Local sailors Brett Wright, Gary Taylor and Doug DeCouto are among the new additions to the field that will compete at this year’s 505 World Championship.

Les Crane, the event chairman and former Royal Bermuda Yacht Club commodore, has confirmed that the trio will compete in the ten-race series showcasing the high-performance dinghy to be contested from October 27 to November 5 in the Great Sound.

This brings the number of registered local sailors to four as Crane’s daughter, AJ Conrads, is also competing.

Wright is the president of the local 505 class.

The number of entries has increased since the island was announced as the host for the championship last month.

“It’s going to be exciting,” Crane said. “We expect somewhere from 60 to 80 boats.

“We have 45 entries right now and people are getting their containers organised.

“We have had conversations with the group in Europe. We’ve got a couple of containers that will be coming from Hamburg, Germany and those will be German, Polish and Swedish boats. And we expect a container or two from Southampton, England coming from the European championships, which are going to be in Weymouth during the summer.”

The International 505 Class is a one-design double-handed planning sailing dinghy, with spinnaker, utilising a trapeze for the crew.

The high-performance boat will plane upwind wind speeds of ten knots or more.

“It’s just a great class,” Crane added.

The 505 World Championship is being organised by the RBYC and will be preceded by a Pre-Worlds Regatta consisting of six races.Bermuda will be hosting the championship for the second time having first done so in 1975.

Mike Martin and crew Adam Lowry, of the United States, won the 2019 championship held in Freemantle, Australia.

However, they were unable to defend their title as the 2020 event, due to be held last August in Torekov, Sweden, was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I’m optimistic we’re going to have a very good event,” Crane said. “We’ve had great support from tourism [Bermuda Tourism Authority], from Gosling’s, from the City of Hamilton and we couldn’t do without them all.

“The City of Hamilton has been extremely helpful in terms of getting our access to Barr’s Bay Park and be able to store the containers while the racing is going on.

“There’s a lot of logistics and Tim Patton [Bermuda Marine Services] and Barry Brewer at NCL [owners of the Oleander container ship] have been very helpful in getting the launching plans sorted out.

“It doesn’t work if you don’t have all these people pitching in and it’s a big deal.”