Friday, 3 November 2017

Safety at Sea seminar coming to Bainbridge Island

Seminar organizer Bob Schoonmaker talks about emergency communications on day one.

The Sailing Foundation will be offering the U.S. Sailing two-day Safety at Sea seminar on March 24 and 25, 2018 on Bainbridge Island, with an optional FREE “in water” Lifesling training session on Monday the 26th.

Taking place at Bainbridge High School and Bainbridge Aquatic Center, this informative and entertaining training program has classroom and hands-on sessions designed to enhance your sailing skills as a crewmember and make you, your boat and crew safer. Experts Bruce Brown, Ken Fabert MD, Carol Hasse, Brad Baker and more have tailored their presentations to give you as much information as possible in the two-day experience. Days are long, but you’ll come out of each with a better understanding of the many topics covered.

Schedule:

Day one (Saturday) will be in a classroom setting where instructors will educate attendees on topics including heavy weather sail selection and use, man overboard and safety gear, damage control and repair, assistance to other vessels, safety communication devices and EPIRBs, personal safety gear, heavy weather techniques, abandon ship and life raft procedures, medical emergencies, and weather forecasting. There will also be a discussion on what lessons U.S. Sailing has learned from studying various tragedies at sea and the nuances of each.

Day two (Sunday) will take participants through hands-on scenarios in pyrotechnics and fire fighting, and then into the pool for life raft deployment and entry training. Classroom sessions that day delve into medical scenarios and kits, weather routing, sail repair and maintenance, and Lifesling training.

Seminar Info:

By participating in and completing the seminar, attendees will earn a certificate from U.S. Sailing that can be used when racing offshore and internationally.

Membership in The Sailing Foundation is included in the fee. The fee covers lectures, demonstrations, exhibits, course materials and a box lunch. To ensure good contact between the students and the presenters, each break-out session is limited to 25 students.

And while these SAS seminars are a requirement for participation in events like Vic-Maui, Van Isle 360, Swiftsure and others, the weekend learning event is great for cruisers that are looking to learn more about on-the-water safety.

‘I was rescued from death alone in mid-ocean’

New Portsmouth base for the Andrew Simpson Foundation

Volvo Ocean Race

Seven teams will take the start of the Mirpuri Foundation In-Port Race on Friday afternoon at 14:00 local time (UTC).

This is the second in the Volvo Ocean Race In Port Race Series. In Alicante, MAPFRE beat Dongfeng Race Team with Vestas 11th Hour Racing completing the podium.

Lisbon stopover, practice race – Volvo Ocean Race © Jesus Renedo / Volvo Ocean Race

The forecast is for moderate 10 to 15 knot southwesterly winds.

For that wind direction, the length of the race course is likely to be confined by the banks of the Tagus River, so Principal Race Officer Bill O’Hara is anticipating the course will be short, with at least three, and possibly up to four, laps. The target time for the race is 60-minutes.

With so many manoeuvres required on the short course, boat handling is sure to be a determining factor for success on Friday.

Lisbon stopover, practice race – Volvo Ocean Race © Jesus Renedo / Volvo Ocean Race

Crew lists for the Mirpuri Foundation in-Port race Lisbon:

Dongfeng Race Team

• Skipper – Charles Caudrelier
• Pascal Bidégorry
• Stuart Bannatyne
• Jérémie Beyou
• Daryl Wislang
• Marie Riou
• Carolijn Brouwer
• Jackson Bouttell
• Jinhao Chen

team AkzoNobel

• Skipper – Simeon Tienpont
• Jules Salter
• Ross Monson
• Brad Farrand
• Nicolai Sehested
• Emily Nagel
• Martine Grael
• Luke Molloy

Team Brunel

• Skipper – Bouwe Bekking
• Andrew Cape
• Carlo Huisman
• Alberto Bolzan
• Kyle Langford
• Maciel Cicchetti
• Peter Burling
• Annie Lush
• Abby Ehler

Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag

• Skipper- David Witt
• Steve Hayles
• Alex Gough
• Annemieka Bes
• Benjamin Piggott
• John Fisher
• Luke Parkinson
• Tom Clout

Turn the Tide on Plastic

• Skipper – Dee Caffari
• Nico Lunven
• Martin Strömberg
• Liz Wardley
• Annalise Murphy
• Francesca Clapcich
• Bianca Cook
• Lucas Chapman
• Henry Bomby
• Frederico Melo

Vestas 11th Hour Racing

• Skipper – Charlie Enright
• Simon Fisher
• Mark Towill
• Damian Foxall
• Nick Dana
• Tom Johnson
• Tony Mutter
• Stacey Jackson
• Hannah Diamond

MAPFRE

• Skipper – Xabi Fernández
• Juan Vila
• Pablo Arrarte
• Rob Greenhalgh
• Antonio ‘Ñeti’ Cuervas-Mons
• Blair Tuke
• Willy Altadill
• Sophie Ciszek
• Tamara Echegoyen

by Volvo Ocean Race

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Chartering the Caribbean After the Storms

Cruising and Chartering

The northern Caribbean looks ahead after fierce storms.

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Maxi Edmond de Rothschild ~ Transat Jacques Vabre

On 17 July 2017, after a twenty-month build and over 35,000 hours of studies, Ariane and Benjamin de Rothschild launched the latest addition to their offshore racing stable.

The Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, a large oceanic trimaran measuring 32 metres long and 23 metres wide is now part of the long and rather illustrious line of Gitanas. This Sunday in Le Havre, Gitana 17 will be the first multihull designed to fly offshore to set sail on a transatlantic race. On-board will be two oceanic pioneers, Sébastien Josse and Thomas Rouxel.

Paving the way

Featuring an aggressive and sleek outline with smooth lines, the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild forces admiration. Indeed, this flying ‘fighter plane’ is a one-off in the looks department thanks to her unique floats and central hull and to the underwater sections of her beams, which are reminiscent of a plane wing. With flat hull bottoms for the maximum lift, a very high freeboard to thwart the torsion stresses of the float foils and rectangular beams for optimum stiffness, her streamlined wing-style sail plan and boat profile blend into one.

Hydrodynamics and aerodynamics have been the key points in the development of this ‘two in one’ craft according to her architect Guillaume Verdier.

From the design to the construction, the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild is the result of a mastery of innovation and new technologies, shaped by the strictest quality control. A precursor, this giant of the seas is paving the way forward for a new generation of large multihulls, designed to negotiate heavy seas in the open ocean.

Video – It was a rather odd carbon bird that was tied to the dock in the Bassin de l’Eure last Friday for the opening of the Transat Jacques Vabre race village. The locals weren’t impervious to her charm!

Objective: apprenticeship and fine-tuning on the finest of playgrounds!

Since the launch of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, the timing has been tight and every session on the water has been carefully optimised by the members of the Gitana Team to enable the Edmond de Rothschild duo to set sail from Le Havre with the optimum amount of preparation under their belts. The estimated eight to ten days for the crossing and the numerous associated miles in race configuration are an accelerated learning experience that greatly appeals to Sébastien Josse: “Gitana 17 is a highly specialised prototype, which brings together a series of innovative technologies where there is no shortcut to the discovery and fine-tuning phase! Naturally I’m thinking here about the foils and the various appendages and systems necessary for flight, but that’s not all. Innovation has a place all over the boat. In fact, we’re developing some unique solutions with Pixel sur Mer regarding all the on-board intelligence. With Gitana Team we’re pioneers, we’re preparing the way forward and what we learn from these miles in race configuration is extremely precious for the next stage of the programme and particularly for the single-handed racing in 2018 and 2019.”

Transat Jacques Vabre – Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, a pioneer of its kind © Yann Riou / Gitana SA

The Edmond de Rothschild duo has had a short yet intense period of preparation. However, the two men fully intend to benefit from the 4,350 miles that lay ahead of the latest addition to the Gitana fleet to fine tune her and show off her exceptional potential.

Video – On 17 August 2017, just one month after exiting the yard, the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild enjoyed her debut flight. See the images of this intense moment that is sure to remain etched in our memories.

by Gitana

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