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A report by Gareth Russell from the 2008 505 Nationals held at Lymington Town Sailing Club from 3rd July to 6th July.
This year the 505 Nationals were held at Lymington Town Sailing Club from July 3rd to July 6th. The plan was for 2 races per day but the weather forecast was looking to upset. I crewed for Toby Barsley-Dale in 505 GBR 8741. Toby and I have known each other since we were 16 and over the last 6 years we have done the odd off season handicap event together such as the Tiger Trophy, Symmetric Grand Prix and Bloody Mary. Toby and I as a partnership had been taking this year slightly more seriously than usual, with having done 3 events this year every single one of them had been breezy. The Nationals were to follow in this pattern. I drove down on Thursday Morning to find the 505 I was crewing with Toby all ready to go, except we had no paddle or 10m painter as specified in the sailing instructions, so a quick trip to Force 4 chandlers remedied that. With a quick check over of the boat the new sails were pulled out of there bags and we ready to go. At Lymington after you have launched you need to sail up the river to get to Solent. The course was to be set to the East of Lyminton. So easy sail up to the Solent, turn left and look for a 40 foot committee boat with 2 masts. We turned left couldn’t see anything that looked like the committee boat and set off on a very fast broadreach. After about 5 mins we hit a huge wave which pushed water right over the deck. So we decided to gybe and get the kite up to help us over opposed to through the waves. I don’t think I have gone so fast in a 505 before. We made it the couple of miles down to the start in no time. Now onto race 1, the starts were to be gate starts so that made life easier. We wanted to go left up the beat so start early. We were 2nd to start and stormed off, we were going so well we forgot to keep an eye on the lay line. When we spotted we were on it we couldn’t tack because there was yacht ready to run us down if we did. So above the layline tide pushing us further up, 29 knots of wind and a nasty short chop. This was when it started to go wrong, close reaching into the mark we tripped over a wave and capsized, got the boat back up pretty quick, and there was a slight dent in the boom. We looked at each other and agreed well it’s going to break, it could do it on the way in if we retire now or it might make it round the race so lets see if we can get to the finish. Got to the windward mark with lots of traffic, got round , gybed, had to gybe back as someone else hadn’t, gybed again and started to pull the kite up. The bow then disappeared into a wave, the boat pitched round and capsized. “B**&^$” and other such words were mentioned. We pulled the boat up and took one look at the boom with it’s huge bend in it and decided that was our race over. Got the boat sorted and then sailed back in to the club to a round of applause from the RNLI on there way out to help with the carnage that was race 1 of the 505 Nationals. I lost count of the number of boat breakages , the official reports lists “Five broken masts, three broken booms and two spinnaker poles”. One of the broken masts was on the last run, Norman & Steve (another Hyde team) recovered the spinnaker and then still finished in 4th. So overall only 14 boats finished out of 40. So new boom out of the back of Ian Pinnell’s car, fitted out and in the bar by 6.00pm to the background noise of drills and files working hard on getting the new masts ready for Friday morning.  Friday morning started very early. Toby had to drop 4 Int Moth sails at Weymouth for the Moth Worlds and I was on Team Hyde Sail repair duties with a quick trip to the Hyde repair loft with Norman’s mainsail. We then headed out for day 2 with the threat of 3 races. As we drifted up the river in no wind I was not looking forward to three races in this. We got out into the Solent and headed in the direction of the start line very slowly. Then from nowhere the breeze started to fill in. It was about 15 knots at the start and we decided to start early as we felt we were faster than the pathfinder. We rounded the first mark 3rd and consolidated our place as 6th over the next 3 laps.  Race 2 the wind had swung further left, again starting early, this time however there was a big shift and the Aussies who were pathfinders had a massive lead at the windward mark. I’m not sure what place we were in when we rounded the windward mark but it wasn’t looking pretty. We worked hard and dragged ourselves up to 13th by the finish. Race 3 the wind had swung round even further. We decided with the tide now on its way out to start early and go left. We were second out of the start and headed left. The further we went the higher we were lifted. Eventually we got to the lay line, tacked and headed towards the mark. I was looking under the boom and through the windows for any traffic coming across on starboard and I couldn’t see anything that looked like a problem. The realisation was then starting to dawn that we were about to lead around the windward mark. We headed off down the run, just in 505’s we sail them downwind like an asymmetric so it was more of a reach looking for good boat speed. 
Terry & Christian got passed us and we were second at the end of the 1st lap. We then tacked around the mark with the plan of going the same way again. Then about half way out we got knocked by a 20 degree header, we thought about it for a bit and decided we had to tack. This was our worse decision of the whole championship as we lost about 15 places over the rest of that beat. We then worked our way up to 11th over the next lap and half hardened up with kite still up to cross the finish line in style. We then carried on the same heading for about 2.5 miles and then gybed our way down the river and dropped the kite just before the slipway. We returned our tally which was swapped for some well earned cool beer. 
Next morning we got down to the club to find the decision already made that 30 knots gusting 35 knots was a bit to much. Oh well we had a number of bits to fix on the boat, so we set about that and had some beers. Sunday morning dawned very breezy. On the drive down as we looked at the tree’s we couldn’t decide if would get any racing in, we were hopeful as we felt another race would push us up into the top 10. We got to the club looked at the Weather readout and shortly after our fears were confirmed and racing was cancelled. Looking back the start of the race would have been held in 39 knots gusting 47 knots. 
So the 4 days over, 11th place with some great memories, new friends and a promise to do better next time. More pictures here
505 Nationals – Final positions (40 entries)
1st GBR 8960 Ian Pinnell Carl Gibbon HISC 1 1 -2 2 6 4pts
2nd GBR 8881 Terry SCUTCHER Christian Diebitsch Shotley Sailing Club (41.0 DNF) 4 4 1 50 9
3rd AUS 8920 Michael Quirk Simon Reffold WSC (41.0 DNF) 7 1 3 52 11
4th IRL 8961 Ewen BARRY Charles Dwyer Mbsc (41.0 DNF) 2 6 4 53 12
5th GBR 8963 Martin Hodgson Adrian Miles (41.0 DNF) 3 3 10 57 16
6th GBR 8694 Matt HART Craig Hurrell Shotley Sailing Club 8 -13 5 6 32 19
7th GBR 8908 Norman BYRD Steve Hunt Dwsc 4 11 -15 5 35 20
8th GBR 8835 Charlie WALTERS Dougal Cram Datchet Water 2 10 -19 12 43 24
9th GBR 8935 Russell Short Andrew Short Rotherham Sailing Club 3 8 -27 13 51 24
10th GBR 8906 Harry BRIDDON Simon Briddon Carsington 6 9 12 (41.0 DNF) 68 27
11th GBR 8741 Toby Barsley-Dale Gareth Russell Weston SC (41.0 DNF) 6 13 11 71 30
12th GBR 8701 Rob NAPIER Graeme Willcox Bowmoor SC 12 5 -16 16 49 33
13th GBR 8836 Dave Wood Neil Fulcher Stone SC 5 -26 22 8 61 35
14th IRL 8511 Brian GOGGIN Brendan Dwyer Monkstown Bay Sailing Club 7 19 -37 9 72 35
15th GBR 8384 Charlie STEWART John Gibson Blackwater Sailing Club (41.0 DNF) 14 7 17 79 38
16th GBR 8774 John Webster Robert Burdekin Carsington Sailing Club 11 17 14 -27 69 42
17th IRL 8514 Peter SCANNELL Paul O'Sullivan Monkstown Bay Sailing Club 9 16 -25 18 68 43
18th GBR 8526 Timothy BIRD Richard Nurse Burton SC 13 15 18 -19 65 46
19th GBR 8955 Ben ILIFFE Simon Lake Rya (41.0 DNF) 12 11 25 89 48
20th GBR 8313 Richard LORD Alex Cull Seahorse S C (Number on Spinny 8331) (41.0 DNF) 25 9 15 90 49
21st IRL 8408 Alex BARRY Andrew Lane Monkstown Bay Sailing Club (41.0 DNF) 23 21 7 92 51
22nd GBR 8905 Stuart TURNBULL Jason Lunn Rya (41.0 DNS) 20 10 21 92 51
23rd GBR 8909 Christopher DANDO Donald Sloan Stone SC (41.0 DNS) 18 8 26 93 52
24th GBR 8460 Mike Pickles John Driscoll Southwold (Number on Spinny 8835) 14 24 -36 23 97 61
25th GBR 8556 Brett TOWNSEND Andy Denniss Blackwater Sailing Club (41.0 DNF) 21 20 20 102 61
26th GBR 8650 Terry SELFE Alan Montague Stone Sailing Club (41.0 DNS) 22 31 14 108 67
27th GBR 8423 Martin WRIGHT TBA Burton Sailing Club 10 31 -35 30 106 71
28th GBR 8780 John HAYHURST Adrian Coates Carsington S C (41.0 DNF) 32 17 28 118 77
29th GBR 8419 Steve PERKINS James Brown Blackwater Sailing Club (41.0 DNF) 27 33 22 123 82
30th GBR 8907 Jim BERRY David Barnes Portishead Y & SC (41.0 DNF) 29 23 31 124 83
31st GBR 8945 Ross KENNEY Adam Kenny Burton SC (41.0 DNF) 28 32 24 125 84
32nd GBR 8490 H Felden TBA (41.0 DNF) 36 26 29 132 91
33rd GBR 8749 Alastair MILTON Laurence Milton Helensburgh Sailing Club (41.0 DNF) 35 24 33 133 92
34th IRL 835 Michael O'BRIEN John O'Gorman Monkstown Bay Sailing Club Cork (41.0 DNF) 33 29 32 135 94
35th IRL 7852 Brian JONES Gary Frost Monkstownbay Sailing Club (41.0 DNS) 30 30 35 136 95
36th GBR 8591 Dave Bell Pete Ward (41.0 DNS) 37 28 36 142 101
37th GBR 8497 Arthur GEORGE Dennis Cartwright Burton SC (41.0 DNF) 34 34 34 143 102
38th GBR 8429 Alex Browne TBA (41.0 DNS) 41.0 DNF 41.0 DNF 37 160 119
39th GBR 8323 Neil Smith Tim Rains Chasewater (41.0 DNS) 41.0 DNC 41.0 DNC 41.0 DNC 164 123
39th GBR 8685 Richard Sims Simon Wood Carsington Water (41.0 DNF) 41.0 DNF 41.0 DNC 41.0 DNF 164 123 |
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