It seems that the UK has a long track record of producing succesful female ocean racers, from Clare Francis and Naomi James through to Tracy Edwards and the phenomenon that is Ellen MacArthur. MacArthur has succesfully passed the baton to the improving Dee Caffari and to Sam Davies who, equipment permitting, would surely be in the very top echelon of solo ocean racers. It seems though that the next generation of singlehanded women may already be coming through in the shape of Katie Miller. Miller, just 21 years old has just won the BluQube 1000 solo race in her Figaro II, Hot Socks and has succesfully qualified for her next objective, the 2009 Transat. She’s also looking for sponsorship – £35k can get you title sponsorship of her project for the next 2 years. In a world where mediocre footballers get paid more than this just for wearing football boots, she richly deserves to get it – if Nare had this type of money we’d be joining the orderly queue that is undoubtedly forming right now.
It seems a while since I last wrote about the shambles that is the latest version of the Americas Cup, but it seems that the event persists in its desire to shoot itself in both feet. Latest twist to the saga is that a New York appeals court has reversed the decision to remove the Spanish Club Nautico Espanol de Vela from being the nominated Challenger of Record and replace them with the Golden Gate Yacht Club. This means that the Spanish now have the right to negotiate terms of the next challenge with the holders Alinghi rather than GGYC. God only knows what the impact of this on the next event will be and where we go from here, but if you’re having trouble sleeping, you can read the full ruling here.
Something for a Friday – a video of an Australian submarine sinking an old US Navy cruiser by torpedo off Hawaii last month. HMAS Waller was apparently testing a new type of torpedo with sonar optimised for performance in shallow waters.
The Chinese organising authorities claim to have cleared the Olympic sailing venue of Quingdao of its infamous weed, just weeks before the August 8th start of the games. A task force of over 10,000 “volunteers” using hand tools moved a staggering one million tonnes of algae and the area continues to be patrolled to ensure that the outbreak does not reoccur. More details in The Times here
A veritable smorgasbord of interesting boats were in Falmouth this weekend. Everything from the remarkable Jester and her sister China Blue through Temptress, owned by Mark Fishwick, author of the deservedly best selling West Country Cruising Companion, all the way through to the Royal Navys Type 22 HMS Cornwall and patrol vessel HMS Puncher. Busy times indeed !
I’m pleased to see that the IMRG (the industry body for e-retailers, of which Nare are a member), have just released their annual sales index report for the first 6 months of 2008. The report shows a huge growth in the number of people buying goods online with £26.5 billion being spent online from January – June, up a massive 38% on the same period in 2007. This is despite the credit crunch and shows that more and more of the population are comfortable with using the internet to purchase product. Hopefully this trend will continue and also be reflected within the chandlery sector. More details on the IMRG website here.
July 16, 2008 at 9:40 am
· Filed under Uncategorized
I think the UK coastguards need to get themselves a better PR agency. Whilst today, you seemingly can’t pick up a newspaper without seeing coverage of todays strike by council workers, there seems to be almost no mention of this weekends planned action by our coastguards. Between 7.30pm on this Friday (July 18th) and 7.30pm on Sunday (July 20th), coastguards will be striking in protest at a planned pay deal which sees some experienced staff receiving a pay increase of less than 1%. This is at an agency where watch assistants recently had to be a given a one off rise to ensure their pay met the national minimum wage and where many staff are routinely paid 25% less than their equivalents in other emergency services. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency say that non striking staff and senior managers will provide cover during the period of the strike to ensure that core emergency functions remain unaffected.
Thomas Coville crossed the finishing line at the Lizard this morning to set a new record for a singlehanded transatlantic crossing. His time ? A remarkable 5 days, 19 hours, 29 minutes and 20 seconds ! Congratulations to Coville and everyone involved in the attempt.
