5o5s at the 2009 Heineken HPDO

What another great year for the 5o5s at the HPDO at American YC! For those of you who are unaware, the HPDO was started now over 5 years ago by Fleet 9 guru John Wyles, in an effort to create a premier multi-class regatta for high performance sail craft otherwise lacking in the NE area. The HPDO, has since become just that: that the premier event on the US East Coast for high performance sailboats. Every year the turnout seems to build and build, and with the support of great sponsors such as Heineken, has really prospered as a go-to event for "Great Racing, Great Friends, and Great Beer!"

To add to the usual components of great parties, free stuff, and great competition, Long Island Sound served up a true treat this year in 2 days of excellent racing conditions - not too cold, sunny, and WINDY! The 5o5 fleet, with a number of members fresh off of a "full metal jacket" world championship in San Francisco in August, certainly enjoyed the blustery fall conditions, and worlds teams who had spent 2 weeks sailing in 25+ against the best in the world showed off their newly acquired heavy-air skills.

Saturday morning opened in a flurry of activity in the newly converted base camp of AYC Parking Lot. One of the best parts about the HPDO is getting together a huge group of people who are really passionate about sailing in fun, fast boats; the rigging area inevitably becomes an interesting hybrid of a high-performance boat show, rigging shop, and regatta venue as competitors check out each other's rides, make last minute adjustments to their own boats, and talk about the days' forecast. The excitement was tangible as competitors launched their boats and linked into the first bands of the 15-20kt NWer outside of the harbor, rocketing their myriad of craft out towards the starting area (some at over 20 kts of boatspeed!).


Out on the water, Ted/ Doug made the best of their extensive ramp up at SF Worlds, putting on a clinic with three bullets and a second on the first day of racing. The big man in the wire and the experience of sailing against the world's best for two weeks in SF seemed to truly give them the edge when it came to upwind boatspeed and crisp downwind boathandling in the big breeze. Lesson learned: if you want to get good, go to Worlds! Conditions were challenging for the fleet with a steady 18-22 and higher gusts towards the end of the day - Ted even conceded that by SF standards, it was "moderate" out on the racecourse. Despite their dominant performance, racing was incredibly close amongst the entire fleet, and small mistakes cost a lot of boats in the shifty NWerly. Uncle Henry/ Dustin, John/ Team Silver Seahorse, Nick Burke/ Trevor Burd, and a number of other teams gave a valiant chase effort at various points throughout the day. As the breeze picked up to the mid-upper 20s for the last race of the day, the chest hair really started to sprout on the surviving competitors, with only 3 boats deciding to make the final turn downhill (and away from home) after the first windward mark. Those who did were treated to full liftoff, in the East Coast's best impersonation of the Berkeley Circle.


Day two dawned with a slightly more moderate forecast, with the second day of the post-frontal NWer promising to continue the fun but challenging racing conditions. With many competitors nursing battle scars from the prior evening's festivities, most were at least relieved that they would likely not be spending the entire day practicing the breaststroke in LIS. Indeed, Sunday ended up being another great but challenging day for racing, with a more moderate 10-15kts hanging on for most of the day. Not to be characterized as heavy-air specialists, Ted and Doug continued their winning streak, taking 4 of 5 races. Class newcomer Matt Barry and crew Zach Brown joined the hunting pack, putting up a number of strong finishes with the Bassmaster and fighting off some strong competition in this only their 3rd regatta in the boat. Competition was once again very close, with the streaky NWer putting a premium on smooth upwind and downwind transitions as well as staying in pressure. Congrats to Ted and Doug for pulling off a dominant performance, as well as earning Boat of the Week honors for the entire regatta!

Of course the big thanks goes out to John, Carina, Kevin, Sally, our RC and hosts at American YC, and the generous sponsors of the event. As illustrated by the great racing and high-profile media coverage, the HPDO has really become a one-of-a-kind gathering for high performance sailors in our part of the world. We really have a lot to be thankful for that our very own Fleet 9 finds itself smack in the middle of this carbon fiber-and spectra-entangled mecca, and we can only hope that the trend of increasing turnouts and great memories will continue for years to come. With John and Sally Wyles leaving for the Emerald Isle next year (at least in between 5o5 events!) Fleet 9 and the regatta organizers have some big shoes to fill, but their hard work and dedication to making this event a lasting tradition has given us the best foundation we could hope for to build on for the future. Make sure to put it in your calendar for next year!

John and Gareth linking in to a nice puff on Day 2

Full regatta gallery courtesy of Photoboat.com

All photos above are copyrighted and courtesy of Photoboat.com- any unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

Read more...

2009 Fleet 9 AGM

Thanks to Doug for putting together the below write-up of this weekend's Fleet 9 AGM:



Fellow 505ers and Friends:

We had a most enjoyable evening Saturday at Doug and Marie McKeige's house for our year end Fleet 9 party and Annual General Meeting. There were 25 or so of us -- a nice turn out. Those of you who were not able to attend -- here is a report:

1. I was elected co fleet captain with our other new co fleet captain, Ted Ferrarone (elected in absentia). While we have plenty of willing and enthusiastic fleet members, the thinking was that I could help coordinate things with AYC and Ted can do the same with LYC and also especially help with fleet development among the folks who have come out of school and working/living in the metropolitan area. This new arrangement has come about because our great friend and leader John Wyles and his beautiful and wonderful wife Sally are relocating to their home in Ireland. John is, of course, irreplaceable and so we will all need to rally our energies to take advantage of the solid foundation and huge momentum that John has brought us. THANKS AGAIN JOHN WYLES!!! The good news is that John expects to be in the U.S. on a regular basis going forward and we will see plenty of him in the future.

In this spirit, Olav Schluter agreed to take on responsibility for our fleet loaner boat, 8464. Keith Longson said he will work on trying to get a better turn out from AYC members for fleet sailing. Carina Prakke-McCabe said she's interested in helping with the 2011 505 NAs organization (which we all are going to have to work on with the help of other E. Coast 505 sailors.)

2. Schedule: A lot of time was spent on this. The big events in 2010 are the 505 Worlds in Aarhus Denmark from July 25 to August 5. There appears to be strong interest for this and there will most certainly be an E. Coast container going over. The 505 North American Championship is Chicago, tentatively scheduled now for June 23 to 27. I'm not sure those dates are set and there was some concern about whether a container could be packed after that event and make it to Denmark in time for the Worlds.

Midwinters. There is strong interest in the midwinters and John W indicated his view that we should be able to load a tractor trailer (which can take upward of ten or eleven boats) at AYC and have it stop and pick up additional boats at Hampton, where a few of our fleet will be after the Hampton regatta this coming weekend. (John has been emailing on this subject).

After Midwinters, there was discussion about trying to do a training session or two in Miami with some help from Augie and Ethan in terms of a venue.

There will likely be a regatta at Hampton Virginia in early April and then the West River regatta in late April. We then currently plan to have the Larchmont Memorial Day regatta. There will likely be a Wickford regatta in early June and perhaps a regatta later in June at Beach Haven NJ on Long Beach Island. There was discussion around the fact that many fleet members spent so much time sailing at other venues that local participation suffered. There was also discussion around the need to balance local sailing with support for other E. Coast venues. We won't have the benefit of them sailing with us if we don't go to sail with them. We are going to look at trying to have at least one more local weekend event to add to the schedule. At the same time, it is a real plus if we can travel closer distances (like Wickford and Beach Haven) where we can have a better shot at breeze and where the travel time isn't so onerous. After June, as mentioned, there are the NAs at Chicago and the Worlds at Denmark. We should be good to go again this year for the Buzzards Bay Regatta in early August. There will likely be an event in September (perhaps a local one) and then we will have the HPDO in early October.

The schedule will be set over the coming months after discussions with the schedule coordinators for New England (Sol Marini and mid Atlantic Henry Amthor). We will keep you posted.

3. New Boats. Loic Bleuez indicated that he is interested in purchasing Xavier's boat. Loic attended Saturday and he lives in Morristown NJ. He is interested in finding somebody who could crew for him (correct?). We have a lot of boats locally now, so anybody out there who wants to skipper or crew should not have trouble finding a way to get something figured out. Let's all show some iniative on this.

4. 505 NAs October 2011. This is a four day event scheduled for the weekend in October 2011 after the HPDO. Joerg, who just finished organizing the J105 NAs at AYC said it is a lot of work. Fortunately, we have at AYC a pretty enthusiastic and able group of RC personnel which is a great place to start. We are going to need a ton of additional pieces. For the time being, Ted, Doug, Carina, Kevin (with some advice from Joerg and John W) will get on top of this.

That's about all I've got.

Best,
Doug McKeige

Read more...