As boats begin to stack up in the boatyards and thoughts of winter vacations and Southern sailing begin to stir, we find ourselves surrounded by awesome visuals, with plenty more on the horizon as the Moth Worlds, Transat Jacque Vabre, and Mini Transat get ready to roll. So sit back and enjoy some great videos on a Saturday.
The New King James
You may not realize it yet, but with his frank nature and willingness to wear his heart on his sleeve, Jimmy Spithill just might be the new Dennis Conner, and he might just love America more than most natives. But he doesn’t pull punches and he doesn’t back down, and he gave Mr. Clean yet another fascinating interview via Skype yesterday, digging into some of the tougher issues of their obstacle-laden run to the repeat. Find out who “James” is, how Jimmy personally felt about the cheating scandal and how difficult it was to overcome, how media and sponsorship distractions fit into a program, where he thinks the AC72s can go, what the most important thing for the future of youth and sailing is, and whether he’ll throw his hat into the ring for the Aussie challenge. Full of info, largely thanks to the Anarchists for coming up with the info…the thread is here.
Le Tour De Force
They’re a little cagey about their boat, but to his credit Franck Cammas gave us most of what we needed to be able to show you just what made this ‘mini ETNZ’ tick in our final boat tour of the 2013 International C-Class Cat Championship. It is of course Groupama C, and it crushed the field for France’s first-ever win of the badass regatta. Just one more video from the SA team remains for the C-Class story of 2013, and the indexed guide to the entire event to follow. In the meantime, we hear of a couple of new teams stirring…
Hey; It Wasn’t Me.
We’ll take any opportunity to run this video by you again because it is just so good, and it’s not everyday a sailboat race gets a million Youtube views. Oh Tanker Crash Video, We Knew Ye At Three Hundred and One!
Not so good for the brainless yacht skipper and ex Royal Naval officer who’s now claiming the captain of the tanker was speeding and ran him over during Cowes Week. An easy call for the Court to find him negligent, but a trial is just another jury room with the same rules; once you go in there, anything can happen. You remember this very near-Darwin awarder? Talk about it here. Title from this (swallow liquids before viewing).
Compression Chamber
You saw what happened from the helicopter, now check out the inside view of the Paprec-Virbac tipping point. The story goes like this: Promo shoot for the sponsors as Bilou and JP Dick work up the boat for the Transat Jacques-Vabres in a couple of weeks. “I saw a big gust from behind and eased the main traveler, but not enough,” JPD said. This video was shot by some of the news crews, tucked down below so the deck was clean for the heli shots. Once again the lesson is learned: If there’s over 5 knots of breeze, there will never be a single moment of rest on a big modern multihull. Lots to talk about in a few languages; go here for all of it.
