In This Issue
Charleston Race Week
Monaco Swan One Design
Royal Thames YC sailing office vacancy
Antigua Sailing Week - Caribbean Role of Honour
Hempel World Cup Series - Round 3
Flat Earth Cruise Scheduled for 2020
What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine
Sailing is helping the Caribbean after Hurricane Irma
Sun sets on a long day at RS:X Europeans
Should Sailors Be Certified?
Featured Brokerage
The Last Word: Paul Krassner

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News 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

Charleston Race Week
Action in the 24th edition of Sperry Charleston Race Week gets underway on Friday with seven separate race cours being set on the Cooper River and out in the Atlantic Ocean. A new racing area located just south of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge has been created to accommodate the exciting M32 catamarans, which are making their debut at this iconic event.

There are eight of these spectacular high-performance multihulls competing here in Charleston and spectators watching from on land or water will marvel at the speeds they can achieve. Veteran professional Ian Williams, tactician for owner Rick DeVos aboard Rev, said the M32 can easily hit 25-30 knots downwind.

"They're amazing machines and the racing can get pretty intense," said Williams, who recently captured the Congressional Cup. "This race course is a bit more restricted than we're used to. We may have boundary marks, which will make the tactics a bit different this week."

Williams said the class utilizes the same type of course created for the America's Cup catamarans - a reaching start followed by windward-leeward action. A six-leg course can be completed in 20 minutes and that is why the M32 will often hold six races per day.

"It's a lot of action in a short span of time," Williams admitted.

Among the returning champions are the top two award winners from 2018. Skipper Peter Duncan and his Relative Obscurity team will be back to defend the Charleston Race Week Cup after capturing the highly-competitive J/70 class last year.

That prestigious perpetual trophy is presented for the best overall performance by a one-design entry. Winner of J/70 class, largest of the regatta with a whopping 56 entries, will certainly contend for the Charleston Race Week Cup as racing figures to be fierce. -- Bill Wagner

The Pursuit Class race starts at 930 Eastern Daylight Time, Offshore circle 5 at 1030, Inshore circles 1,2,3,4 at 11.

charlestonraceweek.com

Monaco Swan One Design
The second day of racing at the 2019 Monaco Swan One Design ended in disappointment for the competing crews, despite the best efforts of the Yacht Club de Monaco Race Committee; the sole race of the day abandoned just before the second windward mark. The YCM had kept everyone ashore while waiting for the breeze to fill in and a start was eventually organized at 14.45. Frustratingly, the stability of the already fragile wind deteriorated sufficiently during the race for the officials to call a halt and send the yachts home for the day. Racing is planned to resume tomorrow.

With no race today, the standings from the first day remain unchanged. Skorpios (RUS) leads ClubSwan 50, Porron IX (ESP) heads Swan 45 and Far Star the ClubSwan 42 division. Italy is top country in The Nations Trophy.

www.yacht-club-monaco.mc

Royal Thames YC sailing office vacancy
Royal Thames YC An events management role has become vacant based at the sailing office at 60 Knightsbridge reporting to the Chief Sailing Officer, Richard Ambler.

The role is fast paced and varied managing sailing events both in Cowes and at Queen Mary reservoir and also at the Clubhouse in Knightsbridge. The candidate should have a background in event management and a knowledge and interest of sailing. Some weekend and evening work will be required for which time in lieu will be granted.

Interested candidates should send a CV and cover letter with current salary to

Antigua Sailing Week - Caribbean Role of Honour
Winning class at Antigua Sailing Week is worthy of proper celebration, but the biggest prize is the Lord Nelson Trophy which has been awarded 51 times since 1968. The regatta attracts teams from all over the world and this year teams from as far away as Siberia, Peru, Hong Kong, and South Australia will be competing in Antigua. Caribbean registered boats have won the overall prize more times than any other region by a landslide, lifting the Lord Nelson Trophy on 22 occasions from 1968 to 2018.

In 2019, the class winners from CSA Spinnaker Classes racing off Committee Boat A, along with the Multihull and Double-Handed Classes, who, for the first time will all be eligible for winning the Trophy. To determine the winning boat, a class weighting factor will be applied to their overall score which recognises the difficulty of achieving first place in a larger fleet.

The most successful Caribbean nation has been Puerto Rico winning the coveted silver bowl nine times. Cesar Berrios racing Enzian won the first regatta and retained the Trophy (1968-69). Tom Hill racing Titan has lifted the Trophy more times than anyone in the history of the regatta (1975, 1987, 1990, 2005). Sergio Sagramoso was the last Puerto Rican to triumph, racing Lazy Dog to overall victory (2017).

Teams from Antigua have won the Lord Nelson Trophy on five occasions. Jol Byerley won twice with Matchless and Sundance (1972-73), and Scott Ledbetter with Any Taxi (1995). In recent years, Jonty and Vicky Layfield racing Sleeper (2015), and Sir Hugh Bailey racing Gypsy/Ugo (2016), have both won for the host nation. Both the Layfields and Sir Hugh will be racing for glory again this year.

For the 52nd edition, 12 teams racing under the flag of Antigua & Barbuda will be racing, including Jules Mitchell's young crew, all products of Antigua's National Sailing Academy. Last year the team on NSA Spirit won class and are back, hungry to win in 2019! Over 40 young Antiguans in total will be racing this year on a variety of boats as part of the Youth to Keel Boat (Y2K) Programme.

Teams from the US Virgin Islands have won the Lord Nelson Trophy five times. Bob Thompson racing I'll Do (1971). John Foster racing Antidote won and retained the Trophy (1980-81). America's Cup winner Peter Holmberg has also done the double with Airbus and Blazin (1985-86).

Howard Palmer's Immigrant (1993) is the only Bajan boat to lift the Lord Nelson Trophy. Bajan TP52 Conviction will be racing again this year, chartered to Canadian Richard Reid, racing as Zingara/Conviction. The sole British Virgin Islands victory was scored by Robin Tattersall's Expression (1984). Paul Dieleman's Enerserve (1994) won for St.Maarten, and this year, Ben Jelic racing Jaguar, flying the colours of St. Maarten, has high hopes of emulating Dieleman's win 26 years ago.

For the 2019 edition of Antigua Sailing Week, other Caribbean teams racing include; Raphael and Raymond Magras' Maëlia CEPAC Antilles and Speedy Nemo respectively, representing St. Barths, Jean Michel Figueres racing Perseverare Diabolicum from Martinique, and James Gardner and Jerry Bethell's Indy-Loosha Sails from St.Lucia.

Entry for Antigua Sailing Week is still open, but please enter online by no later than Friday, April 19, 2019. Entries may be accepted after that time but will be charged an entry fee of US $15 per foot. -- Louay Habib

www.sailingweek.com

Hempel World Cup Series - Round 3
Genoa, Italy: From 14 to 21 April 2019, Genoa will host its first Hempel World Cup Series event and the third of the 2019 Series following events in Enoshima, Japan, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic venue, and Miami USA.

Genoa is the penultimate stop of the 2019 Series with the event the last opportunity for sailors to book a spot at the Hempel World Cup Series Final in Marseille, France at the start of June.

In 2020, the event will act as the European continental qualification regatta for Tokyo 2020, marking its importance to the international sailing calendar.

Racing at Hempel World Cup Series Genoa will be held using the entire area of Fiera di Genova, the same venue that hosts the International Boat Show every year.

The sailing classes involved in the World cup series are the ones that competing in the olympics: Laser and Laser Radial
470 M and 470 W
49er and 49erFX
Finn
RS:X M and RS:X W
Nacra 17
2.4mR (Para World Sailing)
Men's and Women's Kiteboarding

wcsgenova.com/genova.aspx?lingua=0

From the "Should Be Forcibly Sterilized" Department: Flat Earth Cruise Scheduled for 2020
Organizers of an annual conference that brings together people who believe that the Earth is flat are planning a cruise to the purported edge of the planet. They're looking for the ice wall that holds back the oceans.

The journey will take place in 2020, the Flat Earth International Conference (FEIC) recently announced on its website. The goal? To test so-called flat-Earthers' assertion that Earth is a flattened disk surrounded at its edge by a towering wall of ice.

Details about the event, including the dates, are forthcoming, according to the FEIC, which calls the cruise "the biggest, boldest adventure yet." However, it's worth noting that nautical maps and navigation technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS) work as they do because the Earth is … a globe.

www.livescience.com

flatearthconference.com

Seahorse May 2019
What's in the Latest Edition Of Seahorse Magazine

Seahorse Magazine

World news
(Another) Multiplast masterpiece... and in (big) numbers, Gameboy pressures in New Zealand, F50s and second nature, gettin' better all the time in St Maarten. Glenn Ashby, Patrice Carpentier, Thomas Coville, Yann Penfornis, Ivor Wilkins, Tom Slingsby, Jesper Bank, Blue Robinson, Dobbs Davis

Everything in its place
Best known for the elegant and well-engineered equipment that is used on many of the world's fastest raceboats, UBI Maior's technology is also increasingly seen aboard the most stylish and innovative cruiser-racers

When life's (not) a drag
Put together everything that's been achieved to date and Future Fibres believe that the best of all worlds is now steadily drawing within reach

What's in a name?
Where will the next great offshore racing dynasties materialise from? Rob Weiland

The new frontier
Not so much a sport that is going in different directions as one that will soon benefit from some quite different approaches. Ken Read

Special rates for Scuttlebutt Europe subscribers:
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Sailing is helping the Caribbean after Hurricane Irma
Judy Petz fights back tears as she describes the damage wrought by Hurricane Irma on the British Virgin Islands, her home of 21 years. "There was no power, no water," she recalls, voice faltering. "Pretty much 90% of the country," had been severely impacted, she adds.

Irma struck in September 2017 and was one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic basin with maximum wind speeds of 185 mph. It killed five people in the BVI while a further 39 lost their lives in other nations throughout the Caribbean. Hurricane Maria followed shortly after, devastating Dominica, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Although Petz was in the US during Irma, she faced an agonizing wait to hear from her husband who remained at their property on the island of Tortola. Communications were knocked out by the storm meaning it was almost two days before she knew he had survived.

The thought of yachting, and staging the annual BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Week -- a large international event that marks one of the highlights of the tiny country's sailing season and for which Petz is the director -- seemed frivolous amidst the carnage.

Yet when Petz made it back to Tortola, a place she describes as "one of the most beautiful" on earth, she knew she had to help the battered islands return to some kind of normality as quickly as possible.

She committed to putting on the regatta to show that life continued on the BVI, not to mention attract visitors and offer a welcome fillip to the hard-hit tourism sector. With no power and significant damage to the host marina, however, such ambitions seemed unrealistic.

Yet in the space of six months, Petz and her team were able to attract 70 yachts and their crews some from as far afield as the UK and France. That feat was all the more remarkable considering much of the work was done on computers powered by solar batteries and the venue was prepared from near scratch.

"I keep telling people it was the miracle regatta because it happened over Easter," she says.

"It was really significant, at least to me to say, 'you know what, we will go on.' The sailing industry has a foundation here that even a category five hurricane can't destroy completely," Petz adds.

Full article in CNN: edition.cnn.com/2019/03/26/sport/

Sun sets on a long day at RS:X Europeans
For the 333 competitors sailing in the RS:X European and Youth European Championships, it was an epic day of waiting and more waiting as the wind toyed and teased the race officers and fleets. By the time the Women were coming ashore, the sun set providing a beautiful backdrop against the multicoloured fleet, it had been a massive ten hours of waiting, postponements and sore arms and legs for some fleets.

Palma, Mallorca again looked to test, but this time the race officers were the ones being tested with a fluctuating breeze that never really stabilized throughout the day. For the Youth Women and Youth Men, fortune favoured their course area a little more than the Senior course area. The Youth course was a little further offshore and benefitted from a more stable wind and allowed for all three races to be completed in good time - sailors coming ashore tired but with a good qualification series.

As the all important split at the end of today's racing, there was a flurry of protests at the end of racing and all results are provisional at the time of writing - the Jury working late into the night to make the right and fair decisions for the protests heard.

Full results

www.rsxclass.org/europeans2019/

Should Sailors Be Certified?
Other than attending a summer sailing program when I was 10 and 11, I have never been to a sailing school or taken courses for any sort of official certification. I think that's true of a lot of skippers of a certain age, many of whom are excellent sailors, competent skippers and safe boat owners. They, like me, learned from others while sailing as much as possible. But if we want to charter in European waters, many charter companies require an official certificate stating that we have passed a required course from a recognized sailing school and are therefore deemed competent to skipper a charter boat.

Charter and insurance companies in the US, Canada and the Caribbean do not require such an official certificate of competence. But many sailors who do charter and do buy insurance also have taken courses from sailing school certified by US Sailing and ASA. And, 42 states have some sort of mandatory boater education requirements and one, Alabama, requires boaters to obtain a license. Should these certificate holders get a break on insurance as young drivers do after taking a drivers' ed course? Should charter companies encourage or even insist that bareboat skippers hold a certificate of competence as commercial boat captains do whenever they run a boat for hire or carry passengers?

Boating safety and seamanship courses are great. But should they be required for those who want to skipper their own boats or take a bareboat out on charter? What do you think? Send your ideas and opinions to me at -- George Day, publisher of Blue Water Sailing

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The Last Word
For years, reality has been nipping at the heels of satire. Now, it's finally caught up. I don't need to make this stuff up. -- Paul Krassner

Editorial and letter submissions to

Advertising inquiries to Graeme Beeson: or see www.eurosailnews.com/advertise.html

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