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Andrew Weiss's J/122 CHRISTOPHER DRAGON (above) has just been named the winner of the US-IRC's Gulf Stream Series. The series includes events on the east coast of America, Bermuda and the Caribbean. To qualify, boats need to sail in three of 10 different buoy regattas, two of five medium distance races, and one of four Long Distance Races. CHRISTOPHER DRAGON won the series by winning the American Yacht Club's spring and fall series regattas and finished second in the IRC Championship of Long Island Sound (3 Buoy Regattas), was second in the 180-mile Block Island Race and was first in the 240-mile Vineyard Race (both medium distance races), and she had a huge class win in the 430-mile Annapolis-Newport Race.
DRAGON also won the Northern Ocean Racing Trophy, the American Yacht Club's Sherman trophy for best combined performance it the AYC Spring and Fall Series regatta and, the racing division of the New York Yacht Club Cruise. |
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| CHARLES "BUTCH" ULMER, OWNER OF UK-HALSEY INTERNATIONAL ANNOUNCED THE APPOINTMENT OF DES MCWILLIAM AS THE NEW PRESIDENT OF UK-HALSEY INTERNATIONAL |
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| Charles "Butch" Ulmer |
"Des is well respected by the loft owners in the UK-Halsey group," said Butch. "He will be key in getting the this group of independent business owners working together closer, which will help our customers around the world. Des has proved to be a smart businessman, a scientific sailmaker, and he is a good listener with a great sense of humor — all qualities that will help him run UK-Halsey International."
Butch continues to be the sole owner of UK-Halsey International, the parent company of UK-Halsey Sailmakers, but Des will be running the company, which will give Butch more time to devote to the UK-Halsey New York loft. Des's loft is in Cork, Ireland in its 40th year and is well respected in the Irish and English markets.
Des McWilliam has already been instrumental in getting a new loft to the join the group. Sam Haines' loft in Melbourne, Australia joined the group a week after Des started working as the president of UKHI. Along with recruiting new lofts, Des plans to make the group stronger by getting the lofts of work closer together yet.
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| Des McWilliam |
Charles "Buster" Ulmer started Ulmer Sails in 1946 and his son Charles "Butch" Ulmer took over the loft at City Island, New York in 1968. In 1976 when computer aided design was first introduced to sailmaking, Butch created a group of sailmakers to share designs, exchange information on cloth and construction techniques and pool resources for advertising. To run the group, Ulmer International was created. Over the years, the name of the company has changed to Ulmer Kolius International, to UK International and now to UK-Halsey International.
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| SAIL CARE |
 It's been a great summer and unfortunately, old man winter is here all too soon. When you put your boat away, don't forget to send your sails to UK-Halsey Sailmakers for the service that includes washing, inspection, repair and storage in our climate controlled storage facilities. UK Winter Service is preventative maintenance that's designed to look wearing effects of UV sunlight, luffing and flogging, tacking and jibing on your sails. We seek out the small problems before they can turn into big headaches next summer.
To set the wheels in motion all you need to do is bring your sails into the loft or contact us about having them up picked up. You can even ship your sails to your nearest loft pretty economically. We clean, repair and re-cut all brands and of sails.
If you can't bring your sails in for winter service, here is what you can do yourself.
SELF SERVICE
Sails that have been used frequently, or in heavy weather, should be washed at the end of each season. Soak the sails in a warm soap solution for a couple of hours, then hose them off thoroughly. Make sure they are completely dry before folding. You'll need a big space to do this. If the sails are particularly dirty, add a small amount of bleach to the water before soaking. Dirty spots can be lightly scrubbed. Laminate sails should be hosed off, dried and folded. Try not to soak or scrub them.
STAIN REMOVAL
Blood and Mildew: Soak the stained area in a mild bleach solution for two hours; scrub lightly.
Rust: Rust removers are offered under many commercial names and are available at just about any hardware store. Just make sure you rinse the cleaned area thoroughly. One product that works well is Whink's Rust and Iron Stain Remover.
Oil, Grease, and Tar: Dab the stained area with acetone or lighter fluid and then rub the stain with clean rags. Once the stain is lightened, scrub the area with a detergent and water solution. Rinse all the acetone out of the material!
INSPECTION
Spread the sail out and look carefully at the corners. The corners are the highest loaded area on every sail. Check the stitching, the webbing and the layering patches. Make sure the stitching is sound, the webbing is not frayed or sun-bleached and that layers are not coming loose. Any fraying at the top of the boltrope on mains and genoas needs to be neatened up with a hot knife.
On mainsails, check all the slides and the webbing that holds them to the sail. If the main has a boltrope, check both sides of it to make sure there are not cuts in the tape around the rope. If the main has any full-length battens, make sure the Dacron tape around the boltrope is not worn. Look over the batten pockets for wear from scraping against the shrouds.
On genoas, check the back end of the sail carefully. The leech gets dragged across the shrouds and the front of the mast in every tack. Fittings on the mast like a radar, deck light, whisker pole fittings, loud hailer, etc, all act like claws trying to scratch and cut your genoa as it crosses the rig.
If you notice any wear on the sail, get it to your sailmaker for repair. Likewise, if you find any holes, weak spots or rotted webbing, get your sail back to your sailmaker for a professional repair.
Roller furling covers need to be checked carefully because they are designed to take the sun's abuse while protecting the sail. Along with absorbing the sun's harmful UV rays, furling covers get beat up in every tack because they are dragged across the rig. It's a hard life being a roller furling cover; therefore, check the cover's stitching and the integrity of the material. If you have a cover made of UV Dacron, look for cracks in the material, which are a sign that the cover needs to be replaced. The picture to the right shows how well the cover did its job. Part of the cover pealed up during inspection to reveal the clean, protected Dacron sail. Luckily this deteriorating cover was found and will be replaced before the sail goes back into service.
STORAGE
All sails should be folded or rolled in a manner that avoids sharp creases. Sails should be stored under well-ventilated, clean conditions. Dampness, which may encourage mildew should be avoided. Mildew does not effect the strength of sails , but mildew causes unsightly stains that are not easily removed.
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| UK-HALSEY ADDS A FOURTH LOFT IN AUSTRALIA |
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| Sam Haines |
UK-Halsey is proud to announce its newest loft in Melbourne, Australia. Sam Haines has moved his loft to the UK-Halsey group to better serve his customers.
The loft is located on the shores of Port Phillip Bay in the heart of yachting between two of the largest yacht clubs in Australia. Sam started his own loft after being the shore-based sailmaker for Brunel, the Australian entry in the 2005/06 Volvo Ocean Race. Since then his loft has grown steadily. In June 2007 he started producing sails for the maxi yacht Skandia Wild Thing, Cookson 50 Shogun, and TP52 Shogun. In July 2010, he purchased the Melbourne UK-Halsey loft from Mark Rimington and took over its well-located premises in Sandringham. Mark continues to work for us as our head sailmaker.
Stay tuned for more information about our new loft in Melbourne, Victoria.
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| GOOD OLD FASHION SPEED WINS THE GOLD |
Guadalajara, MEXICO, Oct. 24, 2011 -- UK-Halsey's Mauricio Santa Cruz and his team won the gold medal in the J/24 Class of the Pan American Games for Brazil in a hard fought battle with silver medalist John Mollicone from the United States. The delta between the two was never more than three points in the 10-race series. While the US team proved to be better than the Brazilians at match racing, the Brazilians won the gold with sheer speed.
According to Dan Rabin's blog on Sailing World's website, "On Saturday we were in full match race mode with Brazil, so the pre-starts were pretty intense. We ended up even on the day, still with a 3-points lead…For our medal race (on Sunday), we became engaged with Brazil even before the 5-minute warning went off. At less than a minute to the start, we gained an advantage and drew a windward-leeward foul. Brazil had to spin and we continued to slow them down after they came out of their penalty turn. Meanwhile, the other 3 boats were sailing off at least a minute in front of us, duking it out for the bronze. We had a few tacking exchanges with Brazil, and on the last one, they were able to draw a foul on us. We had to spin, but even though we were in last and Brazil was now fourth, it looked like we might have created enough of a gap to the fleet that they would not be able to put the boat in between us that they needed for the gold."
But once Mauricio was free of the match-racing Americans, he put on the jets and chased down the pack ahead. He made up enough ground to finish third, which was good enough to take the gold by one point.
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| LONGTZE WORLD EVENT TAKEN BY TITANIUM |
Stunning images, superb weather, and an increasingly high skill level: the 2011 Longtze season concluded in true style in mid November in Hyères, France, with a victory by Nicolas Bérenger's team (1 Maillot pour la Vie). Twenty-five amateur and professional crews battled it out neck and neck for three days in Hyères, in windy and wavy conditions, which made sailing particularly physical in the 11-race series.
"Longtze regattas are getting harder and harder!" said Bérenger. "The skill level has really jumped up a notch during the season. The fleet is very closely matched; the slightest error could see you lose 15 places! From the first day, we wanted to make our mark because we knew we were one of the most experienced crews on the Longtze. But very quickly, the new guys got the hang of it, which made our victory very hard fought!"
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| COOL VIDEO LINK |
Check out this YouTube video the Pogo2 Mini TransAt 6.5 sailing in the Ship Rock Race off Southern California. UK-Halsey has been supplying sails to the only US production builder of these 21-foot ocean racers that are the proving grounds for professional singlehanded racers. For more information, click here for the Open Sailing website or contact them by e-mail at: info@opensailingusa.com.
Click here to see the boat racing under her huge asymmetrical spinnaker. |
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| Alejandro Osorio sailed his Pandora 34 MEULEN (above) to first in IRC 4 in the just completed Off Valpariso regatta. The week-long event is the second most important regatta in Chile. With her new UK-Halsey Tape-Drive sails, MEULEN finished with four firsts and a second — she dominated her eight-boat class. The 60 boats sailed in divisions of J/105s, J/24s, Soto 40s and four IRC divisions. |
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| BOOMERANG KNOCKS OUT HER FLEET |
(Oct. 29-Nov 4) UK-Halsey Marmaris' Serdar Sahin won the 14-boat IRC 4 class at Marmaris International Race Week, which is the biggest offshore event in Eastern Europe. 150 boats from around the world raced in eight IRC divisions on the Gulf of Marmaris. Four of the divisions were for IRC racers and four more with for IRC Charter boats. Serdar's Dehler 35 BOOMERANG won with all firsts in the four-race series. She trounced the second place boat by nine points.
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| HARVEST MOON |
Powered by UK-Halsey Tape-Drive sails, Cliff Haddox's Aerodyne 38 MUSICA captured Harvest Moon Regatta's Bacardi Cup for winning the 31-boat racing division. The 150-mile distance race goes southwest along the Texas Gulf Coast from Galveston to Port Aransas, which is just outside of Corpus Christi. The regatta was the fourth and final event in MUSICA's 2011 offshore campaign. Kudos to Cliff and his crew on their third title win. Pedro Gianotti, the owner of UK-Halsey Texas, works closely with Haddox on his sail inventory. "Pedro has been super to work with. He's hands on and low key," said Haddox. "When asked about his sail inventory, Haddox said, "Pedro's sail designs are always spot on. In fact a competitor's crewmember commented that he'd been impressed with MUSICA's spinnaker's shape. 'I watched a perfect spinnaker do a horizon job on us.'" |
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| BAKER WINS ENSIGN NATIONALS |
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| Photo: photosbyroth.com |
With a full set of UK-Halsey sails, Jonathan Baker of Austin, Texas won the 44-boat 50th Annual Ensign National Championship on Lake Canandaigua, in upstate New York on August 12-16, 2011.
It was a true family affair for Baker with his younger sister Sarah Faust on bow, brother-in-law Eric Faust as tactician and longtime family friend Tom Groll as trimmer. "Our boat was built in 1964 and it's the same boat my sister and I learned to sail on," said Baker. "When our father passed away and left us the Ensign, we knew we had to keep racing it in his honor. That makes this win even more special for us."
Conditions for the event ranged from 5 to 15 knots with plenty of shifts. "This was my first time to sail the Nationals," noted Baker. "We knew that our boat speed was competitive in local events, but we really had no idea how we would stack up on the national level. Our UK Sails were great. We had speed with the top of the fleet in all conditions. Accelerating out of the lulls was key, and our genoa really had the power to get us up to speed quickly. I'm very happy with the sails."
The racing was very competitive; no boat won more than one race in the nine-race series and Baker won the regatta by eight boats without ever winning a race.
Full Results: |
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| SINGLEHANDED SUPER MAC AND BACK: 1000 MILES OF FRESH WATER RACING |
 In 2011 Adrian van den Hoven aboard his Mirage Ophir raced the Super Mac and Back and placed first in her division and first overall for all three legs, as well as setting a new course record for this singlehanded 1034-mile race. This is an amazing accomplishment. Adrian has written an account of the race, detailing with what he encountered during the race and learned from it. His long article is a good sea story with excitement, laughs and valuable shared experiences for singlehanded racers. Here is a sample of his story.
Since returning to racing in 2008, 33 OPHIR and I have managed to complete a Solo Challenge on all five of the Great Lakes; coming in first in all but the Lake Ontario 300. Born in 1961, I began to consider what challenges I could take on in my 50th year. After reading Bill Tucker's "My Story", I realized that an attempt at the Super Mac and Back would be almost three times longer that my longest solo race to date; the Trans-Superior was, after all, 338 miles compared to the 1034 miles from Port Huron to Chicago and return. The race would take 10 to 12 days and who knows what kind of weather Mother Nature would deal out in that length of time. After rereading Bill's story once more I decided "Why not?' and began planning the upgrades needed for such a gruelling challenge.
You can read his whole story here. |
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Pictured above is the 84 foot gaff schooner AMERICA 2.0 designed and built by Scarano Boat Building Inc. of Albany, New York sailing in front of the Statute of Liberty in New York Harbor.
America 2 joins her three smaller sisters ADIRONDACK, ADIRONDACK II and ADIRONDACK III as the latest member of the day excursion fleet operated by the Classic Harbor Line. The boats operate in season out of Newport, RI, Chelsea Piers in New York City and Key West, FL.
AMERICA 2 is an interesting combination of wood, aluminum and laminate construction. Her hull is strip planked with prefabricated strips of cedar/balsa sandwich. Her bottom (from just below the waterline to the bottom of the deadwood) is a single aluminum structure that contains her tankage and batteries. The bottom structure is bolted to the hull and sealed with a 90' O ring. Perhaps her most unique feature is her use of unstayed carbon fiber masts. In addition, her jib and forestays are made of high strength, low stretch yarn instead of wire so the sails are attached to the stays using specially designed "soft hanks".
While on her way to Key West for the winter season, AMERICA 2.0 competed in The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race. She averaged between 9 and 11 knots for the entire course and was first overall. "In my opinion these are the best looking sails we've purchased for any of the schooners since we built Adirondack in '94," said Richard Scarano.
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