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Some heated debate on the Commodore's Cup, sailor classifications and Graham Dalton's qualification

A French contributor sent us this in response to our question over whether it was a deserved win for the French team:

What is the rationale for asking this question? Undesired nationality to win? The quality of the Commodore's Cup should not deserve such a bad spirit ...

The implication of the question was not that France didn't deserve to win the Commodore's Cup for nationalistic reasons. You only have to look at our coverage of the circuits like the 60ft tris, Open 60s, Mini, Figaro (we are about the only English site covering this entirely French event), Tour Voile, etc to see we are pro-French. Besides your food is better than ours.

Andrew McLelland has this to say about IMS:

I didn't do Commodore's Cup but having come back from Copa Del Rey (IMS event in Majorca) one thing I can definitely agree with is that IMS would be a disaster for this country. Okay for the Med and less than 18 knots of breeze but any boat with stability is massively penalised. Oh, and by the way you also need crescent shaped spreaders so you can fit a bigger non-overlapping jib without penalty!! Try that structurally in the Channel in 30 knots!

James Struth thought the following:

All good stuff. We could be tempted by a little IRM boat similar to the Prism 28 Thurst that we had great fun with for eight years under IRC. An IRM boat of 28 feet would be great and cheap to run. I do think that IRM needs to forfill the place of the small IRO boats that were so popular in the 70s and 80s. A lot of people would go for it because they could afford the boats and get a crew of 5-8 people together. Lets all get IRM sorted so that we can have great race boats of all sizes again.

Howard Gale thought Peter Morton's views were 'bang on the money', but regarding Bill Dann's comments published in our last feedback , he had this to say:

I get the distinct impresion that Mr Bill Dann should have looked at the blistering set of results the Farr 52s have amassed over the last two years and compared them to each other before he choose to comment. The Bear crew who trained with some of the GBR Challenge crew (including Ian walker) in two of the Farr 52s over easter would like to see nothing more than them to win the AC and bring the cup back to where it belongs for the first time in 151 years, and wish the boys all the best. I am with many others in the sailing world - let's lose the politics and get on with the sailing.

On page four...your thoughts about our comments on the amateur helmsmen in the Commodore's Cup