Round the Island, Fort Walton Beach, FL June 23rd, 2012

That sounds like a good time - never done Round the Island

I have been thinking about doing this one.

Anyone else going? You gonna go Damon?

the one race that you really need that predominant south wind and ya didn't get it... TWICE?

sounds like a really fun race if it was nothing but screaming reaches :-O

One day later and I would so be in or at least looking for a crew spot. That would be a great start to my vacation.

matt922 wrote: the one race that you really need that predominant south wind and ya didn't get it... TWICE?

Yes, I think maybe I'm a jinx to the race.

The year before my first time they had a perfect strong sea breeze for the entire race and even non-spin boats finished by 4-5pm. Of course other years the breeze dies at dark and then you wait for hours for the wind to come back. It's not unusual for boats to finish Sunday morning.

bacho wrote: Anyone else going? You gonna go Damon?

I'm still undecided. I have said I didn't want to do this one again unless it was on a faster boat. 😉

But I'd really like to sail it with better conditions than I've had in the past, so I might take another crack at it.

One problem is that the Horn Island Hop at Ocean Springs is the following weekend and I don't want to miss that.

So I'm trying to arrange things so that I can just stay on the coast that week, or I could take the boat over to Ocean Springs after the finish at Fort Walton and leave it.

I'm in...

None of those silly bay races this year...I want the real deal.

Damon, my plan is to watch the weather till the last minute. If its gonna be a drifter, I have better things to do.

Good plan, the only problem is how unpredictable Gulf Coast weather can be. Since I'm 400-500 miles from the Gulf Coast destinations I make a habit of not checking the weather before a trip.

What I'll probably do is go ahead and enter but decide once I get down there whether I'll actually go around. Since I've "done it" I'll only go if conditions look good for a before dark finish.

What happens on Monday the 25 got to be back Monday.
Have raced in the area before. Well really learned to
Sail multihulls there.

Robert

robertcrawford wrote: What happens on Monday the 25 got to be back Monday.
Have raced in the area before. Well really learned to
Sail multihulls there.

Robert

Couldn't figure out why you were asking about Monday, hadn't noticed that their Flyer had the wrong dates. I've updated the calendar entry to remove the flyer.
http://www.thebeachcats.com/event/view/Date/20120623/viewtype/details/eid/577

Here's the schedule from the NOR

[list]

Thank you, can you post a link that shows the course.
I have looked at the Fwyc web site and could not find
one.

Thanks Again

Not a map but here's a link to an article about the 2007 event, everything is pretty much the same I think.

http://thebeachcats.com/news/277/2007-round-the-island,-fort-walton,-fl/

robertcrawford wrote: Thank you, can you post a link that shows the course.
I have looked at the Fwyc web site and could not find
one.

Thanks Again

Tyler, thanks for finding that course picture.

While I was looking for one I found this picture I didn't know about that shows me retrieving my H18 from the Fort Pickens public beach Sunday morning after bailing out Saturday night. The lifeguard and people on the beach couldn't figure out where the boat came from.

DamonLinkous wrote: Tyler, thanks for finding that course picture.

That's a picture of my track log from 2007. It is a pretty good representation of the course. You can find it and other track logs in my photo album.

DamonLinkous wrote:
While I was looking for one I found this picture I didn't know about that shows me retrieving my H18 from the Fort Pickens public beach Sunday morning after bailing out Saturday night. The lifeguard and people on the beach couldn't figure out where the boat came from.

I remember it well. I picked you up that Saturday night and drove you back to FWYC, in Andy's wife's borrowed vehicle. Good times.

robertcrawford wrote: Thank you, can you post a link that shows the course.

Robert,
I should have added that once you leave the Destin Pass they usually have you honor the CB MoA buoy to starboard. The buoy is out there some. The rest of the details is what happens past Brooks Bridge towards the finish, and what happens at the start. They will cover that Friday evening at the meeting.

mummp wrote:
I remember it well. I picked you up that Saturday night and drove you back to FWYC, in Andy's wife's borrowed vehicle. Good times.

Yes and thanks for coming to rescue us!

What a difference a year made. The 2007 race conditions were what finally convinced me to try going around the island. Looking at your track and how smooth it is shows the prevailing southerly winds that are hoped for. I think the whole fleet was in by dark that year with some boats finishing as early as 2pm.

In contrast, 2008 was light west winds which is why I didn't make it around.

Then in 2009 for my solo trip on the Hobie 18 (no spin) again with the west winds but at least the winds varied from light-medium to medium so progress could be made, but with a lot of tacking and jibing. Take a look at my track from 2009. (forgot I had this) It shows the trip out to the bouy after passing under the bridge at Destin Pass, they also had us honor a mark at the Fort Pickens Pass which was kind of hard to find since right about then was when the only strong winds of the trip came up and it was a wild sleigh ride through the pass. Look at all the short jibes in the narrows, this was in the dark and I was jibing every time the rudders kicked up from getting out of the super narrow channel.

By the way, there are photo albums for several of the past Round the Islands at
http://thebeachcats.com/pictures/?g2_itemId=46686

There is nothing from last year 2011 so if anyone has pics to share, please create your album inside the 2011 album.

If anyone has pics from older years where there isn't already an album, please create one for the year.

Any one looking to crew for round the island? Im looking for a crew on a nacra 20. If so hit me up Gregg 850-612-4626

Got a crew for RTI thanks guys.

Damon, you out?

I'm in. Trying to figure out crew, need someone small and tough or I'll go solo.

Anyone else up for the challenge? They have a "who's coming" page at
http://www.fwyc.org/Regattas2012/RTI/2012%20RTI%20Entries.htm

I'm hoping it's manually updated because I pre-registered online last week and don't appear.

Looks like this one isn't gonna be a drifter. Winds east at 19 for the start and building to 25 by evening.

I live in Navarre, the 1/2 way point of the island. Right now 2'-4' rollers, tomorrow 4'-6' waves on the gulf side. I'd go out on my 35' Cigarette, but no way on an 18'!!!!

Edited by panic_button on Jun 22, 2012 - 09:09 PM.

Is the Damon jinx continuing? Did you bring Debby thinking she was your crew? Good luck out there!

Anybody here? I've been offline most of the long weekend.

Yes, I entered Round the Island solo on my Hobie 18. When I left Memphis Thursday morning the weather was still predicted as 5-10 from the East in the AM building to 10 from the South, perfect conditions for a solo attempt and meaning very few tacks/jibes.

Well all day Thursday the the predictions continued to increase. By the time I got to the Fort Walton Yacht Club Friday morning all the weather heads were talking about was this weather system in the South Gulf that "IF" it became a named storm would be called Debby. I rigged the boat up and reminded everybody that these things often just devolve as fast as they appear (whistling past the graveyard).

Wind predictions continued to rise and now they were talking big waves in the Gulf especially along Pensacola. Also the tide stage Saturday morning at the Destin Pass was going to produce an incoming tide stream making it doubly hard to sail under the narrow bridge.

By Friday evening at the Skippers Meeting Debby was a full blown tropical storm and none of the computer models or weather reports agreed on where it would go or how it would affect the weather on the Round the Island race course.

The Race start was at 7am which is awful early for yours truly, also most of the time at 7am there isn't any wind. Not the case on June 23, 2012 though. Winds were strong already, mid-teens from the East which meant it was an upwind beat to the Destin Pass, but meant that we would get into the Gulf earlier than usual.

I had a nice line ( I thought ) to get under the bridge, but I didn't account for the wind shadow of the bridge or the strong current running towards me. I slid through and 2/3 of the boat made it past the pilings but then the current got me and pushed me sideways up against the concrete base of the bridge. After a little grinding a local fisherman, who announced "I'm a sailor too", pulled my bows into the wind and got me back on track.

Heading out into the open Gulf we had to honor a big channel buoy a ways out, following the channel out had the normal big chop caused by the deep channel, there was also a bunch of powerboat traffic going out, including several day-trip excursion fishing boats. After I dodged all that and rounded the buoy it was time to head down the coast to Pensacola. I passed under the bridge at 8:00am, which is actually pretty quick due to the strong winds.

Now the next 50+ miles to the Pensacola Pass was directly downwind with continually building sea state. Also I soon found that there was a bad case of weeds in the gulf this day. Sometimes it was like sailing in the Sargasso Sea, I lost count of the number of times my rudders either automatically kicked up from hitting clumps of weed or I manually kicked them up to clear. Doing that single handed while doing a sleigh-ride downhill run in 4-6 foot seas was... uhm, "exciting".

My boat speed during the run down the coast ranged from 10-18 mph according to quick glances at my GPS, I haven't had a chance to analyse the data closely.

I got to the Pensacola Pass at 2:00pm and when I turned to enter the pass it was now a straight reach across the wind and I'm sure that was the fastest speeds I made, no chance to do anything but pucker down and steer during the wild ride!

But once I made the turn to head down the Intercoastal I was faced with headwinds in the 20+ range and for one of the only times in my sailing career I wished I had more weight on the boat. It was all I could do the hold the boat down and make progress. It was a frustrating feeling to have that much wind and be making such slow progress, the wind was just howling in my ears.

I hadn't eaten or drunk anything for about 6 hours at this point because I couldn't get to my coolers (I had three small soft cooler) to retrieve food or water.

After two hours I covered the 10 miles to the Pensacola Bridge, getting under that bridge took some lining up since the wind was howling straight through the opening in my direction, luckily the opening is much bigger than the Destin bridge and I squeaked through.

Weirdly, when I come out the other side the water was a complete whitecap situation and the wind seemed much stronger. I continued on for about a mile, gritting my teeth and doing everything that can be done to the boat to de-power. At this time I started calculating how long it might take to finish the next 40 miles with continually building headwinds and decided to bail out at Key Sailing where I knew I could find help landing the boat and a place to tie it down.

So I completed about 60 miles of a 100 mile race and felt just fine about my decision to abandon.

All told there were 14 boats entered and 7 finished, I am so impressed with everyone who finished in these conditions. Special props to Bill Stovall on his stock Hobie 18 Magnum for finishing at 6:41am Sunday morning after 23 hours and 41 minutes on the water, I've got to hear his story!

Also I was particularly impressed with Kirk Newkirk on his amazing boat, the Nacra F20 Carbon for finishing and correcting to first place in only 9 hours and 43 minutes.