What the Winners Used - 2013 North American Championship

In the past, it was common for the class to publish a gear/information table for the top 10 boats at major championships. This would give the 505 public a chance to see what the top sailors in the class were using for gear as well as other interesting information about combined crew weight etc. We have developed an easy way to collect and post this information with Google Forms, and the responses will be published to the class website under the "Rigging and Project Archive" page. We will publish a similar list for all major class championships going forward. We will also use this as a permanent repository for results from our major championships.

Check out the table from the 2013 NA's!

Please leave us a comment here or on Facebook if you have suggestions for additional columns to add to the format.

2013 North Americans Report - Mike Holt

The 505 Fleet descended into Kingston, Ontario from August 6th to 11th for the 2013 505 North American Championship. A fleet of just under 30 boats came to the line with a very impressive ten coming all the way from the West Coast. More impressive still, seven of the boats were driven by female skippers and there was also a very high number of young sailors racing with 10 sailors under 30. See the pics of these groups posted on the American Section Facebook page!

Racing was held over four days with sunshine and light winds being the predominant conditions, and Kingston's famed sea-breeze only making an appearance for the final race - and of course for the packing of the container! The key to success was good starts, speed and more importantly nailing the shifts and staying in what breeze there was. The first two days of racing featured 40-50 degree shifts and 10 knot variations in wind strength across the course and keeping the score low was the game to play. Two boats were doing far better at this than the rest of us in the first half of the regatta - Mark Zagol and Drew Butner and Augie Diaz and Tommy Fink, with the former team slowly pulling away as the event ran its course. However the depth of the fleet was easy to be seen with seven different teams winning races over the course of the eleven race series, and almost every boat in the fleet getting into the top ten at some stage.

Socially, Kingston never disappoints. Flo and Jeff Boyd kindly held a spectacular BBQ party at their house. It was a real shame a back injury kept Jeff from competing and robbing us all of the opportunity to pilfer his local knowledge! We also had a very good night at the Kingston Yacht Club on the Saturday with a lovely dinner, great socializing, and many of the "younger" teams enjoying the spectacular Kingston nightlife.

Race management led by Steve Black did very well to get eleven races in despite the challenging conditions and the large number of other events going on across the lake, with gate starts pulled off with the help of Dave Megarry who also bought his RIB up from Toronto to perform the task and Rob Colwel in the mark set boat. Not to mention many others “behind the scenes”.

Back to the racing, Mark and Drew sailed fantastically well to win the event, counting nothing worse than a 5th which is an incredible achievement given the variability of the conditions and the competition. Augie and Tommy were second 4 points ahead of Parker Shinn and Jesse Falsone, who were getting better and better as the event went along and would have wished for a little more practice before the event. Carl and I finished 4th, just beating top female skipper Krysha Pohl sailing with Jon Henderson who sailed a great regatta including a race win in race 10 to cap off a great second half of the series. Sailing together after a long break, Doug Hagan and Stuart Park also had some outstanding races and rounded out the top six.

Despite some tricky racing early on, Kingston didn't disappoint and the class hopes to return there soon for another championship. Many thanks to the Kingston Yacht Club, the volunteers, and the Boyd's for putting on a great show!

For next year the fleet heads back to Santa Cruz for the NA’s, to be held over the Memorial Day weekend. Start making plans now!

Results:
http://kingstonyachtclub.com/racing/results/2013/regatta/505NorthAmericans.htm

Santa Cruz Training Weekend - Mike Holt

Editor's Note: The West Coast 505 Fleet held a training weekend as the NA's container loading event prior to shipping out the Kingston NA's. The event was a huge success, and a second similar weekend has already been planned for Long Beach October 3-6. At the 2013 AGM, the Class unanimously voted to financially support these training weekends on both coasts in an effort to boost turnout and the level of competition. Look for more of these events in the second half of 2013 and next season. Thanks Mike for organizing the event and for providing this report.

This past weekend we held a training weekend in Santa Cruz. Spurred on by the domination of the German's in Barbados and the fact that the NA's have not been won by the West Coast since '09 we felt it was time we all tried to get better!

18 teams took to the water over the weekend with a variety of levels  from "plenty still to learn" all the way up to World Championship winners out training. While the weather was not what you would describe as classic Santa Cruz conditions, we probably had better conditions for training, with wind generally around 6-10 knots and a moderate swell. Conditions all to similar with what we see at the "Big" events.

On Saturday Steve Bourdow coached us all, running short windward/leeward courses with a proper gate start, complete with attendant Rib. On the water coaching was provided by Steve and several of the crews swapped with others on the water. I lost count of how many races we ran but it was definitely well in to double figures so we had a huge amount of start, mark rounding, tacking, gybing etc going on.

Following sailing on Saturday we had a full debrief, with lots of good questions and even better answers and everyone went away having learnt at least a few things from the day.

Sunday we had Rich Mundell coaching us all. Starting with a recap of what we had learned on Saturday and then what he was going to cover for the day and to remember this is FUN! And it was, amazingly so. I really have to think hard to remember the last time I had such an unexpectedly good time on the water. The short races were incredibly tight, getting tighter every race. In our boat we focused on different parts every time till towards the end we started to link them all up together and wow were we sailing better! I felt that the back boats had improved by 20 boat lengths a race, the middle by 10 and the front by 3. In the last few races all the boats were on the short beat together!

Again a full debrief followed with more great input. However I am not going to share any of it here, for that you need to come to the next one at Alamitos Bay YC October 3-6.

A big thanks also to Bruce Edwards(and his partners) for lending us his Rib, made a great coaching platform and to Mo Hart for keeping an eye on us from the Protector. 

However the stars of the show were Steve and Rich, great work, top tips and all done in a fun and casual atmosphere. Roll on the next one.

Wire to Wire Jibing Tutorial – Parker Shinn

Parker Shinn has graciously contributed a nice article and associated video to the class website:

http://www.usa505.org/tips/jibing-tutorial-shinn

There are many ways to jibe the boat, but Parker obviously has a great technique which works for him. Note that your technique may vary slightly, but the objective remains the same. Do you have a different technique that works for you? Leave your comments below or contribute a similar article that we can put up on the website.

Updated Registrants - 2013 International 505 North Americans - Kingston YC August 7-11

Current List of entrants below. This is going to be a great event and we should have at least another 10 boats make the event. American Section sailors, please make sure that you have paid your 2013 dues. BOTH the helm and the crew need to be members of the American Section. It couldn't be easier. There is a link on the American Section website to pay your dues via PayPal. No excuses to not have it done by the regatta where the officers will be doling out shame and punishment to those not current on their dues - thanks.

Count Sail number Skipper
1 CAN 7605 Renka Gesing
2 CAN 8600 Marie Gendron
3 CAN 8610 Shona Weldon
4 CAN 8645 Marg Hurley
5 CAN 8696 Francois Bertrand
6 CAN 8866 Cynthia Des Brisay
7 GER 8889 Hasso Plattner
8 USA 7346 Craig Thompson
9 USA 7773 Duane Delfosse
10 USA 8084 Aaron Ross
11 USA 8194 Tom Kivney
12 USA 8554 Ted Conrads
13 USA 8681 Douglas Hagan
14 USA 8808 Augie Diaz
15 USA 8822 David Burchfiel
16 USA 8829 Krysia Pohl
17 USA 8830 Mark Zagol
18 USA 8831 Pierre Jeangarard
19 USA 8850 Doug Watson
20 USA 8913 Katherine Long
21 USA 9003 Jesse Falsone
22 USA 9004 Eben Russell
23 USA 9007 Matt Barry
24 USA 9041 Henry Amthor
25 USA 9042 JB Turney
26 USA 9072 Mike Holt
27 USA 9095 Macy Nelson
28 USA TBD Reeve Dunne