Lorient, France, le 15 Juin, Vendredi: L'Arrivé de Groupama et de Puma dans le Volvo Ocean Race
Lorient, France, June 15, 2012: The arrival of Groupama and Puma in the Volvo Ocean Race
Voici le lien pour mon article dans Sailing World: http://www.sailingworld.com/blogs/racing/cammas-poker-face
Here is the link to my article in Sailing World: http://www.sailingworld.com/blogs/racing/cammas-poker-face

Opinions Vary on Vendée Globe One-Design


by Bruce Gain

© Mark Lloyd

120305_HugoBoss_Lloyd

 (Here is the link to the original article in Sailing World)


The Vendée Globe, the only non-stop, solo, around-the-world-race, could be sailed in a 60-foot one-design for the 2016 edition. After a long history as a crucible of offshore innovation and refinement, the International Monohull Open Class Association is considering whether to scrap its famously loose box rule for a much tighter rule intended to create boats that are more affordable and safer.
This decision will be a main point of discussion during an IMOCA committee meeting to be held later this year, possibly in June. Until then, IMOCA and Vendée Globe organizers, sponsors, competitors, and marine industry partners are all doing what they can to make sure their opinions are heard. 
It’s too early to say  just what exactly is on the table, how much the rule might be tightened, if it is at all. The subject of discussion now is whether to replace the existing IMOCA design rule or not. Denis Horeau, director of the Vendée Globe, pointed to the burgeoning MOD70 one-design trimaran as a potential template, but also stressed that no decisions have been made even about what changes will be considered.
Proponents say that that a one-design class would make the Vendée Globe more accessible for competitors who have the talent and experience to compete on the circuit, but who do not have the connections to amass the required multi-million dollar budgets to do it right. They point out that IMOCA is also too French-centric, with French engineers dominating the design circuit, and it’s virtually impossible for non-French sailors to mount a credible campaign. A one-design would eliminate a lot of the research and development challenges and attract more competitors from outside of France, as is the case with the Figaro circuit, which is sailed in 33-foot, Beneteau-built, one-design keelboats.
A tighter rule would make the Vendée Globe safer, proponents add. There would be less room to experiment with new design technologies that can make the boats go faster, but also make them more prone to failure. During the last Vendée Globe, only 11 out of 30 boats finished.
Many also say that a one-design will help return the Vendée Globe to its roots. In the early editions of the race—which was first run in 1989, and every four years since 1992—non-professional sailors were able to round up a few hundred thousand dollars and not only finish, but come within striking distance of winning. Today, a non-professional like Jean-Luc van den Heede, who took a leave of absence from his job as a school teacher to place third in the 1989-1990 Vendée Globe, wouldn’t stand a chance of making the podium.
But then again, what exactly is the true soul and spirit of the Vendée Globe? For two-time winner Michel Desjoyeaux, the race is a testing ground for the fastest boat technologies and the world’s most-skilled offshore sailors. Using a French expression that translates well into English, Desjoyeaux said that one-design proponents should not be allowed to “saw off the branch on which everyone now sits.”
“Why should we break the IMOCA class?” Desjoyeaux said. “For me, the Vendée Globe is about technology and sailing skills and the IMOCA class serves both well.”
If a one-design is going to cost $270,000 or $400,000 less, Desjoyeaux continued, that is not nearly enough of a discount to make sponsorships that much more accessible than they are today.
However, Desjoyeaux did express an interest in the addition of a class similar to Class 50-sized boats that took place in the race prior to 2004. These boats, he said, would cost less than half of what IMOCA Open 60 boats cost.
Horeau is one of the prime proponents of moving toward a more one-design boat, although he insists that this is his opinion, not one necessarily held by the Vendée organization or IMOCA. Horeau says that a one-design IMOCA class boat would save more than just a few hundred thousand dollars for a Vendée Globe competitor. Building a typical IMOCA 60-footer costs between $3.75 million and $4.7 million. On top of that, teams need to spend 30 percent of the boat’s book value on R&D. The move toward a one-design hull would virtually eliminate these R&D costs.
Desjoyeaux pointed out that this would put many people, especially in France, out of work. In France, there is an entire cottage industry of engineers whose livelihoods depend on preparing boat designs and technologies for IMOCA boats.
“A monotype boat design would mean that many people will not eat,” Desjoyeaux said. “That is something [one-design backers] are not mentioning.”
Horeau counters than the future of the IMOCA class and the Vendée Globe are at stake. “The IMOCA is dying,” he said. “The Vendée Globe remains the main race of the fleet and needs the monotype category. If you do not race in the Vendée Globe, then you can’t survive.”
Despite the popularity of the other races in which IMOCA boats compete, such as the Route du Rhum, the Transat Jacques Vabre, and the Quebec-St Malo, Horeau estimates that 60 to 70 percent of a sponsor’s return on investment in an IMOCA campaign is derived from the Vendée Globe. 
“IMOCA is really about the Vendée Globe,” Horeau said, “since sponsors spending several million dollars need the Vendée Globe to make it worth their while.

Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes: Family Murdered, Father Vanishes

By Bruce Gain

(The complete story can be found here at TruTV's Website or click on the hypertext link above and below: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/family/dupont-de-ligonnes/the-perfect-family.html

The Perfect Family

The Dupont de Ligonnes family was the embodiment of the modern-day bourgeois French household in the eyes of the community. With a large house in the chic and expensive part of Nantes, France, the four children attended local private schools where upper-crust families from the coastal city sent their families. But Xavier, the father, was more than a member of the city's upper-middleclass elite; he was as also an aristocrat, with a direct linage to French nobles dating back prior to the French Revolution in the 18th century.

The four Dupont de Ligonnes children.

Xavier had to spend a lot of time away from home to manage his business ventures, which his circle of friends, relatives, and acquaintances thought were flourishing. Xavier did not have to worry about his children's care when he was away on business. His wife, Agnes, whose job as a catechism teacher at the local Blanche-de-Castille Catholic high school never kept her from being there when the children were home sick, needed someone to fix their meals, or anything else that required motherly attention.

Xavier, when he was home, led an active social life with his wife, and they both seemed to enjoy each other's company when seen in public. They often dined together with the rest of the family at a local pizzeria on Sundays. When Xavier was in town, he and his wife would occasionally take square dancing classes with other couples, who admired how happy the husband and wife seemed.

Neighbors saw the four kids running and laughing with the family Labradors in the yard. The house also served as a popular and welcoming place where the mother would serve snacks to friends her children invited over after school.

The first sign of trouble came when close friends and relatives received a letter from Xavier saying that he was an undercover agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and that the family had to move away to an undisclosed location under the witness protection program. Friends and relatives were stunned. Xavier was gone a lot for his work, but no one knew that he had ties to undercover police, much less DEA agents in the United States.

But then, very bad news followed after Xavier sent the mysterious email. When police were called to investigate the family's disappearance, investigators dropped a bombshell: the mother, the three sons, and the daughter were found dead, individually rolled-up in sleeping bags and buried underneath the patio in the backyard. Autopsy reports would later reveal that they had been drugged before they were shot, except for Agnes, who was probably shot first.

Expecting to find Xavier's body nearby the crime scene, investigators soon learned that Xavier was alive and well and had driven to southern France where credit card records revealed that he had stayed at a chic hotel for a few nights. Then, less than two weeks after his family was found murdered, Xavier abandoned his Citroen C5 near a cheap hotel almost 700 miles away from Nantes near the French Rivera. Then he vanished.

An international arrest warrant was issued for Xavier, who officials said could be anywhere. French investigators then began making inquiries about Xavier's background in hopes of uncovering clues about where they might be able to find the man whom the French press called the "Most Wanted Man in France."

The first truth to emerge was that Xavier was not an advertising executive, which the press initially reported. And he certainly was not a successful businessman, either, as investigators quickly unraveled a web of deceit and lies Xavier had crafted to maintain appearances of wealth and affluence while drowning in financial ruin.

Jules Verne Is Just the Beginning

by Bruce Gain

© Th. Martinez/ BPCE

Loick Peyron and his Banque Populaire team arrive in Brest, France, after breaking the Jules Verne record with a 45-day circumnavigation.

My original article is on the main page of Sailing World: www.sailingworld.com 

Earlier this month, Loick Peyron and his 13-member crew completed a 45-day, round-the-world sprint aboard the 130-foot trimaran Banque Populaire V to earn the Jules Verne trophy. Since then, Peyron and crew have been the center of media attention in France. Primetime newscasts here show BPV arriving in Brest, where more than 1,000 spectators braved the winter weather just to catch a glimpse of Peyron and company. It was as if the crowd was gathered at the Cannes Film Festival, trying to steal a peak at Johnny Depp or Penelope Cruz.
A few days later, Peyron appeared on the French equivalent of the David Letterman show, Le Petit Journal. During the show, he wowed the audience by commenting on a video shot while BPV was sailing past icebergs, which made the massive multihull seem like a dinghy in comparison.
But despite his celebrity status in France during the past few days, Peyron remains level headed during his interviews. His message to the public—that is, when he is asked about sailing instead of silly, Oprah Winfrey-like subjects—is that Banque Populaire’s Jules Verne record will likely be short-lived. French multihull designs will only continue to get better and faster during the years to come, he says.
Peyron shared his perspective when he spoke to me by satellite phone a few days before arriving in Brest. At the time, BPV was heading north from the Azores, doing about 25 knots. Breaking the record is not so much about seamanship skills as it is about technology, he said. The next team will break the record when French multihull knowhow is applied to build a bigger and faster giant than BPV, which Pascal Bidégorry designed and the late Hubert Desjoyeaux, father of Michel Desjoyeaux, built. Peyron says it's the fastest long-distance boat in the world.
What is really exiting in multihull long-distance sailing is what is yet to come, Peyron said, as more recent advances like hydrofoil boats and rigid wings find their way into massive multihull designs in the future. “It almost goes without saying that our Jules Verne time will be bested again," he said, speaking over the noise that a 23-metric-ton multihull with a mast as high as the Statue of Liberty makes when it's plunging through the Atlantic at 25 knots. "Huge advances have been made [in offshore sailing technology] during the past thirty years, and multihull technology will certainly continue to evolve. In fact, we are at the beginning of a new era in multihulls.”
We could also be at the start of a new era in offshore racing, as sailors begin to push these fast-yet-fragile boats much harder than Peyron would be willing to do. With the same caliber of boat, another skipper and crew will be tempted to push the envelope more than Banque Populaire’s mostly French team did. “I would even go as far to say that an Anglo-Saxon team can be more radical and aggressive than French teams are when sailing this type of boat,” Peyron said.
A more radical crew could have taken more risks and pushed the boat faster, but according to Peyron, there's a price to pay. “Speed, of course, is a variable that is associated with risks, which means that breaking these records will involve more safety concerns and [off-shore sailing] will become that much more hazardous."

Jacques Vabre Transat Carnage

Transat Carnage Puts Multihulls in Question by Bruce Gain This year’s Transat Jacques Vabre was often more about survival than it was about racing. Fortunately, there were no tragedies. But the crews and boats certainly took a beating, especially in the Multi 50 class. Only two of the six Multi 50 entries that set out from Le Havre, France, made it to the finishing poles off Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. Click here to read the full article in Sailing World: http://www.sailingworld.com/blogs/racing/transat-carnage-puts-multihulls-in-question

Risk, Voyeurism, and Near Disaster

Risk, Voyeurism, and Near Disaster

by Bruce Gain

© Alexis Courcoux

The 2011 Transat Jacques Vabre started two days late due to very strong winds and rough seas.

The weather report was ugly. With less than 48 hours before the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre, sailors were looking at heading into the Atlantic from Le Havre, France, in steady, 40-knot side winds with 60-knot gusts and confused seas of well over 30 feet. There was a chance the fleet of Multi 50s, IMOCA Open 60s, and Class 40s could've slogged through the nastiness and made its way across the ocean to Costa Rica, but that was far from certain.

Why You Should Worry About the ISP Copyright Fight

Why You Should Worry About the ISP Copyright Fight

By Bruce Gain, PCWorld

Millions of small business owners may soon realize that their Internet service could be disrupted if they're wrongly accused of illegal file sharing or downloading under the "six strikes" plan entertainment media groups announced this week.

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Initiated by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and other media groups, participating ISPs will shortly begin sending warning letters to users or companies whose accounts are allegedly used to illegally share files. ISPs will send a series of up to six notices to account holders whose IP addresses are allegedly used for the "online content theft of film, TV shows, or music" as part of the Center for Copyright Information initiative. After six notices, the ISP could begin a series of "mitigation measures"--which for all intents and purposes would likely lead to the disruption of Internet services on which most small businesses depend.

The announcement is the most important of its kind since the RIAA announced it was ending its litigation campaign in 2008 to thwart illegal file sharing. So now, instead of suing alleged digital copyright infringers, participating ISPs including AT&T, Cablevision Systems, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon will carry the stick intended to curb illegal file sharing on behalf of the media companies.

Here are four things that small businesses should be concerned about.

1. Losing Internet Access

The Center for Copyright Information does not come out and say that ISPs will suspend accounts. It also specifies that participating ISPs may even decide not to institute the "mitigation measures." However, possible steps that ISPs could take include reductions in Internet speeds and blocking access to Websites by redirecting users to a landing page.

If you or one of your office users is blatantly using an account to download movies and films, that's one thing. But what remains unclear is exactly how copyright holders will determine whether they think their copyright-protected content has been illegally accesses or shared.

During the RIAA's litigation campaign, many people were wrongly sued when hackers hijacked users' IP addresses. It is thus likely that hijacked IP addresses associated with file sharing will erroneously fall in the line of fire.

Illustration: Joe ZeffProving that a subscriber account was not used for illegal file sharing when issued a court summons was difficult in the past. Those accused usually paid lawyers fees or damages of a few thousand dollars for those who did not contest the damages as a remedy. However, for many small businesses, a disruption in Internet access would mean nothing less than the end of their business, which is certainly more costly than paying a few thousand dollars to settle legal claims, whether they are erroneous or not.

2. Time and Expense to Respond

A small business that erroneously receives a warning letter will have to devote time and resources to contest the claim. According to the Center for Copyright Information, subscribers can pay $35 for an "independent review" if they feel they are wrongly accused. However, besides placing the future of your company's Internet access in the hands of a supposed independent review committee, what kind of evidence will those wrongly accused have to gather? A small business owner already working 80 hours a week might not be able to squeeze the extra resources required to prove a negative--which, as in criminal law, is harder than proving a positive--that an account was not used for illegal file sharing.

3. Wi-Fi Hijacking Risks

Small businesses that offer customers free Wi-Fi service can only claim that a customer and not the business owner illegally shared or accessed copyright-protected content one time. This means that your business could risk connectivity problems if customers repeatedly share or download copy-right protected content. Policing your customers to make sure they are not illegally accessing or sharing files, besides raising privacy concerns, would require extra resources that small business may not have.

4. Defending Fair Use Claims

Suppose copyright owner X informs the ISP that your business is infringing on its copyright claims, even though your legal counsel says it is not. The ISP will almost certainly not adjudicate this claim and will likely follow through with sending alerts that claim your business is stealing content. What do you do then?

Also, if your business claims that it is allowed to share or access content under fair use policies and disagrees with the copyright holder's claims, your business or name must be communicated to the copyright holder to do that, which raises privacy concerns.

What To Do?

Small businesses as well as subscribers can react by contacting their ISPs and congressional representatives to express why they think this development is a bad idea. Some participating ISPs may decide to opt out of the initiative if enough subscribers complain.

Bruce covers tech trends in the United States and Europe and can be reached through his Website at www.brucegain.com.