In This Issue
• Bob Fisher Memorial Cocktail Competition at Cowes Week
• AC75s Solo Round the Island
• A New Double Handed Division for the Vendee
• Chunder Chowder
• Foiling Kiteboards In - Distance Competition
• Fifty Knots... And A Dispute
• The Last Word: Douglas Adams

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Bob Fisher Memorial Cocktail Competition at Cowes Week
Pictured: The Fish serving rum and orange (mostly rum) from the liferaft well of his "Barraduda", 1987 Cowes Week / Admirals's Cup. Below: 50 persons aboard Go Golden, Bob's Half Tonner, which served as his base during a Weymouth Olympic Trials Week. Click on images to enlarge. Both photos by and courtesy of Guy Gurney.

In memory of the late Bob Fisher, the 2021 Cowes Week organising committee has announced that on Wednesday evening August 4th, subject to Health Department regulations at the time, a two-part competition will be held at Cowes Yacht Haven in memory of The Fish.

The first... best drink recipe. The only rule is that it has to be served from a liferaft locker, bait well, live well or lazarette aboard the boat. Bob was fond of any good liquor, so gin, vodka, rum, whisky or anything else can be used. Must be served via a long ladle into plastic cups. Common decency dictates that the entire batch must be consumed. Style points awarded for floating entities in the mix (fruit, rubber ducks, huge chunks of ice, etc.)

The second... and this one also has a stipulation or two... how many persons you can get onto a single sailing yacht with a drink in hand (and a two drink minimum whilst onboard). The winner will be based on a formula that will add the LOA and beam, then divide by the number of adults on board. "We will draw the line at 18 years of age. Those Irish bastards will show up with a dozen snot-nosed kids and stuff them into the forward cabin to pad out their numbers" said a local pub owner.

The boat must be floating. "We don't want blotto'd sailors falling off yachts on the hard at the yard" noted the Island Sailing Club's Bob Milner. "Into the water... well that's a time honoured tradition". Given the small and crowded heads aboard vessels, there will be no penalty points, nor any police action taken, for pissing off the stern of any yacht. "We may even add bonus points for the most 'impressive' performance" said one high ranking female RORC staffer who shall go unnamed.

Concoctions may be prepared beforehand, but the judges will look favorably upon drinks actually mixed IN the well. As Bob would have done. And did.

The winners will both be presented lifetime memberships in the Imperial Poonah Yacht Club at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace presided over by a former Dragon Sailor and IPYC member who goes by the name of Philip.

cowesweek.co.uk

AC75s Solo Round the Island
Photo by COR 36/STUDIO BORLENGHI. Click on image to enlarge.

Cowes, Isle of Wight: Sir Ben Ainslie and Grant Dalton today announced that there will be an America's Cup event (name TBD pending sponsorship final contract provisions) in Cowes this summer on August 20, the 170th anniversary of the Hundred Guinea Cup race in 1851.

Two of the foiled beasts will compete head to head on the same course used by the Round the Island Race, with the starting gun at 10 AM. It is expected that with even moderate winds the first boat could finish by lunchtime.

"50 nautical miles in yachts capable of 50 knots. Even I can do the math on that one" said race director Beaurigard T. "Skruggs" McTavish. "I wouldn't be surprised however to see them actually sail a much longer course, one taking them deeper into the channel to be assured of higher winds to maintain foiling speed."

America's Cup rules and protocols will not apply to this one-off, bragging rights contest. Fully powered winches will be allowed, with the effect that all the grinders will be replaced by winches and computers. Ditto with control of the foils. In fact, only a single human being will be aboard... and that's mostly to make sure the computers stay functional.

"The enormous cost of getting the boats to Cowes and the very brief time sailed means we're hard pressed to cover costs with sponsor dollars" said Dalton. "The biggest expense to the recent campaign was of course crew salaries and housing. With the level of supercomputing power we bring to bear, we're confident that not only could we replace the entire crew, we could, in theory, run these carbon contraptions as radio controlled yachts without a single sentient soul on board."

Sir Ben is a bit more cautious: "We simply must have someone on board. If the computers kick offline at 50 knots, drop a foil when they shouldn't, you'd not just see a pitchpole. You'd see a cartwheel. Not quite on the scale of Donald Campbell and Bluebird, but easily career-ending to both skipper and boat."

Possible 2024 America's Cup syndicate head Larry Ellison said he welcomed the increased attention to the Cup but warned of a runaway push towards computers taking over so much of the human element in sailing. "What they propose sounds like f**kng Skynet to me. A bit of AI in manufacturing and data processing is clearly the future, but what if the AC75 becomes sentient and take offence at the Royal Yacht Squadron's start cannon? You want to see an AC75 striding down the High Street on its foils decapitating tourists? Not me! "

americascup.com

A New Double Handed Division for the Vendee
Coming off the best Vendee in many years, the IMOCA class has found a way to bring more skippers into the race... a new double handed division. Fully supported by the Royal Ocean Racing Club, which has had great success in promoting double-handing in its various events and series, the double handed division will be open to all male, all female and mixed doubles competitors, and to both foiling and non-foiling IMOCA 60s.

Race director Jacques Caraës noted that with so much of race publicity wrapped up in the personal stories of skippers, doubling up also provides for greater sponsor value with little additional cost.

"We're sailing IMOCAs fully crewed this summer in Ocean Race Europe" says Charlie Enright. "Far easier to configure one for doubles than a full crew, and it's a safety plus. With so many loose containers just below the surface... everywhere, every ocean... having a second watch on board who's not completely sleep deprived is all good. You just have to hope you don't find out your crew mate is a horrid bellend. Or that you are."

vendeeglobe.org

Chunder Chowder
Ever wonder what The Ocean Race teams eat in the Southern Ocean? What they do with flying fish that land aboard (other than just toss them overboard)? Are there some of Neptune's Nigella's out there on the boats? Well now you can find out, with the publication of the new Ocean Race Cookbook. Pavement Pizza, Ballistic Breakfast, Acid Flavored Stew and more... and that's just from the Southern Ocean section.

Cutting edge cuisine...Raw fish with raw squid in a raw seaweed salad, as only the chefs from Cordon Blecch can prepare it. Freeze dried gouda gargle.. yum! An essential for any galley. See www.theoceanrace.com

Foiling Kiteboards In - Distance Competition
Click on image to enlarge.

The International Olympic Committee and World Sailing have come to a hitherto unknown agreement that will remove double handed keelboat sailing from consideration for the 2024 Paris Olympics... replaced by a long distance competition for foiling kiteboards.

Note the word 'competition'... that's central to this very unusual medal event. The distance involved is not point A to point B on the water. It's distance airborne... "like a longjump with a surfboard strapped to your feet and a kite above pulling you towards the sun" as one Italian competitor described the concept.

A 3000 meter square zone will be marked off, with sailors able to jump at any point they feel sufficient speed and wind. Dozens of cameras will record each 'hop' to measure take off and landing spots and total distance covered.

"We have to watch out for competitors being blown off the course into the specator areas however. While not quite on the scale of 1955 Lemans, pieces of rigs, boards and the sailors themselves landing from 100 feet up onto a crowded beach could make for a hell of a red tide if you get my drift. I've seen kiteboarders land in parking lots hundreds of metres from the water's edge. There will be a balance here between shoreside visibility for ticket holders and keeping the event participants and their kit well out into the water." said organizer Peter Cabrinha.

olympics.org

Fifty Knots... And A Dispute
Twenty year old Sjoukje Bredenkamp (RSA) has entered the history books and has broken the mythical 50 knot barrier again, this time at 53 knots, surpassing that of Antoine Albeau 52.02 set in 2012. Or has she? Sailing at the French "ditch" specifically designed for speed sailing attempts, the young kiteboarder has broken all existing speed records on her Naish built kiteboard. Her speed over a 500 metre course of 53.13 knots has been ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. But there are many observers who dispute the record... saying that for the last 50 metres she was not actually touching the water at all, but was, in fact, airborne at a height of at least 5 metres and simply blown through the finish gate before crashing, rather spectacularly.

"If it's a sailing record, one should be sailing" said Simon Bornhoft, Windsurfing commentator for London 2012 Olympic Games. "The outright airspeed record is a bit higher.. about 1000 knots higher. I could hear her screaming for help for the last 30 yards or so, no small accomplishment that, given how loud the wind was howling... but it's simply not sailing. Real men keep a fin in the water, that's all I will say for now..."

"I'm simply overwhelmed by it all" said the diminuitive South African kitesailor. "I knew it was going to be a fast run, it was all a bit of a blur near the end and then a huge gust grabbed the kite and it flung me up in the air and through the finish line before I really knew what happened. I couldn't hang on much longer and bailed out. Fortunately I was still over water at the time, I tucked, rolled and ended up flat on my back in about a foot of water, but no breaks, just a few bruises. Some of the boys here are a bit upset that a woman has taken the record. Get over it, and come join me for a pint, is my well-considered response..."

World Sailing Speed Record Council Secretary C. John Reed, on hand to observe Ms. Bredenkamp's historical run said: "This should not be that complicated. It's the position of the WSSRC that Ms. Bredenkamp has indeed broken the 50 knot barrier and the outright sailing speed record. It matters not that the last few metres she was fully airborne... with the state of hydrodynamics, foils and laminar flow on today's fastest craft, it's going to be almost impossible to determine if water is actually touching a physical surface at every moment of a record run. I've seen footage of sailboards where only the very tip of the skeg was in the water.. and sometimes not even that. How much water is actually 'touching' Hydroptere when it's up on the foils? Not much, is my reasoned opinion."

Asked if a fully airborne 500m record could fully count as a "sailing record", Reed replied, "No, but we're not talking about someone jumping off a cliff here... they start in water and end in water. If they want to be blown downwind at altitude for 499 metres more power (and records) to them. These are very brave men and women. It scares the bejabbers out of me just watching it."

sailspeedrecords.com

The Last Word
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -- Douglas Adams

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