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From David 'Spike' King
Round the Island - Walking the course. Top stuff from Mike Broughton, can't fault it - damn useful on the windshift stuff. A top tip to the Needles inside passage saga is to get your helmsman to steer, 170-180 T, as one passes the light house and make sure you correct this for tide. Keep your COG to no more than 180 T, especially in light conditions - the ebb tide can sweep you to the west and onto the wreck. Be very careful of instructions from a navigator watching on a GPS chart plotter below decks. He will not see the boat slip to the west on the tide quickly enough, only the tactician and helmsman can truly judge that.

Look at a large scale chart when you read Peter Bruce's account of where the wreck is. It does lie in a line with the Needles, however, I would say that the heading for the line is 260T/080T not NNE/SSW. This is important when you plan your rounding. Goose Rock is a problem when you approach from Alum Bay, if you approach from the north it will be less of a problem.

Also if you are the inside boat on rounding the Needles and you want to go outside the wreck - don't ask for water at the last moment even if you have rights - act early and get to the outside of a flotilla (long line of boats abreast), a water call might involve an outside boat having to luff up and hit the wreck. If in doubt go outside the wreck, leaving it to port - safety should be first priority and don't be damn foolish.

From Jack Mccarthy
Any big boat sailing tips for Shirley? Shirley - Sounds like you are having an enjoyable week of sailing. Those of us working in London, watching the great weather and reading your exploits are quite jealous. As you are on a slower yacht with a lower handicap, you must focus on consistency versus line honours (I'm sure this is not a new strategy for you). Let the big lead boats take the flyers while they are competing for first over the finish. You're in it to place well over the whole series.

You mentioned both boat speed and pointing. As a big boat takes so long to accelerate (versus a 1720), keeping up boat speed is actually much more important than pointing. Take a look at how steeply the VMG falls off when you point too high (if you have a polar graph for the yacht). It takes a long time to build the speed back up once you have lost it.

From John Corby
How wide of the mark is Peter Bentley`s analysis of IRM racing? I 've read all sorts of comment about why Nokia was racing IRC instead of IRM. As the designer & builder of the boat I can categorically say that Nokia (last year's Barlo Plastics) races IRC because that it what it was always intended to do. Yes we could have aimed it at IRM but there are lots of reasons why we didn't:

1) Only 2 of our 6 regatta programme this year had an IRM class. Our most important, Cork, was one of the ones that didn't.

2) It was obvious at the beginning of last year that a new IRM boat was severely disadvantaged against a grandfathered good design like the Farr 40. Indeed I advised Richard Matthews that if he wanted to win under IRM he should be buying a Farr 40 rather than a new boat from me. However he fancied a new custom boat and his investment was clearly safer in IRC.

3) Closer examination of the IRM rule revealed that it would penalise the large-bulb/strong-simple-mast type of yacht we wanted to sail.

4) It was always going to be easier to sell an IRC boat because the huge number of IRC fleets established around the UK and Ireland provide a huge marketplace for second-hand boats. My current top boats like Nokia and Gloves Off have only won events recently by the smallest of margins from Swans and IMX40s, and to even manage this they need to have nearly new sails and be expertly prepared and crewed. If boats like Nokia and Gloves Off get forced into IRM, how different would they need to be to stay in IRC, ie where do you draw the line?

From George Conk
Who should be the skipper of Nautor no 2? Dawn Riley skipper, Ellen MacArthur navigator, Isabel Autissier, tactician-weather routing. That's my dream team for Nautor 2. Dawn's crewed boat experience - the Whitbread, leading a team in the America's Cup, handling press, the publicity bonus of an American woman up-front in a race without an American boat all point to Dawn Riley. And with Ellen and Isabel on board, maybe that short training period won't hurt so much.

From Simon Hiscocks
What is your experience of the Youth Sailing Initiative and its HPMs? There has to be a fine line between the processes of creating the Iains, Shirleys and Bens of the future and alienating the masses from their enjoyment of the sport. From the youth programmes of the past there have been produced a large number of extremely talented sailors. At the same time there have come a large number of well trained and capable sailors who go on to become the main stay of UK sailing.

The line is between fun and good high quality training for everyone; the elite can wait until the Olympic programs. Not everyone develops at the same rate nor do that many have access to the top level of the sport at an early age. it should be important to realise these aspects and accommodate them in the programme.

From Roger Wilson
What is your experience of the Youth Sailing Initiative and its HPMs? I am at present Chairman of the UK Cadet Class Association. The Cadet Association is an enthusiastic supporter of the World Class Start/Potential Initiative. We feel Steve Joel is managing the Programme very successfully and he has our complete support. As he says it is a very ambitious programme which he has allowed to grow and develop as lessons are learnt. The job of HMP has changed significantly since the scheme started and is a very demanding one with an enormous time commitment.

Hopefully the present applicants will have a much better idea of what the job involves however I doubt if many HPMs will stay on for more than 2-3 years, and I think that is a good thing. I would like to point out that both Ian Clingan and Bruce Herbert are still very involved with the initiative on a part-time basis, which is a definite plus for us all. If you want to judge how successful the initiative has been, just talk to the kids in the youth and junior classes. They are on a roll and they plan to make Team GBR the envy of the world!