”We’re making progress and tomorrow will be better”, I wrote yesterday. Heh. Tomorrow was today, and it was windier (20+ knots) and stormier, a strong ebb tide across the strong wind made for survival conditions. There were two epic races and this day will enter the annals of 505 and indeed regatta history.
Wow. I know *exactly* how that feels 😮
What a beautiful shot … this truly captures the magic of this setting and regatta.
Mark roundings are pretty exciting if you get there with other boats. You don’t want to hit anyone at those speeds (10+ knots).
Yep cruising at 12-15 downwind *against* an ebbing tide. Whee!
Yikes! That pretty much sums up the day, including the fact that you can’t see the hulls because of the waves.
Not pictured: the noise! You can’t believe how loud wind in the 20+ range can be. It makes it hard to think 😳
Good friend Dave Edwards sadly lost his mast in the washing machine. There were four broken masts, ten+ boats which broke down (at least two were towed in), and as I heard about 25 boats didn’t finish the last race, nearly half the fleet.
So how did we do? Well … we survived. I can’t actually say we “made progress”, because it felt like the goal was just to get around the course intact, never mind racing other boats. All of the things we’ve done are working out: new sails, new rudder (excellent handling), new maincleat (makes a big difference), board controls (essential in breeze), and LBNL the spitters (so so nice not to have the launcher lines hanging below the boom like a noose).
We did break our vang – apparently even Dyneema line has a breaking point – but that can easily be repaired tomorrow morning.
This morning before the racing the International 505 Class had it’s Annual Group Meeting, colloquially known as the AGM.
Officers LtoR Sven Hertim (treasurer), Mike Holt (VP), Mike Quirk (President), and Johannes Tellem (sec’y), review the state of the class.
Boats registrations have been down since Covid and are only slowly recovering. Currently 780 worldwide, down from a recent high of 1232 in 2011.
Most boats by far are in Germany (310), followed by Sweden (78), UK (63), France (52), US (51), Australia (50). These are active boats, in the sense of paying dues and registering with the class, there are way more 505s being sailed casually at the club or fleet level, who are not members of the international association.
For discussion, two big agenda items: Future Regattas, and Funding for the Class.
The 2024 Worlds are locked and loaded for Farberg, Sweden. There was some discussion about this location, sounds awesome. For 2025 there was a nice presentation about Hayling Island, UK, and that seems like the front-runner location. Also discussed was the possibility of having a regatta in Barcelona or Rosas, Spain, maybe after the 2024 Worlds and before the America’s Cup which is also in Barcelona (!)
There’s a lot of 505 racing in Europe – some Americans actually keep a second 505 there, and fly back and forth to race it. How great would that be? 🙄⛵️😊
Final discussion point was some new boats which came to the regatta “light”. There’s a builder in Germany who apparently does this deliberately, and lots of ideas about what to do. Seemed like the main point was to write him a letter, and maybe start fining the measurers who certify boats which then come to the Worlds illegally light.
Well the meeting is over, the wind is coming up … time to sail!
Some early morning action, getting ready for the big day two of Worlds racing:
Drying out the chute and checking the rigging of the poles. We are the only boat with a white chute with two blue stripes. (Our hull is white with two blue stripes, too – why not have stripes when your boat is called Spot.)
Do the “spitters” work?
Spitters in action
Why yes, yes they do 🙂
New main cleat with lower base. This way I can hand-hold the sheet to weather, playing it constantly, and cleat just during tacks and jibes when I need three hands.
Spots for Spot on the mainsail … aligned with the spreaders, to prevent chafing.
New cleat on the centerboard down line, to hold the board in place. The board position is critical in 505s, as the wind increases, you rake the mast back, and rake the centerboard back correspondingly…
Okay, we are locked and loaded. Ready for another day – and high winds are in the forecast. But first, the AGM (Annual Group Meeting).
… 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:
One little screw through the tiller is all it takes to keep it from coming out…
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.)
Outer end of the spinnaker poles, the launcher lines come out the end (rings go over spinnaker guys) The “spitter” shock cords are whipped to the launcher lines and dead-end out little holes in the side
Want to see the spitter in action? I knew you would:
As the pole comes in, the slack in the launcher line is taken up by the spitter (which “spits” the launcher line out the front of the pole)
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….
After a long day of boat stuff, how about a nice dinner? And since we’re in San Francisco, how about Sushi? Just nearby the St Francis YC we found the most excellent Sushi Hakko.
Like many of the best restaurants, the exterior is unassuming.
How exciting! How did I get here?
With sushi we need sake, so…
. Here’s an English translation:
. Onward to the sushi! And OMG what can I say …
My chef, Alan, gave a great explanation of each kind of fish, and best way to enjoy:
Today was going to be simple, get the new sails and the boat measured, mount the new rudder, and take a little practice sail after. None of this was simple.
First up, measuring the new sails. For many years Jay Glazer has been a preeminent maker of racing sails. Besides being a top sailor himself, he and his wife Peasey rose to prominence as their sails won regatta after regatta. Recently he decided to retire and sold his loft in Huntington Beach to Dominic Marchal, a sailmaker from the Bay Area. We have the very first set of Marchal sails, so there was much interest in seeing them measure in.
And … they did not!
checking the 3/4 girth measurement – off by “that much”, but close doesn’t count in World Championships
The Mainsail was slightly too big at a measurement called “3/4 girth”, the width across the sail 3/4 of the way up, near the top batten. Rats! It’s fixable, but who and how can it be done *today*?
Okay, let’s set the Main aside for a moment, how about the Jib?
Again, off by just a bit, but just a bit is too much
Shoot, another problem with this sail! The head is slightly too wide next to the zipper sleeve which goes around the forestay. Another fixable problem, but again, who and how?
And so now the recently-repaired Spinnaker …
Nope 😭 the luffs are too long. The sail is damp though, and “everyone” here says it will measure in once it is dry. Huh, we’ll see.
So, we hatch a plan. Jay Glazer himself is here, and comes over to take a look. And designs the fixes.
That’s Jay above on the left. The Main can be repaired with a recut along the leech.
And now looking at the Jib. It can be fixed also, just narrow the head a bit. “Just”
Dominic and Jay contact Dan Roberts of Quantum sails, in Richmond. (I think I mentioned the Saturday night repair of the Spinnaker? – that was Dan.) His nickname is “Sid Vicious”; he plays in a punk rock band and looks the part.
Dan is standing by to do the repairs in realtime, yay.
This is Jay’s diagram of the needed changes for Dan. All we have to do is drive the sails across the Bay to Dan.
So what about the Spinnaker? Well Jay confirms, a wet chute is a big chute, and agrees it will measure in once it is dry. The Main and Jib are made from Kevlar with Carbon Fiber reinforcement, and Mylar windows. (Yes, racing sails are pretty high tech, and have the $$$ prices to match.) But Spinnakers are made from Nylon, which is lighter and stretchier.
Jay told me that in his loft he hung a 40’ strip of Nylon on the wall. On dry days the strip would pull taught, indicating it was too dry to cut Spinnakers. On damper days the strip hung loose, and it was okay to cut. Interesting.
So the plan is to pile the chute in the car and run the A/C as we drive across the Golden Gate to Quantum sails for the repairs to the Main and Jib, and hopefully it will dry out and measure in. Will Dan be able to repair the sails? Will the Spinnaker dry out and measure in? And will it all happen in time?
Meanwhile, there is measuring the boat itself! Over to the inspection station we go…
Checking to see if a 505 is legal is quite a process. Fortunately Spot has previously competed in a Worlds, and has a measurement certificate. All that’s needed is a quick inspection to make sure nothing significant has been changed. “All” 😮:
And there is the all-important weigh-in:
The minimum weight for a 505 is 124kg (273lbs – yeah, these little rockets are light!). As you can see, Spot weighed in at 134kg, so she’s a bit heavy. Our new rudder is about 5kg lighter than the old one, so that will help close the gap.
And so now to mount the new rudder!
I think I mentioned the late-night run to Home Depot, to get a barrel grinder, to make the tiller fit into the rudder head? Yeah, that was fun, but fortunately it worked and the rudder is ready to go.
Now there is mounting it on the transom of the boat. This requires some precision, it needs to be exactly centered, exactly vertical, and exactly canted a little. Where can this be done?
Aha, the seawall! Stick the end of the boat out over the water and we have a perfect jig. Of course if I drop something, it’s gone forever. The whole process requires extreme caution.
And so of course I drop my awl into the water.
What to do? (And yes the iPhone’s telephoto lens is pretty amazing.) So I locate a pipe halfway down the seawall which can be used as a ladder. And climb down into the rocks.
A little wet slippery scrambling later…
Got it!
So that was done, now to wait in the boatyard for the sails to come back. Lots of people working on lots of boats. Have I mentioned, I *love* boatyards?
And time to admire the view of the Bay from the club.
After a bit – with the measurement committee anxiously standing by – the sails are back!
The Main is re-measured… will it be legal now?
Yes! And we get the coveted stamp of approval.
On to re-measure the Jib:
And…
Yep, it’s okay too!
And finally, the now-dry Spinnaker:
And so and so …
Yep, Jay and the boys were right, a dry chute is smaller and measures in.
So! Sails measured and legal, boat measured and legal, and new rudder ready to go.
Time for the Official Competitor’s Meeting (note Capitals – dum dum dum – felt very Formal and Official):
It boiled down to: Welcome! Read the Sailing Instructions! Good Luck!
Quite the “off” day. And so tomorrow The Worlds begin! Onward!
Tonight we had the Opening Ceremony, pretty cool and fun, celebrating everyone who traveled all the way here to compete.
Quite a group gathered in the “America’s Cup room” of the St Francis YC.
Sailors from eight countries are present, can you name the flags? *
St F YC Commodore Beau Vrolyk welcomes everyone. “We love 505s and you are always welcome here”. Nice.
Mike Martin and Adam Lowry win the Howard Hamlin trophy for the pre-Worlds.
Presentation of the flag from the German contingent.
A cool wall featuring models of America’s Cup competitors from over the years. The St F YC have an impressive collection of ship models all over the clubhouse.
And so ends another day … onward!
* Flag legend: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, UK, Ireland, Poland, USA
Second day of the pre-Worlds, second practice day, and things went better. Not to say great. Here’s what happened…
Let’s set the stage. Here’s an aerial view of San Francisco Bay, showing the location of the St Francis Yacht Club, our home base. Yesterday we raced in Area A, North of the city between the Golden Gate and Alcatraz Island, known to the locals as “cityfront”. About a mile to sail out. Today we raced in Area B, way East, just off Berkeley, known as “Berkeley Circle”. About eight miles from the YC, so a long way just to get there, and even longer to get back (into the wind). And in between three long races, in 12-14 knots.
I may be too exhausted to blog. We’ll see 🙂
Heading out … looking West, St F YC in the background.
Yes again wore a full wetsuit and yes again was glad I did. 60 deg air and water and wind.
Look carefully through the window in the Mainsail and you can see the repaired retriever patch on the Spinnaker
The view up of our new spinnaker, newly repaired (thanks, Dan of Quantum Sails) and looking good. We are the only boat in the fleet with dual blue stripes.
The long sail out gave me a chance to be a tourist…
Alcatraz! Pretty and also, pretty forbidding. Can you imagine swimming from there?
Stunning view of San Fran, “the city by the bay”.
This shot looking West toward the Golden Gate as we approached the race course shows how far away we were. No fog in sight, pretty rare.
Race Committee boat on station, boats milling around pre-start, Angel Island in the background.
Taken between races, wind is up (note boat wake), Bay Bridge in the background (connecting Oakland on the left to San Fran on the right).
So, how’d we do? Well… let’s say we did better, but we have a long way to go. Our speed to weather is just okay, our speed downwind a little better, and our boat handling remains a work in progress.
So, was it fun? YES!
Any day on the water is better than any other day, but flying around in a 505 in wind is pretty much the best. We broke 15 knots a couple of times, reaching downwind. And also, although we didn’t finish well, we are improving.
Tonight is the Opening Ceremony for the Worlds (and trophies for the pre-Worlds), tomorrow is registration / measurement, and then Tue the Worlds themselves begin. Stay tuned!
Here we are in SF, it’s Day One! Yay. But there were a few stumbles…
To be clear Day One means the first day of the pre-Worlds; the actual World Championship doesn’t start ‘till Tuesday. This weekend is a practice regatta, and boy do we need it.
The day began sunny and clear, if a bit cold; that’s our cute little AirBnB by the way, a typical San Fran row house (1,300 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, and Zillow says $1.8M!).
First, breakfast, but the first place we tried was closed (thanks, Google), and we ended up at this place, nice fresh bagels, good lox, bad Engrish. I did leave my briefcase there – sigh – but fortunately it was still there when I came back for it. Whew!
(I have developed a bad habit of spraying my stuff all over and not tracking all of it; on the long list of planned self-improvements 🙂 )
Then I almost got run over by one of these … public transportation – so that’s what it looks like! All very exiting until you turn the wrong way while crossing the street. Another bullet dodged.
We get to the club, and there’s a lot of activity in the boatyard; 60 or so 505s are getting ready to rumble. Lots of last minute fixing and rigging and doing of stuff.
We had a few things to do to Spot, too … that’s her on the way to be launched. In no particular order – we had to rig a new spinnaker, more on that later (!) – we had to setup a new rudder, it turned out to be a collection of parts, some assembly required, deferred to tonight – and we had some miscellaneous tweaks to make, including retrieving the reef line from inside the boom; less said about that the better, but it was done.
Biggest decision for me was whether to wear a full wetsuit or foul weather gear. I opted for the wetsuit, and was happy I did; SF water is cold (60) and air about the same.
Note the hatch in the bow called the Launcher, where the Spinnaker comes out
Quite a queue leading down to the launch ramp. I will never get tired of being at an international regatta, seeing the different countries on the sails, and hearing all the different languages and accents.
Spot about to get wet. Whee…
Heading out to the course! It’s a beautiful day, 12 knots or so, a mite chilly but sun shining.
See all those boats off in the distance? It’s a pretty sight; 60 or so 505s starting a race. But wait!? If they are starting a race, why aren’t we in the mix? Well.
As I mentioned we have a new spinnaker, a brand new never-before flown sail, and on our first test set sailing out the retriever line pulled off the sail.
{ A digression. Like most racing dinghies, 505s have three sails. The biggest one in the back is called the “mainsail”. The smaller one in the front is called the “jib”. And the colorful balloon-like sail used to go fast downwind is called the “spinnaker”, aka “chute”, aka “kite”.
Flying 505s … wheee
The spinnaker is pulled up out of a tube which leads to a hatch in the bow, called the launcher. If you look at the picture of the 505 bow-on above, you can see it. After you’re done using the spinnaker, you pull it back into the Launcher with a retriever line which is attached to the middle of the sail. }
Anyway, yeah, we couldn’t use the new spinnaker, and we couldn’t race without one, so we had to sail in and get another one. This took time, and we missed the start. Boo.
We did get some nice shots of the fleet sailing however 🙂
How’s that for a nice shot? All those 505 spread out racing downwind, with the Golden Gate in the background.
So, onward. We had a few more problems including some bad starts (505s use a “rabbit start”, a different way of starting than usual, I’ll tell you more about this another time), some bad tacks, some bad jibes, and a few near capsizes. Many lessons learned.
Looking back at the jibe mark, it can get a bit “exciting” when many boats get there at the same time. Lots of yelling involved, and sometimes a little kissing between boats.
So it was a fun day but also a frustrating day, and we have a long way to go. But yeah, first day of the practice regatta, so no serious damage.
Speaking of serious damage, yeah, had another skirt steak in the YC bar, and man are they good. As you can see 🙂
Well tomorrow is another day. Stay tuned to see what Day Two shall bring!
San Fran Five-Oh 