Archive for October, 2008
October 31, 2008 at 9:13 am
· Filed under Uncategorized
The politicking continues apace in the Americas Cup, but it does at least seem that the amount of dialogue between teams is increasing. Yesterday, a competitor meeting was held at the Société Nautique de Genève to discuss getting the competition back on the water. Chaired by Brad Butterworth, the event followed on from a series of one to one meetings between Alinghi and the challenger syndicates and was attended by eleven teams including Alinghi, Desafío Español, Emirates Team New Zealand, Shosholoza and Britains Team Origin. Agenda items included cost containment ideas not least of which was the creation of a new class of boat for the event. Of course the conspicuous absentee was BMW Oracle, but the meeting did wrap up by agreeing a letter to Larry Ellisons team requesting that they cease legal action and engage around getting the competition back on track as soon as possible. Fingers crossed…. More details here.
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October 30, 2008 at 10:27 am
· Filed under general business, general sailing ·Tagged select yachts
Select Yachts, manufacturers of Cornish Crabbers and Cornish Shrimpers, as well as the Hunter range of boats have entered into voluntary liquidation. 20 employees of the Rock based boatyard will lose their jobs. The liquidation was apparently forced by money owed to the Inland Revenue, but according to the firms management, no customers will be left out of pocket. Practical Boat Owner has more details.
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October 28, 2008 at 11:33 am
· Filed under racing ·Tagged Americas cup
In order to ensure the participation of the Americas Cup holders at the forthcoming Luis Vuitton Pacific Cup, Team New Zealand have dropped their lawsuit against Alinghi. The series is scheduled to be sailed in Auckland in February 2009. More details here.
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October 28, 2008 at 11:26 am
· Filed under racing ·Tagged volvo ocean race
Arguably the team of the Volvo Ocean Race so far are the Dutch / Irish entry of Team Delta Lloyd. The boat is the old ABM Amro One, winner of the last race, but she is a generation old now and was expected to lag behind the newer boats that were designed specifically for the different conditions in this edition of the race. The team is led by Irish property developer Ger O’Rourke and the core of it is from his highly succesful Chieftan boats. Whilst proven winners in a number of classes, most recently with their Cookson 50, the team has almost zero VO70 experience and is the nearest the race has to a Corinthian campaign. Added to this is the last minute confirmation of the entry and the fact that the team is limited in budget, support and sails compared to many of the others. Despite all of this however, they are apparently getting more out of the boat with every mile sailed and are right in the hunt as the race heads towards Cape Town. I can’t believe that there are many people following the race who aren’t rooting for them !
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October 24, 2008 at 8:49 am
· Filed under e-business, racing
As a long time internet marketeer and owner of an online chandlery business I’m interested in and try to keep up to date with developments on the internet. The last 5 years or so have seen quantum leaps in both the technology and in the way that users interact with the internet (hence the rise of Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg from Harvard drop out to the youngest self made billionaire ever). However, it has to be said that the marine sector has generally lagged behind others, possibly as a result of the sectors demographic profile being somewhat different to those that were more enthusiastic adopters of the internet. I’ve therefore been both surprised and delighted to see the quality of the official website for the Volvo Ocean Race. The site contains, not just race positions and daily updates, but a host of video and audio content, a real time race viewer and even a race simulation game. Excellent work by the team responsible. Meantime, in the race itself, the whole fleet is now through the first scoring gate and is currently led by the multi talented Ian Walkers Green Dragon. A great effort by the Chinese sponsored Irish boat, and one which you could probably have got good odds against before the race start…
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October 23, 2008 at 8:19 am
· Filed under general sailing, olympic sailing, racing ·Tagged ben ainslie
The man himself may currently be clinging to the wheel of Virgin Money in forty knot winds somewhere in the north Atlantic, but Ben Ainslies Olympic gold medal winning Finn is in more peaceful surroundings. The quaintly named Rita has just been delivered to the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth where she will join Ainslies Sydney Olympic gold winning Laser on display until the end of the year. Incredibly, the National Maritime Museum Falmouths website carries no mention of this, but luckily for those of you who want further info, Yachting Monthly are more on the ball.
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October 23, 2008 at 8:08 am
· Filed under chandlery, e-business
Frighteningly, Christmas is just two months away. In preparation, all of us at Nare have been heads down putting together a range of Christmas gifts. I think we’ve got some great stuff, including beautiful solid brass barometers and clocks, some great thermal boots and the ever popular XM Offshore Suit. Anyhow, there’s lots of speculation in the press as to how the retail sector is going to fare over Christmas, so here’s hoping that the chandlery market will remain reasonably buoyant…
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October 22, 2008 at 8:38 am
· Filed under racing ·Tagged ben ainslie, speedboat, virgin money
According to reports in New York, Virgin Money (the Juan K super maxi formerly known as Speedboat) will commence her transatlantic record attempt today. The team onboard includes not just boat captain Mike Sanderson and Richard Branson, but also Olympic dinghy legend Ben Ainslie, who will be undertaking his first Atlantic crossing. Virgin Money will be aiming for the current record of 6 days, 17 hrs, 52 minutes and 39 seconds to the Lizard, currently held by the monster ketch Mari Cha IV . More details here.
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October 21, 2008 at 10:44 am
· Filed under general sailing ·Tagged Pete Goss
As reported, Pete Goss and crew aboard Spirit of Mystery left Newlyn harbour at 6pm yesterday, en route for Melbourne. They hope to reach Cape Town in time for Christmas. You can follow progress on Goss’ blog, from which the picture below of them leaving Newlyn is taken.
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October 21, 2008 at 10:02 am
· Filed under racing ·Tagged hugo boss
The Hugo Boss team in Les Sables d’Olonne are flat out attempting to repair the damage inflicted in their trawler collision on Friday. Although timescales are incredibly tight before the Vendee Globe race start, it seems that things aren’t quite as bad as they could have been. The rig has been recovered and it seems that the carbon mast will be able to be repaired. Remarkably the sails are apparently undamaged. Meanwhile work to repair the hull goes on with the original moulds being used to produce a section to fill the five metre long, two metre high hole in the boats side and work ongoing with the internal structures. Read more on Alex Thomsons website and keep everything crossed for them…
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