News Around the World �
The latest 470 Worlds in Buenos Aires brought a whole new set of challenges, albeit familiar to southern California sailors used to big rafts of kelp. After a disastrous opening day six-time champion Mat Belcher and crew Will Ryan fought their way back to third overall
USA It’s growin’ mon
It used to be that going to the Caribbean to race was viewed as just an excuse to get out of the cold, get some sun and recharge your soul’s batteries. Racing was casual, with the emphasis more on enjoying the hospitality of the islands.
Yet in recent years regatta organisers have recognised that the region is in fact one of the best in the world for hosting high-quality racing: superb tradewind sailing conditions mean courses can be set to challenge any level of sailor and that races can be accurately scheduled. Local logistics are also greatly improved from just a few years ago.
At the St Thomas International Regatta we had a chance to catch up with Peter Holmberg, former president of the Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA). Having grown up in St Thomas and still a resident there after many years of sailing in America’s Cups, Match Race tours, etc, Holmberg is now in a position to give back to the region that helped shape his success. ‘I was president of CSA for three years, and in that time I think there have been some significant improvements,’ explains Holmberg, who in St Thomas was racing with Steve and Heidi Benjamin’s TP52 Spookie. ‘First, we got the regattas to start co-operating with each other on scheduling, which is pretty important to help everyone’s par- ticipation! The circuit now looks stable, allowing programmes like Spookie to plan well in advance and participate in more events. ‘This also helps our race managers, who often come for more than one event, but it also gives competitors some consistency in race management, which is important for the serious teams. A unique element of Caribbean sailing versus what we see in the US is the diversity of course offerings: for example, in St Thomas the IC24s and VX1s do laps of windward-leewards in the small bays on the east side of the island, while the big boats rip around other outlying islands and rocks for turning marks. Holmberg also explained that the local CSA rating system will be undergoing an upgrade in its capabilities to handle modern designs, with some input from the ORC. Technical representatives from both systems recently met in Annapolis to see where they could help each other. ‘We’re actually quite happy with the way CSA ratings have performed in the last few years,’ said Holmberg. ‘But we do need to do an upgrade in the system, and co-operation with the ORC could be a useful step towards improving CSA use among the broader variety of boat types that now come to race here.’ As for the future, Holmberg envisions continued growth, albeit in fits and starts. ‘The region’s growth curves have historically been variable, depending on the effect of storms, local economies, and so on. In Puerto Rico, for example, there is a fiscal crisis
18 SEAHORSE
affecting everyone on the island, and the sailing scene as well. But we do see an increase in the numbers of visitors, the places for them to stay, more flights and better facilities for visiting sailors.’
Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposium The 22nd Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposium this year came back to the US Naval Academy for the first time since 9/11, attract- ing a crowd of nearly 100 students, researchers, sailors and others from around the globe interested in the theory and applica- tion of science and technology in sailing.
Run as an academic-style event of paper presentations followed by discussions, CSYS papers on the first day focused on research- oriented projects and studies relating to aerodynamics, perfor- mance prediction and fluid-structure interactions, including an update on a joint project between Politecnico di Milano, CSEM in Switzerland and North Sails aimed at developing a new sail pres- sure measurement system based on pressure pad technology. Day two started with an engaging keynote speech from Gary Jobson on the influential role that science and technology have had on sailing through the years, plus some generalised observa- tions and comments on the state of performance sailing today, including views on the Olympics, offshore sailing and the latest platform changes seen in the America’s Cup.
Jobson conceded that while his course work at the State University of New York Maritime College, in the 1970s, had included some naval architecture, he was perhaps not 100 per cent up to speed with current computational methods in the field… Jobson was followed by Dave Pedrick who reminded us of when papers given at CSYS were a little less focused on the computa- tional aspects of design and more on a far-ranging array of topics relating to sailing itself. For example, he recalled when Olin and Rod Stephens would come to CSYS and have fraternal arguments about sail handling and deck layouts.
It was in this spirit that Pedrick also recalled that he was last at the Naval Academy 15 years ago when his 44ft sloop design was chosen to replace the Academy’s previous training boat, the Luders 44, a yawl built in wood in the 1960s.
Pedrick then presented an amusing and somewhat satirical paper on the odyssey taken through the byzantine labyrinth of Navy bureaucracy to have this design approved, built, outfitted and sailed, a process that took years, treated as it was as though the vessel were a naval warship.
To wrap up, participants were taken on a fascinating tour of the ‘discrete’ hydro lab and test tank facility in the basement of the same building – named after the father of the nuclear US Navy, Admiral Hyman Rickover. Most illuminating… Dobbs Davis
q
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76