From: Scott Collinson-CHUM Group Radio [scottco@chumgroupradio.com]

Sent: Thursday, February 25, 1999 1:50 PM

Subject: Mumm 30 Newsletter, #1, February 25/98

Mumm 30 Newsletter #1 February 1999

Inside:

President's Address - David Irish

Where better to start than with a good "Well Done" to our 1998 Champions. The East Coast Champions, from The New York Yacht Club Race Week, were Mike Dressell and Al Hobart in a chartered USA 50. The drinking water sailors in the Great Lakes had a three-regatta series and the Surprises came out ahead.

From the Chesapeake Fleet, the '98 season saw PITA, Kevin McNeil, placing third; with Mirage, Lewis/Salvesen, in second; and Turbo Duck, Bodo von der Wense taking the season Championship. For the North American Championship Circuit, Bent Dietrich in Rainbow was third; Phil Garland, Dick Shulman, and Mike Keyworth in Trouble, second; and our North American Champion for 1998 is Ed Collins and Barry Allardice in USA 48.

The 1998 Lewmar Cup, having moved to September this year in order to coordinate schedules with the Worlds, was a well attended, but light air event. Third-place went to Bent Dietrich in Rainbow; second went to Garland/Shulman/Keyworth in Trouble; and a well-deserved first-place to the Salvesen/Lewis team in Mirage, prevailing in some very testy conditions.

The World Championship came to North America in 1998, ably and generously hosted by the South Carolina Yacht Club on Hilton Head Island. Despite some challenges of water depth getting in and out, it was a nice place to sail, a 35 boat turnout, and a dominant performance by the Europeans. Luca Bassani's, Sissabella, from Monaco won the World Championship. A strong showing from Allardice/Collins, in USA 48, were the best from this side of the water, finishing second. In third was the family team of Jack, Lisa & Bruce LeFort.

The owners met in Annapolis in September and again at the Worlds in November. Significant matters include the new status and responsibilities as an ISAF Recognised class, sail numbers of NA boats to match hull numbers and bow numbers for the Worlds and subsequently, and various minor rule compliance issues. There are some questions concerning the equipment requirements of the class to be resolved. The 1999 schedule was discussed, an owner's poll taken, and people assigned to finalise the schedule.

Competitor Eligibility has been at the core of the Mumm 30 class since inception, and the subject usually comes up at owners meetings. Owners repeated express strong support for strict control of non-amateur involvement in the class. The eligibility rule has some changes effective 1-1-99, and owners may need to review compliance of their crews.

I want to extend special thanks to Champaign Mumm and Lewmar Marine for their sponsorship support in 1998. Their support has helped with class administration from Farr International, and has made it possible to have superior regattas. As this is written, Lewmar has committed to sponsor the Lewmar Cup, but no commitment has been obtained from Mumm. While discussing support of our class, I want to give special thanks to our builder, Barry Carroll for meeting a last minute deficit at the Worlds. In addition to these special friends of our Class, we should all recognise the Yacht Clubs that host our regattas, and take every chance to assure they know of our appreciation. With out regatta hosts, we have no racing.

The Annual Meeting of the Class will be at the Lewmar Cup in Annapolis in October. I have decided to schedule the meeting on Saturday or Sunday morning of the event, bright and early, with a possible delayed dock start that day. It has been quite difficult to get the owners together efficiently after the race as the time we come ashore is variable and we may be scattered around the waterfront and tired from a day on the water. If we can meet at 0800, do our business with a fixed ending time of say 0930, we can still dock start by 0945.

Looking ahead, this newsletter contains our 1999 schedules, along with notation of the special opportunities of foreign competition in the Tour de France a la voile, and the 1999 Worlds in the UK.

We have a superb boat to sail, wonderful events to do, and the best people to sail with.

Have a great season.

David Irish

A Word From ISAF - Paul Henderson, President

Mumm 30 Sailors;

It is a great pleasure to welcome the Mumm 30 as an ISAF recognized class. The modern trend to multi-crewed one-designs has been reflected in ISAF initiating a new committee to look after the specific needs of this area of Sailing. Dave Irish, who just happens to sail a Mumm 30, is the new Chairman.

The Mumm 30 is well suited for the now emerging focus of our sport. Sailing must be friendly to both men and women, allowing both the expert and rookie to participate, in boats that last, respecting the traditions of Yacht Clubs and their volunteers.

It is encouraging to see that the Mumm 30 has endeavored to address the problem of what is affectionately called the "Rock Stars" who make their living from sailing. Although the complete answer yet to be found to control this situation, ISAF is very interested on how to give guidelines to those classes that wish to have limitations. We will look to the Mumm 30 initiative as a model for future regulations.

Good Sailing to you all!!

Regards,

Paul Henderson

President ISAF

1999 Schedules

World Championship

Sep 15-19, Mumm 30 Worlds, Royal Southern Yacht Club, Hamble, U.K.

U.S. Championship Circuit

Championship Circuit points will be decided from the best four scores out of the six-regatta series, using low point scoring from Appendix A of the RRS 1997-2000.

Six boats must compete to qualify the regatta for the series points.

East Coast Championship - Contact: Nelson Stephenson,

Low-point scoring, best three to count. Class weight limit. Sail Buttons not required.

Chesapeake Fleet - Contact: Nick & Sandy Malakis,

High Point Scoring.

Great Lake Circuit - Contact: Mike Leland, 219-464-8581

Tour de France www.tourvoile.fr

The web site here really says it all.

The Tour is a four-week compilation of distance and course racing during the month of July. The event begins in the north of France and ends in the Mediterranean. There are amateur and professional divisions and sponsorship is encouraged. If you don't want to ship your boat there, complete charters are available through K-Yachting, again see web site. Also, if four-weeks is just a little more time than you can afford, Ed Collins and Co. are considering taking a boat over that could be pieced out for various stages of the event.

International News

As discussed in the Schedules section, the 1999 World Championship is being hosted by the Royal Southern Yacht Club, Hamble U.K. There are two Regattas in August that could be used as tune up events:

Launching Sites in the area are plentiful. They include: Moody's, Swanwick Marina, Hamble Point Marina, and Hamble Yacht Services.

Coaches Corner - The "Set-Gybe" by Scott Collinson, Steadfast USA 4

Because so many of us hoist and douse our spinnakers from the forehatch, it has become a real challenge to execute a proper gybe set without sending the bowperson forward to get the gear and the pole around to the opposite sides. If a gybe is necessary at the weather mark, there are two ways we deal with the situation.

First, because we often race with offset marks at the top: if port tack is heavily favored downwind, it probably means that the offset leg is pretty broad. Hoist as soon as possible so that the crew will be able to clean up and execute an immediate gybe at the spacer mark. Now, if there is no spacer mark, or the offset leg is too tight to hoist, we execute what we call a "Set-Gybe." This manoeuvre is a matter of hoisting and rolling into a gybe immediately. The helmsperson and the trimmer must really be on the ball to nail it.

Keys to a good Set-Gybe:

With practice, and depending upon conditions, you should be able to get onto port gybe about one boat-length away from the mark.

Results and Reports, plus Tuning - by Phil Garland, Trouble USA 66

Key West race week was, as usual, a great regatta. We had a full range of conditions from light air early in the week to Friday's "breeze-on" with a steady 22 kt. The Mumm 30 division was again blessed with the great committee work of Ken Legler and his team getting in a total of 8 races. The lines were good and the races were 6-10 mi windward-leeward. The starting line area was set up closer to the ship channel than normal, which resulted in stronger current across the first part of the racecourse. It made the usual "go left" tactic in the northeast breeze less of a sure thing. The two Italian's, Carla Silva on "Sector" and Massimo Mezzaroma on "Malinda" sailed an excellent series, neither boat finishing out of the top ten all week. Also, Ed Collins/Barry Allardice and Lindsay Clarkson were consistent, with "USA 48" winning three races and "Blurr" only out of the top ten once all week. Later in the week, as the breeze clocked from the northeast to east and finally southeast on Thursday, the seaweed was blown in from offshore and became a problem with big bunches catching on the blades. On Friday the patches were so large they were impossible to avoid. We tried not to think about it and just go fast!

One thing we did learn was that the frac. kite is not really needed until it's blowing 25kt +. We found that the boat was actually easier to jibe with the masthead kite because we were going faster and there was less load on everything. Of course, it's easier to say that now, sitting in front of my confuser!

After sailing the Mumm 30 for a year, I am really excited about the performance of this offshore one-design. The speed and ease of handling in a breeze is great and the light air performance is pretty impressive despite the lack of an overlapping jib. For me the challenge is to shift gears properly in light to medium winds which can be complicated if you have the boat set up for one extreme of the wind range.

We have reviewed most of the sailmakers tuning guides and found everyone pretty close on the basic tuning scheme. After initially setting up the mast in the center of the boat, we have focused on the headstay length as the primary tuning adjustment. The range of headstay length (as measured from the bend in the t-fitting up top to the stemhead pin) is from 40'-1" in light air (our turnbuckle fully open) to 39'-10.5" in heavy air (our turnbuckle 2/3 closed). The medium air setting is about 39'-11.5" to 40'-0". Aside from that I adjust the lowers and intermediates to get the desired prebend. From the medium air setting we tighten 2-4 turns on the lower for heavy air and loosen 2 turns for light air. The D2 are tightened some for heavy air. On Friday at Key West we were very fast in 22 kt with the headstay set at the minimum length and the lowers tightened 4 turns. Prior to leaving the dock, we also tightened the uppers 3 turns, which in turn pulled the D2 on and straightened the rig. Adjusting the upper is a way to effectively tension the D2 without going up the rig. Note: it is advisable to ease the headstay fully open prior to taking tension on the uppers so there is less load when you are turning the barrels; some tension on the backstay will help too. Once your uppers are set, ease the backstay and tighten the headstay to the desired length. On the water, we go upwind and look at how the main is setting up; if it's too full we ease the D1 and vice versa if it's too flat.

Some other things we have done that seem to help:

Deck gear-we cross-sheet the jib to the weather winch (j-24 style) which allows us to make adjustments while hiking out. We have ratchet blocks for the sheets and guys and we moved the spin. Sheet block forward to the padeye for the guy, which gives a better lead to the winch in a breeze. We've added auto-ratchet blocks for the backstay control line where it turns outboard to the cleat to provide some resistance when it is tight.

Running rigging-we use tapered sheets and guys to a common shackle and have a single spectra jib sheet with a single j-lock shackle in the middle. We normally pull one jib halyard up the mast to minimize weight aloft and we have tapered all our halyards. The main halyard tail is a single braid spectra to save weight. We did have some chafe problems with the jib halyards which may have been caused by some overlength fasteners for the Ronstan pad-eyes that are used to fairlead the halyards at the hounds. We broke our outhaul (this has happened to a few boats) due to a stamped shackle on the Schaefer single block that has sharp edges. The solution is to add a thimble to the eye of the technora rope or switch the shackle to a forged one. If the rope is chaffed badly it may need to be respliced. If you find a problem, you can send it back to hall rigging and we will correct it at no charge. It is a good idea to pull the entire outhaul system out of the boom and check it on a regular basis. The other problem we've had is bending the bail on the spinnaker pole ring on the mast. We're experimenting with some reinforcement to the ring-of course keeping the pole out of the water might also solve the problem!

One thing we've learned sailing this boat upwind is to keep the bow down and go fast-it seems that the short chord length keel works better and your net vmg the best, particularly in a breeze. In the last race of key west this year which we won, we were very fast upwind using the heavy jib and carrying a lot of twist in the main. We were pretty aggressive about playing the mainsheet and the jib sheet in the puffs. We're looking forward to the remainder of the circuit-see you on the water.

Dock Talk: Nantucket Gold Regatta - Janice Carroll

The Nantucket Gold Regatta is part of our North American Circuit this year. This is an event that lets, you enjoy some great racing at an outstanding venue, and also do good by helping out a terrific Children's Charity. Proceeds from the Nantucket Gold Regatta go to the, Rhode Island Foundation for Children. Charities that this foundation has helped in the past include:

Special Olympics, Sailing Program; The RI Food Bank; and the Rhode Island Children's Literacy Program.

The Regatta is June 4-6 as stated above. The Notice of Race will be distributed by email and snail mail. There is free launch and haul courtesy of Carroll Marine at Sail Newport and a fun-filled social at Fort Adams on the Saturday night. Dockage may be arranged by calling Sail Newport at 401-846-1983. For specific inquiries please contact, Janice Carroll at 401-253-1264. Let's make this one the highlight of our season!

Editor's Notes - Scott Collinson

Because I'm putting this together, I guess I get the last word! I hope you've enjoyed the first addition of The Mumm 30 Electronic Newsletter. It has been designed to both inform, and promote, the class. A few things have to happen for this publication to be an ongoing success.

They are:

1. Email addresses! We need yours! Not just boat owners, associates, crew, or potential boat owners. Please forward them to me. As you can see, the distribution list is hidden, so no need to worry about junk email.

2. Many thanks to this edition's contributors. We want your contributions: Regatta Reports, Technical Info, Tuning Tips, Classified Ads, or Letters to the Editor.

3. Feedback! It's your Class, it's your Newsletter.

Scott Collinson

(416) 926-4153 bus

(416) 926-4156 fax