Course: Casquets (P), Ushant (P), Ponta de Sâo Lourenço (S), Quinta do Lorde. Approximately 1,480 miles The Cowes to Madeira Yacht Race organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club is certain to provide some challenging and spectacular ocean sailing ...

Organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club with the Société des Régates Rochelaises and the Royal Yacht Squadron. Course: Cowes – Needles Channel –Eddystone (P), Ushant (P), Chaussee de Sein buoy (P), PA buoy - off La Rochelle (P), ...

With the 6th St. Moritz Match Race taking place between 2-7 September, once again the world’s best Match Racers will be on the starting line as eight of the top ten sailors from the ISAF world ranking list have ...

Dee started Cowes Week with an invitation to the funfair. The British entries in the Vendée Globe were asked along to a photo shoot that placed them in a typically ‘British’ seaside setting and what better place than a ...

 Following the postponement ashore to the start of the third and final leg of La Solitaire du Figaro race this morning, a modification to the course was announced to the skippers this afternoon.   Because of the 40 to ...

Louise Morton and her super-hot girls team on the 1980-built Farr-designed Quarter Tonner Espada have had an amazing week. They started off with two seconds on the first two days and things just got better and better from then ...

Louise Morton and her super-hot girls team on the 1980-built Farr-designed Quarter Tonner Espada have had an amazing week. They started off with two seconds on the first two days and things just got better and better from then ...

The Green Dragon Volvo Open 70 set off for her mandatory 2000-mile Volvo Ocean Race qualification passage from her base in Cork this morning (08/08/08). The boat, which is sailing with a crew of 13, will head south to ...

Dockwise Ltd. announces that two new contracts have been awarded to its subsidiary Dockwise Shipping for the transportation of one of the largest semi submersible drilling rigs and various floating equipment. Dockwise Shipping will transport the new build 6th ...

Six sailors will feature amongst the 204 flagbearers participating in the Opening Ceremony of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The International Olympic Committee announced the list of the flagbearers for the 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) shortly before ...

The first leg of the solo regatta Simrad OneStar in Norway got off to a fresh and wet start this week. A rough and confused sea sent some of the sailors in to a state of seasickness, but most ...

  The British Yngling team was first to the hoist after practice racing was abandoned at the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Centre on Thursday. Sarah AYTON, Sarah WEBB, and Pippa WILSON (GBR) are favoured to win gold in the Women’s Keelboat –Yngling ...

The countdown clock has reached zero days to go, and the 2008 Olympic Games gets underway with the Opening Ceremony at 2008hrs in Beijing tonight. For Team GB’s sailors competing out in Qingdao, this marks the culmination of their ...

Visitors to Skandia Cowes Week will undoubtedly have seen the grey Naval ship moored in the Central Solent during the week. She is in fact the ORP Heweliusz, hydrographic survey ship from the Polish Navy. According to Geoff Banks ...

  Today could be one of the lightest days we've seen so far at this year's Skandia Cowes Week. According to weather expert Chris Tibbs a west to north-westerly air stream with a band of showers will cross southern England this ...

  Unbeaten in the Finn since 2004 Ben Ainslie talks to Robert Deaves about his preparation for the Olympic Games, the competition he is faced with and his thoughts on the future. Without doubt Ben Ainslie (GBR) is one ...

  Olympic sailors John Dane III and Austin Sperry were taped for the Today Show late last night in Beijing, and are slated to air on NBC the morning of Friday, August 8 pending breaking news. Please check your ...

One of the bigger changes in the new rule book are the changes to the mark room zone rules.

The previously blury 2 boat lengths is now a more solid 3 boat lengths. Here’s the new definition of a zone:

Zone: The area around a mark within a distance of three hull lengths of the boat nearer to it. A boat is in the zone when any part of her hull is in the zone.

I had someone ask me the other week how I thought 3 boat lengths would change the tactics in Team Racing. The short and long answer is that it won’t. The new Appendix D changes the definition back to 2 boat lengths…

D1.1(a) In the definition Zone the distance is changed to two hull lengths.

There will be a small change in the rules effect on Team Racing. One of the reasons behind changing 2 boats lengths to 3 was to seek to clear up a lot of the confusion with the hazy distance that was two boat lengths in the 2005-08 rules.

Rule 18.1 previously stated that Rule 18 applied when the boats began to round or pass the obstruction. This meant that in heavy winds and/or with spinnakers, the distance could be 3 or 4 boat lengths. At times it was a judgement call on the behalf of the competitor, judge or umpire.

No more! In the new rules the zone is fixed by the definition, so the zone in Team Racing is now always 2 boat lengths, not when the boats are “about to round or pass”. This should seek to clear up the confusion around when mark room begins to apply and make it easier on competitors and umpires alike.

Jos at Look to Windward also discussed the changes over on his blog

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SCUTTLEBUTT 2656 - August 8 2008: The latest news in the sport of sailing, letters from the 'buttheads, and the Curmudgeon's Observation.

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