April Newsletter

100 Marina Bay Drive P.O. Box 9008 Sylvan Lake AB T4S 1S6 www.sylvansailing.com

1.America's Cup on TV
2. More America's Cup stuff
3.CYA Keelboat Racing Standards
4. Louis Vitton Cup
5.Race Committee Report
6. Learn-To-Sail program
7. Spring Meeting

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* From Peter Rusch, Media and Communications, 32nd America's Cup: (in response to Chris Carroll in ‘butt 2314 regarding ACUP media in Canada) America’s Cup Management (ACM) and Alcatel-Lucent, the Official New Media Provider for the 32nd America's Cup, are working hard to finalise a deal with TSN that will provide broadcast/online coverage of the 32nd America's Cup in Canada.

At this stage, TSN/TSN.ca will look to provide the following coverage:

=> 6 x "wrap-up" Highlight Programmes (produced at the conclusion of each stage of the event) to be screened on TSN. There is the possibility of additional coverage on TSN2.

=> TSN.ca to webcast (live and on-demand) all races from the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup Final through to the conclusion of the 32AC Match (available in Canada only)

Canadians can also follow the races of the 32nd America's Cup live and virtual (including audio commentary by AC Radio) by subscribing to "America's Cup Live Sailing" by Alcatel-Lucent. Daily video news clips of the racing will also be produced and posted on this website. This service can be found at http://www.americascupanywhere.com

Finally....some good news! Copy & paste this site to your browser to get a current schedule of the events on TSN, tho "live" racing will not start until the beginning of the Louis Vitton Final on June 1st

http://www.americascup.com/multimedia/docs/2007/04/tvrh_broadcast_schedules_2007_3.4.07_.xls

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Armchair viewing of the 32nd America's Cup

(April 12, 2007) The following information comes courtesy of the 2008 Horton-Nichol Olympic Star Campaign (USA), wherein Andy Horton is among the crew on Luna Rosa Challenge (ITA).

If you want a detailed description of the racing each day, go to the official AC site: www.americascup.org. Live coverage on the Internet is available as follows:

• Free live audio is on http://mfile.akamai.com/33786/live/reflector:24937.asx?bkup=40410 It is the same coverage as on the www.americascup.org site only it is actually more in sync with the 3D simulation I mention below. The live-action play-by-play calls for both versions are by GBR's Andy Green. His commentary will be lively and informed, as it has been for the last two years. (Hint: when he says "And there's nothing in it", he means the boats are dead even.)

• At the same time you are listening above, you can go to www.americascup.org and watch a live bar chart indicating who is ahead and by how much. Once again, you don't have to pay to enjoy that feature.

• For more live information, you'll have to pay about $40 US. Go to www.americascupanywhere.com and pay the price to watch 3D simulations on your cell phone, desktop PC or laptop. This program shows you who is ahead, by how much, what their speeds and headings are, etc. You can fully control how and where you view the race. The races are archived for the entire 32nd AC campaign (13 regattas over the last three years), so you can watch the little simulated boats racing in earlier rounds later if you cannot watch live. The audio play-by-play is not possible in the "playback" mode.

The April race schedule is:
- Round 1: 9-race match-racing series 4/16 ­ 4/23
- Round 2: 9-race match-racing series 4/25 ­ 5/7

The early days of each Round are likely to involve opponents ranked at opposite ends of the scale, and all the underdogs have a chance against the "big guys". With new boats for each team, these first rounds may bring a few surprises and will feature "interesting" crew work on these highly loaded boats. At the end of Round 2, all but four Challengers will be eliminated.

Louis Vuitton Challenger Selection Trials dates are:
- Round 1: 5/14 ­ 5/25 will be a series of 9 races ­ one per day
- Round 2: 6/1 ­ 6/12 will be a series of 9 races ­ one per day

• As for television, the Versus network is serving the US, with limited coverage during the early rounds, and then full coverage beginning May 14 for the semi-final rounds of the challenger series. See the Show Listings in the Scuttlebutt Event Calendar for the Versus schedule.

If you want to try racing on your PC, you can download Virtual Skipper 4 (VSK4) at the game download site, www.virtualskipper-game.com/en. I would caution you that, while VSK4 is great, the AC website is deceptive. It leads you to think you are about to download the "Americas Cup 32" version (VSK5). If you look verrrrrrry carefully, you'll quickly see that is not the case. You can load ONLY VSK4 now. Though VSK4 does have the AC boats and the Valencia and other ports, the software is two years old and has not been (and probably won't be) upgraded to the level they are advertising on the AC website.

Wait until the actual "Americas Cup 32" version, Virtual Skipper 5, is released in late April. The company is NOT likely to allow you to upgrade for free to the new version (VSK1 thru VSK4 are stand-alones without even discounted upgrades…), and it will be worth the wait for those of you who want to experience the best and most realistic virtual racing experience that exists right now. You can race alone or against others online in lively fleet and match racing regattas, too, which are interesting, but not for the timid.

Enjoy the vicarious sailing now - and the real thing this summer!

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http://www.americascupanywhere.com/internet_tv/

Race Committee - Changes to Scoring
In past years, a boat that served as Committee Boat for the race was scored 3 points. For a boat that consistently scored 1's & 2's, this was a detriment, as much as it was an advantage tot he boat that consistently scored 5's & 6's.
In the interest of fairness, the RC has changed this so the boat will be scored her AVERAGE score of the races she has raced in. This is the way most other clubs are handling this issue.

It will make a differance when you review the race results for each Division, on the website, as the score for the RC boat will appear as "???RDGa". (That means ReDress Given avergae) Her score will show in the "Overall Results" page however. This score will be a "moving target". If a boat were to socre 10 in her first race, then do RC duty for the 2nd race, her next score would also be a 10. If she were then to score a 1st on the next 2 races, her score for the 2nd race would now be 10+1+1=12/3=4, giving her a total score of 10+4+1+1=16. (I'm sure you all have enough mathematical intelligence to work this through!). Undoubtedly there will be a couple of glitches, so let us know if you find one!

Learn-To-Sail

The SLSC is hosting a Learn-To-Sail Program (age 10 - 17) this summer, July 23 - 27. Boats & instrucors will be here form the Northern Alberta Sailing School to privide instruction. This program (put together by Nancy Smith, Joan Moore & Dennis Ethier) is barely out of the box yet & they are getting lots of good responce from around the province.

In order for this to happen in the usual well organized and gracious manner that our club is famous for, we require the following items.
1. Billeting for 3 instructors. It can be three different homes and you would need to assist with thier nutritional needs.
2. Another inflatable dinghy for the coaches to use.
3. A truck to tow the boat trailer from Wabumum & back (July 22 & July 28)

If you can fill any one of these needs, please phone Joan Moore (403) 556-7378, or Nancy Smith (403) 782-6182.


Spring Meeting

Spring Meeting
May 5, Sylvan Lake Golf & CC Club
Business Meeting - 4:00 PM
..........lots interesting stuff that has been happening over the winter (in case you thought we all went to sleep!)
Banquet - 7:00 PM
Awards - 9:00 PM
Social - well....the whole thing is a social isn't it?