Daily Digest: Mapfre wins first VOR In-Port Race, Andy Claughton trashes AC50 cats as 'slave shi
SAN FRANCISCO – This week we launched our new feature – the Daily Digest – with links to recent race results, upcoming events and notable news and views all in one post. Except on Tuesdays, when we are getting ready for our live "Tuesdays with TFE" netcast, we will post the Daily Digest approx midday Pacific Time when the majority of our Dear Readers are awake (1200 Pacfic / 1500 Eastern / 2100 Central Europe / 0800 New Zealand).
Of course we will continue to post features from time to time, and breaking news immediately, as we did yesterday when we revealed, in a worldwide exclusive, that Simeon Tienpont (NED) had been fired as the Skipper/CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race team AkzoNobel on the eve of the first official race.
The Daily Digest allows us to email you more timely news while cutting down on inbox clutter. Our unique, visual format is quick to peruse – you don't have to wade through a lot of unnecessary cut-and-paste verbiage that comes late in your day (and on some days, not at all), or in the case of Europe, in the middle of your night. And it will arrive in your email (if you have a free subscription to Sailing Illustrated) seven days a week.
Today Team Mapfre (ESP) won the first counting race of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race – the Alicante In-Port Race. Watch the 1-minute YouTube recap above. AkzoNobel, whose skipper Simeon Tienpont (NED) was fired Friday, finished 6th in the seven-boat fleet. Meanwhile, VOR CEO Mark Turner (GBR) suffered a broken ankle in the race village today.
In his column for Seahorse magazine, just out, veteran AC designer Andy Claughton didn't have much good to say about the 50-foot catamarans that were raced in Bermuda for AC35, writing that they were too complicated and became "slave ships" with the amount of work needed to power them. He also felt they were too risky, even for the flat and usually light-air conditions of Bermuda's Great Sound, and could not be raced in New Zealand's much rougher Hauraki Gulf. "While they were impressive, the foiling catamarans were immensely complicated, expensive, and time consuming to maintain," Claughton wrote. Full story.
Peter Holz his Chicago YC team had a perfekt Friday, winning all eight off their Round Robin 1 matches at the US Match Racing Championship for the Prince of Wales Bowl at Oakcliff in Oyster Bay, NY. Full story. Results.
Headline in Bermuda's Royal Gazette today: "New Zealand face logistical nightmare." The article, based on a story earlier this week by Richard Gladwell on Sail-World.com, goes on to say, "Winning the America’s Cup appears to have been more straightforward for New Zealand than developing the infrastructure to host the next event in Auckland in 2021.The Kiwis have stumbled upon various logistical challenges in developing the main hub for the next instalment of the ‘Auld Mug’, which Bermuda overcame in its successful hosting of sailing’s holy grail this summer. Full story.