Thursday April 20th Training

Despite the very light air, we had three teams out.

Jimmie Cockerill and two of his buddies from Chesapeake Rigging, David Itsel and Mike Meer showed up. Jimmie and David sailed Cardiac Arrest (sporting 8790 sails thanks to John Wyles), while Bob Patterson sailed 8776 with Mike. Tom Neel teamed up with Chris Legg, with Ali Meller as coach.

We focused on boat setup for very light air speed and height, and on having fun ;-)

Key points on setup were:
Rake the mast forward of standard settings. 3'4" is standard, 3'2" works well for very light air.

Ram up for mast bend and a flatter mainsail. A ram of "3" is full power when at3'4" rake. If you leave the ram at 3" and rake forward to 3'2" you have STRAIGHTENED the mast...So you need to go up on the ram when you rake forward just to keep the same bend. And you need to go further up on the ram to get MORE bend.

Ease shrouds to sag jib luff. The jib works better with the luff sagged. I grab the shroud and jerk it (a sharp pull) while watching the jib luff to see how much jib luff sag I have. But easing shrouds causes the mast to straighten, making the main fuller... so you have to compromise between mast bend and jib luff sag.

Centerboard all the way down and raked forward a bit.

Sit as far forward in the boat as pratical. Probably one on each side, up against the shroud.. or crew inboard and up against the mast.

Ali took a number of photos which will be posted shortly.

Thursday Afternoon Training Sessions Resume May 11th

Since we have a training event at WRSC this coming weekend (April 22 and 23), and the WRSC Spring event the following weekend (April 29-30), followed by the weekend of the Volvo Ocean Race Party at SSA/EYC (party is Friday May 5, boats MUST BE GONE OFF THE LOT BEFORE Wednesday May 3), we are NOT scheduling Thursday coaching/training sessions for April 27 and May 4.

However Chris Legg/Tom Neel plan to sail April 27th, and I may still have a boat or two at SSA, so may sail the 27th as well.

Thursday evening sessions will resume Thursday May 11th. I believe the Tuesday evening TESOD series starts May 9th, and I know some of the 505ers will be sailing Tuesday afternoon/evenings as well.

SSA Spring Series, Days 1 and 2

The first weekend of 505 racing on the Bay was the April 15-16 weekend. In Europe, the Easter weekend is when the largest regularly scheduled 505 event of the year (excluding worlds and European Championships) is held; the Euro Cup Cavalaire event in the south of France. In the USA Easter appears to be a conflict for many 505 sailors.

We had eight teams on Saturday:

Macy Nelson/Dustin Romey
Bob Patterson/Kevin McGill
Sterg Papadakis/Mike Renda
Ali Meller/Mike Coe
Barney Harris/Shorty Harris
Joe Morris/Colin Robertson
Alon Finkelstein/J Bergquist
Doug Watson/Chris Watson

Saturday conditions were light with a few moments of medium; the breeze was shifty and up and down which made for challenging racing. The left paid big on the first beat of the first race, and we were all schooled by Alon Finkelstein/J Bergquist who owned the left (planning in with eased sheets while everyone else was sitting on the seat tanks), while the right was the place to be on the first beat of the second race, and Alon and J were hung out to dry in the left corner.

In race 2, Joe Morris/Colin Robertson tacked just after starting, and worked the right by themselves, while Ali/Mike started at the boat and kept going on starboard because they did not want to split from the rest of the fleet, which held the lifted starboard tack most of the way up the beat. The breeze went right and split, with Ali/Mike on the wire and sailing fast, and the boats furthest to the left sailing lower in less pressure. Ali/Mike thought they were leading, but the last shift was another rightie and Joe/Colin easily crossed Ali/Mike to lead at the weather mark. A spinnaker luffing match ensued down the run, with Ali/Mike eventually rolling Joe/Colin to take the lead. But Cardiac Arrest hung tough and Joe/Colin finished second, with Barney Harris/Shorty Harris, Bob Patterson/Kevin McGill and another team all crossing within seconds.

Apparently the key to race three was to be over early (under a Z flag), and restart! The first three finishers were all OCS and restarted. The fleet merged in a parking lot at the first windward mark, broke out of that in painful drifting conditions and then dealt with the first run turning into a beat. The race then became an IQ test as the RC signaled a course change to 100 degrees at the leeward (now windward) mark, which turned out to be continue in the direction we were beating to another windward mark that was set further east. The first three teams to the mark failed the test, and Alon/J figured it out first to lead at the new mark and at the next mark, where the course was shortened. Joe/Colin also did well on this test, to pull up to third, which they held down the run fighting off Barney/Shorty coming in to the finish line. Barney/Shorty went a little high trying to get on Joe/Colin’s air and then inside at the pin end of the finish line. But Joe/Colin took them up, then picked the perfect spot to gybe and had a nice angle in the drifting conditions to cross the finish line. Barney/Shorty tried to sail by the lee, went really slowly, then belatedly gybed, and with assistance from the current managed to drape themselves all over the pin, just as Ali/Mike arrived and crossed the line.

We had a short debrief (thanks to Dustin for the beer, pretzels and nuts) on the upper deck of the clubhouse. Optimum setup was raked forward of the standard 3’4” in the lighter stuff, going back to 3’4” for the second race when we were all trapezing. Ram up a lot in the light stuff, bringing it down progressively for better pressure. Low rig tension (leeward shroud slack) until trapezing low and fully powered up. Centerboard raked forward in the light stuff, going to vertical either when the crew goes on the wire, or when they start to lower themselves in increased pressure.

On Sunday we had five teams, having gained Chris Legg/Derek Davies, but losing several other teams to church and Easter dinner.

Sunday was light – Mike got on the wire once or twice – but steadier. Current was a factor both days, more so on Sunday, where though we spent nearly equal time on each tack upwind, the run was actually a broad to beam reach! We used line starts on Saturday, but since the 505s were the only class racing on Sunday, we went with gate starts.

Perhaps the big story for the weekend is the newcomers we are drawing into 505 sailing. Bob Patterson sailed with midshipman Kevin McGill. Top high school sailor Joe Morris teamed up with SSA high school sailing coach Colin Robertson and raced Cardiac Arrest; they were leading at the first windward mark in race 2 and finished second in that race and third in race 3! British expat Derek Davies crewed for Chris on Sunday (after helping Chris finish rigging his new boom) and they showed good speed and excellent tactics. And not-quite-a-newcomer Alon Finkelstein sailing with J Bergquist won race 3 and was second in race 1! Another high school star, Sara Morgan Watters was at the club Saturday morning hoping someone needed a driver, but we were not able to match her up with anyone.

Derek commented (regarding Sunday’s racing) that there was “plenty of tide and not much wind”, and he liked the informal short course races, but that more breeze would be good.

J was amused that he and Alon won race three after being the last of three boats to restart, and they did it by sailing in the correct direction for the change mark despite not having a compass aboard!

The Angry Chef did not put in an appearance, so the “angry (and hungry) sailors” were left to make other arrangements for food and beer.

Spring Series Results (so far, we have more spring series racing in May) are up on the SSA web site at http://www.severnsailing.org/results/2006/4165o5.shtml

505 Training/Coaching April 13th

Three teams and coach Dan Wittig were out yesterday after work. Thomas Point light reports 7-10 knots for the 6:00PM to 8:00PM period. We were on the water at 6:25PM or so, though Bob Patterson/Kevin McGill were out some minutes before us, and Chris Legg/Tom Neel were a little behind as they figured out how to rig Cardiac Arrest.

It was quite light just off of SSA, but as we sailed upwind towards the spider "buoy" the pressure increased to marginal trapezing.

Coach Wittig had us rabbit starting to line up and then roll tacking on the whistle. Between drills we rounded his coach boat, which turns out to be a bit of a workout and good fun. We also had downwind gybing on the whistle drills which we started by lining up in a row beam reaching, and then hoisting on the whistle.

We were on the water practicing hard for just over an hour.

J could not make it, but Mike Coe brought a video camera, and Dan shot lots of video, which will be posted shortly.

After a debrief in the dinghy park, we moved over to Davis' Pub for water (and more water), beer and pub grub.

Overall, this was GREAT.

We really hope to see more of you out doing this. The benefits are HUGE.

Removing Boats From SSA for Volvo Race Party

SSA and EYC are hosting the HUGE Volvo Race Party Friday May 5th. Boats must be removed from the lot both to accomodate the party (which generates significant revenue for SSA) and for their own safety.

There is a regatta at WRSC the previous weekend; if you are doing that regatta just don't bring the boat back until Sunday May 7th. If you are not doing the WRSC event, please remove your boat the weekend before (April 29-30, which is the NOOD weekend), or very early in the week. Boats have to be gone by Wednesday the 3rd to allow for party setup.

SSA Powerboat for Thursday Sessions

As per the Tuesday April 12th Board of Governors meeting, the SSA 505 fleet have the use of an SSA powerboat for the coaching/training sessions. This was supported by both the Standing Race Committee and the BoG.

Scratchlists for April 20th (Updated April 18 COB)

Thursday April 20th (hit the water at 18:00):
Ali Meller/8776, 7200 or 7080
Bob Patterson/no boat, 8776, 7200 or 7080
Chris Legg/Tom Neel/7151
Allan Freedman
Jimmie Cockerill
Mike Meer wants to try 505s



Cannot make it
Keith Davids
Mike Coe

Practice tape from 4/1 practice

The practice tape from the 4/1 practice is available for download by clicking here.

Note that this is a 30MB download. The video is 8 minutes long.

Thanks to Chris Legg and Keith Davids for taking the video from the coach boat.

The arrival of digital video

Digital video has officially arrived in Fleet 40, and its benefits can be seen in this video from last saturday's practice session of one hapless crew going swimming during a tack.

The video camera does not lie... ;-)

SSA Opening Day and Race

Several 505 Fleet 40 (SSA) members were at the SSA Opening Day Brunch. This year the Board of Governors took running races a little more seriously, and convinced BoG members Sean and Ramsey to actually run them. The course was between the end of the dock and the green can, out to a mark off of David Taylor, down the Severn River channel to the big red mark, back up to David Taylor, down to red, up to David Taylor and reach back to the starting line.

There were two 505s, and about four Lasers and four Jet 14s. A J22 was registered but did not start. Bob teamed up with Candice, while Ali grabbed club manager Mike Higgins as a guest driver.

All the pre-race wind checks and maneuvering were for not, as the wind kept shifting and then just about died off after the start, leaving the fleet drifting. At one point both a Laser and a Jet 14 had drifted past Higgins/Meller, but they found a puff, got going, and opened up a bit of a lead as the entire fleet had to fight their way upcurrent to the first mark. Higgins/Meller hoisted their kite, but had to douse it again quickly, as the wind shifted around more to the south, putting them on a port tack favored beat. A minute later Ali was on the wire, and the boat was planing upwind. A fabulous one tack wire run down gave Higgins/Meller a big lead, while Clough/Patterson powered through a Laser into second place.

Despite some scares, Higins/Meller managed to avoid splashing or hitting the steel mark, and planed up and then back down, opening up more and more. Clough/Patterson retired after hitting the mark and deciding that they were not prepared for the freshinging breeze.

Higgins/Meller finished about 9 minutes ahead of the lead Laser, and corrected out to just over two minutes ahead, to win the opening day race.

It is not clear how eager Mike Higgins is to try 505s again ;-)

April 1st Coaching/Training Session

The second session of the 505 Fleet 40 Coaching/Training program was held Saturday April 1st. We were not sure who was coming until we started getting responses on Tuesday, so backed of hiring a coach, and used fleet members instead. Thanks to Keith Davids and Chris Legg!

Four teams participated:

Bob Patterson/Candice Clough
J Bergquist/Tammy Oullette
Derek Davies/Mike Renda
Ali Meller/Mike Coe

The day started with a planning session to discuss objectives – wire running gybing and tacking – and appropriate drills. We launched about 11:00AM and sailed until after 3:00PM. After boats were put away a debrief was held. Keith and Chris shot some video, but we were an adaptor cable away from showing it on Bob’s TV/VCR. J may post some of it on the web.

Conditions were mixed, as light as 7 knots, and we don’t really know what the highest puffs were. We planed out to the sailing area, had breeze up conditions for a while, before it lightened up to about seven knots. It went lighter for a short period and then filled in, and filled in, and filled in some more. Someone claimed the Naval Academy saw a 40 knot puff funneling through the Severn; we saw puffs over 25 sailing back.

We ended up going round a short upwind/downwind course, with occasional gate starts for variety. Derek/Mike were making Cardiac Arrest go well upwind; downwind was a problem as the extended 2001 chicken kite tore down the luff tapes and wasn’t usable (and is currently residing in the dumpster). However the course was so short that a hoist, very quick ride to the gybe, gybe, quick ride to the leeward mark, douse, was not actually that much faster than two sailing the run.

Today was Tammy’s first time in a dinghy in a few years; we’ve established that a 505 is not exactly like a J22 ;-)

Before sailing back we had several great downwind rides, with Ali/Mike working out the kinks in the separate sheet-and-guy system and landing two nice gybes in breeze up conditions, before sailing back with the rig raked all the way back, the ram all the way down, flattening reef on, jib leads aft, barber hauler on, etc.

Good fun!

At the debrief we followed up on some points that had been made on the water. Rake more upright for lighter air to get point, pre-bend when it gets even lighter, sit forward in the boat in light air, the importance of keeping the boat flat upwind in breeze and much more.

This weekend is when we move our clocks forward an hour, so we have daylight in the evening. Mike and I will be out Thursday evening, along with anyone else interested, and we schedule coaching/training for Thursday evening each week. We believe we have a coach with 505 experience lined up for some of these Thursday evenings.

Mike Coe cannot sail the weekend of the 8th and 9th, but I am happy to work with others who can sail. And of course the first regatta is at SSA the 15th and 16th of April, and we will work for coaching support for that event as well.