No Doctor at 505 Worlds Day 2, but full results here

by Ali Meller & Sail-World on 10 Dec 2002 Another warm sunny day in Fremantle. It blew overnight, and the morning offshore breeze was very well established and quite strong. The Fremantle Doctor never did fill in and both of today's races were sailed in a shifty, puffy easterly.

The wind range was probably something like 6 or 7 knots to 20 knots, and the shifts were probably 30 degrees. With the offshore breeze, the waves/chop were not as large as yesterday, though the race course was a considerable distance downwind of the shore, so we still had a noticeable chop.

It was another fabulous day to be racing 505s.

Race 2:

The left looked good early, but it all depended on who was in the puff and sailing the lifted tack, so a number of teams had their moments up the first beat.

There were LOTS of place changes up the first beat, and then down the run; it was very easy to lose a bunch of boats as they went down the run wire running in a puff while you sat in a hole calling for 'Hughie' (apparently Australians encourage a puff by yelling C'mon Hughie!').

There were more place changes down the beat, and even the reaches were a good opportunity to pass or be passed, as some teams would go high looking for a puff and then come screaming down in one.

In Race 2 at the finish it was Ian Barker/Dan Cripps 1st, Simon Payne/Bill Masterman 2nd, Howard Hamlin/Mike Martin 3rd, Krister Bergstrom/Thomas Moss 4th and probably Danny Thompson/Andy Zinn 5th. Second through fourth were within five meters at the downwind finish.

Race 3: Today was a scheduled two race day, so after the stragglers had finished, we had another go. The first gate start attempt ended quickly when the pathfinder tacked to avoid several teams trying to gate early (the offenders may have gotten away with it as the race officer in the gate launch tried to inform the RC who the offenders were, but apparently there was so much background noise over the radio that he was not heard). The start was recalled, which happens quite rarely in gate starts.

The next attempt also had some issues as the pathfinder had to take evasive action (the offending team was DSQ'd) and may be filing for redress. Pip and I had already gated and did not see the incident, but it seems to me that if the pathfinder feels they deserve redress, anyone who gated after the incident might choose to see. There are people rapidly filling out forms as I write this report. We'll have to see what the jury decides on these.

Once again it was a shifty, puffy race, with place changes all around the course. The difference in speed between a 505 wire running in a puff and a 505 forced to go low in a lull is substantial; finding and staying in the puffs makes for HUGE gains.

Ian Barker/Dan Cripps gated early, punched out on the boats near them and then tacked to cross. Since Pip and I were below them in the gate and kept going for awhile, we were able to seem them cross at least the first 10 or 20 starboard tackers who had gated after them. We had a good start and worked the left, but even though it was shifting back and forth, the trend was going right, so we were looking terrible.

1992 and 1993 505 World Champions Chris and Darren Nicholson led at the windward mark.

We ended up nearly on the port tack lay line early, and then in a 'Hail Mary' back and puff we pulled through to round 6th and then noticed that we were ahead of Barker/Cripps, Hamlin/Martin and number of the favored teams.

Thompson/Zinn apparently caught Nicholsons at one point, but Nicholsons (AUS) led for most of the race and were in the lead when it counted, at the downwind finish.

Barker/Cripps (GBR) pulled through from a first mark rounding in the teens to finish second (apparently Barker/Cripps were forced to capsize the boat at one point during the race to fix something and still manged to pull through to second!).

Andy Beeckman/Ben Benjamin (USA-Team Tuesday) were third, Thompson/Zinn (USA-Team Tuesday) were 4th, Hugh Stodart/Peter Holden (AUS) were 5th, Malcolm Higgins/Andrew Chisholm (AUS) 6th and Bergstrom/Moss (SWE) 7th. After fighting a battle for much of the race with 505 Class Vice President Tom Bojland -- racing with Philip Christran -- we lost them on the third beat. Though we were quite close at the last windward mark, they finished 12th, Peter Chappell/Ian Davidson crossed 13th, and Pip and I were 14th, about one boat length behind Chappell, our best finish so far.

GROLSCH INTERNATIONAL 505 CLASS 2002 OPEN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Progressive Results After Race 3 (Subject to Protest)

Position Country/Bow No Boat No/Name Skipper/Crew Total Nett Race 1 Race 2 Race 3

1 GBR 107 8743 - Bodge It and Scarper Ian Barker/Daniel Cripps 10 10 7( 7) 1( 1) 2( 2)

2 USA 83 8762 - Nice Wood Dan Thompson/Andrew Zinn 13 13 2( 2) 7( 7) 4( 4)

3 SWE 64 8655 - Mind Com Krister Bergstrom/Thomas Moss 15 15 4( 4) 4( 4) 7( 7)

4 USA 84 8714 - Black Boat Howard Hamlin/Mike Martin 16 16 5( 5) 3( 3) 8( 8)

5 AUS 75 8804 - Jigsaw Chris Nicholson/Darren Nicholson 17 17 11( 11) 5( 5) 1( 1)

6 USA 8 7771 - Gummi de Milo Andrew Beeckman/Ben Benjamin 25 25 8( 8) 14( 14) 3( 3)

7 AUS 12 8784 - Express Post Hugh Stodart/Peter Holden 25 25 12( 12) 8( 8) 5( 5)

8 AUS 33 8809 - Scalpel Leslie Nathanson/Richard Machin 31 31 14( 14) 6( 6) 11( 11)

9 AUS 30 8796 - Fangin Hoons Malcolm Higgins/Andrew Chisholm 33 33 18( 18) 9( 9) 6( 6)

10 GBR 72 8774 - Boys on Tour Ian Pinnell/Steve Hunt 35 35 9( 9) 11( 11) 15( 15)

11 AUS 34 8795 - Sleek Alexander Higgins/Paul Marsh 38 38 6( 6) 10( 10) 22( 22)

12 USA 16 8627 - The Pump Tim Collins/Drew Buttner 42 42 10( 10) 13( 13) 19( 19)

13 GER 68 8744 Hans Heinrich Rix/Martin Schoeler 42 42 17( 17) 15( 15) 10( 10)

14 AUS 19 8523 - Forever Aboard Peter Hewson/Morgan Bax 47 47 26( 26) 12( 12) 9( 9)

15 GBR 78 8555 - Dave Smithwhite/Neil Fulcher 51 51 1( 1) 25( 25) 25( 25)

16 AUS 43 8813 - Van Munster Boat Building Brett Van Munster/Andrew Petch 54 54 16(
16) 22( 22) 16( 16)

17 GER 66 8775 Tom Swift/Holger Jess 55 55 20( 20) 17( 17) 18( 18)

18 GBR 18 8787 - GBR 8787 Terry Scutcher/Christian Diebitsch 60 60 3( 3) 29( 29) 28( 28)

19 USA 40 8722 - Team CSC Macy Nelson/Jesse Falsone 61 61 22( 22) 16( 16) 23( 23)

20 AUS 54 8696 - Loose Unit Carter Jackson/Will McDonald 65 65 21( 21) 20( 20) 24( 24)

21 AUS 101 8801 - The Fish Peter Chappell/Ian Davidson 70 70 19( 19) 38( 38) 13( 13)

22 AUS 92 8395 - TIMAAYY! Luke Molloy/Lucas Prescott 72 72 13( 13) 27( 27) 32( 32)

23 DEN 89 8807 - Powerware Tom Bojland/Philip Christiani 79 79 31( 31) 36( 36) 12( 12)

24 AUS 55 8499 - Blue Slip Alexander Meller/Pip Pearson 80 80 35( 35) 31( 31) 14( 14)

25 AUS 48 8280 - Voyager Michael Quirk/Geoff Lange 82 82 15( 15) 37( 37) 30( 30)

26 AUS 103 8810 - GO David Alexander/Marcus Cooper 82 82 28( 28) 28( 28) 26( 26)

27 USA 25 8012 - Herk Henry Amthur/Steve Sparkman 88 88 23( 23) 21( 21) 44( 44)

28 AUS 38 8782 - Ronstan Andrew Hewson/Frank Karlovecz 88 88 27( 27) 24( 24) 37( 37)

29 AUS 36 8506 - Frontier Psychiatry Mark Robertshaw/Peter Crommelin 92 92 24( 24) 19( 19) 49( 49)

30 AUS 3 8667 - Swing Shift Scott Olsen/Sean Gregory 106 106 30( 30) 26( 26) 50( 50)

31 GER 67 8632 - Meister Potter Claas Lehmann/Klaus Stammerjohann 107 107 45( 45) 23( 23) 39( 39)

32 USA 65 8643 - Spots Revenge Barney Harris/Clayton James 109 109 37( 37) 32( 32) 40( 40)

33 USA 81 8554 - Panic Doug Hagan/Stuart Park 112 112 41( 41) 50( 50) 21( 21)

34 AUS 99 8177 - Lock Stock and Two Smokin Barrels Michael Navarro/Simon Wilder 114 114 40( 40) 41( 41) 33( 33)

35 GBR 76 8773 - GUS First Blood Part 2 Simon Payne/Bill Masterman 122 122 100(DNF) 2( 2) 20( 20)

36 AUS 1 8739 - Show Me the Money Ian Dunn/David Horsfall 122 122 36( 36) 39( 39) 47( 47)

37 GBR 35 8556 - Coolio Julio Mike Hart/Chris Gowers 124 124 33( 33) 34( 34) 57( 57)

38 AUS 106 8710 - Mitchell Sails Justin Mit