Cup U-Turn...Gold Medalist at CrossFit...Young Kiwis in Worlds

by . on 1 Aug 2014 Welcome to Sail-World.com’s New Zealand e-magazine for August 1, 2014

Tuesday's meeting of the European America's Cup Challengers along with the Defenders, in London - seems to have been all sweetness and light. If you believe the joint media release issued by all the teams.

In their statement, the Euros performed more U-Turns in London that you would see in Queen Street on a Friday night.

Two weeks ago they were unanimous in their support for San Francisco as the venue.

They went further than that in their meeting in Los Angeles and wondered how the situation could be turned around - and that was after Oracle Team USA and the America's Cup Events Authority representatives had left the meeting.

Now they will go wherever the Defender decides.

If you believe the media statements, and other comment, from those at the second meeting, it was the sharing of weather data and course locations in San Diego and Bermuda that triggered the U-Turn.

Then Sir Russell Coutts commented online: 'A positive meeting with the teams getting a much better understanding of each other's views. Pity I didn't initiate this a few months ago, still better late than never!'

Kowabunga! A break out of communication! Whatever next?

Then Oracle Team USA skipper, Jimmy Spithill chimed in, also on Facebook: 'Good candid meeting yesterday-with open, constructive discussion on making the AC sustainable. Fundamental getting the Athletes in one room, representing their teams and making the decisions.'

Yep, for sure.

The comments in the Meeting about making the AC sustainable are not new. As we have said before the key to the 35th and 36th America's Cup is staying with the AC62, and getting away from the throwaway boat - which is the lot of the AC72.

Ironic isn't it that the fastest sailing class in the world could have a life cycle of just over 12 months from launch in July 2012 to death in September 2013?

That fact underlines the fallacy with the last America's Cup and having to design boats that had to exploit a rules loophole to sail at their best. But that is all part of the learning curve.

Fortunately, ACEA and others have learned from that experience and have developed the AC62. That should be a sustainable boat - beyond one Cup cycle, which is what the Cup needs to grow back to the 12 Metre and IACC eras and Challenger numbers.

For the rest of it, ACEA should be focussed on getting the 35th America's Cup right, rather than the 36th.

If these guys can change so radically on a basic matter such as venue, in the space of two weeks, who would place too much weight on what they said might happen in three or four years time?

But for all the above commentary, the point remains that it is in the best interest of the America's Cup for ALL teams to work together to get the event presented in the best possible light, and do what is best for the event. And then get on with the competition.

For those looking at the course data and weather, supplied to the competitors in London, and reproduced in this edition, bear in mind that the San Diego Bay course is aligned West to East. Now run your eye down the wind direction (adding 20 degrees variation i.e. in the 250-290 degrees range and the 70-110 degrees range) and see how many race days would be possible.

There are significant issues with each venue, and the sooner the dialogue is restarted with the City of San Francisco and the City of Alameda, the better.

Entries close on August 8, and an announcement of exactly who has ponied up for the 35th America's Cup is expected then.

Now for the real sailing.

In the Open and Ladies 420 Worlds, being staged in Travemunde Germany, New Zealand crews are having a bit of a learning experience. The top placed crew is Sam Barnett and Zak Merton, lying in 25th overall. Not all as bad as it looks they have had 4th, 6th and 1st places in the six races sailed, and should move dramatically up the points score when, and if, the second discard is applied.

Six New Zealand crews are competing in the regatta. Rob Burn is providing excellent reports and images from the regatta, and we feature several of these in this edition.

A better progress result from the 29er Worlds being sailed in Kingston, Canada, the 1976 Olympic venue. New Zealand's Micah Wilkinson and Jack Rogers are lying third overall after winning four of the nine races they have sailed.

We have reports from both days racing along with some great images from the regatta.

Not strictly sailing, but Anna Tunnicliffe, one of the Kaenon sailing team, has had a big following on Sail-World with her exploits at the 2014 Reebok CrossFit Games.

Certainly she has raised the bar for women's sailing, in terms of the level of physical strength and fitness that competitive female sailors can achieve, that in turn erases the physical divide that has always existed between the two sides of the sport. At Anna Tunnicliffe's physical level, it would seem that there is little real reason female sailors cannot work in top line positions suitable for their body weight and physique/strength.

Anna's double life is as tactician aboard the Extreme 40, Alinghi, and she has proven to be more than physically capable in that role. Many of the other entries carry women sailors to get under the crew weight limit, but pickup an extra pair of hands and plenty of sailing nous from the women who are usually sailing Gold medalists.

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There's a couple of stories out of Wellington. One from the RPNYC Moore Wilson Winter Series from last weekend. Winds were light - but it's always like that is Wellington, isn't it?

The other is an opportunity to participate in a Coastguard Marine Medic course. After the ocean drama with the Django rescue (read a great story about that, in the September edition of Boating NZ), getting good offshore and ocean safety training is a vital part of race preparation.

This week the Olympic sailors get their first 'taste' of the waters of the 2016 Olympic venue at Rio.

So far the wind doesn't seem to be too bad, but the water is living up to its reputation for being unfriendly to sailing.

In this edition we feature another blog from the Red Bull 49erFX team, Molly Meech and Alex Maloney, who give their impressions of Rio. We also feature a short image series from top Swiss Photographer, Juerg Kaufmann, who has taken the task of showing the world the environmental issues that prevail at the venue.

Juerg will be updating this photo-essay each day of the regatta.

Stay tuned to our website www.sail-world.com for the latest news and developments in the sailing world.

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor

sailworldnzl@gmail.com

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