Few 505 teams, past or present, have been together as long as Bruce Edwards and David Shelton. The "Bruce and Dave" team have been ubiquitous on the 505 scene since 1987. In that time, they've amassed an impressive sailing resume including four top ten World Championship finishes and three podium finishes at the North Americans.

All success on the race course aside, what makes this team extraordinary is their friendship. There's a deep-seeded respect that only comes with maturity and the knowledge that sailing with and among friends is at the very core of 505 sailing.

Bruce and Dave formulated their 505 plans at the 1987 Laser Worlds. Having competed in three Laser World Championships already, Bruce finally started to realize that "hiking hard and going slow" wasn't as much fun as he thought. Dave obviously had more wild oats to sew because he continued to sail the single-handed Finn in '93 and '94, finishing in the top 20 at both Gold Cups each year.
It's impossible to sail together intensively over a 14-year period and not have your squabbles. Bruce and Dave actually broke up for a year in 1990 before the Kingston Worlds. However, they were able to come to terms with the reasons for their discord, and were back sailing together the next season.
On the lighter side, Bruce and Dave have an intricate knowledge of each others personality disorders, ticks, and pet peeves, and neither pass up an opportunity for a good-natured jab. But underneath the jabs, it's clear how much Dave and Bruce like being together on and off the water. Gone are the petty resentments and all the baggage that some teams bring with them on the water. What's left is a totally mature program with mutual understanding, patience, and, of course, speed.

JF - The Edwards and Shelton team has been together since 1987. What is the secret to team longevity?

Dave - Being able to sail with your best friend! Two things I really believe make it easy are a mutual respect for each others abilities and efforts, and being in the same place in life. At this point in life we both would put 505 sailing after our families and careers. When we were younger it was more difficult as our priorities were different. I think it still scares Karina and Annette how well we know each other!

Bruce - In all seriousness, we are the best of friends. We do a lot of other stuff together, like mountain bike, surf, and now things as couples as Dave and Karina are engaged, which has been really fun. I think that is really the main reason we have sailed together so long.

Also, we have a great deal of respect for each other's ability. For example, Dave has sailed countless Worlds in 505's, FDs, Finn's, Melges, etc. and thus has a wealth of knowledge about tactics, preparation, etc. I think he is one of the best true "amateur" sailors in the world.

We also have a good understanding of each other's amount of time availability (we both do a lot of other stuff) and reach a burnout point at about the same time. This helps to know what our limits are, and that they are similar. I think that a reason some teams don't last long is that each persons personal expectations are very different, but they never talk about it. We lay out a plan for the year early every season and it includes breaks, no sailing weekends, etc. just to keep it in control.

We did have a "divorce" right before the Kingston Worlds, because I think we didn't have a good definition of who should pay for what (and that I was not contributing what I should have been in many ways). That I think can be another disaster point for some teams. It can be critical to the point of potentially putting things on paper if you need to. We don't go to that extent, but are both really good about splitting all costs, and on occasion just picking stuff up personally. Originally, Dave owned the boats and really funded the program, now I own the boats and we split the costs. So, over the years it's been a good balance of both of us contributing to the team.

JF - It sounds like you guys have an excellent relationship on and off the water, and you've figured out how to get the best from each other. How do each of you diffuse conflicts or disagreements on the water before they lead to poor performance or bad feelings?

Dave - Well to start with its a known fact that its always the helmsmans fault. Heck he's steering the boat! In all serlousness it's being honest with each other and communicating. When we were younger I think we had an unhealthy situation where we based so much of our self worth on our sailing performance. It was really hard on our relationship when we had a bad regatta! At this point we realize that its all for fun and in the big scheme of things it really doesn't matter. Granted we like to win as much as anyone! If we make a mistake on the race course whether its boat handling, tactics or a breakdown our first priority is to fix the problem and discuss it after the race and learn from our mistake. Granted some lessons we have to learn over and over and over! We are both very supportive of each other and our efforts. We're a team and I'm only as good as he is. At the end of the day no matter how good or bad the racing went, I got to spend it ripping around in a 505 with a great friend. Is there anything better?

Bruce - In the early/younger years of our racing, we got pretty wound up at each other and would just get PO'ed, yell and scream, and not talk to each other. Now we never do.

I think it comes from mutual respect and age. Our main goals are twofold; (1) to try to do the best we can and win a world championship, and (2) have a great time-which is more important. I think when you have that perspective and respect for each other anger is just not part of the equation. If I blow a tack or Dave does a slow jibe, its not because of lack of ability or talent, so knowing that keeps everything in perspective. Also, when we make mistakes on the race course it's a total team decision so there's no personal blame.

"It could be worse, we could be in a Snipe!"

JF - What's the best thing your teammate does to ease tension while racing?

BE - Just refocusing each other on getting our heads back in the game. We certainly have seen and/or done great comebacks in regattas when you thought it was all over!

DS - Laugh at him. He does this real funny nasal grunt when he gets stressed and then pulls the mainsheet to hard. Me, I just get real quiet - kind of like if I don't tell him we're on the wrong side of a 30 degree shift he won't know! So the line goes..."You're quiet. How bad is it?" to which I respond, "It could be worse, we could be in a Snipe!" Once be finally learned I'm perfect and its all his fault things got better! As you can tell humor is a large part of our stress relief program. Respect and appreciation of ones efforts go a long way in any relationship, but some times things just are out of your hands and you can only laugh.

JF - What is the mood on the boat when you guys are sailing at peak performance? Do you have a "zone" that you get into?

DS - There is a definite zone or flow we get into. Bruce has an unbelievable feel for the boat and making it go fast. It's not a sail by numbers sort of thing - he just knows when something is not right and we need to readjust. When we're flowing and the boat is fast, its real easy for me to be a tactical genius! Confidence builds on this feeling, but never be over confident and careless.

BE - We just bad a great weekend racing last weekend. We certainly didn't dominate (no one really does in this fleet except maybe Mike & Howie 2 years ago), but just sailed consistently and ended up winning the regatta. I think it was a great example of when our communication is good and we stick to our game plan and it works for us.

If you call it a "zone" it would be the ability to make the game plan work and this tends to feed into your confidence and then it turns into a positive cycle. We tend to really focus on setting up a plan in the pre-race, evaluating as the race unfolds, and then really trying to focus on how we can consistently make incremental gains.

The "mood" when its working is quiet and evaluating. Even on races we've won, our first question to each other is "what mistakes did we make and what did we learn". Last weekend we won 3 out of 7 races, but never lead at the first or second mark on any of them, we just capitalized on mistakes of others and kept looking forward. There are certainly points where we get worked up, but we try to get each other focused on the race again.

JF - Lets talk about your relationship with Mike Holt from the UK. Is it fair to say you have a healthy competition with him?

DS - In any sport there are rivalries! The Dodgers and Giants... 49'ers and Dallas... Then there's Shelton vs. Holt! We compete at everything! If we play golf and I shot a 204 and he shot a 205 it would be a great victory to talk about for years! Sailing is getting boring as I have beat him 3-0 in 2001. If you can imagine, in the first and only race of the pre-worlds in Durban it's blowing 25+ knots and we're leading the fleet and screaming insults at each other! It's great fun! And just in case you forgot Mike, we kicked your ass in that race! In all honesty, Mike's a great friend and a groomsman in my wedding. As much fun as 505's are to sail its the people in the fleet that make it the best!

BE - Now we beat him so often that its not fair, and he is a Brit so he has that going against him too.

JF - When Bruce was offered the syndicate management position with Philippe Kahn's Pegasus team, were you worried that he might accept the job and forego your 505 campaign?

DS - No! Bruce is a 505 junkie.... He's the hard core addict... No matter how far we try to distance ourselves from the boat we still need our fix. Screw racing, its 30 knots with the chute up somewhere off Natural Bridges. A huge swell, the boat just jumping out of the water. The cold water rushing up my forward leg as I stand on the side and then you pull the perfect jibe right in front of Jeff Millers house! Thats the best drug I can think of. Bruce will die before he gives up 505 sailing. And if he were to give it up for lead dogs I would put him out of his misery!

JF - Bruce, you have done some sailing on Farr 40's with software mogul, Philippe Kahn, why haven't you done more with that team at this point?

BE - Philippe is a fascinating person. He is an accomplished entrepreneur, jazz musician, snowboarder, and now sailor. I did a season of Farr 40 racing when be started out a year ago and Philippe had one goal: To learn and become one of the best helmsmen around. He is now well on his way with a devotion to perfection of becoming better by sailing with some of the sailing greats of today. He is pretty unique in that I have sailed with some "successful" people in the past and some were jerks while Philippe is just the opposite. He rarely gets bummed, never yells, just wants to learn and get better. It's a refreshing attitude and a great lesson for all of us. His recent letter to the email sailing news scuttlebutt was a classic indicator of this. He wins the Admirals Cup trials, doesn't get to go, and is nothing but positive about the whole experience.

I hope to do some sailing with him this spring as a sparring partner in the Melges 24 when he is training in Santa Cruz and perhaps some racing with his team. With all the talent he attracts, you learn a lot of different things from some really good sailors. Any training with the team will help in my 505 sailing.

JF - Living in Santa Cruz, you guys are not plugged into the ultra-competitive Team Tuesday crowd down in Long Beach. Despite this, you remain as one of the top teams in the US, frequently defeating teams with more boat time during the season and more boat-on-boat tuning experience. How do you remain so competitive?

BE - In fact, the "Team Tuesday" gang is really open about sharing information, and helping everyone. Thats one of the main reasons our California fleet is growing so fast. So, even though we don't get the benefits of the weekly tuning, they are great about helping us out too. I hope that we have helped them in a mutual way.

I think the major factors that keep Dave and I in the hunt is that we do try to refine our boat handling on our own, and then when we do get to sail against those guys, we really focus on tuning. We have had some great opportunities to do some preregatta tuning with them.

We are going to start a NorCal Team Tuesday in San Francisco this summer. It has really been driven by Nick Adamson and Doug Hagan. We have a really great group now in NorCal. Olympian Nick Adamson sailing with Alan Norman, Ryan Cox and Carl Smit, Doug Hagan and Stuart Park, Thad Lieb and Paul Kerner, Evert Meyer and Chris Hanke, and our rover, David Byron, all of whom will being doing Tuesdays in SF. All these guys have the capability to be Top 10 in the worlds soon and its a really great group of people.

The other thing that really helps us is that we have sailed together for so long. A lot of the timing things are so dialed that our tuning curve is a bit shorter than others (I think).

GETTING ON-LINE WITH BRUCE AND DAVE Jesse Falsone - Bruce and Dave, I'd like to conduct an email interview with you guys. Are you on? Dave Shelton - Cool! Just no questions about my relationships with Madonna and Princes Diana. Oh yeah, my million-dollar-a-year Vegas gambling habit is taboo as well! PS - I didn't father Jody Fosters kid and I live next door to Elvis. Jesse - OK, great. It's good you can take your hands off your pipe to do the Interview (ed. - Dave is a pipe and pipe fitting dealer). Bruce - Sure, I think it would be fun, but realize that Dave lies a lot :-) Dave - 12 INCHES!!! Bruce - At a minimum, you will have a lot of "psycho babble" to choose from. Jesse - I've already considered that you're all equally untrustworthy so lies all around is just fine. Dave - Can I "smack talk" about Bruce? Jesse - I wouldn't have it any other way.

DS - No doubt we lack a great tuning partner! It would be a dream! We're sort of like a blind dog at times. We make up for our lack of sight with our sense of smell. We Just have to make every other part of our program perfect. Boat work, sails, boat handling and of course, racing. We're pretty good about pushing ourselves hard in a practice with lots of tacks and jibes. One thing we do alot is race in the Santa Cruz Wednesday night race. Its pretty fun racing 50'+ keel boats and putting a little whoop ass on them! Tuning is great but racing is more fun. I think the SoCal boys are doing more racing this year as well.

BE - That reminds me of another thing I think we do exceptionally well. We are usually the MOST prepared when it comes to boatwork and with our kit for big regattas. We have a fully redundant set of everything, blades, spars etc. I think this also helps us locally that we can focus on tuning more than rigging at regattas. Dave really brought this to us from his FD and Finn campaigns (and be is reallv analretentive).

JF - What musical duo does the Shelton/Edwards team most resemble and why?

BE - I will let Dave answer this one.

DS - Depends on the day! We're not big musical people outside Bruce being a band geek in high school! I think he was Tuba Boy. Full of hot air? I think if the breeze is on we're a sort of Van Halen/David Lee Roth 1984ish sound going on - happy, fast and upbeat! I don't know what it means but Bruce really grooves on the song "Hot for Teacher".

Bruce and Dave at the Hyannis Worlds, 1998

JF - Both of you have sailed numerous other boats, both as a team and separately. Those boats include the FD, Melges 24, 49'er, Finn, Laser, and an assortment of keelboats. Why do you always come back to the 505?

BE - I think it has to do with the fact that it's simply the nicest boat to sail, especially in a heavy air venue like Santa Cruz. The only other boats that I would even put on the same par are the FD and 49'er. The FD is a dream to sail upwind but feels like a keelboat offwind. The 49'er is a kick in the butt, but you really need to be sailing full time to be competitive at the world level. Eric Willis and I currently have a 49'er that we sail on Wednesdav night beer can races when its light, thats just so we kick the lead doggies butts in any condition (less than 10 knots its a 49'er night, more than 10 knots its the 505).

Overall, the 505 is the best boat to sail and consistently has the most competitive racing year after year.

DS - The 505 is the greatest boat. lt's as simple as that! Keelboats suck. Olympic class boats take a full time commitment. I have no comment on 110 foot cats as Cam has yet to call me! (Granted it would be hard to fit one in the garage!) The 505 is the only high performance non-Olympic class boat to have a true world championship. This brings me to the best part, and that is the people. Sailing 505's has introduced me to some of the greatest folks the world over.

JF - Who do you consider to be the best 505 sailor, past or present?

DS - Besides myself? I always respect people who not only are great competitors at a sport, but put something back into the sport. Dennis Surtees really fits the bill. I can't think of someone who has won more regattas and put more back into the fleet. What about the great crews - Carl Buchan, Bruce Heckman, Jay Kuncl, and Jay Glaser. These are the guys who were always there to answer my questions when I was the new kid hanging on the side. Never forget the 505 crew is rule number one!

BE - Best is hard to define: on sheer talent, probably Peter Colclough. Didn't really ever practice, won 4 worlds, super nice guy, regular working stiff with a big family. The last worlds, I believe in the UK, he was sailing with his son. Totally cool!

There are so many people in the class that have done well at the World level that are true champions. I define that as normal people with jobs and families, that don't sail full time, that don't live off trust funds, that do well year after year and just do it for the love of pure racing, sailing a great boat, and having a great time with friends from all over the world.
There certainly have been many people in the class that inspired me to race 505's: Howie, Jay Glaser, Carl Buchan, Paul Tara, Jeff Miller, and all for very different reasons, but all about sailing 505's. A lot of people know the Howie of today: World Champion! But, he has been a promoter of the class, boatbuilder, innovator, and probably only second to Marcel Buffet at number of Worlds attended, certainly one of the reasons the 505 class is strong and alive today and certainly ranks in the "best category".

Bruce and Dave at the Durban Worlds, 2000

JF - What positive and negative impacts do you think the new big spinnaker will have on the 505 class? Will Dave finally loose some weight when we switch over?

BE - I think the change will be good for the class. It might be a little painful at first for some folks who don't buy new sails every year, but after we get a year or so into it, there should be a chunk of used sails available. I think it shows that the class is willing to change and thats important as newer designs come out. We are competing against boats like the 29'er and 49'er (somewhat) for new sailors. The new hot 18 year-olds in our club just bought 29'ers when we thought we would have them in the 505 class.

On Dave's weight, he is a little guy now. We have lost 30 pounds as a team since South Africa. We were the 4th heaviest team at Santa Cruz last weekend. We have both been working out with a guy that is a great trainer and it really helps in the breezy conditions. He is working with a lot of sailors now (Finn, Laser, Farr 40 teams) and has a great website with daily routines. If you want to check it out its at www.crossfit.com.

DS - It's not how big you are, it's what you do with it! The 505 has an amazing range of weight combos that work. Bruce and I are on the large side (185 and 206) but also one of the fittest teams on the water. I think fitness has paid huge dividends to our success. About three years ago we hooked up with a personal trainer and its made a world of difference. On the windy two race day in Durban we felt as strong at the start of the first as we did when we hit the beach. I don't think the big chute will make a huge difference and really don't care either way! I do care about the courses and want them to remain balanced with equal up wind and off wind legs. My biggest bugaboo is making the Worlds event shorter and more racing. There's no reason we can't do the whole event in less then a week! Oh yeah, don't get me started on carbon rigs.

JF - Do you guys feel that you are, on average, improving as a team? If so, what factors have lead to this improvement?

BE - I think we are in a cycle this and last year where we are improving. We are certainly more organized than before. I think the whole level of 505 sailing especially in California has gone up quite a few notches, so probably by default we are improving with everyone else. Like I mentioned before, I think the one thing for us that we have improved on is our fitness. It certainly makes a difference in our endurance and strength and I think that has given us more confidence mentally. Hopefully, our NorCal Team Tuesday will help all of us get to some refined levels like the SoCal team has done.

DS - Sometimes I wonder! But, yes, we're always getting better. If we were as good as we are today 10 years ago we would have several World titles! The areas we have spent a lot of time in lately and have really helped are downwind, fitness and tactics. Wire running takes some time, but we get better every weekend. Fitness is a 6 day a week thing! We both hit the gym, row, bike ride or clean horse corrals almost every day. If you're not tired on the race course you make better calls! On tactics, we're not brain surgeons, but our fleet is so damn hard to win in you have to be thinking all the time!

JF - Do you consider yourselves innovators in the class, or are you content to just piggyback on others who are perhaps more inclined to do development work?

BE - I would say we tend to go with a more standard program. We certainly have done testing with Jay Glaser and Dave Ullman over the years on the sail side but not much more than that. The real innovators of late have certainly been Mike and Howard. We have come up with our share of cool rigging things along the way but those came from just sailing. Our focus has always been to try to spend a lot of time on the water and try to have consistent speed and boathandling.

DS - I would call us refiners. We definitely have come up with some great ideas, but most of them are just refinements on small things such as Bruce's cool halyard cleat. We decided a long time ago that time is the enemy so we tend to get standard gear and learn to use it well.

JF - By the time this interview is published, DS - Boy one of the best things Bruce and Dave will be married. You're not a young team now. Can the Shelton/Edwards duo continue through this decade with the same energy and intensity?

BE - That all depends on how much additional cleaning Dave has to do now that he is married. This is not because Karina has him do it, its simply because Dave is anal and there is a second person around dirtying up the house.

Seriously, I think we will. There are certainly many people older than us in the class that are very competitive, and as long as we continue to have fun we will keep sailing.

Many of our best friends are from years of 505 sailing and its great to keep seeing them year after year. As far as intensity goes, we have gone through cycles in the past for other life reasons that have made our program ebb and flow as far as intensity goes. I suspect that will continue into the future. At this point we are both planning on going to Portugal and then Perth together as a team and hopefully more beyond that. But again, it all comes down to how clean Dave's house can stay.

DS - Boy, one of the best things Bruce and I have going is our wives... and to be! Karina and Annette are two of the most understanding and supportive team mates we could dream of. How many times has Annette held a pair of vice grips far up in the side tank? Or loaded the boat in the rain? Karina is a great sailor on her own so she can understand the passion and the love for it. We plan on starting a family at some point so I'm sure 505 sailing will slow down a bit. But never stop! I remember Carl Buchan after winning a Star Worlds taking his kids out for a sail. I can't wait to share my favorite thing with my family and I'm sure they will love uncle Bruce and aunt Annette! If I have girls they will never know Andy Beeckman....

TANK TALK – FALL 2001