Nice Record. Oh wait. . .

The beauty of the new breed of big ocean racing monohulls is to see how fast they can sail, and in the process, see how many existing elapsed time records they can break. Records, as they say, are meant to be broken, yes?

The Newport to Bermuda race, struggling to come to grips with the reality of this new big boat scene, created a "Demonstration Division" for these boats, one that did not race for any of the real prizes, an indicator that the organizers were already alarmingly out of touch. It's as if these boats weren't really racing, merely "Demonstrating." What the hell are they thinking?

Then, after the maxZ 86 Morning Glory handily set a new elapsed time record, according to the record books, it is considered no such thing at all. The men in blue blazers, rather than calling it a record and treating it as such, called it an unofficial "benchmark." A benchmark? Is that a joke? If so it is a really bad one and the joke is on everyone involved. It looks like the joke will continue however. According to Race Chairman John Winder, "We hope to keep the Demonstration Division open for 2006, so this gives them their own record to race for." Them? Their own? How about including them in the same race, results and records as everyone else?
I'm in no way feeling sorry for MG or the mult-millionaires who build these huge things, but it is time to remove articifial rating limits and let them all in as official participants.

It isn't a "benchmark", it's a new elapsed time record, set by the first of a new breed. To call it anything else is to not only ignore the obvious, it simply points out how badly sometimes this sport needs to catch up to itself.

7/06/04