* Win Some, Lose Some. Tough week for "los amigos y hermanos de J/24s".
For starters, kindred J/24 spirits in Argentina were winning the J/24
Worlds. But, their mentors and heroes were suffering interminable bad
breaks. For one,
Ken Read's Volvo 70 PUMA Mar Mastro suffered
the worst fate anyone of us could imagine, watching their super
high-tech Scott Ferguson/ Hall Spars custom special carbon uber-rig
simply fall over the side in three pieces in just 20+ knot winds in a
long period 10-12 foot swell about 3 pm UTC off Brazil, about 700 nm
from nowhere on Monday, November 21st. What gives? Maybe a symptom of
the massive forces/ acceleration experienced in the first 48 hours of
the race? Certainly the conditions back then were bad enough to knock
two of their competitors out of contention already (Abu Dhabi and Team
Sanya). Nevertheless,
they're still "Thankful" for surviving to date. Also, still surviving (and leading) are
Iker Martinez on TELEFONICA, the ETNZ CAMPER boys and the French Connection on-board Franck Camas's team on GROUPAMA.
* A world apart and surviving in a tactical way was
Terry Hutchinson on ARTEMIS RACING.
Sailing strongly in the America's Cup World Series on the AC45 cats in
the racing leading up to the final days, Terry's team were handily in
the top four. But a shift here, a hole there and in the blink of an eye
(e.g. 30 seconds) their hopes were dashed from competing for the
finals. Next up? First race in 2012 is in Italy followed by Newport in
late June! Should be quite a sight to see these 45 foot cats flying
around Narragansett Bay at light speeds between Castle Hill Light and
the Newport Bridge! Maybe some wise guy named Larry will show up with
an AC72 foot version and show it off, too!? Now, that would be very,
very cool.
