Your feedback

Why does the next Admiral's Cup include an IRC and not an IRM class? Because IRM is developed as a political statement and as such is not appreciated by the majority of the non UK racing community. Apart from that it is a rating rule that has more flaws than IMS. And that is not just my opinion, but will be shared by the world's leading designers, if asked privately.

The new AC format doesn't include a Farr One Design, for reasons that I cannot fathom, so most likely personal ones. I am sure that is the reason why Peter Morton is crying revolution. Will the RORC ever be the same again? Speak with one voice and support one opinion would be a good start.

Response to Rob Weilands letter from Peter Morton of Farr International
My main concern is that IRC was designed to be a cheap Club racing rule for production cruiser/racers with little complication and low cost to owners. It has evolved into a huge success Internationally however it cannot withstand the pressure of Admirals Cup without damaging it's reputation with the vast majority of it's users. IRM, with the recent changes opening up the rule to far more boats is fundamentally a good rule, not perfect but far better than IMS. Unlike Rob who has never had to pay for boats I have first hand experience of owning an IMS boat ( Farr designed Venture 99) and a IRM style boat ( Mills designed Mandrake).

The IRM boat is safer,faster and far more fun to sail. Sailors can understand the racing and one only has to look at the difference between the performance of the Farr 52 OD Bear of Britain and the Farr 52 one -off IMS Bribon at the recent Jubilee Regatta to realise that IMS produces slow, expensive, tender, dinosaurs. The two biggest yachting nations numerically in Europe are France and the UK, neither have ever had success promoting IMS despite the RORC holding it's major International events in that rule. The last custom IMS racer built in the US for an American was Idler in 1998. The success of the IMS 50 ft fleet in Spain cannot be denied but that is a special situation where sponsors have grasped the opportunity provided by the Royal family.

I am not crying foul because no Farr One-designs were included in the Admirals Cup. The facts are that the Farr 40 Class elected not to renew it's application to be considered as an Admirals Cup Class and Admirals Cup selection may actually deter buyers as Sydney Yachts found out. None of our owners bought Farr 40s simply to compete in the last Admirals Cup. Failure of IMS has been the sole reason for the success of the One-design classes and indeed the success of IRC.

From Mathew Barton
Why do you think Ben left OneWorld? I would imagine that the chances of him driving the boat / calling the tactics are limited giving Gilmour's experience. As Ben has a couple of Olympic medals in what is probably the purist of Olympic classes (I'm not a Laser sailor but it has to be the simplest / least technical Olympic boat) where boat on boat is what it is all about, this would have to be a source of frustration. Who wants to sniff wind up a mast when you could be driving?

Two questions now emerge: 1. If he was on Team GBR would he have left at this point? I doubt it as sailing with your mates for your country probably beats sailing for a foreign syndicate (anyone want to ask Russell Coutes that?) 2. How will he get on in the Finn? I was of the impression Ben wasn't the biggest Laser sailor ever so some serious pies will be required pre-Athens, plus he probably hasn't been sailing small boats regularly recently. However I wouldn't bet against him picking up a medal. Best Bart Simpson is p***ed off this afternoon!

From Hugh Evans
Will it sell in the UK? Great looking machine, this type of boat is great fun, right now excellent racing, fleet, match and team racing happens with the Illusion in the Isle of Wight during the low winter months. This is at a cost of about a third of one of the mini AC's all be it in not such an up to date craft. Whether a fleet can be generated at this cost? It will take a group effort to start a fleet. Without that core effort and a sailing programme to grow interest, it will be tough.

From Ian Lauritzen
Will it sell in the UK? The AC 5 attracts every sailor. The boat speed and seaworthy of this machine gives everyone a unique chance to train and feel the pleasure of simulating sailing with a full scale top modern AC I loved sailing the AC-5 and of course the boat will be hartly welcomed by the sailing nation UK.

From Hannu Järvelä
Has anyone else tried this system? Yes, I have had this RC-modelboat based on same system. It works OK until the boat broaches. On normal broach it just looses the grip and chases upwind in a very violent manner. On Chinese broach this boat shows in my opinion the worst downside of this system. With its keel canted to windward ( or centre on high downwind ) after Chinese the boat stays on its side forever, because the light keel doesn't have enough moment to right the boat because of its lightweightness.

OK this was on Rc-model, but without the spinaker. I want to hear about a cruising crew with their boat having a luxus interior hissing the keel to opposite position, when the boat is like 110 degree heeled, in their huge cabin which has something like three metres to climb to the keel system. If the keel is heeled electrically, there is always a chance of failure, especially when your batteries have poured their waters to the Bilge after being upside down.

For racing purposes this system is OK, when your whole crew knows what to do. But with panic and inexperience, serious incidents knock at your door. Another thing, when driving in large swell jumping with light boat, is that when your bow-rudder comes out of the water, the wheelman must be very aware. Unlike the rudder on the back of the boat, the bowrudder starts to turn the boat instantly when hitting water. When the rudder is placed on the aft of the boat, after a jump the turn is not so violent, because the rudder wont have such a grip.

This is mainly because the rudder is in the turmoiled flow caused by the keel. Front rudder instead is on steady flow and will have much more grip so it will also turn the boat much faster. Also this systems requires a great deal of endurance for the Bow-rudder. By looking at the pictures from Volvo-ocean race and how these boats jump, I can imagine what kind of punishment a turning blade in the front of the boat would suffer. We have lost three rudders on volvo ocean race already. Just my two cents.

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