I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

“If something goes wrong, women still think about it a week later. For men, it's easy to go to the bar, get a beer and get over it. It's done. Women have more emotions and they can spend a long time thinking about it….”

Phewww! Imagine saying that about the fairer sex. We blokes would be hung, drawn and quartered for uttering such blasphemies. But it wasn’t me, guv! It was Marcelien de Koning, three-time 470 World Champion (that's her on the right, with crew Lobke Berkhout), who lays out her “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” theories in my latest SailingTalk Xpress interview.

Click here to sign up and read the full interview. In the past few months we’ve profiled many of the best sailors in the world, including Darren Bundock, Howie Hamlin, Simon Daubney and Stevie Morrison.

Marcelien, by the way, is heavily engaged in the politics of Olympic sailing too. As if full-time Olympic campaigning wasn't enough for a girl to do, Marcelien also chairs the recently formed ISAF Athletes Commission, so she has been paying close attention to the fall-out from the Olympic Events vote in Estoril in early November.

She wants to see greater athlete representation on the ISAF Council. Currently there are no current athletes on the 40-person committee, something Marcelien hopes will change very soon.

But this interview is not about politics. It’s about team work. Actually, when you think about it, maybe team work is a form of politics! Funnily enough, when I called Marcelien she was making her way from the Netherlands to Germany for a weekend out in sub-zero conditions with Lobke and their coach, with the prospect of sleeping in a tent.

The idea, apparently, is to toughen the girls up. Whether or not the coach still had his job at the end of the weekend, I haven't found out.

Click here to sign up and read the full interview.

Carolijn Brouwer found time from her busy Tornado training schedule in Sydney to write to SailJuice with her views on what happened two weeks ago in Estoril. You could read the frustration between the lines of what Laser Radial sailor Laura Baldwin wrote a few days ago. Here, Carolijn is much more explicit with her feelings. By the way, a quick reminder that Carolijn finished runner-up in the Tornado World Championships this year, showing the men the way round the track in the manliest of weather conditions. So this is a girl who knows what she’s talking about.

"Dear Andy

I was gutted after the ISAF meeting in Estoril. I felt empty, confused and especially useless. I am a member of the Events Committee but at this moment I truly don’t really know what I’m doing there and whether it has any meaning.

Of course I’m very disappointed ISAF kicked out the Multihull and is taking a huge step backwards in sailing by not including the High Performance dinghy for Women. They are too scared to take a possible risk and move forward.

But most of all, I am disappointed about the Events selection procedure. The members of the Events Committee have been chosen by their MNAs because they are the so called experts in the issues/areas that involve Events, including Olympic Games and Olympic Event Selection.

The normal procedure is that the voting on respective issues that involve Events is done on our Committee and we then put them forward as a recommendation to Council. Council usually accepts our recommendation.

This time however they just chucked it out the window and started all over again. So, what are we actually doing there as an Events Committee if our expertise is not being used anyway?

This is really disappointing and to be honest I don’t understand what ISAF is doing. It’s frustrating being part of it, and having the feeling that you are completely useless. It’s not about the sailors, it’s about the blazers. So many people have told me already, don’t try and understand, it’s a waste of time. And I still keep thinking I can make a difference in there.

The past week I have been on the verge of resigning from the Committee. But that would be giving up. We need more active sailors on the committees, not less.

I have a very straightforward, simple and symmetric opinion of how easily we can have only ten events for sailing in the Olympics and still cover the whole range that our beautiful sport has to offer:

* Singlehanded Men/Women
* Doublehanded Men/Women (High Performance)
* Multihull Men/ Women
* Windsurfer Men/Women
* Keelboat Men/Women (matchracing)

It doesn’t have to be difficult, it can be easy.

And regarding the Women's situation. This might sound a little contradictory with what I just wrote above, but it’s just a matter of time. I am more in favour of 6:4 than 5:5. If you look at any Olympic sport out there at the moment there are more men than women.

I wonder whether we will find enough women to fill all the Olympic classes if we go 50:50. And I’m afraid if we do, this might bring the women’s level in sailing down, and that is the last thing we want.

So an easy solution to this would be consider the Open events. Not all the events have to be open but I definetely think some events CAN and should be open. There are many people that think the Tornado is not suitable as an Open Event discipline.

I think I’m the living proof that that is not entirely true.

But I can live with that because in my eyes there are more disciplines out there that are equally and maybe more suitable for men and women. We are talking Multihull here, not Tornado. So the F18 or any other catamaran class could be more suitable for men and women.

Or take for example the 470. The boys now (especially due to the conditions in Qingdao) but normally as well, the boys have to be very light and skinny to suit a 470. A mixed combination could be the perfect solution for this problem. And also here it has been proven in the past that it is possible (1984 Olympics with Cathy Foster and Pete Newlands).

And with this approach, you can solve the whole situation by keeping the wide diversity, still cover all the ranges in sport, keep all the sailors happy and most important of all not put our sport in danger of losing its Olympic status!

Which is exactly what is happening now by removing the Multihull and not introducing the High Performance.

Regards,

Carolijn"

This blog has moved to a new address, SailJuiceBlog.com

You might want to take a peek at my first post there, it's causing quite a stir...

Here's an excerpt:

"Olympic sailing is at a critical juncture. The IOC has handed ISAF the task of whittling down the existing 11 categories that will be represented at Qingdao 2008, down to just 10 for Weymouth 2012. A game of musical chairs then.

An almighty blood bath, more likely. Have no doubt that this November in Estoril, Portugal, there will be more backstabbing going on than when Julius Caesar unwittingly strolled into the Roman Senate for the last time."

Read on for the rest...

Clone Wars

Just arrived in Valencia, and went out for a look at the America's Cup boats training. Even though the wind was only blowing about 12 to 14 knots, there were some big, sloppy waves left over from the strong winds the night before. It looked like very wet work for the bowmen as they stood on the bows going into some practice pre-starts.

All in, there were 16 boats that I counted out there today: two Alinghis, two Luna Rossas, two BMW Oracles, two Mascalzones, and two Emirates Team New Zealands, all going through private in-house training sessions; and doing some friendly races against each other were: +39 v Germany, Desafio v Victory, and Areva v Shosholoza.

This is one of the last days of training for the teams before Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 13 kicks off next week. We watched +39 and Germany roll off the line, the Italians claiming the pin while the Germans split to the right. When they came back together after about half a mile of sailing, Iain Percy's team were comfortably ahead of Jesper Bank's crew. Very hard to draw any conclusions from where we were, but that sort of gain had to be down mainly to better wind rather than any inherent boatspeed advantage. Encouraging nevertheless for the underpractised +39 crew.

Victory and Desafio had a very aggressive pre-start, with the Spanish coming off the pin and the Swedes taking the committee boat end on port tack. They then proceeded into a tight duel up the beat and we didn't hang around long enough to see which team succeeded in exerting an advantage.

It's also pretty hard to tell which boat is which among some of the teams. There were two NZL-92s out there for the Kiwis, and two ITA-99s engaged in some private Mascalzone match racing. But it was great to see the boats chugging along in some good wind and waves. Let's hope Valencia can surprise with some more wind and wave action for the coming weeks and months.

A Laser dinghy for fatties?

Does the Rooster 8.1 have a future as the Laser for the 'larger sailor'? Clearly Laser champion Steve Cockerill thinks so, because his company Rooster Sailing has just finished developing a new souped-up rig for the standard Laser dinghy. Taking the basic Laser, Cockerill has added a taller lower mast section which, combined with the existing top section, supports a Dacron/Mylar radial-cut sail measuring 8.1 square metres. This compares with the 7.06 square metres of a standard Laser rig, and Cockerill is pitching the Rooster 8.1 at sailors weighing around 90kg, as opposed to the 80kg or thereabouts for the standard rig.

Cockerill appears to have put a lot of thought into the design of the bigger sail, and it should last a good deal longer than the lo-tech and overpriced sail that comes with the standard Laser. According to Cockerill: "The Rooster 8.1 sail is constructed with long life and performance in mind. In addition to 4oz Dacron cloth in the main body, the leech is constructed of Mylar, as this is where the highest loads occur. This means that permanent leech stretch is reduced to almost zero. Leech flutter in between battens is eliminated. The bi-radial construction contributes to increased cloth stability and so making the sail easier to control its power. The large window also helps with visibility when racing. Mainsheet loads are slightly less than the Standard rig, and vang loads are slightly higher. The rig is more like a Jaguar than a Porsche, which means you get a steady power delivery upwind. Its downwind performance is amazing once you are past the beam and planing is easy in most conditions. Rudder loads are reduced too."

It will be interesting to see what reaction Cockerill gets from the market. It will be competing against a few well-established rivals in the British sailing scene, such as the Olympic Finn and the Phantom singlehander. But the Rooster 8.1 is a very economic solution for any Laser sailor that feels a bit porky for the Standard rig; £350 buys you a sail with battens and the special lower mast section, which is a few quid less than the cost of a standard Laser sail (RRP £389). You also get free membership of the fledgling Rooster 8.1 Class Association, and Cockerill says a racing circuit and even a National Championships is on the way. He plans to officially launch the class this coming weekend (3/4 March 2007) at the Dinghy Sailing Show in London, although he has already taken 15 advance orders for the new rigs.

Click here for further information from RoosterSailing.com

Two little Cherubs

One class that has everything to gain and nothing to lose from this April's trial for a new women's Olympic skiff is the Cherub. With two of the five entries being based on the Cherub development class - the Daemon and the GT60 - the global profile of this exciting but little-known 12-footer will never be higher. Not only that, but even if these two entries don't get selected, there will now be a choice of two very well sorted, off-the-shelf packages available for potential Cherub owners. At the moment the Cherub class attracts the keen DIY enthusiasts, the garden shed tinkerers who don't mind getting elbow deep in epoxy and carbon dust. In the cash-rich time-poor world of the 21st century, the idea of building or repairing your own home-build contraption just doesn't appeal to most of us. Come what may in Hyeres this April, at least these two boats will offer an easier way into the Cherub fleet for those who just want to go sailing. And what if one of these two boats does win selection? Well, the Cherub could become sailing's answer to Olympic beach volleyball!

Five entries for women's Olympic skiff trials

Five boats will line up for the Women's High Performance Dinghy Evaluation Event this April in the south of France, to determine which boat will go forwards for selection as a new Olympic class. The 29erXX, RS800, Cherub Daemon, Carbonology GT60 and International 14 have all submitted their entries to the Evaluation Event, which will be held in Hyères, France from 16-19 April 2007.

This looks like a strong field of potential Olympic skiffs, and couldn’t come at a better time, as the Yngling shows serious signs of failure as a viable Olympic women’s keelboat. Only last week, top Yngling sailor Carol Cronin announced her retirement from Olympic campaigning after the Miami Rolex Olympic Classes Regatta. She wrote, “We just finished our 2007 US Sailing Team qualifiers. Sixteen teams from around the world came to Miami, and jockeying for a front row start or an inside overlap with this elite group showed us how much the world level has climbed since last summer's Yngling Worlds.

“After a lot of thought and discussion, we have decided to end our Olympic campaign effective immediately. Only two US teams competed in the ranking regattas: Team Cronin and Team Seven (Sally Barkow, Carrie Howe, and Debbie Capozzi). Our retirement means Team Seven will represent the US at the 2008 Olympics in Qingdao, China.” So, the Olympic trials for the USA are over before they have even begun because there aren’t two teams with the sufficient resources or interest to go to the Games in China. This is not a developing nation we are talking about, it’s the USA, probably the biggest keelboat sailing nation in the world! If they can’t muster more than one team for the Olympics, what hope for the rest of us?

While disappointing in one sense, the Yngling’s fall from grace (if indeed it ever ascended to grace) should make life easier for ISAF this November at the Federation’s Annual Conference in Athens. The International Olympic Committee has decreed that sailing must reduce the Olympic disciplines from 11 in China to 10 for the London 2012 Games.
The Yngling’s departure should be a no-brainer, with its place being taken by the new women’s skiff. Then it is a matter of deciding which of the remaining classes is to get the chop, and that is where the debate becomes a whole lot more difficult. That’s a discussion we’ll save for another day!

F18 Worlds debut for Volvo Race winner

The Basilica sponsored crew of Robert and Peter Greenhalgh is in final preparations for the 2007 F18 World Titles in Australia, the first to be held outside of Europe. This year’s F18 Worlds, which take place between 17th and 25th February in Yeppoon, Queensland, will kick off Basilica’s season of cat sailing and will be the Greenhalgh brothers’ first time competing in the F18 Class. The pair will be looking to perfect their catamaran racing skills ahead of the Extreme 40 racing series and iShares Cup later in the year.

Former ABN AMRO helmsman and Volvo Ocean Race winner Robert Greenhalgh and his brother Peter will be using the days running up to the F18 racing, to get to grips with their Basilica-sponsored Capricorn Catamaran and the racing conditions along the central Queensland coast. The competition is set to be tough, with over 15 different nations and up to 160 boats taking part, the Greenhalghs will be looking for a top 20 finish.

Rumours in Valencia

The rumour mill in Valencia is in full swing, with less than two months to go before Louis Vuitton Act 13 kicks off. Is there any substance to the rumour that Areva has been getting the better of Luna Rossa in some informal racing sessions? And what price will Areva pay for breaking the rules when they got hold of photos of Luna Rossa when the Italians were training in private? Will it be a financial or points penalty for the French? And bowsprits - are they in or out? Last year BMW ORACLE turned up with a bowspritted USA-87. This year USA-98 has none, while other teams have arrived in Valencia WITH bowsprits! Who's right, who's wrong? The fun has certainly begun.

$2m says you should learn how to sail cats!

With Russell Coutts and Paul Cayard announcing details of their new World Sailing League, there's never been a better time to be a catamaran sailor. With the prospect of 12 teams each of 10 sailors, travelling the world to contest a grand prix racing circuit with $2 million for the winner, it seems like a good time to brush up on your cat sailing skills. Or learn some if you don't have any!

Victory punch-up in Dubai

While Victory Challenge's new boat SWE-96 has arrived in Valencia to be readied for battle in the Louis Vuitton Cup this summer, the Swedes have been out in Dubai knocking 10 bells out of each other in the old workhorses SWE-63 and SWE-73. British veteran Chris Law has been Magnus Holmberg's sparring partner, and so fierce was the duelling that they knocked the transom off one boat! I bet the shore crew thanked the sailors for that one!

Larson and Spaulding win twice

For a team doing a part-time Olympic campaign in the highly-demanding 49er skiff class, Americans Morgan Larson and Pete Spaulding are doing pretty well. After winning a nailbiter of a Medal Race at Miami Rolex OCR Regatta, they just edged out the British team Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes for Gold. And to prove it was no fluke the Larson/Spaulding duo dominated the follow-on regatta, the North American Championships, winning with a race to spare. Not bad for a helmsman that is full-time training with the Swedish America's Cup campaign Victory Challenge in Valencia and Dubai, and not bad for a crew who is completing his studies at Purdue University, Indiana...

Paige Railey overdoes the kinetics in Miami

Paige Railey is one of the hot prospects for Gold in the Olympics next year, but only if she can curb her kinetic instincts. At the Miami Rolex Olympic Classes Regatta recently she fell foul of the three-strikes-and-you're-out rule in Racing Rule 42, which governs kinetic movements in sailing. She was thrown out of the regatta after the jury penalised her a third time. Railey is going to have to learn to sail within the limits of the rules (as perceived by the umpires). But at the same time this is a ridiculous and draconian measure for a relatively trivial infringement. By all means throw a competitor out of a race on the third infringement, but throw them out of the regatta? That's a little bit excessive, methinks...

Vrolijk to design Mean Machine

Mean Machine has announced that Rolf Vrolijk (right in photo) is to design the team’s Volvo Open 70 for the next Volvo Ocean Race. With Ericsson having already snapped up Juan Kouyoumdjian in an exclusive deal, and with Farr Yacht Design bound to make a strong return for 2008/09, the next race is shaping up to be the most competitive offshore design contest witnessed for some time. Add to that the uncertainties of a new course that takes the race fleet to uncharted waters in the Far East (in V.O.R. terms at least) and the design challenge will be fascinating. This is what the Mean Machine press release had to say today.

Mean Machine have officially announced that Rolf Vrolijk and his team are to design the Mean Machine Volvo Open 70 which will race in the round the world Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009.
Mean Machine is the second official entry in this edition of the race, and yet again, they’ve chosen to trust in Vrolijk and his talented design team, to capture the spirit of sailing excellence that characterises what has become a global sailing platform over the last few years, spanning many different projects and classes.

The fact that Vrolijk has been named as the man to bring the Mean Machine VO 70 to life is no coincidence. One can look back as far as 20 years to see that a considerable number of the team’s successes have had the Vrolijk touch.

These two decades of teamwork have borne a healthy list of successes, which are all down to the special chemistry that comes from putting talent such as Mean Machine, Vrolijk and Peter de Ridder (left in photo) together. It’s a unique and special formula that few can enjoy.

Rolf Vrolijk explains the Mean Machine relationship: “It’s built on a long term relationship of trust between Peter De Ridder, the team and I. We’ve done several projects together and they have been very successful. We have also always worked as a team with the sailors and the feedback in both directions has worked very well for us. I think I can say that my relationship with Peter is very much like a friendship and over the years we have got to know each other very well.”

Echoing these words, Peter de Ridder explains that the special working relationship really has yielded a recipe for success: “I have had a very good and longstanding relationship with Rolf, since the mid-eighties. We work very well together and we both only need a few words to make ourselves clear to each other. Each time, the design process has become even more of a dialogue, which has ultimately meant that we’ve always built the boat with the exact characteristics we were aiming for. Also Rolf and Fietje Judel and all their staff are very easy to approach and to share ideas with.”

It all began back in 1985 with the very first Mean Machine (former Rubin), a Judel/Vrolijk One Tonner that Peter de Ridder took to the 1986 One Ton Cup in Mallorca. The boat finished in sixth place overall out of a fleet of thirty-five, and that was with a 100% amateur crew.

Following this success the Mean Machine fleet continued to grow, mainly under the watchful eye of the Judel/Vrolijk team . This saw brand new additions to the fleet, as succesful as the ILC 40 Mean Machine and the TP 52, which Peter de Ridder, along with Ray Davies and Dirk de Ridder sailed to victory in 2006 to take the most coveted of Mediterranean titles, the Breitling MedCup 2006.

Now there’s another design challenge on the drawing board, as Vrolijk, his team, Peter de Ridder and Mean Machine prepare to build a new piece of team history together. A compact expert team has been brought together which boasts names such as Judel/Vrolijk & co engineering gmbh in charge of design and the design team coordination, Dirk Kramers & Steve Koopman SDK on structural engineering, and Michael Richelsen overlooking CFD/VPP and tank testing support.

The 2008/09 Volvo Ocean Race will bring this Dutch dream-team together yet again. Peter de Ridder knows they’ve made the right choices: “Rolf is a very talented and gifted designer who is still very much engaged with and committed to the projects he’s running. With such a talented designer with such a good team of people around him such as Dirk Kramers and Michel Richelsen, I don’t see any reason at all why we can’t go on to build a potential winner”.

Meanwhile, Rolf is very hopeful about this latest challenge: “This is a great challenge for our design team. We have been involved in several round the world projects in the past with a great deal of success such as Philips Innovator, Equity and Law, Brunel Synergy, and Bank von Bremen. This is the most professional approach I’ve seen so far and that’s what’s so attractive to us. It’s clear to us that without an outstanding sailing team and expert organization you are never going to win this race.”

For more information on the team, click here www.mean-machine.nl