Putting Together a Major Championship Regatta

Neal put together an outstanding North American Championship for the class. Here are some of his suggestions.

Finally in charge, I could now "do it right", but what did that mean? With the help of Scott Ikle, Dave Dyson, Tom Kivney and several other people, I came up with a list of gripes and the solutions:

1. Why do we always hold our championship as the 1st or 2nd event of the year? It's still cold up North in May and we usually have only sailed the boats once or twice by June. The 1994 schedule played out with major events over July 4 (Canadian Nationals), the end of July (East Coasts), and wrapping up with the NA's at the start of September.
2. Squirrely race instructions. I took the uncontested 1993 NA's instructions and updated and edited them. These were reviewed with the Race Committee and then submitted to three active class members for their review. The result was that the Race Committee was very familiar and comfortable with the instructions and only one question arose the entire week. These instructions are available on disk and available through your Tank Talk editor.
3. Race Committee waiting for stragglers after the posted starting time. We were fortunate to land David Biddle as Race Committee Chairman, and with him, his very experienced race management team. We would not sit around waiting for a race while good racing conditions existed. Boats leaving at the posted time would not be punished.
4. Not enough fresh water to clean the boats. How often have you stood around waiting to rinse off your boat? We set up six hoses in the dinghy park plus an additional hose by the second launching ramp. No waiting?
5. Not enough beer. A major concern. One keg per day plus a back-up keg, if needed, was available each day, plus two kegs and a back-up on banquet night. Cold and tapped when we hit the beach, a must for any successful 505 event.
6. Not enough entries. Who wants to go to a 19 boat championship? I went for two mailings (thanks to Mark Elliot for class member address labels) one in early summer and the second one month prior to the event. This plus announcements in Tank Talk and Sailing World calendar meant that we received 25 pre-registrations which grew eventually to 35 entries by race time. If the Canadian dollar had not crashed, I believe that we would have had over 40 boats. The mailer is on disk and can be edited to your needs. Contact your Tank Talk editor!
7. Boring Prizes. Through Larry Tuttle and the hard work of Peter Alarie, the 505 half models have been resurrected. Peter has the mold (and my sample!). We went for top five skippers and crew plus the Race Committee Chairman and the host club. Contact Peter if you are interested in these prizes. He did a beautiful job.
8. No prizes for the bulk of the fleet. Through the continued good graces of RAIL RIDER and additional support from West Marine, we were able to hand out over a dozen sets of prizes consisting of clothing and gear. Prize categories ranged from "oldest combined age - skipper, crew & " Boat" to furthest distance traveled to compete."
9. We need a different venue. The New Bedford Yacht Club has not hosted a 505 event in 10 years and then it had only been part of a multi-class event. We were well behaved enough so that the possibility of getting back in is very real. A friendly host club, such as NBYC, with access to Buzzard's Bay is a tremendous asset to the 505 class.

1. A two-day clinic prior to the event - thanks to Ethan Bixby of North Sails, St. Pete, FL.
2. A slide show of first day racing put on by Gail Sleeman during the banquet.
3. Cool T-shirts organized by Bruce Edwards, designed by Bird.

Get in touch if you need any additional info.