And so it begins…

… the 2023 505-Class Worlds. The day dawned foggy and cold, with a forecast of WIND, and boy did we get a lot of all three.

Breakfast, at Art’s Cafe. Talk about a hole in the wall. Good Denver omelette, though.

We were first to the launching ramp, wanting to get some water time to check out the sails and the new rudder. But:

Those flags tell the story: no wind. (The flag on the right is the Answering Pennant, in sailboat racing it means “racing delayed”.) The current flowing out the Golden Gate was faster than the wind, so going out was not recommended. And so we wait.

A good chance to wander the boatyard (have I ever told you, I *love* boatyards) and check out some of the other boats, and maybe learn some cool rigging tricks.

P&B are English and make some of the fastest 505s (Spot is a Rondar, also English). This one is super clean, minimal rigging for minimal problems.

A bit of a spaghetti factory, with a mid-boom mainsheet (!); most 505s have moved to stern sheeting for better separation of leech tension and trim. If you look closely you can see a bridle riding on a traveler. It might work well but super complex.

Drying the Spinnaker and wetsuits … it will all be wet again quite soon.

A little last minute work on the centerboard gasket….

So how’s the weather? Looking to the West we see the iconic San Fran picture:

Yep, fog blowing in. But it *is* blowing. So off we go!

Some rather large traffic on the way out to the line.

Okay, I’d love to share more of the pictures I took today – and I will if I can – but right now they are trapped on my damp-and-unresponsive iPhone (😡). Stay tuned.

And what happened? Well, it got foggier, and windier. Pretty soon it was quite foggy and quite windy, and after a couple of false starts, the Worlds were under way! We had a decent first weather leg, rounded the mark, got blanketed by a couple of boats above us, heeled to weather with the chute up, came in to compensate, got hit with a gust of wind, and capsized. The chute wrapped around the spreaders, filled with water, and we turtled while trying to clean it up. After a lot of swimming around in the fog and wind and a lot of futzing and cursing, we got the boat back up. And after a lot more futzing and cursing, we got the spinnaker down.

We found ourselves all alone in the fog, and decided to head in. With dead reckoning on the compass we found the club, and made it in. We were not the only ones to come in early, there were a lot of stories told about capsizes, gear breakages, and other adventures, and two different boats actually had to be towed in.

After showering and recovering we made an assessment:

• First, the new sails were great. And fortunately we didn’t hurt the spinnaker despite wrapping it around the mast and filling it with water.
• 24:1 Vang works perfectly. We need to use it more, and we did, and we shall do.
• The new rudder was excellent! A huge improvement.
  
  After, I added a screw to hold the tiller in the rudder head; it came out at a bad moment, as I was climbing back into the boat over the stern:

• We need a way to keep the pole launcher lines from hanging down below the boom. This is a known thing in 505s; the launcher line goes from the front of the mast to the back of the pole, through the pole, and then on to a ring riding on the spinnaker guy. Pulling the launcher line extends the pole forward, and the ring on the guy causes the pole to seat up against the spinnaker. That part works great. But when the pole isn’t extended, the slack in the line hangs below the boom and acts an a noose, catching the crew on every tack and jibe.
  
  After, our solution was to rig “spitters”; small pieces of shock cord inside each pole, which pulls slack in the launcher line forward. (They cause the launcher lines to “spit” out of the front of the poles, hence the name.)

Want to see the spitter in action? I knew you would:

• One more improvement, we replaced the mainsheet cleat base with a smaller one. This should allow me to play the sheet more easily upwind. I’ll post a pic if/when I’ve revived my phone (😬).

To make these improvements I voyaged to the West Marine in Sausalito. This has to be the biggest, best, coolest West Marine there is; it’s like a Home Depot for boats!

Even has a Tesla charger in the parking lot, what could be better.

Oh, and yeah, the day ended with tacos at the Yacht Club. Didn’t take any pics of them, was too busy eating, but they were pretty great.

So, first day of the Worlds in the books, three races, and we didn’t finish any of them. Not a great start. But we’re making progress and tomorrow will be better! Stay tuned….