What Kind of People Race 505s In Fleet 19
All sorts of people race 505s, and fleet 19 is as diverse as any fleet in the USA. We have members living in Washington DC, Northern VA, Baltimore and Annapolis. Further afield we have people in New Jersey and the Carolinas on our e-mail list, who occasionally participate in our events. We have men and women, teens, people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties. We have male crews who are over 6 feet tall and over 200 pounds, and we have female crews weighing less than 120 and nowhere near 6 feet tall. We have drivers weighing over 200 pounds and we have drivers weighing not much more than 100.
We have 505 sailors who were national or North American champions in other classes, and we have people who have limited dinghy racing experience and are enjoying getting better in the 505.
The point is that almost anyone who wants to can sail and race a 505. You do not need to be under 30, you do not need to be an athlete, and you do not need to be in the gym several times a week. Some basic agility is helpful. If you have never sailed before, there is a learning curve to climb. We'll help you climb it. If you have raced other high performance dinghies the learning curve is much shorter, but you still need to understand the basic tuning setup.
Typical 505 Sailors from the International 505 web site.