site is only a link to the RMYC. They have said that more information will be released in February. Just before Christmas RNZYS announced a challenge from the


Netherlands. Curiously, it comes from two yacht clubs: Royal Nether- lands Sailing and Rowing Association and Royal Maas Sailing and Rowing Association. How that squares with the Deed of Gift remains to be seen. RNZYS’s announcement did not name or quote anyone associated with the challenge, but reports say that Simeon Tienpont will be the skipper with Peter van Niekerk as crew manager. Struc- tural engineer and longtime Cup veteran Dirk Kramers has been tapped as general manager. The team will be based in Scheveningen, near The Hague, site of the finish of the 2017-18 Volvo Race. With six announced challengers, work has started in Auckland


publications. Churchill was rarely seen at a boatshow in the 1970s and 80s without a bundle of his magazines. ‘Have the latest edition!’ he’d say, thrusting a press-fresh copy into your hands. His enthu- siasm for everything he tackled was boundless and infectious. Equally keen on arts and culture, Churchill was a frequent visitor


to eastern Europe as far back as in his university days. After he sold Seahorse to The Observer newspaper in 1989, he quickly acquired new business interests in post-Soviet European cities. Anthony continued to sail and race after the Morning Cloud era,


but increasingly in classic boats. Among many other interests he was a Trustee of the World Ship Trust and the British & Russian Trust, which brought over the tall ship Mir and Botik, the ‘grandfather of the Russian Navy’, to Cowes. Recent years on the Isle of Wight saw his irrepressible energies directed at the museum for Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, also raising funds for other charitable organisations including chairing the Cowes Sail Training Race for youngsters and the less-abled, supporting the Sea Scouts and promoting local cultural events. Talk about a full life, lived well.


ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS – Jack Griffin Would there only be three challengers for the 2021 America’s Cup? The answer came at the end of 2018 with a small flurry of new challenger announcements. Taylor Canfield and Mike Buckley announced their all-American team, resurrecting the well-revered Stars & Stripes name. They represent southern California’s Long Beach Yacht Club. They bought a design package from Emirates Team New Zealand


and had already started construction at Composite Builders in Michigan when they made the announcement. They refer to this as their first boat, showing confidence that their fundraising will allow them to build a second boat. Whether there will be room in Auckland for another two-boat challenge remains to be seen. More on this topic below. Stars & Stripes Team USA has brought Tim Smyth onboard as an advisor to Composite Builders. Smyth had recently left Larry Ellison’s Core Builders in Warkworth, New Zealand. His exceptional experience in composites will be a strong addition. December also saw the first ever challenge from Malta – the


Malta Altus Challenge representing the Royal Malta Yacht Club. With a population of just under 500,000 Malta is the second smallest nation ever to challenge for the America’s Cup. The smallest ever was also accepted by the Royal New Zealand


Yacht Squadron, when they held the Cup the first time. In 1997 RNZYS accepted a challenge from the US Virgin Islands, population around 100,000. Interestingly, one of the leaders of that challenge was Bill Canfield, Taylor’s father. The acceptance letter from RNZYS proudly hung in the St Thomas Yacht Club until two Category 5 storms in less than a year hit the club. The Virgin Islands Challenge had a chartered IACC yacht sailing out of St Thomas, with Peter Holmberg as team leader. But they ran out of money and merged into Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes campaign, with Holmberg joining the afterguard. As this is being written, the Malta Altus Challenge has released no additional information and their page on the America’s Cup web-


to build the Hobson Wharf extension. Luna Rossa have wanted this site for their base, but there had been questions about whether the wharf extension was needed when only three challengers had been accepted by the end of November. With Luna Rossa at Hobson Wharf, the other challenger bases will be built on Wynyard Point. Ineos Team UK and American Magic will both build two boats.


One version of the site plans showed room for two large bases and three smaller, single-boat bases. If the Stars & Stripes challenge builds two boats and both the Dutch and Maltese challenges go forward, space could be tight. In addition to ‘room at the inn’ questions, protocol changes may


be needed. The Dutch challenge may be conditional on awarding an America’s Cup World Series event to Scheveningen itself. This could mean adding a fourth ACWS to the 2020 schedule.


The first ACWS, in Cagliari in October 2019, will be the only racing this year. With no signs of boatbuilding activity yet for either the Dutch or Maltese challenge, it seems unlikely they would both be ready to race by October; another protocol change would be needed to allow them to sit out that event. A potentially more significant question comes from the early


structural problems with the foil arms for the supplied-equipment foil-cant system. Those early structural failures during testing may have ripple effects on the schedule to build enough systems for seven teams. Regardless of how much money they have, time has always been


the most important constraint on America’s Cup teams. The excite- ment of announcing three additional challengers at the end of 2018 is now tempered by the surprisingly small number of days until racing is scheduled to begin in October.


CLASH OF CULTURES? – David Salter Around midday on 31 December, as they began rounding Tasman Island, the skipper of the S&S 34ft sloop Komatsu Azzurro sent me photos he’d just snapped of supermaxi Wild Oats XI heading in the opposite direction, already on its delivery trip back home to Sydney. No comment was necessary. Azzurro was still racing to Hobart;


WO XI had finished the 628-mile course more than two days earlier. That’s the order of magnitude we’re talking about in the debate over the future of offshore racing in Australia. While the same four or five 100-footers keep soaking up all the media and public attention they leave behind them a vacuum that is making it increasingly difficult to sustain competitive fleets of more modest boats. This isn’t just an argument about the influence of big money and


professionalism, although those factors are significant. Rather, this has become a genuine clash of cultures and a challenge to the principle that ocean racing should essentially be a fair human contest of skill, knowledge, tactical insight and physical endurance. Consider this. The first four yachts in the 2018 Sydney Hobart


finished within a span of 42 minutes. Those supermaxis certainly had a great race between themselves, but the gap to the next finisher was five hours. The time difference between the line honours winner and the last finisher was almost three days. WO XI and InfoTrack could have been back at their berths in Sydney before Chancellor crossed the line. Or consider this: race organisers staged a trophy presentation


for the overall (IRC handicap) winner of the race while 18 competitors were still at sea. Perhaps the media were impatient for their photo- op, but imagine how forgotten those skippers and crews felt who 


SEAHORSE 15


IAN DEAR/PPL


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  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96