Hi Ron:

You are obviously very devoted to Herb, which I understand. A lot of people are. He deserves the appreciation he has earned. I said as much, very clearly, in my "Too Conservative?" post.

Jon's original post inaccurately implied (or stated, depending on how you read it) that Hank made his negative remarks about Herb after Jan Anderson was lost from Triple Stars. In fact he made them before the tragedy. That's what I was (am?) trying to get straight. A fairly simple question of chronology.

It is unfair, in my opinion, for you to say Hank was trying "to throw Herb under a bus" or to blame the "failure" of the NARC on him. At the time Hank made the remarks in question, he was aggravated that a boat he felt responsible for (Triple Stars) was still more than 200 miles north of Bermuda 10 days out of Newport. Hank felt they should have been in 4 days earlier. He was talking to several other skippers in Bermuda who only made it to Bermuda after ignoring Herb's advice to stay north, at sea, to wait out the bad weather. They were also saying critical things about Herb.

For over 15 years now I have been listening to very experienced skippers telling me the same thing about Herb: he gives good forecasts, but his routing advice is often too conservative to be useful. I personally have crewed on a few passages where this was obviously the case. I published Hank's criticism and the "Conservative" post not to bust Herb's chops, but because I felt less experienced skippers need to understand that many more experienced skippers have this opinion of Herb. (You will note, if you read the comments on the "Conservative" post, that John Harries, one of the more experienced skippers out there, agreed with me wholeheartedly.)

I think I acted fairly in trying to accomplish this. I published Hank's initial criticism and made sure to get a response from Herb. The follow-up/analysis post acknowledged Herb's enormous contribution and laid no blame on him, but put the onus precisely where I think we all agree it belongs: on the skipper of any given boat that's out there.

I would also like to point out that the title to Jon's original post makes it seem as though Herb has ceased operating altogether (thanks to me and Hank). But as Jon himself noted in the body of his post, Herb is still routing boats that pre-register with him and is only declining to deal with rally boats. Herb had already announced he would curtail his services in any event. (He is getting on, after all.) In that most everyone frequenting this board routinely derides those who sail in rallies (I have been following since the '90s, when I worked at Cruising World, with our mutual friend Jeremy), and would never ever ever sail in one themselves, I don't see that Herb's new policy has much effect on you or the other denizens.

cheers, charlie