The boat was recently purchased by Steve Yates, who wrote the following about it;
"... the foils are the nicest 50 foils I have ever seen. The overall quality of workmanship on the entire boat, I think, is quite superb!"
After having raced the boat myself in a couple of events, I have some very positive initial impressions.
Ali Meller
Both Peter Alarie and I, independently - had extremely positive impressions of the boat when we first saw it. The boat, with two tone blue and white hull, looks fabulous. The finish is excellent, high quality fittings and fasteners are used throughout, the controls appear to be well led, the boat has a very clean layout. The boat comes with - for example -the new Ronstan auto ratchets for the spinnaker sheets; very nice!
The boat was very easy to rig, and where things went was quite obvious. Unfortunately, I did not have time to sail the boat prior to the worlds, so it first went into the water in Hyannis.
Rake and rig tension are easily accessible from either side of the boat, mounted on the CB cap close to the mainsheet swivel jammer, with very nice shockcord takeups. The rig can be stood up more upright than 25' 8" with low rig tension (or tight if you want), and can be raked well back with lots of rig tension (I have not measured where max aft rake and tension are yet - it appears to be well aft of 25' 2"). The shrouds are rigged with a 2"1 above the rail, 6:1 inboard of the through-seat-tank-tubes, and a final 2:1 along the CB case side.
Vang is led to either side and is easy to pull - you pull out rather than up - and easy to uncleat and ease. A very nice shockcord takeup keeps the tails out from underfoot.
Cunningham is led to the back of the CB cap, a little further aft than I was used to on my Waterat, but very easy to reach while reaching or in heavy air (which is when I use it).
Outhaul is at the front of the boom, pole topping lift is on a cleat on the mast underneath the gooseneck, led through a turning block, so you can pull it up from anywhere.
The centerboard up and down controls are rigged with a continuous line. The system works well, with no loose lines in the cockpit, as the same line is used to pull the board up and down
Overall the boat has a very clean layout, with control easy to reach, but not in the way, and almost no loose lines to tangle. It just looks easy to sail.
In the only race I sailed in over 13 knots, the boat was very smooth and fast, and easily led at the weather mark, planing upwind quickly.
Downwind it seemed to surf easily and it seemed very easy to get the bow to point where you wanted it to..The bow is quite fine, with less volume/buoyancy forward of the shrouds than other 505s, it seems to cut rather than trying to go over waves. We had some boathandling problems - I was sailing with different crews who I had not sailed with before - that hampered us on tight reaches, but we typically gained ground on broader reaches and runs.
Prior to the boat arriving, and while it was in Hyannis, there was considerable speculation about the problems of racing the boat without a mast ram strut. I have raced it in two regattas with blocks in the mast gate, and can state that it does work, but perhaps not perfectly. We were careful to calibrate mast position in the gate relative to my Waterat, so I knew where I wanted the mast to be in the gate. We were able to position the mast to where we wanted it with the blocks; typically by easing the jib halyard to drop the rig back and create room in front of the mast for the blocks, shoving the blocks in, then pulling the halyard back on... it takes just a few seconds. We simply tightened the vang to induce bend in the mast and allow us to put blocks behind the mast. In each case we blocked fore and aft, picking our location based on wind conditions.
In any breeze, we ended up putting more blocks in front of the mast to reduce bend. I believe we were getting more low down bend than we expected, particularly as we started tightening the vang to power up the main leech. The KISS Rondar mast is supposed to have a C section sleeve from step to spinnaker pole fitting, to stiffen the lower mast and - we hope - deal with the lower bend situation, but the mast that came from Proctor appears not to have this C section sleeve. We did not have outstanding pointing, I suspect due to the lower mast bend. We will either add the long C section sleeve, or add a mast ram strut.
You probably want to know how we did in the racing. We were hampered in the racing due to being holed on the port side before the start of the first race. We taped it up and sailed the two regattas, but were taking water in the bow tank some of the time, which made a noticeable difference to the boat's speed. We were also hampered by a sliding boom vang attachment, the CB controls not working until I restored them to the original configuration and by not getting the lower mast bend exactly where we wanted it. None-the-less, the boat was fast, and finished 3rd and 2nd in the two regattas so far. It was particularly fast upwind in the windy race we sailed.
The KISS Rondar is very nice and definitely fast. Control lines are set up well with some exceptions. The boat definitely needs a mast ram for US sails - no question about it. There are some finishing touches that it could use like end caps on the jib tracks so you don't cut your hands. The jib cleat height needs to be adjusted - they re-cleat very easily when tacking. The Ronstan Auto ratchets are nice on the spinnaker. Personally, I like ratchets on the jib too. A crew would be well served to tape his knuckles since the non-skid on the rail is quite abrasive. However, I don't think you would ever slip on that rail. The spinnaker seems to come down through the launcher tube more easily than on the Waterat. The bow is definitely finer with less waterplane area through the forward sections of the hull. The crew seems to stand about 6" further aft than in a Waterat under normal conditions. The boat felt light and nimble, cutting through waves well (when the bow tank wasn't filled with water from leaking through the patch). This boat is every bit as fast as a new Waterat with an excellent fit and finish for the money.