G-class movement

Bruno Peyron talks to The Daily Sail about his plans for The Race 2004, The Race Tour and a new 80ft one design maxi-cat

The championship

As he mentioned back in May, aside from The Race and The Race Tour Peyron is keen to build up a championship of records - this will no doubt be music to Steve Fossett and Olivier de Kersauson's ears as both have programs more or less entirely based around bagging as many sailing records as possible.

At present the concept of the Championship has been agreed in principle with the G-class skippers to work on a four yearly cycle with a co-efficient for each record. This is as follows although Peyron admits this is still only in draft form:

The Race - 10
Trophy Jules Verne - 10
The Race Tour - 10
North Atlantic W-E record (New York-Lizard) - 5
The Gold Route (New York-San Francisco) - 5
The Tea Route (Europe to China) - 5
North Pacific (Yokohama-San Francisco) - 5
Equator-Cape of Good Hope - 4
Cape of Good Hope to Cape Leeuwin (S Australia) - 5
Cape Leeuwin to south of Tasmania - 3
Cape Leeuwin to Cape Horn - 5
Cape Horn to the Equator - 4
Route of Discovery (Cadiz-Salvador, Bahamas) - 4
TransPac route (Los Angeles-Hawaii) - 4
Round Britain & Ireland - 3
Round Gotland - 3
Round Corsica - 3
Sydney-Hobart - 3
Fastnet course - 3
Transmed - Marseilles to Carthage - 3
24 hour record - 2
Transgascogne (Lorient-Gijon-Lorient) - 2
Miami-New York - 2
Round the Isle of Wight - 1
New York to Bermuda - 1
Cross Channel record (Cowes-St Malo) - 1

The championship will equate to the skipper, co-skipper and crew of the fastest boat on each course being scored by the co-efficient multiplied by 10 for the skipper, 7.5 for the co-skipper and 5 for the crew. At present the second fastest boat would have the co-efficient multiplied by 9 for the skipper, 6.75 for the co-skipper and 4.5 for the crew - and continuing downward for the fastest 10 boats.

So for the last version of The Race for example Grant Dalton would have got 100 points, Franck Proffit (co-skipper) 75 points and the crewmen such as Neal McDonald would get 50 points.

What's your view about all of this? Is Peyron bonkers or a genius visionary? Is the G-class the future of ocean racing? Email your thoughts to feedback@thedailysail.com (via Outlook) or go to our Contact Us page to use a message box...