The 100 mile Gulfport to Pensacola Race was held this past Friday and Saturday in wet and occasionally stormy conditions. After a nice light air beat through the Mississippi Sound and out past Ship Island, the first of numerous storms with medium high winds hit the large fleet of mono's and six multihulls as they rounded the Gulfport Sea Buoy. For the remaining 90 miles eastward past the Mobile Sea Buoy and into Pensacola the fleet sailed in variable winds from 18 knots down to zero in between numerous storms.
Although starting an hour after the A Class mono's, taking line honors and the multihull class was Paul Horton's F-31 "Tribology", from New Orleans. Tribology finished at 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning. As tradition holds, First to Finish Tribology's crew was treated to a pitcher of Pensacola Yacht Club's famous Bushwackers as soon as they arrived at the PYC dock. Bert Rice of Pensacola sailing his F24mkII "Mark Twain" corrected out to second followed by Warren Anderson's F-28R "Nami Whammy". Warren is also from Pensacola.
Rounding out the competitive multihull fleet was the F-28R "Panache" sailed by Bruce Dillingham of Slidell, LA; Robert Mason of New Orleans sailing the beautiful Privilege 42 "Double or Nothing"; and Kert Meyers from Long Beach, Miss. in "Stray Cat", a Gemini 3000.
Next event for the Gulf Coast PHRF multihull fleet is the Patriot Race sailed out of Pensacola Beach Yacht Club on this coming Saturday, July 5.
Wayne,
If I had to guess you were with Paul on "Tribology". Am I right?
If so good on ya!
Clayton
Clayton, thanks for the thoughts, but not exactly. I sailed with Bruce Dillingham on the F28R Panache, we got our butts kicked. Tribology had a great crew, and Paul Horton has been racing the boat a lot lately. They were also first to finish in the New Orleans to Gulfport Race a couple of weeks ago. His crew included Mike Parsons, a 4 time National Champ in the F 24 class, so there was lots of talent on board.
The F-31 got out ahead as they should have with a -18 PHRF rating, and after rounding the Gulfport Sea Bouy they never looked back. They fortunately sailed in decent breezes the entire way, while the rest of us got caught between storms in doldrums, bobbing up and down in the left over seas until the next storm came around.
Except for the rain, it was a great fun race, and hopefully we will see more participation in the future.