Scuttlebutt Europe #3945

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

Second service at the Mini Transat
They took their time, but the trade winds now seem to have kicked back in. As a result, the group of around thirty or so racers, becalmed to the north of the latitude of Madeira, has got some wind in its sails again for the final straight to the Canaries. For these sailors, the race has been transformed into their very own adventure.

There may well be a few illusions shattered within the second group making its way towards the Canaries, some of whom will be competitors who had high hopes in terms of the leader board. They'll have to switch their game plan now. Racking up a deficit of over twenty-four hours in relation to the head of the fleet translates as no hope in the overall ranking, though there is always the second leg still to cover of course.

At the tail end of the fleet, the stimulus of competition has an altogether different density. You don't battle in the same way for a place on the podium or a fortieth place. As such, it is no coincidence that within the chasing pack, the groups are made up according to the vagaries of the breeze and according to affinities sometimes too. Within these small maritime communities, there's a lot of chatting over VHF, alerting one another when you're going to sleep and where the boat is heading under autopilot, even warning of key moments such as when you're going to put in a tack. Less pressure, more well-being, such is the rule.

At 0800 French time 19 Protos had finished, 5 still sailing, 1 abandonment. 37 Series boats finished, 18 still sailing, 1 abandonment.

www.minitransat.fr/actualites/second-service

Fast And Furious Sailing For Clipper Race Fleet
Many of the teams in the Clipper Race fleet have been setting their own boat speed records during some fast and furious sailing on Day 8 of the Stormhoek Race to the Cape of Storms.

Leader of Race 2, Greenings, has notched up 312 nautical miles in a 24-hour period. Interim Skipper, Andy Woodruff, is proud of his crew and explains: "It takes some very committed sailing to reach over a 300-mile day. It's more amazing that many of the crew achieving this had limited-to-no-sailing experience before their training and now they hurtle down the waves in the dark towards Cape Town."

The team has passed the halfway point to Cape Town and is looking ahead to the next landmark.

For the top ten teams, Clipper Race Meteorologist, Simon Rowell, explains that the weather front that has been progressing from west to east is expected to catch up with the southern group of the fleet later tonight, before reaching the northern group around 6-9 hours later, which may shake up positions of the fleet.

Race positions: clipperroundtheworld.com/race/standings

Cowes Week Ltd seeks new Regatta Director
The organisers of the world famous Lendy Cowes Week regatta are seeking a new Regatta Directorto replace Phil Hagen, who left CWL after this year's regatta to focus on other interests.

The Regatta Director role is a year-round, part-time post, and carries a responsibility to evolve the on-the-water side of the regatta in order to retain andon the yachting and racing circuit, has the vision to take the racing programme forward and can work with existing and potential entrants, class associations and organising clubs to ensure the event offers the best possible competitive experience.

The new Regatta Director will work as part of a small executive team and also with the member clubs of Cowes Combined Clubs through the regatta's Sailing Committee.

The closing date for applications is 6th November 2017. Anyone interested in the role should request further details by emailing

Sail Aid UK campaign gathers momentum!
Sail Aid UK, set up in September in the immediate aftermath of Hurricanes Irma, Jose and Maria wreaking violent havoc across so much of the Caribbean, reports that its first major fundraising platform, the Black Tie/Loud Shirt Dinner at Land Rover BAR's Flight Deck in Portsmouth on 11th November, was virtually sold out within days of announcing it, however there are still a limited number of tickets available. Booking enquiries to: .

In addition to take-up for the gala dinner and some incredible online and live auction prizes being sourced, there has been fantastic personal support for from the pro-sailing community for the Sail Aid UK cause including Sir Ben and Lady Georgie Ainslie, Ian Walker, Shirley Robertson OBE, Helena Lucas MBE, Hannah Mills MBE, Sam Davies, Dee Caffari, Brian Thompson, Alex Thomson, Andy Beadsworth and many others.

Funds raised from the dinner, organised and hosted by Sail Aid UK, are anticipated to be in the region of £100,000. The evening is kindly being supported by Land Rover BAR, Ophir Gin and Westerhall Rums. The MC is broadcaster and sailor Hannah White who has generously given her time and the organisers are also indebted to Nick Bonham who is also kindly contributing his superlative auctioneering skills to up the anti in the room and raise as much as possible.

In tandem with a new Sail Aid logo designed by Hannah Webster there is now a purpose-built website at www.sailaiduk.com, courtesy of Jeremy Pocock, Sailing Club Manager, which includes the all-important 'Action Stations' fund channel.

Click www.sailaiduk.com/page/how-to-help to donate.

Japanese Opening For The 2017-18 World Cup Series
Gamagori, Japan will play host to the opening event of Sailing's 2017-18 World Cup Series with more than 290 world class sailors from 40 nations ready to race across eight classes from 15-22 October.

Gamagori, Japan will play host to the opening event of Sailing's 2017-18 World Cup Series with more than 290 world class sailors from 40 nations ready to race across eight classes from 15-22 October.

Olympic medallists, World and Continental Champions and leading World Cup contenders will head to the Japanese town to compete with racing scheduled to commence at 11:00 local time on Tuesday 17 October.

Sailing in the Men's and Women's One Person Dinghy (Laser/Radial), Men's and Women's Two Person Dinghy (470), Men's and Women's Skiff (49er/49erFX) and Men's and Women's Windsurfing (RS:X) the competition will be intense with sailors eager to test themselves against their rivals on the World Cup circuit.

The week will culminate with Medal Races on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 October with both days to be streamed live across the World Sailing Network

Japanese hopes for medals on their home waters will be put on their seven teams lining up in the 26-boat Men's 470 fleet .

Live tracking and competitor's analytics will be available via SAP Sailing Analytics throughout the event here - https://wcs2018-gamagori.sapsailing.com

www.sailing.org/news/

U.S. Match Racing Championship
Oyster Bay, NY, USA: The 2017 edition of the U.S. Match Racing Championship for the Prince of Wales Bowl marks the 50th Anniversary of this historic and highly competitive event. Oakcliff Sailing is hosting this US Sailing National Championship over three days, this Friday, October 13 to Sunday, October 15, 2017.

Match Racing in the U.S. is seeing a resurgence with ten teams competing this year, eight of whom earned their spot in U.S. Match Racing Qualifying events, and two being invited by the selection committee based on many factors including ranking. The teams will go head-to-head in the Match 40 for this elusive crown in Oyster Bay.

The winning team comprised of 100 percent U.S. citizens will earn the title of U.S. Match Racing National Champion and will qualify to represent the United States in the Open Division at World Sailing's 2018 Nations Cup Regional Qualifier, an international match racing championship. The overall winning team, regardless of team members' nationality, will earn the Prince of Wales Bowl and automatically qualify for next year's U.S. Match Racing Championship.

The defending champion, Nevin Snow (San Diego, CA), will be put to the test against his coach from Georgetown, Janel Zarkowski (Annapolis, MD), as well as two-time U.S. Women's Match Racing Champion (2016, 2015), Nicole Breault (San Francisco, CA).

Competitors List

www.ussailing.org/racing/

Land Rover BAR install the UK's first Seabin
Land Rover BAR have partnered with Seabin Pty to install the UK's first Seabin on the pontoon of the team's base in Portsmouth. The Seabin, an automated rubbish collection device, will sit alongside 1,000 oysters housed in protected cages on the dock, introduced as part of a scientific project and launched in 2015.

Each Seabin collects floating debris and micro plastics down to 2mm in diameter and has the capability to collect 83,000 plastic shopping bags or 20,000 plastic bottles per year. The team are expecting to remove half a tonne of debris from the waters around The Camber each year, as-well as removing pollutants such as oils and detergents.

Land Rover BAR was one of the early supporters during the initial Crowdfunding campaign that made the Seabin project possible and the UK's model is also the World's first commercial unit to be installed. The team are committed to protecting their 'pitch' and reducing their environmental footprint by working with exclusive sustainably partner, 11th Hour Racing, partners and suppliers to identify and communicate new innovative solutions to deliver further positive change.

land-rover-bar.americascup.com

18ft Skiffs Spring Championship, Race 1
Click on image for photo gallery.

The 18ft Skiffs were back on Sydney Harbour today when the Australian 18 Footers League conducted Race 1 of the 7-race Spring Championship to open the 2017-2018 Season.

Conditions were steady from the North East for the 14-boat fleet and the race provided a drama-free dayu for many of the new teams.

Retirement of some of the long-time competitors meant there were new crews joining the 18s for the first time and other young sailors moving up to some of the more-fancied teams and we were given a glimpse of some of the potential of the young teams.

In fact, the winning Panasonic Lumix team of Jordan Girdis, Lachlan Doyle and Nathan Edwards scored their first in the 18s after leading for more than half of the 3-lap course.

Panasonic Lumix defeated another young team of Ben Bradley, Rory Cox and Jacob Broom in Coopers 62-Rag & Famish Hotel.

The winning margin for Panasonic Lumix was 22secs,

Third place went to the experienced Smeg team of Lee Knapton, Mike McKensey and Ricky Bridge, which finished a further 1m21s behind Coopers-Rag.

The new Finport Trade Finance (Keagan York) was fourth, followed by Yandoo (John Winning) and Appliancesonline.com.au (Brett Van Munster).

The Spring Championship will continue over the next six weeks (last race of the championship will be sailed on 19 November) with a cumulative pointscore system applying over the seven races.

The season's highlight, the JJ Giltinan Championship will be held on Sydney Harbour 2-11 March 2018.

www.18footers.com.au

Mobile is EVERYTHING
It's not enough to have a website that "works" on phones and small tablets. It has to work FAST. Google believes that after five seconds you've lost a third of your readers. After 10... crickets. Almost no one there.

To solve that, Google engineers built two new technologies: Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Progressive Web App (PWA). AMP gets cached and served BY google. Your page loads in 1-2 seconds. And gets some prime real estate in google search. A superb entrance into your site.

PWA turns your website into an app. One that you can add to screen and acts like a "native" app.... without having to go through App stores. It solves the second / third / subsequent page load time issues. And works "offline".

We connect AMP and PWA.

Read our case study: sailingsource.com/case-study

If your website is built in either WordPress or Joomla, contact us for a quote and get onto the next revolution on the web.

Ludde Ingvall's CQS To Cross The Atlantic
London, England: Ludde Ingvall's super maxi CQS is to cross the Atlantic Ocean, instead of returning to Sydney for this year's Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race. A change to shipping schedule meant that the boat could not get back to Australia in time to prepare properly for the race to Hobart.

Ludde and his sponsor Sir Michael Hintze took the difficult decision to pull out of the Rolex Sydney to Hobart, and instead enter the Royal Ocean Racing Club's Trans-Atlantic race from Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands to Grenada's Port Louis.

Ludde commented, "the up-side of this change of schedule is that we will have the chance to help support the Caribbean communities devastated by the recent hurricane, by entering some of the events on their circuit."

Sir Michael Hintze added, "It is regrettable that we have had to pull out of the Hobart, but this is also a great opportunity for us to put CQS through her paces in this long distance race over such a well-known route."

CQS and her crew will do Malta's Rolex Middle Seas Race, the last event on their European tour, then head to Lanzarote for the dash across the Atlantic, which starts 25th November.

The Rolex Middle Seas Race starts 21st October from Malta's Grand Harbour, and takes the fleet north through the Straights of Messina, around the Stromboli volcano, then west along the north coast of Sicily, before turning south past Pantelleria and rounding at Lampedusa to return to Malta.

The schedule of events to be undertaken in the Caribbean has not yet been decided, but the CQS team are in contact with a number of regatta organisers with a view to doing those that can accommodate the boat and bring most benefit to the islands.

www.bigboatracing.com

Launch Of Maxi Banque Populaire IX Delayed
Click on image to enlarge.

Due to the windy weather conditions announced in Lorient at the beginning of next week, Team Banque Populaire is forced to postpone the launch of the Maxi Banque Populaire IX scheduled initially on Monday 16 October.

The Banque Populaire team is currently studying the favorable dates for launching maneuvers in optimum conditions, taking into account, on the one hand, tidal constraints and on the other hand the availability of Group representatives, for this event marks a new milestone in the history of the Bank.

www.voile.banquepopulaire.fr

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She is also a proven offshore racer with a 3rd place at the Caribbean RORC 600 in 2011, and a 4th at the Middle Sea Race in 2016!

Light, strong, fast and sharp on the water, she can also turn into an ideal blue water cruising yacht, offering excellent comfort and all the amenities of high standard sailing style, with 2 double cabins forward and one triple cabin with single beds, a large saloon, a comfy cockpit table for up to 8 guests and a large sunbed area on an open transom.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

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2009 Mills 43 - "Windpower". 180000 EUR. Located in

Top performing IRC boat in South Africa over recent years and with sister ships dominating the ORC circuit too, shes a complete package. Very tidy and high spec sail inventory included.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

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Sam Pearson - Ancasta Race Boats
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+44 2380 016582

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2002 IRC Maxi LA BETE. 600,000 EUR. Located in Toulon, France.

Fresh from a winter refit of full servicing and checking, conversion of the primary winches to hydraulic and many more upgrades, this IRC Maxi 90' (LA BETE) offers superb value for money in a competitive package ready for the Maxi Worlds and regattas all over the globe.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

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

The Last Word
History has shown that one cannot legislate a culture of integrity. And yet, one of the paramount responsibilities and challenges of corporate leadership is to ensure such a culture. -- Preet Bharara

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