Valencia Sailing
The 33rd America's Cup didn't start with a bang. The light and unstable winds forced the race committee to cancel Monday's races, after the two yachts had spent more than 6 hours drifting around the coast of Valencia.
As Chris Bedford, BMW Oracle meteorologist, jokingly commented, the race committee did a great job in putting them in the middle of two different breezes, pretty much assuring that nothing would happen. The main pattern today off Valencia was of a southerly breeze well offshore that was ocasionally filtering in at the start area and a westerly breeze ahsore...
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John Payne
The 2010 Laser Radial Women's' North American Championship and Finn Midwinter Championship lived up to all of the hype.
Several of the world's top ranked sailors in each class battled it out in near perfect conditions in the Atlantic Ocean off Fort Lauderdale, FL. Eight races were held over three days. Americans Anna Tunnicliffe and Zach Railey took the titles in the Laser Radial class and Finn class respectively..
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Racing Rules of Sailing
The Q&A-panel has been active again and two new Q&A's have been published on the ISAF Website:
Number 005 in this year is about the conditions for a protest committee to reinstate an abandoned race.
Redress is a many splendoured thing. A PC can score a race even with the last mark-rounding. RC, you'd better have a rubber at that mark!..
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Kimball Livingston
You’ve probably heard that we have here at the America’s Cup the two fastest, most technologically advanced large yachts ever built. And you’ve probably heard that it takes but a breath of wind to drive them at speeds most people never experience under sail. Sadly, there was no such breath of wind on the Med today, or none sufficient for building a racecourse. We are left remembering why television and sailing make uncomfortable partners. ..
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ISAF
The ISAF Grade 1 Singapore Airlines Sail Auckland concluded yesterday at Kohimarama Yacht Club with another day of fantastic sailing in the City of Sails...
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BYM
A very excited Joe Woods climbed down from the podium a couple of weeks ago in Key West at Race Week giddy as a school boy with his second place trophy in the highly competitive Melges 32 fleet. "Second place again. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride," he said with a smile. It was the second year in a row that Joe settled for second overall. Ironically, he was also granted the same fate at the Gold Cup in December 2009, finishing second to Annapolis' Rod Jabin by less than a point...
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BYM
Seven months of trialling and testing the 90ft load waterline length catamaran Alinghi 5 were exhilarating for everyone associated with the team. The multihull design, foreign to many of the monohull sailors in the team, was a refreshing change .....
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33rd America's Cup
Race 1 of the 33rd America’s Cup remains on hold after the breezes off Valencia refused to cooperate to allow the scheduled first showdown between the two giant multihulls Alinghi 5 and USA to take place today (Monday).
Race officer Harold Bennett (NZL) and the race committee team made considerable efforts to locate a wind which was settled enough and of sufficiently even strength across the proposed 20 miles first leg, but they proved fruitless. ..
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America's Cup View
The extraordinary thing about Sir Russell Coutts (NZL) is how low key he has been throughout the entire debacle of America’s Cup 33.
Literally.
Dismissed as Alinghi CEO by Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) prior to AC32, Sir Russell was ultimately hired by Larry Ellison (USA), and helped rebuild BMWOracle after the team’s AC32 disappointments under Kiwi CEO and Skipper Chris Dickson (NZL)...
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Andy Campbell
On January 15th, The Atlantic Monthly ran an article online by author Adam Hofstetter titled “Can Sports Save the World?” He demonstrated through a number of cases that Sports cannot save the world, starting with the recent attack on the Togo soccer squad as they prepared to take on Angola in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa...
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Kimball Livingston
I said a few columns back that I knew the race was on when I saw a TV sked. There would be no moving the date now, and here we are counting down by hours instead of days and suddenly the room is jumping and there are TV people walking around the media center sticking microphones into reporters’ faces—if you can’t talk to a sailor, cover the press—and both boats went out for last-ditch practice which in these boats means last minute development because the crews are still learning the boats. We are about to consummate this nightmare which may yet prove grand and memorable or—..
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Tillerman
So Tillerman, whatever happens with the racing in Valencia this week, there seems to be a general consensus that, after all the legal battles of the last couple of years, the America's Cup is totally screwed up and a monumental PR disaster for the sport of sailing. Why do you think that is?..
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Sail-world
Day 1 of the 33rd America's Cup/ At the scheduled start time, the breeze in the start area was just 1-2 knots and PRO Harold Bennett signalled postponement at 10:00 local time.
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VOR
Istanbul was officially welcomed into the fold yesterday as the host of the 2010 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships.
The unique Turkish city where east meets west will stage the 40th edition of the event. The championship, organized by the Turkish Sailing Federation, will take place at the Atakoy Marina on the Marmara Sea from 8-17 July.
Istanbul will also be celebrating the fact it is Europe's Cultural Capital for 2010, with the championships being the centrepiece of its summer sporting programme...
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Louis Vuitton
When Louis Vuitton and the World Sailing Teams Association (WSTA) conceived the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas they were designed to take the best sailing teams in the world sailing some of the largest and most impressive racing yachts to some of the most spectacular parts of the world and compete at the highest level in the discipline of match racing. One of the other objectives was to bring the action as close to spectators as possible, not just through media and TV but also physically close to where people are.
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