Extreme Sailing Series Asia

OC Events, organisers of the award winning iShares Cup, the European Extreme 40 Sailing Series, has announced today the creation of the inaugural Extreme Sailing Series Asia to be staged between November 2009 and March 2010. The first year of the Asian series will include events in Hong Kong, Singapore and Oman with the possibility of a fourth venue to be confirmed, and with a plan to grow this to a six-event series by 2011/12. Bids have already been received for the future series from a number of other venues across Asia.

After the spectacular finale of the six-stage European iShares Cup circuit last weekend in Almería (Spain), five of the boats were packed up to be shipped directly to Hong Kong. Mark Turner, CEO of OC Group, which includes the Series’ organisers OC Events, declared: “The iShares Cup has been running very successfully for three years now in Europe and the Extreme Sailing Series Asia is the next step in the evolution of this exciting sailing format - a format which has become a benchmark in terms of changing the way sailing is seen. Our aim is to build this series each year on the same foundations on which the European iShares Cup has been built - a comprehensive sailing entertainment event that packages the sport to appeal to the public, media and provide experiential VIP client hospitality. For this inaugural series in Asia we won’t be focused on the public side directly, instead we will work hard on the VIP and media aspects, as we did in the early iShares Cup years. But, of course, our aspiration is to build this circuit up over the coming years to match the award-winning iShares Cup format including a strong public element.”

Each event will consist of five days of racing, combining the established format of short, easy to understand races, a media day, VIP sailing days and special events. The Extreme Sailing Series Asia Notice of Race has been issued today and the announcement of the first of the competing teams will follow imminently. Five boats have already committed to the Asian circuit, as in the first year of the iShares Cup series in Europe.

Korea Match Cup Finals

After a day of semi-finals that grew in pace and excitement, Sunday (7 June started flat, grey and uninteresting, and looked like staying that way. The start of the finals match between Williams and Cian was scheduled for 1400 hrs, but the race course was just a grey glass-out with no sign of any breeze at all – not even the small shifty zephyrs that had allowed the 5th-8th place sail-offs go through. Playing a waiting game out on the water, Cian was working hard to stay optimistic – if the finals were canned due to lack of breeze then the Korea Match Cup would be decided on the performances in the Round Robin – handing a win to Ian Williams (8 pts) against the Italian’s five wins that allowed him to just squeak into the quarter-finals. At 1450 hrs there was some sign of sunshine – an ingredient that encouraged a little sea breeze. Cian put up a spinnaker and sailed around slowly, as if to demonstrate to the Race Committee that there was enough breeze to get things started, and at 1530 hrs racing did indeed get under way.

Both boats hit the line together for a split-tack start with Cian going to the right. Williams gybe-set for a separation, found some pressure on the right and smoked into the bottom pin. But Williams then earned a penalty. Williams crossed ahead of Cian on the upwind leg, but had to execute his penalty. So Cian sailed gently down to his seventh win in a row.

Race 2 began with a slow motion dial-up. Both boats started together on port, Cian at the boat end. Williams went right, and led all the way down the run. Williams crossed Cian from the right coming into the finish and gybed into the line. Match squared at 1-1.

With one-all, the third race was a sudden death. Cian calmly controlled most of the pre-start, with Williams wriggling to get away. Williams started with pace, and split away to the right, followed by Cian. Williams went for the gybe-set plit-and-come-back-from-the-right option, but just couldn’t find enough breeze to make it work, and watched the soft-touch Italian ghost across the line 15 secs or so in the lead.

At US$240,000, the Korea Match Cup is the richest purse on the World Match Race Tour. A good deal more champagne was soon sprayed on stage in front of the Closing Ceremony crowd, and the giant cheques were presented by the Governor of Gyeonggi Province, Kim Moon-Soo. It had been a desperately slow start to the day, but it finished in cracking style.

OVERALL RESULTS
1st Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Shosholoza
2nd Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar
3rd Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin
4th Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Team Onboard
5th Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing
6th Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
7th Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing
8th Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
9th Sebastien Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team/K-Challenge
10th Laurie Jury (NZL)
11th Philippe Presti (ITA) French Match Racing Team
12th Byeong Ki Park (KOR)

Korea Semi Finals

The next day more costly turnarounds and huge drama marked the penultimate day of the Korea Match Cup. Unbeatable on Friday, ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing Adam Minoprio suffered three straight defeats in his quarter final races against Team Shosholoza’s Paolo Cian, putting him out of the competition. With the wind starting light and getting lighter until the sea breeze pumped up mid-afternoon, Minoprio found himself forced over the line early in the first race and infuriatingly repeated this in the second. 2-2 and for the decider it was gloves off. Minoprio picked up a penalty in the pre-start, but crossed the line with a four boatlength lead. But the Italian closed in and finally overhauled Minoprio on the second beat.

For TEAMORIGIN’s Ben Ainslie the day was very black and white. The quarter finals against France’s Mathieu Richard, Ainslie won two-one. However when he came up against Paolo Cian in the semis, Ainslie was dispatched three-zero, including a sorry first race when he had the race sewn up in the start, leading and a penalty up on Cian, only to suffer a wrap on his genniker on the second run, followed by a short trawl of it allowing Cian enough margin to overtake and successfully complete his penalty to take the point.

Ian Williams and his Bahrain Team Pindar started the day in the quarter finals level pegging, 1-1, with Torvar Mirsky and their series went to the full five races. In the second race there was a dramatic prang at the weather mark when Williams careered into the back of Mirsky’s boat. In the third race Williams’ boat looked a little lethargic in the pre-start and after Mirsky won the start they sailed a little way up the course before dropping their sails and hoisting their red flag. Finally Williams and his crew made it through to the semis where they were pitched against Bjorn Hansen, who had seen off Peter Gilmour in the quarter finals despite Hansen sailing with a mostly amateur crew. In their second semi-final race, Hansen lost to Williams. The wind had picked up unusually for the third race and after a long dive down into the start box Hansen led off the line. Hansen was ultimately black flagged for not having carried out either of his penalties soon enough.

Semi Final Results
Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Shosholoza 3-0
Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar 3.5-2
Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing 2-3.5
Ben Ainslie (GBR) TeamOrigin 0-3

Korea Quarter Finals

While America’s Cup legend Peter Gilmour was the class act of the first two days of racing at the Korea Match Cup, on 5 June it was Emirates Team New Zealand’s Adam Minoprio who got on to a strong winning streak, with a run of eight races and just one loss. In conditions similar to yesterday with the sun burning through early morning mist, followed by a light 8 knot sea breeze establishing itself, so in winning four of his five remaining races in the round robin put Minoprio on eight points out of eleven matches. This equalled him with Britons Ben Ainslie of Team Origin and Bahrain Team Pindar’s Ian Williams and, unexpectedly, Sweden’s Bjorn Hansen. In the first-to-three quarter final, Minoprio and his team were the only ones to end the day with 2-0 wins.

Minoprio chose Team Shosholoza’s Paolo Cian as his quarter final opponent, while Williams picked Torvar Mirsky. In both races Minoprio won the start from Cian and led around the course.

QUARTER FINAL PAIRINGS

Minoprio v Cian 2-0

Williams v Mirsky 1-1

Gilmour v Hansen 1-1

Ainslie v Richard 0-0

Portugal Trophy Regatta

The American boat Quantum Racing moved 11 points closer to winning the Audi MedCup Circuit today as Audi Q8 and Synergy had their best set of races of the season so far, Audi Q8 lie second on the same points as regatta leaders Quantum Racing. In the moderate breezes, 11-18 knots mainly from the North West, the racing was close and even. As the Russian crew on Synergy became the 12th different team to take a winning gun on the Circuit this season, triumphing in Race 2 in fine style, so too Riccardo Simoneschi’s Audi Sailing Team powered by Q8 (ITA) came good with their best day yet, scoring a ninth then two second places to lie second sharing the same overall points as Quantum Racing. And if Synergy had not let slip their third place which they held until the final 400 metres of the last race of the day, they too would have been on 13 points.

Monster Crab

It lurked in the wreck of an old battleship 160ft below the surface ��� a true monster of the deep. Diver Paul Worsley could hardly believe the size of the giant crab he found in Lyme Bay, off the Dorset coast. Careful to avoid its fearsome claws, he managed to get it into a bag and raise it to the surface. For his efforts, he can congratulate himself on capturing what experts believe is the biggest edible crab ever landed. It weighed 17lb and had a shell width of 12in while each of its massive claws was as big as a man's hand. The previous largest edible crab on record is in the collection of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Its carapace was 11in wide. Mr Worsley, from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, said: 'I couldn't believe it when I saw it.' Andy Horton founder of the British Marine Life Study Society, said: 'If anyone has found a bigger one could they let us know?' Unfortunately, Mr Worsley's crab will not be displayed in any museum. A friend has eaten it.

Action Photo

This photo is taken in Marseille, for the Audi MedCup Circuit 2008, Trophy City of Marseille. (c) Ian Roman/Audi MedCup.

Artemis

With 13 IMOCA Open 60 and 11 Class40 monohulls entered, The Artemis Transat 2008 boasts an impressive lineup - a closer look at the names and associated CVs reveals quite a few significant figures, proving once again that this mythical event created in 1960 remained the ultimate ocean racing test throughout the decades.

Artemis

Thirty-three year old Samantha Davies has become the first Briton to finish The Artemis Transat 2008 solo race in Boston, USA. Samantha sailed her 60-foot monohull Roxy across the finish line at 23:00:51 GMT (19:00 local time) yesterday (26 May) in a time 15 days, 10 hours, 00 minutes and 51 seconds. For the last 24 hours, Sam battled a biting and gusty 25 to 35 knot headwind, but crossed the line with a huge smile.

Rolex Capri

Today was a good day. A good day to be sailing and an extremely good day to be sailing at Rolex Capri Sailing Week. Added to the mix of blue skies, sun and wind was a scenic backdrop that has the potential to defy imagination. For the competing crews there was little time, except between races, to truly enjoy the sight of Capri bathed in sunshine with Ischia and Vesuvius looming in the distance, but frankly they were probably having too much fun to care. For those with more time on their hands, watching yacht racing in these conditions, in this location is a privilege.

Back to the action. All classes took on two windward/leeward courses set into a freshening breeze from the south-east. The big boys raced over 8.1 miles and then 9.3 miles, whilst the two smaller boat classes raced twice over a 6.6 mile course. Wind was generally in the 8-12 knot range, but occasionally hit fifteen. The courses were laid with the windward mark in the Bocca Piccolo,! the narrow channel between Capri and the mainland. This gave rise to the odd shift, and plenty of lifts and headers, helping to ensure the tacticians justified their positions in deciding which side of the course was favoured.

Peyron Finished

Loick Peyron on board Gitana Eighty crossed the finish line of The Artemis Transat at 03:15:35 GMT on Saturday, 24th May (00:15:35 local time). His arrival in Boston, USA, marks an historic achievement for this legendary French sailor. He is now the only sailor in history to have won this race three times (1992/1996/2008), exceeding the two-time record he shared with another French sailing legend, Eric Tabarly.

Gitana Eighty finished the 2,982-mile course of The Artemis Transat in a time of 12 days, 11 hours, 45 minutes, 35 seconds (based on corrected time including the deduction of the 2.5 hour time allowance awarded by the jury for his rescue of Vincent Riou). In doing so, he has beaten the existing monohull record of 12 days, 15 hours, 18 mins and 8 secs set by Mike Golding onboard Ecover in 2004, by 3 hours, 32 mins and 33 secs.

Artemis

Gitana Eighty skipper Loick Peyron stays in control at the front with Brit Air skipper Armel having his final chance for attack. Sam Davies onboard Roxy drops back to 7th place but only 12 miles in distance to finish separates her from Cervin ENR in 5th, this race is far from over for the chasing group of Open 60s in The Artemis Transat.

For the Class 40 fleet, as the north-south spread decreases to under 80 miles in the approach to the ice gate, Groupe Partouche (7th), Custo Pol (8th), Prevoir Vie (9th) and Groupe Royer (10th) are separated by 16 miles. After reporting a broken headsail furler this afternoon, Alex Bennett in 6th is matching speed at 8 knots with Miranda Merron on 40 Degrees in 5th. Just 11 miles separate the two boats.

The race leader, Telecom Italia, has taken over the southern position in the fleet as the overnight position blackout descends. So far, Beluga Racer in 2nd and Mistral Loisirs - Pole Sante ELIOR in 3rd are keeping pace, trailing Giovanni Soldini by 54 miles. Boris Herrmann and Thierry Bouchard are still under 1 mile apart.

Artemis Transat

The leaders of The Artemis Transat are sailing fast in reaching conditions, but kept busy preparing their boats for what will be the fiercest gale of the race. Calmly and very professionally, both Loick Peyron (Gitana Eighty) and Armel Le Cleac'h (Brit Air) have planned their sail reductions, carried out an overall check-up and are already witnessing a serious wind increase. The contrast could not be stronger with the second pack, desperately waiting for some breeze in order to cross the ice gate. "0 knots of wind and 0 knots of boat speed", reported Sam Davies (Roxy) this morning. Vincent Riou's shore team has reacted quickly to his abandonment of the Open 60 PRB after a collision on the North Atlantic. Pierre-Louis Pillot, Eric Carret et Antoine Le Bras are now in Halifax Nova Scotia and have chartered a tugboat and pilot to take them to the abandoned boat. Two tracking beacons were activated before Vincent left the boat. The difficulties in the salvage attempt is that there is a strong depression moving into the area where the boat is located, and that the boat sustained damage to its keel and may sustain more before the salvage... or during it. It will take the tug at least 2 days to reach the boat.

Rolex Capri Sailing Week

Rolex Capri Sailing Week 2008 opened with a 33.4 mile coastal course that took all classes on a short beat to windward, followed by a fetch across the Golfo di Napoli from Capri to a mark off the equally glamorous island of Ischia and back again in a fresh south-south westerly, that at times was gusting upwards of twenty knots. The initial beat and subsequent fetch were fairly straightforward. For the tightly bunched Swan 45s and the Comets, though, the trip back offered more options as witnessed by the variety of headsails used on different yachts. To change or not to change that was undoubtedly the question. For the yachts out front the risk was clear, make the wrong choice and risk being overtaken. For those at the back, take a look at what was going on up front and guess accordingly.

Vincent Riou off the Race

The duel between Loick Peyron and Vincent Riou was cut short late this afternoon when the latter alerted race management that he was requesting assistance following a keel problem with his monohull.

In fact, last night the skipper of the 60' Vendee boat seemingly hit a basking shark, the impact damaging the appendage. The damage was such that Vincent Riou wished to abandon ship, no longer feeling safe with an impending storm forecast across the Imoca fleet tomorrow. Being the closest to PRB, the second he was contacted the skipper of Gitana Eighty immediately diverted following a request from Sylvie Viant, race director. It was 1500 hours when Loick Peyron altered his course. In order to simplify the transfer, Vincent Riou got into his liferaft, which he had securely fastened to PRB. The rescue operation was carried out efficiently and simplified by the particularly mild weather conditions at the time. At 1725 UT, Vincent Riou was aboard Gitana Eighty. The monohull in the colours of the LCF Rothschild Group was then able to make towards Boston again, and is now leading the fleet.

Artemis

The big news Sunday morning was the retirement of Sebastien Josse, plagued by a broken mainsail headcar, and unable to climb up the mast given the sea state - the race certainly loses one of its great animators, yet the BT skipper managed to remain positive about the incident: "Of course pulling out at that stage is a big disappointment, but you know these things can happen. We' ve seen the boat was capable of being ahead of the best of the IMOCA fleet, that means our optimisation process was based on the right choices. I'm going back towards Brittany under sails, and those miles will count for my Vendee qualifier.

Sunday morning was also a busy time for everyone who tried to analyze what had been happening in the dark during the 36-hours positions blackout. The most obvious move was Loick Peyron's tack, favoured by a wind shift to the west at about 22:00 GMT on Friday. "I had planned to tack, but of course I waited for the blackout", said Gitana Eighty's skipper this morning, "I think it was a good move in terms of saving some manoeuvres and efforts in the long run." Now repositioned further south, Peyron is second only 26 miles behind Riou, and has a 30-mile advantage over Armel Le Cleac'h's Brit Air, who moved into third position aver the blackout.

Sardinia Rolex Cup 2008

The Sardinia Rolex Cup 2008, valid as the ISAF Offshore Team World Championship, will take place in Porto Cervo from 14^th to 21^st June. Organized by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (YCCS), the regatta has taken place biennially since its inauguration in 1972 and this year reaches it 16^th edition.

With racing due to start in just over four weeks the first official entries to have been accepted include national teams from Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia while a further two team entries are currently being finalized. As always, each team will be comprised of three yachts: a Farr 40, a Swan 45 and a Transpac 52. After four days of windward-leeward racing, with the possibility of an islands race midweek, each boat’s score will be combined to make up the team total. Victory, along with the Sardinia Cup Challenge Trophy and the Rolex Offshore Team World Championship Trophy, will go to the team with the lowest series points score.

The Sardinia Rolex Cup consistently attracts top international owners and crews and this year will be no exception: Vincenzo Onorato, who claimed the Sardinia Rolex Cup as part of Team Sardegna in 2006, has already signed up for Team Italy aboard his Farr 40. He will be joined by Riccardo Simoneschi aboard the TP52 Audi Q8 and Danilo Salsi on his Swan 45 DSK making for an all - YCCS team.

Team Italy is certainly one to watch with Onorato’s Mascalzone Latino recently having achieved the unique feat of winning three Farr 40 World Championships back-to- back. Germany and Spain, however, are also past winners of the Sardinia Rolex Cup. Team Russia, on the other hand, is a newcomer to the event and with everything boiling down to skill, tactics and teamwork, may just provide some surprises.

Myanmar Sailors Fund Raising

The Singapore Sailing Federation is holding a fund-raising event this weekend to help the sailing community of Myanmar, recently devastated by Cyclone Nargis. The ‘Sailors’ Appeal: Fund Raising for Our Myanmar Friends’, will take place at the National Sailing Centre on Saturday 17 May from 10:00-13:00.

Andrew SANDERS, Chief Executive Officer of the Singapore Sailing Federation, explains, “Ongoing recent tragedies spurred our sailing community to act swiftly to help the Myanmar sailing community, some of whom lost their homes in the cyclone. The recently built yacht club was also destroyed. Strong ties exist in the sailing community between Myanmar and Singapore, and the young National Sailors from each country have grown up together training, competing and undertaking exchange programmes.

“Under SingaporeSailing’s guidance, the fund-raiser is being driven by Singapore’s top Olympic sailors who are currently in Singapore for a short training stint before returning to Europe for competition. SingaporeSailing is proud of the compassion, energy and initiative shown by Singapore’s Olympic sailors in organising and promoting this event.”

Farr40 Worlds

Vincenzo Onorato and his Mascalzone Latino are the 2008 Rolex Farr 40 World Champions, achieving a first in the sailing world - three back-to-back victories in this ultra-competitive one design class. This evening in addition to the World Cup, Onorato was presented with a commemorative Rolex timepiece at the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship Awards party. The day initially lined up as an all-Italian battle pitting defending champion Mascalzone Latino (ITA), the leader of the series since the first race, against Joe Fly (ITA), the second-place, well-sailed boat. In reality Barking Mad (USA) became part of the winner's fate when it was fouled by Joe Fly during the first mark rounding of race nine (Saturday's first race). Mascalzone rounded in the same group and filed a protest against Joe Fly. Next year, the Class will travel to Europe to Porto Cervo, Sardinia for the 2009 Rolex Farr 40 World Championship.

1. Mascalzone (ITA), Vincenzo Onorato
2. Joe Fly (ITA), Giovanni Maspero
3. Mean Machine (MON), Peter de Ridder
4. Nanoq (DEN), HRH Crown Prince Frederik
5. Calvi Network (ITA), Carlo Alberni
6. Alinghi (SUI), Ernesto Bertarelli
7. Ramrod (USA), ), Rodrick Jabin
8. Barking Mad (USA), Jim Richardson
9. Opus One (GER), Wolfgang Stolz
10. Nerone (ITA), Massimo Mezzaroma/ Antonio Sodo Migliori

Farr 40 Worlds

In a stark contrast to yesterday's 18-knot winds and lumpy seas, today's light-air conditions gave the international fleet competing in the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship a new challenge. With a total of six races completed so far in the 10-race series, Italian teams hold the top two spots -- Mascalzone Latino in first, with a three point lead, over Joe Fly in second. Two-time world champion Barking Mad (USA) climbed up from seventh place into third overall. America's Cup champion Ernesto Bertarelli and his Alinghi slipped from third and finished the day in fifth overall. The Greek team Atalanti also managed to climb from 8th to 6th overall.