Nothing rubs a 505 sailor the wrong way more then to tell them it isn't a tactical boat.

The shortest distance between two points, of course, is a straight line, but as any sailor knows it may not be the best course if you want to get from one point to the other in the shortest time. Make one point the weather mark in the Fawcett Boat Supplies 2005 International 505 East Coast Championship held last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 28, 29, and 30 October and the other point a reach mark a good mile away. In one of the seven races of the regatta the Bixby/Boothe team (they won the regatta) was first around the weather mark. They set a chute and headed way low of the reach mark, the next mark. "Didn't they see the reach mark?" I said to myself. "Is this going to be a colossal blunder? Did they think their next mark was the leeward mark?" Boothe was on the wire. The wind was blowing about 15 knots and I won't hazard a guess at how fast they were going, but they looked like a mini tsunami, barreling down the course in a cascade of spray. Just at the point I became sure they had blown it, they doused the chute then jib reached to the reach mark at nearly the same incredible speed and they got to that mark a great deal faster than the second place boat who more or less sailed the straight line. Bixby/Boothe didn't employ this tactic again in subsequent races because the conditions weren't quite right, but on that leg they were. It was the right tactic.

The reach mark is a photographer's favorite spot. The shy-to-shy gybe is action packed. The racers go close aboard the mark, gybe, then head for the leeward mark. Not necessarily so with 505's. In another race Macy Nelson with Geoff Ewenson on the wire were roaring towards the reach mark but they neither went close by it, nor gybed when a beam. Instead they just kept right on going at about mach 2 and passed the gybe mark-on the proper side--as though it wasn't even there. What's with that? Well, it was a tactical decision made faster than any computer could make. They were in a strong wind line. Nearing the reach mark their angle was perfect. They could not have gone any faster pointing any other way. The next reaching leg at that point was a bit broader so they just kept on trucking and gybed much farther down the pike at a point where that wind line filled towards the next mark and the angle was again perfect. They passed five boats on that deal. Pretty smart.

Any discussion of a 505 regatta is incomplete without mention of the gate start. Instead of explaining how it works I simply want to explain the benefits, hoping other classes might pay heed. There are no general recalls. There are no "I", "Z", and black flag penalty starts. Everyone pretty much gets a clear lane. That isn't to say things can't sometimes go awry and indeed in one start in this regatta they did, but it was a good thing. During the two-minute starting period, after about 75% of the fleet had started, there was a 30-degree right shift. This put racers who hadn't yet started desperately diving down to try and clear the gate. I blew the race off. The right shift proved permanent. We moved the weather mark and started again in no time-didn't have to reset the line. There is no line. The rabbit determines it.

The J/105 East Coats were held on the same weekend. Eastport Yacht Club ran a wonderful regatta, but, more my mistake then theirs, our courses overlapped a bit on Saturday. I went over and apologized to them for not better coordinating our Chesapeake geography before the regattas. It was a cordial conversation, but it dawned on me that they didn't quite understand how very fast a 505 is. "Well, we have mile and a quarter twice around windward/leewards they said inferring that us dinghy guys would be tucked up into Whitehall Bay with a nice little course and there'd be no problem. I replied that our weather legs were a mile and a quarter too and that we were running a seven leg 505 World Championship courses-a beat, a run, a beat, a reach, another reach, a beat, and a final run o the finish. "Oh," they said.

The J/105 racing was very close, tactical racing, and they had a vertical lineup of dials and gauges on their masts connected to sensors and a computer that tell them VMG and all that stuff so they can decide-tactics-- when to gybe etc. The 505's have a compass. The 505's races took about an hour and a quarter. The J/105 races took about the same time. 505's blow by J/105's like an F15 fighter jet passes a piper cub. Then, the 505 doesn't have a below. No head. No fridge. No bunks. Different strokes for different folks, but I'd be remiss if I didn't report the wide eyes of the J/105 sailors as the 505's roared passed them. Fun stuff.