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Reader response from recent articles on thedailysail.com

Regarding the choice of three US clubs to find an alternative to Americap Jason Werner wrote back to us:

I would disagree on the comment/question of 'Why don't they join the rest of the US in turning to IRC?'. The simple thing is that a small handful of races are using IRC, far from 'the rest of the US'. IRC is not widespread in general racing at any level in the US, and it is not proposed to be there in the near future.

The problem that I see is that everyone is so focused on the whole 'grand prix' level of sailing, and a rule for them. Yet sailing as a whole is declining at the GRASS ROOTS level. No one who sails a Capri 25, S2, or other common boat cares at all about a rating system that will rate perhaps 40-50 boats in the world! Yet hours and hours are spent on this...for what? What benefit does this provide to sailing as a whole?

Pretty soon we will have a great rating system. Something that rates all boats costing $1.5 million or more all perfect. And those 50 boats will have a lot of fun racing worldwide while all the rest of the people simply stop sailing.

TDS: A good point. However I think the main issue as to why there is so much focus on the Grand Prix end of the sport is because this is where there is a problem at the moment. Currently there is no one rule that is robust enough nor has been adequately adopted around the world to allow Grand Prix level boats of different types from different countries to race one another. And this end of the sport is suffering as a consequence.

What benefit does this provide to sailing? Grand Prix level sailing sets new benchmarks for us to aspire to while this end of the sport also tends to be high profile and helps promote the sport. Is a group of rich owners on Farr 40s piling around the weather mark the image yacht racing wishes to promote to entice new blood into the sport? Personally speaking I would be more inclined to take up driving if I saw a Ferrari than a Ford.

When it comes to glass roots sailing, there are already a number of rules with varying levels of compexity from PY to AMERICAP to IRC to ISM that are more than capable of creating handicaps for these boats. Why does the keelboat racing world need to be diluted further by the creation of another one? And if these aren't competitive enough for up and coming sailors then there are any number of one design classes from dinghies up to Farr 40s to turn to.


A man with his bearings, Norwegian reader Anders Reed-Mohn, spotted a geographical anomaly in our Vendee Globe coverage...

I'm not too familiar with all the round-the-world races, so this puzzles me:

Which way are they really going? From your article on the front runners going
into the roaring forties: "go for the leaders and we can look forward to come considerable concertinaing as the boats fly west around the bottom of the planet."

Now, if they are headed /west/, how come the leading boats are way to the /east/ of
the rest?

TDS: We apologise for this. Despite Alex Thomson at one point looking like he was heading for Cape Horn as he came down the South Atlantic, we can confirm that the Vendee Globe is indeed an east-about race. We will have to focus harder on our compass in the future.


Regarding Mike Golding's quip (see the bottom of the article) that only women get MBEs for sailing singlehanded around the world Kevin Araike seems to have taken this more seriously than was intended:

Mr Golding has not really mellowed with age or child has he?

His closing paragraph of your article from the Southern Ocean, where he thumbed his nose at those who have chosen to not give him an MBE because he is male shows a huge lack of respect, and was a personal jibe towards Ellen Mac who, unlike Mr Golding, has been the FICO World Champion and was never beaten by the bruiser in the big white boat.

If he wishes to be specific about any that are not worthy of the MBE then he should name them or shut up and sit back in his bunk with the bowl of sour grapes he clearly is currently motivating himself with. ­ so perhaps he owes something to Ellen after all...

So come on Mike ­ which females did not deserve their MBE?

TDS: I would hazard a guess that Mike would deny neither Ellen nor Emma Richards their MBEs, feeling, frankly as we do, that anyone who races an Open 60 around the world singlehanded fully deserves a knighthood.


Regarding Andy Green's request for suggested pairings in Green Television Inc's new up and coming series 'I'm a Sailing Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' The Terminator (thank you, Alex) came back to us with:

Laurie Davidson and Tom Schnack (‘you stole all my ideas’)

Russell Coutts and Chris Dickson (‘you stole my crew’)

Tracy Edwards and Bruno Peyron (‘you allegedly stole all my ideas’)

Luca Devoti, Grant Dalton and the head of UK Lottery Funding (’you allegedly stole all our potential crew’)

The Queen and Peter Harrison (‘you stole my knighthood - allegedly’)

Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli circa 2007 (‘you stole my trophy’, ‘no you lost it’, ‘no you stole it’, ‘just shut up and open the elephant dung insta barbecue’, ‘sorry I can’t afford to’)

Personally we enjoyed the suggestion of another reader:

Andy Green and John Doerr...

TDS: Tres drole

Any readers wishing to add their views should email thedailysail here