Sail-World New Zealand- January 14, 2013

by . on 9 Jan 2013 Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand newsletter for January 14, 2013

Happy New Year to all our readers and advertisers, here's hoping 2013 is a good one for you.

With the return to work and the New Year the action, in this, the year of the 34th America's Cup, has picked up with the news this morning that the America's Cup Events Authority have 'stopped planning' for the two America's Cup World Series events that were to have been staged in New York in late May, early June.

In this edition of Sail-World's newsletter we have the official release, which says the focus is going on the 'Summer of Sailing' in San Francisco. In an accompanying story, we look at the ramifications of the arrangement, and how it resets the America's Cup game for 2013.

All teams benefit, in different ways - it is just that some benefit more than others.

We also feature an interview by leading America's Cup commentator, Peter Montgomery (also named by the NZ Herald as one of the ten all-time great sports callers - only one other NZer made the list). Montgomery talked with Duncan MacLane a top US east coast based naval architect and long time C-class catamaran rig designer and skipper. MacLane has been associated with both America's Cup multihull Defences, notably Alinghi in 2010 and Stars and Stripes in 1988. He gives his perspective on wingsails, foiling and rates Oracle Team USA's chances in this year's America's Cup.

The Vendee Globe has taken some twists and turns, with the leaders rounding Cape Horn. However the sailor making the media running, for all the wrong reasons, is Bernard Stamm (SUI), who is battling with the International Jury over an incident that took place off the Auckland Islands, and who has now wiped off his port side hydrogenerator.

We have the latest reports and video in this edition edition of Sail-World. Unfortunately the official reports are not string on putting the stories in context, or providing a lot of background. The easiest way to get across the situation is to read back, using the story links on the bottom.

Not a lot of local news in this edition, save for the OK Nationals, won by Wakatere's Roger Wood, a certain Olympic Gold and Silver medalist was also competing - see the daily reports and results for the outcome of that little battle.

Sail-World does have an excellent submission system for daily reports and images, which is provided to make reporting on local events very easy.

Too often we hear complaints on the beach about the rough deal that sailing gets in terms of media coverage, the cause of that can only be sheeted home to the sailors themselves and their parents and supporters.

We started writing back in the mid 70's as a class publicity officer. That was in the days of golf-ball typewriters, or copy that was read over the phone. Cameras were film only, certainly not digital, and certainly not the iPhone type devices that are available now.

One only had to read Sea Spray back in those days, to see see the fine efforts of a number amateur writers who made a contribution every month.

The rise of social media has not helped the coverage of racing, and sailing, in fact it has probably been a negative for the sport. Too often coverage now consists just of some images posted on a Facebook page, no results and no reports. It doesn't take too much effort to string together a few paragraphs. From time to time we publish regular guidelines which have a series of points on how even the most illiterate can string together a story.

If we, as a specialist sailing website struggle at times a to find information on the current local sailing events, how do you think the general sports media cope? Simple answer is they don't, and they do cover sports which are more accommodating, and do throw together a quick daily release or report.

This is an issue that lies fairly and squarely on the beach, and is probably the single-most thing that determines the growth of the sport of sailing. It's a task that can be easily done in 15 minutes a day - either after the sailing or first thing when you get up.

A New Year's Resolution for 2013?

Having said all that we were very pleasantly surprised to receive some great images and a short report from Steve Western on the Tall Ships and Classics regatta staged in the Bay of Islands, followed a day later by an excellent video from Will Calver.

Steve also runs a number of marine related business in the Bay of Islands, so if you are looking for a top photographer, some accommodation or a charter - then contact Steve - details and links in his stories.

We also know of at least one young journalist who got his first job off the back of a portfolio of work written and published in Sail-World - we are happy to do the same for anyone else who wants to get established. We usually provide feedback on the stories, and where they can be improved etc and pass on the easy way of doing something. With Apple technology, life is very sweet these days. But Windows is fine, too.

Over to you?

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor

sailworldnzl@gmail.com

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