The Canadian 5O5 Class Association

On July 13-14 eleven 505s convened in Newport, Rhode Island for the 40^thAnniversary Newport Regatta that also served as the New England Championship.  Teams travelled from Ottawa, Toronto, Western New York and Florida to compete with a host of other classes including everything from 12 Meters to F-18 cats.  You know that when 12 Meters are involved, the quality and quantity of food is certainly improved!  Mount Gay Run was the primary sponsor, and so the Saturday party didn’t disappoint.

Weather for the weekend was not so stellar as we might have hoped with rain and thick fog keeping sailors shore side until noon on Saturday.  Eventually we got off two tricky races in SW breeze 5 to 12 knots after which the sun came out.  Peter Scannell and John Dunilea (aka “Irish”) sailed quite well to win the day with 4 points.  Following closely behind the Irish were Ethan Bixby/ Ted Huebner and Craig Thompson/Adam Wolnikowski both with 5, and Macy Nelson/Chris Brady with 6.   

Sunday looked to be set up for a classic thermal from the SW, but it took a little bit of time to push the morning northwest flow out of the way.  Racing got started a little late and three races were completed in 5 to 12 knots.     With line starts for the weekend, and a long line set for a large fleet of VX1, you had to gauge the distance to the line carefully.  Duane Delfosse/Mike Hull sailed consistently and won the day with 6 points followed by Craig/Adam and Luke Strictland/Christian Voyer each with 9.  With 5 races completed and no throw outs, Craig and Adam’s consistency won out with 14 points.  They retained possession of the Kivney Bowl for yet another year, much to Craig’s wife’s disappointment.   Second were Ethan/Chris with 15 followed by Delfosse/Hull and Peter/John tied with 17.  It should be noted that 5 different boats won the 5 races.

An underlying and extremely positive story for the weekend was how Luke Strictland and Christian Voyer upped their game throughout the event.  Before and after sailing each day, Christian and Luke were asking a ton of great questions, and through that effort they were able to figure out their issues.  Their series line of 7, 5, 5, 3,1 was not an accident, but specific and targeted improvement!  I think the final piece of their puzzle was the discovery that a couple of screws had backed out of the centerboard (beak to CB connection) causing the board not to gybe.  The whole fleet pulled together to help the young team.  Hats off the university students from Ottawa as they made a mark in Newport!!

A second happy story was the arrival of Will and Bill Platt with their vintage Lindsay.  Last year they hit a rock and tore off the transom.  This year they were all repaired and got around the course fine with big smiles!

We’ll post some pictures if we can find some.

Report from Dave Adams:

There is no question about it, travelling and participating in regattas is key to a successful 505 career. There is no substitute but sometime you just want to try stuff out in a “sorta” race environment and that is where a training regatta shines.

Every year we gather in Kingston to do just that. It is a weekend of drills, practise starts and long on-shore debriefs. They are majic!

A big thank you to the Boyd family, Steve Yates on power boat, Ali Meller coaching and Renka Gesing and Marie Gendron for organizing. Also a big shout out to the Canadian 505 Class Association for subsidizing the costs. This is an investment that pays off because we had two new boats show up!

Report From Renka Gesing:

The training event at the Kingston Yacht Club was an unqualified success — a good deal for participants, great coaching and great training for all the different levels of sailing experience, a pizza dinner arranged by Florence Boyd, and wonderful sailing conditions.

Clinic fees were a good deal thanks to the Class subsidy that covered rental of the coach boat and gas. The fees were $40 for the “older” folks, and $30 for those under 25. Out of the 16 participants, almost half were in the younger group. 

The youngest sailor was 15-year-old Luca Manning, who skipped for his grandfather, Adam Gesing. He was thrilled with the experience: “As an inexperienced sailor, this weekend was a very enriching and valuable experience. I learned so much about everything that has to do with sailing, from tactics to boat handling. There wasn’t a negative thing that I can say about it, except for it not being long enough. Another great value of this masterclass has nothing to do with sailing directly. I got to meet so many new people with great stories and experiences to share. The 505 community is truly an amazing thing that I am very glad to be a part of.”

The youngest combined crew were teenagers Evania Lovshin and Cameron Laing. Then there were the parent/son or daughter crews. It was great to see two new boats from Toronto’s OHCC. We welcome to the Class Hannah Abush and her father Joshua, and Drake Morrison and his father Conor. Another father/son team was Steve Adolph and Tommy Adolph. Yet another young newcomer to the class was Yunus Akcor, who crewed for Douglas Watson.

There was some representation from wife/husband teams: Deb Ashby with Dave Adams, and Shona Moss with Steve Lovshin.

Coaching was also a family affair. Jeff Boyd and his daughter Danielle joined Ali Meller to head up the sail training. The mornings were spent with boat setup, the afternoon sailing multiple shorter races. The three jumped in and out of the coach boat, driven by Steve Yates, to share their sailing prowess.

I sadly remained on shore but was happy to see such a successful event.

An early adopter and pioneer of 505 sailing in Canada. His passion for the class has been passed down through two generations. A fleet builder, to say the least.

Great gloves. Cheap, durable and comfortable.

Twelve sailors from 15 to 30+ years old took part in this year Espoir camp on Sunday June 30 at NSC. This year, all participants were members of NSC. They were part of the club’s youth 420 racing team or racers in the J22 or Shark classes.

The wind was very strong, 15kn with some gusts at 25kn, so three experience 505 skippers, Shona Moss, Luke Strickland and Evania Lovshin took their 505 out to give rides to the participants.  The Storer’s brother took their 505 out by themselves and they did great.  We had two coach boats on the water at all time for safety and to facilitate the exchange of sailors taking rides.

After a session to go over the 505 rig, four 505 were rigged and set to go sailing in windy conditions. Our three experienced skippers took off with three participants, along with the Storer brothers. The rest of the participants went out in in the coach boats. 

Everyone enjoyed trapezing fully extended and blasting around with the spinnaker. It was terrific to see the participants get back in the zodiac after their ride with their eyes wide open and big smile on their face.  In the debriefing session one participant comment “sailing a 420 is like driving a Mustang but sailing a 505 is like driving a Ferrari”.

We now have a large group of sailors keen to race on Wednesday nights and at other occasions. 

Thank you to the NSC for letting the fleet use their coach boats, to Shona, Luke and Evania for taking the sailors out and to Steve Lovshin and Marie Gendron for operating the coach boats.

For an excellent website documenting old footage of past regattas, look no further than:

https://www.sail-world.com/news/274169/The-oldest-footage-of-505-racing

Record participation at NOD 2024 NOD 2024 saw a record registration of 16 teams including 14 U25 sailors form USA, Toronto and the Ottawa areas.

Racing was cancelled on Saturday has the wind did not show up but Ethan Bixby was very generous of his time, giving instructions on different aspects of rigging, sail shape and sailing the 505. His boat was literally surround by the young and the older 505 sailors all day, curious to learn from this experience sailor and sail maker.

Three races were run on Sunday in wind ranging from 8 to 15 kn. Racing was very close with seconds separating the top boats at the end of all races.

Ethan sailing with Cameron Laing (Youth sailor on BYC Laser Racing Team) placed 1 st overall. Debbie Ashby and Dave Adams were second and Christian Voyer and Luke Strickland (U25 team from NSC) placed 3 rd . Only 1pt separate Ethan and Debbie teams and there was also 1pt between Debbie and Christian teams.

The fleet wants to thank Shona Weldon (8610) and Steve Lovshin (8468) for lending their boat to youth teams. The Fleet boat (was also raced by a youth team.

505 Fleet

Sailed: 3, Discards: 0, To count: 3, Entries: 16, Scoring system: