Update
What a lot of sails up… Comanche powers past Diamond Head to take monohull line honours in the 50th edition of the Transpac race. Just visible is the orange storm jib doubling up as the inner staysail. Comanche finished a full day in front of the ageing but heavily modified Bakewell-White design Rio but under the ORR system the newer boat ended up two hours behind... feels a bit harsh. The big tris had a much closer race than the 100-footers, Jason Carroll’s MOD 70 Argo beating sistership Powerplay by just 31 minutes
LOSING YOUR HEAD – Peter Heppel We have all read of injuries, sometimes serious, due to foil-strike. Today there’s a report of another one. None of us wants to see a blanket restriction, so we need to get ahead and find a bottom-up solution before a top-down one is imposed. Getting separated from the boat is quite common in dinghy/cat
racing. That’s not going to change. In centreboard racing we are happy with the risks. With foilers both the probability and the severity of a foil-strike are increased. There are the high-impact speeds, the sharp edges and the reduced manoeuvrability. The only way to stop a boat striking a swimmer is to keep them apart. That means chang- ing racing rules or switching the race format (for example, to time trials). But we like close-quarters racing so we have to do something. Most industries – automotive, aerospace, construction, even
toys – have figured out how to quantify and manage risks. Richard Feynman’s report on the Challenger space shuttle disaster tells how not to do it. In risk management there are procedural approaches and technological approaches. Is it time that ‘we’ (whoever that is) pay for an independent risk
assessment. It has to be independent because the players’ main concern is to avoid liability. People are too scared even to mention the subject. One procedural approach is for the race committee to suspend racing, as Seahorse has advocated. But think about it: if you want a race annulled you just have to jump off and swim. There is no silver bullet via equipment measures. Some might
help. Some might be unicorns. But all could be assessed rationally. l There are visibility measures (orange helmets...) and clothing measures (selective armour). l And J-foils for the rudder which would mitigate rudder-strike risk. l Maybe the ski-binding gives us a clue. Fast offshore boats often have kick-up rudders. But after the binding has popped you risk another crash… l There are materials measures: deformable sharp edges, etc. None of these measures deals with the question of who goes to prison. Perhaps that’s why we are all keeping our heads down. Peter Heppel Port-Louis, France
12 SEAHORSE
CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST – Jack Griffin Does it matter if there are only three challengers for the America’s Cup in 2021? Probably to the New Zealand and Auckland govern- ments, who would like to see more teams and a bigger return on their infrastructure investment. But the three tycoon-funded chal- lengers will provide as much competition as can be hoped for in the new AC75 yachts so AC afficionados will have a great spectacle. America’s Cup history was mostly written by a small number of
wealthy men and big yachts. Until the 2007 edition there was not much thought of trying to make the America’s Cup into a profitable sports entertainment business. No one has demonstrated that this is even possible. The business model for yacht racing continues to be the owners’ cheque books. In addition to well-heeled owners, the America’s Cup has also
seen a colourful collection of chancers, beginning with Captain Alexander Cuthbert for the third and fourth challenges in 1876 and 1881. In his encyclopedic book, An Absorbing Interest, Bob Fisher described Cuthbert as ‘full of enthusiasm and short on financial support’, a description that fits some 21st-century challengers well. The members of the New York Yacht Club were dismissive of
Cuthbert’s Countess of Dufferin in 1876 and found Atalanta in 1881 to be much worse. Atalanta cost $2,100 to build. Remember that America had cost $30,000 30 years earlier. Atalanta was shipped to New York via the Erie Canal and the
Hudson River, arriving on 30 October for races that had originally been scheduled for September. She was unfinished and ‘appallingly rough’. Wanting to get back to more gentlemanly events, after dispatching Cuthbert and Atalanta, the NYYC returned the Cup to George Schuyler, to rewrite the Deed of Gift, adding the requirement that challengers arrive for the match on their own bottom. The rest of the 19th century saw challenges from gentlemen of
means from the British Isles. The first business-related challenge came in 1899, not from a chancer but from newly knighted Sir Thomas Lipton, who probably introduced marketing and VIP hos- pitality to the America’s Cup. Up to 100 guests aboard his steam yacht Erin were treated to three o’clock tea. Each guest received their cup on an individual silver tray that carried a slice of lemon,
SHARON GREEN/ULTIMATE SAILING
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