applications in aerospace, automotive, military, and even sporting goods. When combined with WESWhen WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy it can be used to build high-end composite parts. Although it’s one of the strongest and most lightweight materials used in the composite industry, the expense can make it cost prohibitive. To achieve the same look of a carbon fiber part without the cost, a process called skinning/wrapping can be used. Carbon skinning is often done cosmetically, where the look of carbon fiber is desired but the strength (and expense) of a true carbon fiber composite is not necessary. A part manufactured from a less expensive reinforcing fabric is “skinned”…

IT WAS THE SUCCESS OF last year’s inaugural SoCal 300 — which starts with a 35-mile reach from Santa Barbara across “Windy Lane,” before turning the corner at Santa Rosa Island and rocketing down to San Diego — that spurred the new circuit. California Off shore Race Week, which kicks off in late May, links two tried-and-true regattas with the SoCal 300 in an all-too-logical romp down California’s scenic and wild waters. The event saw modest participation but spectacular conditions, with the race’s patron saint, Manouch Moshayedi, aboard Rio 100, establishing the course record of 16 hours, 27 minutes. But it was off shore aficionado Bill Guilfoyle who connected the dots. Guilfoyle had also competed in the SoCal 300, aboard his Santa Cruz 52 Prevail. After the race, he had…

I GREW UP A LOS ANGELES Lakers fan, so it pained me to see the storied NBA franchise become irrelevant as it relied on the decreasingly relevant Kobe Bryant. Finally, in his 20th season, Bryant declared his plan to retire. I could now exhale. Following Bryant’s announcement, Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant couldn’t contain himself. “He’s a legend, and all I hear is about how bad he’s playing, how bad he’s shooting, time for him to hang it up,” he said to the media. “You guys treated one of our legends like shit, and I didn’t really like it.” But Durant was missing the point, and it reminded me of how professionalism changes sport: Sport becomes entertainment for the fan and a job for the athletes. Maintaining the integrity…

Beka Schiff, a senior on the College of Charleston sailing team, is a college sailing switch-hitter, having competed as both a skipper and a crew for the Cougars at various stages of her career. But even when she’s sitting in the front of the boat, she’s still driving. “The crew drives the boat,” she says. “They are in charge.” Indeed, in order to be a successful boat at the highest levels of college sailing, you need two drivers: a highly skilled skipper to handle the tiller and mainsheet, and a talented, proactive crew to drive the boat in just about every other sense — with balletlike boathandling, precise sail trim, insightful information, seamless communication, tactical smarts, foresight, anticipation and motivation, as well as a firm grasp on applied sports psychology.…

Gone are the days of scrappy boathouses perched on docks with racks of musty dinghies reaching to the rafters. Today’s top college sailing digs boast lounges, locker rooms and training facilities, with an emphasis on energy efficiency and off-water learning. We won’t say that a better boathouse makes a better team, but these impressive structures have us wishing that sailing were a major. COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON, CHRISMAN BOATHOUSE 6 - to 7 - foot tides Enclosed “ smelly boot ” storage Few college sailing venues strike fear into the hearts of visiting sailors at first sight like Cooper River, home of the College of Charleston Cougars. The team relishes it, knowing they have a home-field advantage matched by few other venues in the country. What they enjoy is a purpose-…

A REVISED EDITION OF The Racing Rules of Sailing will be distributed later this year, and the revised rules will take effect on January 1, 2017, and remain in effect until December 31, 2020. Members of US Sailing should receive their new edition of the rulebook in the last quarter of 2016. As it has in the past, Sailing World will publish a series of Rules columns describing what I believe to be the significant changes and their effect on the game we play. The International Sailing Federation, now World Sailing, met in November 2015 in China to discuss and vote on the last set of proposals to change the rules that will be included in the new rulebook. Only editing and urgent changes can be made before July, when the…

I was talking to my friend Blake Rivard about doing something different for his motocross bike. We settled on a carbon fiber air filter cover. On his bike the air box sits just below the handle bars where the gas tank usually is. I started with removing the plastic piece and cleaned it so no dirt would be present in the final product. The original air box would serve as a mold for the finished piece. I cut a piece of carbon to size, then covered the original air box in a mold release. Next I coated the back side of the carbon fiber with a thin layer of WEST SYSTEM® 105 Resin/207 Special Clear Hardener colored with 502 Black pigment to prevent light from shining through the carbon fiber…

Using Gelcoat over WEST SYSTEM It’s a myth that if you plan to gelcoat over a repair, you must make the repair with polyester. We’ve used gelcoat over epoxy for decades, shown it in our instructional videos on repairing fiberglass boats, and discussed it in past issues of Epoxyworks. There are three key factors for success with gelcoat over epoxy. First, the epoxy needs to be mixed on ratio. Second, it should be fully cured, and third, the should be free of amine blush before applying gelcoat. Gelcoat manufacturers shy away from approving the use of non-air inhibited gelcoat over epoxy because they’re concerned amine blush will interfere with the gelcoat’s cure. All that’s required to remove the blush is washing the surface with plain water. The resulting surface is…

In this issue I begin a two-part series that will feature a custom boat project being built at Vafeature a custom boat project being built at Van Dam Custom Boats in Boyne City, Michigan. We featured a Van Dam boat built in Epoxyworks 14, the beautiful and unique Alpha Z. We want to give our readers a glimpse into what is currently happening at this world-class boat shop. I traveled to Boyne City in early May and was graciously greeted by Steve Van Dam, the owner and founder of the company. We chatted as Steve showed me around. He introduced me to the guys working on various projects including a modified Sandbagger sailboat and a 32' VZ custom power boat reminiscent of Alpha Z. We then went into the room…

ON A NACRA 17, the otherwise simple act of tacking puts immense strain on today’s Olympic hopeful. First, the crew comes off the wire and bends at the knees and hips into a squat, simultaneously stepping quickly, balancing on the mesh while stretching to grab the nowwindward hull, pulling his or her body the rest of the way up, and rotating back into position. “They have to balance, they have to move in a way they’ve never had to move before,” says professional trainer Chris Herrera. “It’s a recipe for disaster in the lower body.” Nacra, 49er and 49erFX sailors are the most injury-prone of the Olympic classes, with back and shoulder injuries most common in the 49er, and traumatic injuries from capsizing and impact with rigging most common in…

THE COMMODORE IS the Chief Rat. The head of the race committee is the Race Rat. The person in charge of social activities is the Party Rat. And the individual tasked with keeping the property in shape? That would be the House Rat. These are Toronto, Canada’s Water Rats, a ragtag collection of dinghy sailors with a stake on a man-made peninsula. Long before those prestigious titles were bestowed and rats bred aplenty, there was a Founding Rat, affectionately referred to as the “Head Cheese.” Paul Henderson is known as the “Pope of Sailing,” and he has represented Canada at the Olympic Games in the FD, the Finn and as a coach. He was once the president of World Sailing (formerly ISAF). But the accomplishment he is proudest of is…

BY THE TIME DOYLE finished his freshman year at Harvard in the late 1960s, he’d won the Sears Cup twice and the North American Solo Championship, and was an alternate on the U.S. Olympic sailing team, an All-State basketball player in Massachusetts, an All-American sailor, a top swimmer and a strong tennis player. As a top student as well, he thought he was destined for medical school, but sailing somehow kept getting in the way. Modern medicine’s loss would eventually be sailing’s gain, for from the mind of the brilliant sailor from Marblehead came great innovation and even greater success. In 1974, Ted Turner drafted Doyle, only 24 years old at the time, for the unsuccessful America’s Cup defender trial with Mariner. The boat was seriously off the pace, but…

The International Women’s Keelboat Championship (IWKC) returns! The revitalized US Sailing Championship, with a new and exciting approach, is aimed at maximizing opportunities for women sailors to participate in high caliber regattas against top international sailors. The American Yacht Club in Rye, N.Y. will host the new IWKC in J/70 class sailboats on August 14-20, 2016. With the goal of attracting more international teams, the championship will rotate each year to venues within, and outside the U.S. More than ever, this championship will offer women keelboat and offshore sailors high quality racing on the international stage. Twenty-four teams will be selected through an application process. Half the teams selected will represent North American countries and half will represent countries from around the world. To ensure a fast and competitive racing…

In the backroom of Zim Sailing’s headquarters in Warren, Rhode Island, Club 420s, Optimists, Flying Juniors, Bytes, 29ers and Zim 15s are stacked to the ceiling. Literally. The retail store out front is similarly crammed with sailing gear. I hear Bob Adam long before I see him. His voice rises above ringing phones and screeching screw guns fastening hardware to glistening new hulls. Adam is the fast-talking, fast-moving salesman whose enthusiasm precedes him, and on this day he’s jazzed about the orderly chaos surrounding us. The company is bursting out of the 11,500-square-foot commercial space it now occupies, and househunting is underway for something twice the size. From its humble beginnings as a builder of Optimists and Club 420s, Zim is now America’s fastest-growing hustler of sailing dinghies. But still…

I magine that you are a high school student and a good one, with high hopes for your future. Even though you love sailing, you pick a college based on how well it can help you achieve your career dreams. Then you get to campus and discover that something is missing. Not only do you miss your hometown and your friends, but you also miss your sport. Perhaps your college has never had a sailing team. Maybe it had a team at one time, but membership levels and enthusiasm have seriously diminished. What can you do? Surprisingly, some of the most important factors in resurrecting a sailing program may not be the boats, money or logistics — instead, the answer is the people. Here are a few things you can…

THE MORE I SAIL, the more I realize that, like most everything, the best approach is a balanced one. Having said that, I think that you can ditch your instruments more often than you think — use what you know — and then use your instruments to validate your seat-of-the-pants feel and as a communication tool. Most of us carry only one or two instruments aboard our boats — usually a compass and, if you consider a masthead fly a type of instrument, one of those as well. As you move up the technology ladder and the boats get bigger or more complex, you add a speedo and then perhaps some electronic masthead instruments. Of course, there are many more rungs on the technology ladder — the sky’s the limit…

IN 1964, I WAS 11 and learning to sail on Watkins Lake, a 250-acre inland lake in southeast Michigan. On Saturdays I would race Sunfish and on Sundays crew in Snipes and Thistles. When the wind was from the southwest or northeast, our upwind legs would be as long as one mile. The more I sailed, the more I recognized wind patterns. In 1968, in my excitement and compulsion, I started to log information about upwind legs and starts, not only on my home lake but also at other venues where I competed. Over the years, this enabled me to make educated guesses about upwind legs and starting line patterns. My initial intent was to use this information to help make decisions for the upwind legs and starts at regattas;…

Big Jon (BJ) serves as a reel for retrieving and letting line attached to floating planer boards in and out from the boat while trolling. Planer boards are used to get fishing lures off to the side of the hull so the lures aren’t following directly behind the boat while trolling for walleye. The further the planer board is reeled out, the further the lures are from the side of the hull. BJ has served Tom and Lorraine Klinski well but recently developed some cracks in what appears to be a black nylon plastic. Knowing that nylon can be difficult to glue I used G/flex to test adhesion after prepping the surface two different ways, 1) by sanding with 80-grit sandpaper and 2) by sanding with 80-grit and flame treating…