In This Issue
ORACLE TEAM USA'S AC72 At The Mariners' Museum | Sydney Sailmakers Successfully Defends 12ft Skiff Australian Title | Fastnet Checklist From Ocean Safety | Racing At The Royal Southern Yacht Club | Robot vs Lionfish | One (In Seven Years) Is Too Many | Launchings | Letters to the Editor | Featured Brokerage

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine, Scuttlebutt Europe is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

ORACLE TEAM USA'S AC72 At The Mariners' Museum
Click on image to enlarge.

It was the boat that powered one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history and soon you can visit it at America's National Maritime Museum, The Mariners' Museum and Park in Newport News, Virginia.

"USA 17" was ORACLE TEAM USA's AC72 catamaran that raced in the 2013 America's Cup in San Francisco. With the defending champion on the ropes, down 1-8 and facing match point, the team turned it around and won eight consecutive races to win the America's Cup over Team New Zealand 9-8.

Now the boat the team designed, built and raced in that storied comeback has a new home, at The Mariners' Museum and Park, as the centerpiece of a new exhibition - Speed and Innovation in the America's Cup.

The storyline of this exhibition is dedicated to reliving ORACLE TEAM USA's amazing comeback in the 34th America's Cup and what it took to develop, design, build and race the AC72 catamaran.

Speed and Innovation in the America's Cup will bring the excitement of the America's Cup to The Mariners' Museum and Park, which draws visitors from across the nation and the globe. Visitors will enjoy an engaging and immersive experience as they explore the science and technology behind the fight to win the oldest trophy in international sport.

The exhibition opens on May 27, the same week that racing gets underway in the 2017 edition in Bermuda where ORACLE TEAM USA sails its first race in the Louis Vuitton America's Cup Qualifiers on May 26.

www.oracleteamusa.com
MarinersMuseum.org

Sydney Sailmakers Successfully Defends 12ft Skiff Australian Title
Click on image to enlarge.

Nick Press and Andrew 'Noddy' Hay (Sydney Sailmakers) have capped off an extraordinary season after successfully defending the 12ft skiff Australian Championship title they won last year when The Kitchen Maker 12ft Sailing Skiff Australian Championship was sailed over Easter.

Press and Hay who have sailed only the past two seasons together, have won every major 12ft skiff event this season, including the Upper Harbour, Parramatta River, NSW and Port Jackson Championships, along with the Interdominion, sailed between Australia and New Zealand each year.

Press, from Gladesville, and Hay, from Kirribilli won four of the six races sailed on Sydney Harbour between Goat and Cockatoo Islands to have their names carved on the Norman Booth Trophy again. Long-time rivals and Race 5 winners, Brett Hobson and Bill Lusty from the Sydney Flying Squadron at Kirribilli, finished runners-up, six points in arrears.

Third placegetters and top Veteran crew were Race 1 winners, Jono Temple and Richard Jones (LCC Asia Pacific) who have sailed together for 24 years.

The pair unusually won the Championship with ease, as Geotherm's Hobson and Lusty were not in their usual red-hot form.

The 12ft skiff has traditionally been a stepping stone into the 16ft and 18ft classes. Some of Australia's most famous sailing names have raced and won in the '12's' including Iain Murray, John 'Woody' Winning, Michael Coxon and Dave Porter. From across the paddock, Bruce Farr, John Chapple, Russell Bowler and Don Lidgard represent the best.

Twenty five skiffs representing NSW and Queensland took part in The Kitchen Maker 12ft Skiff Sailing Australian Championship, which completes the season for the class. -- Di Pearson

Full results and all other information: skiff.org.au

Fastnet Checklist From Ocean Safety
There are only 112 days left until the Royal Ocean Racing Club's Rolex Fastnet Race gets underway on Sunday 6th August at Cowes, bound for the famous Fastnet Rock.

The challenging and often gruelling 605 race sold out within hours of the entry list opening so there are a lot of busy owners and crews out there getting their offshore miles up and fine tuning their boats and their kit.

Did you know that more than 40 items are needed on board to meet Category 2 Offshore Special Regulations and RORC prescriptions? Do you also know that every one of them can be purchased from an Ocean Safety stockist? Yet it's not just keeping the boat in top shape to meet all possible conditions - personal safety is key too.

Crew members need to make sure they have the right gear. Big advances have been made in man overboard recovery equipment, and today's lifejackets are designed so that you can slot your personal AIS beacons straight in there and keep it with you.

Contact the Ocean Safety team on to discuss your kit and find your nearest stockist. Click here to request your FREE Fastnet checklist from Ocean Safety.

Racing At The Royal Southern Yacht Club
The 2017 racing season at the Royal Southern Yacht Club has an exciting line up of regattas with National, European and World Championship events, as well as an extensive race programme for sport boats and keel boats throughout the summer, with a fantastic prize of an all expenses paid trip to Barbados. Olympic, America's Cup and Round the world sailors will be taking part, rubbing shoulders with passionate corinthian sailors, young and old.

April 29 - 30, FAST40+ Spring Regatta

The Royal Southern YC welcomes back the the high octane FAST40+ fleet for their Spring Regatta. The two day weekend regatta is a stand alone event for the FAST40+ Class with tight Solent courses and close competitive racing. As with all regattas hosted by the Royal Southern YC, the FAST40+ owners and crew will have use of the superb club facilities on the River Hamble.

"The Royal Southern YC has superb marina and clubhouse facilities, and like my family and I, many of the FAST40+ sailors are members of the club, so the class really feels at home at the 'Southern. Racing in the class is always competitive but the crews enjoy socialising after races, I am sure the club will be buzzing during the regatta." Mike Bartholomew, owner FAST40+ Tokoloshe.

www.royal-southern.co.uk

Robot vs Lionfish
Bermuda has a growing problem with the lionfish, a spiny and voracious invasive species with no natural predators that is a threat to its native fish and the health of its coral reefs.

The British America's Cup team, Land Rover BAR, and its sustainability sponsor, 11th Hour Racing, are intent on leaving a legacy in Bermuda and have made the lionfish a priority.

This week, a small group of scientists and conservationists, with the financial and promotional help of Land Rover BAR, is deploying a robot prototype in Bermuda designed to stun and capture lionfish at depths that human divers rarely reach.

"It's an inventive way to try and tackle this issue," Ainslie said in an interview on Saturday. "I'm sure it's going to get developed over time, and I'm sure they'll make it work."

The robot is the brainchild of a new organization, Robots in Service of the Environment, which was founded in 2015 by Colin Angle and his wife, Erika.

www.nytimes.com

robotsise.com

One (In Seven Years) Is Too Many
It's been a long time since there was a serious coming together between TP52s.

It was not my plan to write about TP52s for this month's issue but not to mention the collision between Sled and Gladiator in race two of the 52 Super Series Miami Royal Cup when you just witnessed the damaged boats coming in is difficult.

Ever since September 2010 the first beat of the final race at the MedCup event in Cagliari, when All4One failed to duck Bribon and crashed into her, we have not seen a crash of anywhere near this magnitude. The Gladiator-Sled incident is amazingly similar to the one in 2010. In Miami the waves were bigger, Sled was travelling a bit faster and landed more on top of Gladiator - in fact, she did not even break her bobstay whereas in 2010 All4One had her bobstay slicing through Bribon as a wire through the cheese till the bobstay finally gave way.

The impact this time was such that the runner winch with half its pod came off the deck of Gladiator and Sled kept going far enough into her for her bowsprit to just miss the legs of ownerdriver Tony Langley and rip the starboard steering wheel from his hands. This was only the boat's second race, after changing ownership and going from Interlodge to Gladiator. A bad day at the office for both teams is an understatement.

Full article by Rob Weiland in the May issue of Seahorse:
www.seahorsemagazine.com

Launchings
The Dusseldorf Boat Show in January presented the opportunity to have a good look over the latest and largest new models from Hanse - a yard renowned for producing trendsetting large production yachts with contemporary deck and interior layouts.

The new Judel/Vrolijk designed 588 and the flagship 675 - the first of which launched a year ago in Turkey - are similar to each other in style and format.

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Three years after the contract was signed, the highly anticipated 58m sloop Ngoni has hit the water at the Royal Huisman facility. Formerly known as The Beast and described by the yard's managing director as "a yacht which embraces the spirit of individuality", the high-performance sailing yacht has a romantic back story to her conception and design, created by the late Ed Dubois.

The long and slender hull, combined with a powerful 71m rig demanding high forestay, "requires all the stiffness that advanced engineering can mastermind," says the shipyard. While the yacht has a simplistic appearance, the most advanced engineering possible at the yard ensures the thrilling high-performance sloop will perform exceptionally, as "a true beast".

Although the interiors of the yacht are yet to be revealed, what we do know is that Rick Baker and Paul Morgan are responsible for the interior styling, with signature furniture by Francis Sultana.

As the last ever yacht designed by the late Ed Dubois, and with the closure of his renowned studio Dubois Naval Architects, there is an important piece of yacht design history engrained in the lines of the beast that is Ngoni.

www.superyachtnews.com

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The RP-SW90 is a creative, collaborative blend of the owner's vision paired with the passion and decades of experience in creating race winning designs by the Reichel/Pugh team. Built by Southern Wind Shipyard and launched in Cape Town, South Africa, Design No. 251 is an ultralight Fast Performance Cruiser with detail-oriented, world-class accommodations. She is a result of thousands of hours spent by industry leaders and will be as at home on the race course as she will be on long ocean passages.

Reichel/Pugh's goal was to create the fastest yacht that could still meet the client's cruising requirements; to this end particular care was taken throughout the project to avoid unnecessary weight. In the hull design we developed a shape where the heeled form provides power while reaching and sailing upwind, but with a narrow upright waterline that still allows for good light air performance.

The hull form was crafted to minimize wetted surface while preserving enough displacement to provide for cruising amenities all while achieving a powerful ballast-to-displacement ratio. Ballast-to-displacement ratio relates the weight of the keel to the total weight of the vessel. For a sailing yacht, it is one of the primary metrics that distinguishes between a full cruiser and a racer.

Main Dimensions (m/ft)
Length Overall: 27.5m (90.22ft)
Length Overall: 26.5m (86.94ft)
Beam: 6.96m (22.83ft)
Draft Max: 5.8m (19.03ft)
Draft Min: 3.8m (12.47ft)
Target Displacement: 47.75 Lightship
Builder: Southern Wind Shipyard - South Africa
Naval Architecture: Reichel / Pugh Yacht Design
Engineering: Reichel / Pugh Yacht Design
Exterior Design: Reichel / Pugh Yacht Design
Interior Arrangement: Reichel / Pugh Yacht Design
Interior Design: Nauta Yachts S.r.l.

reichel-pugh.com

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French shipyards Wauquiez and Latitude 46 have presented Pilot Saloon 58 and the Tofinou 10.c, their latest models at boot Dusseldorf 2017.

Wauquiez has been manufacturing modern, ocean-going sailing yachts since 1965 and the Pilot Saloon 58 is the latest addition to its portfolio.

Pilot Saloon 58 is a 17.7m sailing yacht that follows on the success of the 48 model launched in September 2015, the company claims.

The "Pilot Saloon" concept was introduced by Henri Wauquiez more than twenty years ago and the company says it continues to appeal to sailors looking for a yacht that adapts to all sailing styles offering comfort, luminosity and high performance.

In addition, Wauquiez has announced the development of Pilot Saloon 42, set to be released in 2018.

www.ibinews.com

Letters To The Editor -
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Featured Brokerage
2012 Multi 50. 110000 EUR. Located in La Rochelle, France.

TRIBULATIONS was designed by Nigel Irens and built with the same mould as Fujicolor (Mike Birch) and Fleury Michon IX (Philippe Poupon). Named Laiterie du Mont Saint Michel in 1987 and skippered by Olivier Moussy, she was then taken over by Olivier Kersauzon as the Esso Super Plus.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact

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2006 Marine Composite Racer-Cruiser. 260000 EUR. Located in Imperia, Italy.

SEAWONDER is an immaculate, race-winning MC46, launched by Marine Composite in late 2003. She is built entirely from pre-preg carbon over Corecell. She has been professionally maintained and has a comprehensive inventory of sails and equipment. A new bow and IRC/ORC keel were fitted in 2009.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact

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2000 McConaghy Custom 50 Cruiser/Racer. 430,000 USD. Located in Sydney, Australia.

Fractional rigged sloop with lift bulb bottom keel, raked stem, twin rudders, long central cabin house and large aft cockpit.

The accommodation consists of “V” berths forward with a settee starboard and stowage opposite. Then an enclosed head to starboard with hand held shower.

The main cabin has a large galley to starboard followed by a large “U” shaped dinette. To port is an enclosed head followed by a navigation station then a settee and pilot berth with a quarter berth aft to port.

The fitout is predominantly white painted FRP with black carbon trims and some timber feature panels and timber cabin sole boards.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
Tink Chambers

+1 410 268 1001

See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/

The Last Word
Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe. -- Bill Bryson

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