Readers' viewpoints

Opinion from all over the world - your chance to answer back!

Last week we asked: Over the last 12 months four new round the world races have come into existence or have been proposed in the Barcelona World Race, the Global Ocean Challenge, the Solo Oceans and Yves Parlier's new circuit. While individually these are all great ideas - is the proliferation of these events good for our sport and can the sport sustain this number of events? Our fear is that we will see more sponsors (Timberland, OKI to name two past examples) backing the 'wrong horse' and pulling out, disgruntled by the lack of central organisation within sailing? If you have a view - let us know.

In addition to this there is of course the Antarctica Challenge, an event Atlant up in Sweden are known to be working as well as yet another circuit in France... We are going to need a bigger website soon!

This topic clearly hit a nerve with many of you, inciting feedback from all over the globe. This included:

Joe Goddard from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, who wrote:

I agree there are too many, you have to consider the safety angle and what happens to the sport when the sailors get into strife and have to be rescued somewhere down in the high latitudes. You only need one selfish egotistical skipper who will risk his own life, his crew and that of the rescuers - that will damage and ridicule the sport. Lets face it there are some of these chaps out there.

If we are losing lives and sinking boats in the well controlled and managed Volvo Ocean Race, what risks are we getting into with those other fledgling races?


From Sydney, Australia David Eastwood writes:

From where I sit it’s far from clear that any of the world’s existing RTW races deliver a commercial return for their backers. Obviously, a proliferation will further dilute returns.

Fact is that the general public in most markets with access to media that could engage them in a RTW event are only marginally interested. Sailing hasn’t yet become a mass market 'consumer”' sport = and I for one struggle to see it becoming one in the near future. The VOR was a case in point - a delayed data feed eliminated all sense of immediacy and engagement for this offshore racer. But, a race where every competitor knows in real-time 'who farted on the boat over there' is a pure processional drag race, game over once one boat has proven to be faster than the others. Boring like F1 auto racing. One design boats may offer a solution to that, but if they have 'one-design' professional crews and sail budgets there’s every chance that there will be no scope for difference in speed so it will all come down to tactical choices and navigation, and as the weather and sophisticated routing tools often mandate one strategy over all others boredom will prevail.

In the so-called 'halcyon days' of 15 and more years ago there was a lot less certainty around design, routing, weather and the mechanical operation of a boat - very element of the mix was far less understood and much more was empirical and judgement based. Hence, there was a lot more unpredictability over outcomes. This is also the case in other technology-driven sports where massive technology investment and the law of diminishing returns reduce the magnitude of a 'winning edge' to something undiscernible to a non-expert audience. I’d argue that the recent ABNAMRO dominance of the VOR was purely down to investment: Started early, built two boats, learnt lessons and applied them with the relative luxury of time to test develop and experiment. And, even with chronic lack of time and development the Farr boats were in the ball park and won a few legs. Even in a brand new class, with severely compressed development cycles the unpredictability factor proved relatively low.

Contrast with the current Soccer World up where, as always, a reasonable amount of uncertainty exists despite favouritism and seeding, the 'human factor'. Without that uncertainty a sport is pretty unengaging. So, proliferation of events all featuring a significant degree of certainty and large budgets will be economically disastrous, but perhaps it’s a shake-up the sport needs if it is serious about becoming commercially viable?


Spanish media star, bass player extraordinaire - the soon to be married Javier Sobrino writes:

Dear friends

I agree with you. There is too many similar races, and this is an additional issue when you want the people in general and the sponsors to be interested in the round the world races. This is a great sport, an amazing adventure and full of fantastic stories to tell, but having too many races is bad for the sport itself. It should be great if you write an article about all those races (I don't know if you did it already), explaining the differences between them (including quotes from people involved), so we can realise why a sailor (and a sponsor) goes for one or the other.   

Thank you for a great website.


Ian Stewart writes:

In the end that is a question about whether you trust the market for sailing sponsorship to sort itself out, or feel there should be a central body to avoid the sort of competition that we are now seeing for potential sponsorship dollars.

If you vote for the latter, you need to ask yourself who would be sufficiently qualified and sufficiently unbiased and seen as sufficiently independent to make the decision as to which event is authorised and which is not? And on what basis? First come first served? The one with the most start-up funding? The one associated with the most big name sailors? The one started by the organisation with the most ocean racing organising experience? All are good reasons, but all have their downsides, and in some situations the various criteria will provide conflicting decisions. And even if the criteria are right, you need to have faith in the judges to apply them correctly.

In the end, I would rather trust the market to sort itself out. Let everyone who wishes to start an event do so. Then let them survive or fail on the basis of their organisation skills, their support within the sailing community and their ability to satisfy the requirements of the sponsors, the sailors, and the fans/public upon whom both sponsors and sailors depend for their livelihood. At least this way the strongest events will survive on merit.

All excellent points...


Budding solo sailor Graeme Sutherland writes:

The problem is not just a proliferation or races, but also a proliferation of classes. The advantage that the Global Ocean Challenge and Barcelona World Race have is that they both tap into existing fleets. Neither the Oceanic One-Design nor Parlier's trimaran are cheap, and might have limited use outside their respective circuits.

Perhaps the solution would be to reverse the trend of separating amateur and professional events, and be more liberal with eligible classes. Would allowing smaller boats into the Vendée hurt the event, or would it be good for the sport?



Donald Lawson writes:

As a up and coming Open class skipper I find it very hard to choose what type of boat to have built because the number of races out there determine which boat to have built. It would be better to have one or two solo around the world race with five or six classes (kinda how it use to be). Allow newbies and vets race at the same time, but just in different classes.You can even make it a IRC or PHRF race to make it fair for everyone. You can not expect sponsors to support a boat if there are a million different races and the one you enter into is not the most popular.

Consider this: If there was a more unite group of races, the media and public would find it easier to follow. The Volvo is cool, the Vendee is great, 5-Oceans is great but why not just combine two of those races; have a solo class and a crewed class.

Why the in the world would Volvo schedule their race during the Vendee?


Over the last decade several attempts from different quarters have been made to persuade Volvo use Open 60s for their race. To be fair - and this is something we occasionally are - while there are certainly compelling arguments for this, the fact is that there will still be a bunch of new boats built solely with the aim of winning the Volvo Ocean Race and these will always be very much more expensive pieces of equipment than those built for the Vendee Globe, simply through the amount of testing they could do, two boat testing, etc.


John Alden, business guy, Member, Annapolis Yacht Club, Former Team Kando CoChairman writes:

Folks at the Daily Sail:

You ask, are there too many round the world races? I rarely write in response to such appeals but this one touched a nerve!

From where I sit in the USA, the core issue may not be 'too many' in absolute terms but how the sailing world is working together to insure that the image of sailing is just not another “rich persons” hobby. While I am not negative about that issue (rich peoples hobbies), per se, it’s not the “stuff” that reaches the masses here in the USA.

What that means to us and many of my sailing colleagues is:

• Does the net effect of the continuous search for more speed, also encourage more people to partake of our sport.
• Will more people come out to see the boats in port?
• Will more corporations consider sponsorship?
• Will the education systems (at least in the USA) encourage children, youth and adults to learn through sail about the ocean, the heavens, the environment, the ports, the people
• Will our Olympic team have more depth and breadth? Will it be more competitive?
• Will the nautical industry in the USA grow and thrive?
• Are we creating more “nautical related” jobs in our community (Annapolis, MD)
• Etc.

I am, along with my business partner Patrick (copied) a US information technology business person with a passion for sailing. We put together a VOR syndicate Team Kando to enter the race just entered. We were acknowledged to have a great plan and team, but after 15 months of looking, we could find NO serious sponsors. Meanwhile USA-based companies were dumpling millions into the NASCAR environment. NO US VOR syndicate has raised any serious corporate funding. 'Chessie' ’98 was funded by George Collins (our syndicate Chairman); there was no successful boat in 2002 - a syndicate funded by individuals got to Rio and had to stop. If you look real hard about the 2006, you will probably find that Disney’s money into Pirates was a bit fluke.

So for this reader, the core questions in the USA are about inclusion (i.e. demographics and widening participation); not the absolute #’s, although some 'coordination' would probably help deal with some of the issues that we experience in the USA. BTW, I have copied our good friend Gary Jobson (a member of our Kando board). He is our star when it comes to observing and commenting on sailing in the USA.

Mark Hield writes:

Although many of the races are aimed at slightly differing groups, there is a danger that the public and sponsors will be confused and that competitors will be spread over too many races so not producing a recognisable premier race where all the top sailors compete against each other; for example the proposal by Yves Parlier for a one design trimaran race around the world is in principal good and perhaps ultimately the future for the premier single handed round the world race (Vendee Globe), but I think its too soon, particularly if the proposal is to run it over the winter 2008 to 2009 which will directly conflict with the Vendee Globe, but perhaps the 2012 Vendee could adopt a trimaran if the new Sodebo and IDEC prove successful. So to answer your question I think there is a need for a governing body to try and regulate and reduce possible conflicts and create some sort of recognised league of solo and fully crewed races that the public understand and sailors can progress through from one design affordable class to a premier trimaran / monohull class?

But the question is who? ISAF know nothing about offshore racing.


From the depths of Devonshire Vikki Penney writes:

I have to agree with the writer of "Our fear" as it my fear also!!!!

Without the backing of major sponsors who are prepared to put up large amounts of money...none of these Round the World Races or in fact any of the Ocean Races that we follow through this site, would not happen.

Sponsors want value for money by seeing their particular racing machine getting as much media attention as possible.

Over the past few years one only has to look at the skippers who register their interest in these races at the launch of the race and then look again at the skippers who actually make to the star line.

Having had the privilege of working with some of this country's Top Offshore Sailors, I am only to aware of the long nightmare road our Racing Skippers have to go through when hunting down that all illusive sponsorship deal. 'Getting to the start' is often the hardest part on any Offshore Racers Campaign. Surely more and more Round the World Races would NOT be good for our sport, in fact it could well be the start of a steep downhill slope which will result in many new Sponsors being disappointed when they do not reach the targets that they expect for their investments.

In my humble opinion, for what it is worth, I believe it would be far better to improve the build up to races, already in existence and improve the Race Villages at the start and finish ports, making them more inviting to the Media and Television Companies...More Races with the just same loyal sponsors we see at every race start just does NOT make good business sense...


On the Rolex Commodore's Cup we recently gave our views about the final outcome where the French trounced the Irish and RORC received considerable flack for not having shortened course. See the feedback to date on this here .

Former keelboat racing star David 'Spike' King writes from the comfort of his plush office:

Dear Daily Sail

In reply to the French win in this year's Commodore's Cup I have to say that I am not surprised at the result. They are just great sailors and have proven themselves time and time again. They love to sail and will sail anything that will keep them afloat. I remember them getting in the Half Tonners in 1983 and sailing the boats up to Troon in Scotland for the 1983 1/2 Ton Cup. They do not try to buy their way to the front but do it in the good old way of spending time on the water. The fact of the matter is that French sailors have a much more balanced diet of offshore and inshore sailing and do not get so polarised by sailing off Bramble Bank for 90% of the year. They know the Channel and love to get out in it. The RORC must keep its head. Offshore racing is offshore racing. It is difficult and you need a different mindset. You start a race and you finish it. Anything else is not the sport we love. It is critical that we go offshore racing and get good at it again. If you take offshores out of these regattas then they will die. No Fastnet in the Admiral's Cup has made it a none event. We need the challenge of offshore racing so make them difficult and get on with it. Money doesn't buy skill.

Due to work I am not racing offshore boats much at present and miss it madly.

Agree? Disagree? Send us you comments here .