Team Ötzi setting up for Worlds
After arriving in Warnemünde, we immediately set about the process of setting the boat up. And there was a lot of set up to do. The team Ötzi 505 is a Duvoisin built about 5 years ago. The owner never races the boat, so there were a lot of systems which were not ready for racing. For example, the mainsheet was about 3/4 inch material and weighed a ton. There were 20 kg of corrector weights which had not been installed because the owner does not sail with them. The boat had not been rigged for the new long luff spinnaker. Fortunately, Andreas had already undertaken the task of rerigging the boat to work with the big kite, but not everything was tuned up yet. This is why we came for the preworlds.
A little bit of background about the 505 class and the boat… The boat was designed 50 years ago by John Westell. It was designed to be a high performance racing dinghy for 2 people, and to be able to be homebuilt. The class has been holding world championships annually for 50 years and this year´s regatta is the 50th world championship. This boat is the best I know of, because its performance is so great on all points of sail across a broad range of wind conditions. This year´s world championship is the largest ever with 175 boats coming from 12 countries to participate. It promises to be a tremendous event. Fortunately for me it does not require qualification in order to participate. If qualification was required, I probably would not be here. On the other hand, for some of the top sailors, this is not necessarily a benefit. It is a real challenge to do well in such a big fleet, and consistency is quite difficult.
One of the really great things about the 505 other than the fact that its the best boat ever is the strength of the class association. The class is made up of enthusiastic participants from many countries who all share one thing in common: love of 505 sailing. These people come together annually and transcend language and geographical barriers to sail together and share 2 weeks of their year. And they have been doing this for 50 years. There are some people at these events who have been here for more than 25 world championships and still they keep coming back. It is really something special. The best part is maybe that nearly everybody is an amateur. They are all just here because they want to be. And it is this camaraderie which makes the class so special. All these personalities who get together once a year to share sailboat racing and passion for sailing with each other is really something special which can only be experienced directly.
But I digress, We were talking about the preworlds. After we arrived and set up the boat, we started to make lists of all the things we needed to fix in order to have the boat ready to race and ready to be measured. These lists just kept getting longer. Ötzi says that lists are very important for a good sailing program. But they do get tiresome, and eventually the jet lag and all night driving caught up with us and we decided we should cut our losses and head for the apartment. Andreas arranged a flat for us in the nearby town of Bad Doberan, which is about a 30 minute drive from the sailing club. Just on our way out, we got a great picture of the moon, and also a good view of some of the British boats arriving. These guys really do their travel in style with a land rover carrying 7 505s at once. Way cool!
The British contingent arriving with 7 505s being transported by one landrover.
Andreas, tired after a long day of rigging, enjoying a beer in front of the moon.
A little bit of background about the 505 class and the boat… The boat was designed 50 years ago by John Westell. It was designed to be a high performance racing dinghy for 2 people, and to be able to be homebuilt. The class has been holding world championships annually for 50 years and this year´s regatta is the 50th world championship. This boat is the best I know of, because its performance is so great on all points of sail across a broad range of wind conditions. This year´s world championship is the largest ever with 175 boats coming from 12 countries to participate. It promises to be a tremendous event. Fortunately for me it does not require qualification in order to participate. If qualification was required, I probably would not be here. On the other hand, for some of the top sailors, this is not necessarily a benefit. It is a real challenge to do well in such a big fleet, and consistency is quite difficult.
One of the really great things about the 505 other than the fact that its the best boat ever is the strength of the class association. The class is made up of enthusiastic participants from many countries who all share one thing in common: love of 505 sailing. These people come together annually and transcend language and geographical barriers to sail together and share 2 weeks of their year. And they have been doing this for 50 years. There are some people at these events who have been here for more than 25 world championships and still they keep coming back. It is really something special. The best part is maybe that nearly everybody is an amateur. They are all just here because they want to be. And it is this camaraderie which makes the class so special. All these personalities who get together once a year to share sailboat racing and passion for sailing with each other is really something special which can only be experienced directly.
But I digress, We were talking about the preworlds. After we arrived and set up the boat, we started to make lists of all the things we needed to fix in order to have the boat ready to race and ready to be measured. These lists just kept getting longer. Ötzi says that lists are very important for a good sailing program. But they do get tiresome, and eventually the jet lag and all night driving caught up with us and we decided we should cut our losses and head for the apartment. Andreas arranged a flat for us in the nearby town of Bad Doberan, which is about a 30 minute drive from the sailing club. Just on our way out, we got a great picture of the moon, and also a good view of some of the British boats arriving. These guys really do their travel in style with a land rover carrying 7 505s at once. Way cool!
The British contingent arriving with 7 505s being transported by one landrover.
Andreas, tired after a long day of rigging, enjoying a beer in front of the moon.
posted by J Bergquist at 11:47 AM
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