From the feedback - Soling or Not

From Michael Moore.
Should the Soling bow out gracefully? I don't know. Should match racing be a part of the Olympics? Probably. How do we fix what happened? Difficult to figure. The snap decision that makes most sense to me is to re-instate the Soling, as a match race discipline only, and combine the 470 fleet, perhaps require it to be a mixed gender boat.

I think the bigger issue is how the Olympic Classes are selected. From what I heard about the committee meetings, they were a joke. How can they justify anonymous ballots? ISAF clearly needs to clean up the process. Finally, to the women who are upset about the Yngling and its fleet racing format, I ask how you justify a four person boat when sailing is so clearly under pressure to keep participant numbers down? Perhaps the event should have stayed a match racing discipline, but a four person boat would have been a huge mistake.

From Hugh MacGregor
Should the Soling be admitted back into the Olympics? No, and the Star, Finn, Yngling, Mistral and Europe should also be chucked. Boats should be chosen after every Olympics to suit the conditions expected and waters of the next venue. Boats should be chosen on what the sailors around the world are enjoying racing, not who has the most lobbying power.

The past typical example of an Olympic class has been decreasing popularity and increased cost over a period of many years until it is sailed by less than 1000 people worldwide, and represents no recreational users. It is slow, uncomfortable to sail, and has no re-sale value and needs a crowbar to be removed from the Olympics. Classes should be chosen on championship turnouts, and dropped after one Olympic cycle. Olympic selection should be an indication that a class is where it's at, and enrich that class for years after Olympic status is ended. This will ensure that the best sailors in the world are competing for medals in a larger field, and the Olympics will be relevant to every small boat sailor in the world.

From Terry Terman
Who`s going to get the wooden spoon? PlayStation gets the wooden spoon for quitting The Race last January 14th. Warta-Polpharma and Team Legato both get our admiration for fighting adversity. In four days, when WP's epoxy sets, we should get a real good battle between them. Club Med's 62d 6h 56m 33s finish in The Race should count as breaking the old 71d record for "around-the-world", and maybe will in the Guinness Book of Records.

The "official" around-the-world course that starts and ends in southern England and circles Antarctica clockwise never comes close to crossing its antipodean trace. By contrast, The Race passes through Cook Strait, whose antipode lies in NW Spain and is closer to the Straits of Gibraltar than either Barcelona or Marseilles, making The Race truly antipodal. As far saying The Race is not around-the-world as it goes past Barcelona to finish at Marseilles - that's silly. Congratulations to Bruno Peyron and others for making The Race begin and end at the largest port cities in Spain & France (and go by Wellington NZ) rather than begin and end in some small fishing village.