505s at the Sanpan Disco...

Originally posted by Chas 505 Hi there Oldarn, Good to see you at the Shotley open.  On spinnakers, we all felt that the asym on your boat was a bit.....well small.  I get the fact that you want to be able to sail with a scratch crew and all, but we thought that it could have been about 25% bigger with no actual major handling issues. Chas - 35 yrs and feeling old...!

Thanks Chas. I appreciated the friendly bunch of five O sailors especially in the circumstances, and fully understood Simon Lakes feeelings. He is such a great 5o5 believer as I am, but I'm too old for the sort of great events like the Worlds in San Francisco.
In fact my delay in replying was due to me travelling to SF were I have sampled the atmosphere of the great event. Wow those video shots must inspire most dinghy sailors to want to sail the greatest big dinghy ever. In the past most good young dinghy sailors had to give the 50 a go and try and win the nationals. I'm thinking of people like Laurie Smith and Ed Owen, but today that does not happen. Why not?
Perhaps the boat is such a complicated machine that they have not time to serve thei apprenticeship.
I have always felt that two person single trapeze sailing offered the best challenge and most fun, and I'd like to believe it is comming back following the decline of the skiffy versions. Look at how popular is the Fireball, and now with ths RS500 as a beginners version, and hopefully the growth of the AltO, all club 'family' boats for the ultimate goal after perhaps an olympic medal, would be to win in five O's.
What an awsome boat viewing it bows on in a big wind and see!

I'm now off to feel and see the buzz of the last day.

Mike

That is a great photo!

Hi there Oldarn,

Good to see you at the Shotley open.  On spinnakers, we all felt that the asym on your boat was a bit.....well small.  I get the fact that you want to be able to sail with a scratch crew and all, but we thought that it could have been about 25% bigger with no actual major handling issues.

GRF - suffice to say that if Mike Martin is binning the boat in (twice so far, is it?) then conditions out there would eat most other designs of dinghy.

The tweaking is what keeps the 505 (overpowered design, right) sailable, across the range.

On other subjects:

Weight, I think you will find that crew weights have actually come down during the past decade - basically due to the fact that we no longer do tight reaches...even on a traingle there is just no point, you're always better saving the weight and wiring earlier on a 10-knot beat.

On age, the UK fleet is delighted to have elected 2 new members to the committee in 2009 who are both under 20 yrs of age.....marketing and PR...yup that's under twenty years of age.  I'm fairly sure that even the 420 fleet cannot better that.

Chas - 35 yrs and feeling old...!

 

 

Recent years have seen improved levels sailability in lots of classes and this  has meant that they can be managed in conditions which, 'back in the day', would have seen everybody on the pitch-and-putt. However, those conditions are no more benign if things go wrong. A Merlin with a raking rig is eminently sailable in a Force 6 BUT the waves are no smaller and the water no deeper than it was twenty years ago when stiff, upright ali masts disuaded all but the strongest and the best.