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News letters

May 2001

Monthly News Letter of The South African 505 Yacht Racing Association (For the ‘wet a*se’ sailing enthusiast)

Volume 1, Issue 1



Contents

President's corner
Nationals Durban
New Commitee
Web-site
Forthcoming events

President's Corner

The word consensus springs to mind. I think of myself as rather more a custodian than president. It’s a problem in Africa you could call it the Mugabe mentality. As far as I’m concerned the class belongs to its members, and it will grow as big as they want it to and be as successful as they want it to be. My job is to help facilitate growth and recognise potential.

I believe we have the best all-round racing dinghy ever designed and it always will be, so I’m not going to compare it with any other class past, present or future. The class has had tremendous growth in Europe, U.S.A, Canada, Australia and the U.K. and is maintaining its popularity. So what do they do that we don't? Well, the first thing is the use of the Internet for communication. From that you can see they are enthusiastic, they reinvest in the class and they don't see what the class can do for them, they see what they can do for the class.

I would dearly love to see our lads up there in the top 10 in the world and why not? It’s been unfortunate that we haven’t had all the opportunities of our foreign compatriots but that doesn’t mean we can't produce winners. I'm often inspired by the achievements of the ‘ama croca croca’. For the winning attitude, we could all do well to look at our most disadvantaged to find our solutions. Lastly it should be fun to sail our boats, because after all, if you can only enjoy your sailing when you are winning, you will have very few fun days.

About six months ago Lauren Kabilla was assassinated and his son was given temporary custody of the D.R.C. Central Africa was on the brink of war on a massive scale. This young lad had no choice but to listen, so that he could bring about peace in that region. It would seem that he's done that.

We also have many stakeholders to consider if we are to be a success. Should you have any questions please contact me. I will publish your question and try to answer as best I can.

Tony Murray

Nationals Durban. See the photo archive of this event.

Phil Bennet:

The 505 Nationals were sailed over the long weekend from the 27 to 30 April in conjunction with the Laser Nationals and Sprog provincials. This was definitely the best weekend I have ever had at the beach site of Point Yacht Club. Derek Warne and others comment was that it was like the ‘Med’.

The breeze was generally off-shore during the four days which meant that the swells were low and the wind strength varied between 8 and 18 knots. Great sailing all round.

My only gripe, apart from the small turnout, is that we could have had more than the 6 races, in fact 20 races were scheduled on the notice of regatta.

Graeme Willcox and Alan Haylett who are getting geared for the 2001 worlds in Portugal later this year won 4 of the 6 races and his old man Rob Willcox and Ditmar Herrmann won the remaining 2, however not in that order. Graeme and Alan are going really well and we wish them the best of luck for the worlds. Nigel Milne/ Malcolm Muller finished up in third place and would probably have been happier if the breeze was constantly 18 knots and more.

The minor placing went to myself and Karl Herrmann (on the wire) and Rudolf Holm/ Rick Shearar . I suspect that a bone of contention must be the new “tally system” that Point have introduced. You now have to remove your tally number from the rack and place it in a box, on return from the sea you again remove the tally from the rack and put it in the box (this is after a committee member hangs all the tallies back on the rack). A number of us forgot our tallies and collected a DSQ, Steve Hegerstroom was particularly hard hit with this system and had to carry 3 DSQs. Both Albrecht Holm and Bob Crisp have new crews but both appear to have potential. Tony Murray/ Tom Fisher have teamed up again (I think for the worlds) but they still cant decide who should hold Stick, Tony had to leave early and could not sail on the Monday so Tom teamed up with a local Natal guy and they went very well.

Nigel Milne:

The first race was sailed in light conditions, with a low, flat swell and offshore breeze. Winds 5 – 8 knots and only one race was sailed. Through the event the wind picked up, and by the 4th day was blowing at 12-20 knots. This, combined with the low swell, made for extremely fast sailing conditions. Even in my experience, this had to be some of the best offshore sailing I have ever had.

Final results were:

1.	G Willcox / Alan Haylett
2.	R Willcox / D Hermann
3.	N Milne / M Muller
4.	P Bennet / K Hermann
5.	R Holm / R Shearar
6.	A Holm / Christo Oosthuizen
7.	T Fischer / T Murray
8.	B Crisp / crew?
9.	S Hegerstrom / J Boy

Congratulations to those who fared well.

Phil Bennet & Nigel Milne

New Committee

The new committee was elected and consists of:

President	Tony Murray
Secratary	Peter Roos
Treasurer	Jan Milne
International Liaison	Bob Crisp
Fleet Captain VLC	Phil Bennet
Fleet Captain KZN	Anton Ellens
Fleet Captain - PSC	Rick Shearar

Web-site

The international web –site address is www.int505.org/ for information on boats, the class and how to go faster.

Forthcoming events

Please see the events page.