East Coast endurance race, would you do it?

If that's the case Richard and I'll do it if we can get an Orma 60, or maybe borrow Playstation for a week or so... <img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" />

Hang on a second. How many 4ksb's make this trip routinely? The trip itself is doable, how fast is the question.

I'm thinking a young, skilled crew (3 lean, smallish guys) on a 20 something could make the trip without stopping on the beach to switch anything.

A beach cat endurance race organized with legs and stopovers with entertainment and such seems like a better idea. It might be quite difficult to promote an offshore race that is 'go as fast and as long as you can' and stop wherever, from a media stand point. I think not having defined stops also is a recipe for fatigue, poor team planning outcomes, and lack of general race support and cohesion. Just my two cents.

There's a huge difference between doing it on a 4ksb and an open beach cat. I've done a lot of racing offshore, and it's not too hard to push a boat 24 hrs a day when you can go below, get some hot food and catch some z's off watch. Doing that on a beach cat would be impossible...

Now if I can build a monster set of cat trax for the R33, and get a team of pushers - it's game on!!!

<img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" /> I'll be surprised if you don't get a few youngish volunteers wanting to do the impossible.

A bit off topic (i know how everyone loves that)...

a real exciting race would be.... a race from the keys to x, who ever goes the furthest without stopping.

I am sure the logistics of this would be insane, but that would be exciting to see

wouldn't even have to have a defined start/finish date. Just post your GPS track from a specified starting point (say Smather's beach, Key West) and wherever it touches land, that's your

official

stop point

So you could have this

race

all year long with everyone posting their trips... End of year winner is tallied and gets a sweaty sock.

Hold that thought. That's kinda what I had in mind with the Raid Ybel. You and I of course are the current world champions...

You're talking about anything from 96 to 170 hours of time on the water. Planning to sleep on a beach cat over that time span would be impractical. Only in light to moderate conditions could you possibly catch any z's while underway - and you can't plan for those conditions to happen. I wouldn't think a non-stop trip is practical on a OD racing beach cat under 20' where on-board sleep will be required.

If someone does sort it out, carrying the third person and provisions for the entire trip would be more of a time/speed penalty that pulling into the beach every 12 hours.

Ah, but the glory!

Any marathoners, Iron Man types out there? Can this be done?

I can supply Rubles,it is only $30, after all.

Can I do it solo? If so, I'll start shopping for a boat.

Two guys sailed a beach cat across the atlantic... Of course it can be done. (They ended up in the hospital when they finally made land though.)

There was a solo guy too. He did alright, without hospital.

I thought opinions were what was being asked about. Like I said, not being a tybee guy limits what my opinion is worth, but as soon as I read 'securing permits' for landing sites I, personally, surrender.
Wasnt the tybee 'cancelled' last year due to lack of interest?
Is a relatively non structured open water race on open cats a good thing for our sport?

No opinions or suggestions were asked for. The question was simply

would you do the race as described

?
I think it would be great for the sport . The Worrell certainly was.I'm sure a bunch of douchebags that were never involved with it will now bring up it's demise.

Vlad,
If anyone could do it solo it would be you. The organizer is reading the thread so it should be considered.

I'd be interested, but not for a while. I need to do some distance racing before I tackle something as major as 1k miles. As of right now I just like the idea, but don't know if I'd like the experience.

Would that be referring to me?
No, I wouldnt do the race as described.

I know - i thought the same thing too...BUT, if you're just hitting the beach to swap out crew memeber(s), I think you can probably do that under the radar without a problem. If you broke down and needed to spend more time on the beach, I can't imagine the law enforcement making you take your non-seaworthy craft back out into the ocean.

We have had some experiences having to beach in restricted access parks and such and it's usually not a problem if you have a good reason to do so.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the sailing rotations - what a challenge!

I like the idea. But if you made it from Sarasota to Charleston, I'd love it! Put a mandatory bell-ring checkpoint at Smather's Beach, so you know everyone made the "offshore' run to Key West OK, then the punch-drunk only need to keep the beach on the left all the way to Charlie town. For me, I think VB gets logistically too distant to want to plan the shoreside issues. But keep me posted.

I like that idea.

Nope. I didn't see you write anything disparaging about the Worrell. Do a site search for Worrell and you'll see the trend whenever the name comes up, just don't want to cloud this thread with that BS.

Canaveral and Camp Legeune would obviously be NO GO areas. For everywhere else, I'd think you'd be in and out before anyone could do anything.Plus you could plan where to swap out and the lower profile spots would make more sense. Like Jake said ,as far as repairs go I can't imagine being turned away.
Crew rotations and night time cape roundings were what I've been thinking about. Seems you'd need 2 solid skippers, with one being crew at times and a super crew. It'd definitely take some serious thought.

You've got a year and a half, get crackin'. If I knew you wanted distance race experience I'd have gotten you to crew Steeplechase for me.

When is it? I'd probably be game if you're crew finds out what you're like. <img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" />

Trust me My crew already knows.
It's in about 2 weeks, already pulled the plug for this year. Great race though you oughta try it. I've done about 10 of 'em and it's still one of my favorites.

FYI- Pete has done the Trans Pac a number of times and some other open water stuff. This is the type of challenge that brought him to catamarans in the first place. I assume there are other mono sailors interested as well.

Does your friend dictate that the race can only be Miami to Virginia? I could understand the nostalgia of past races, but would a different course be more conducive of greater interest? I'm asking lets say a race from Tampa around the tip of Key West or through the Keys, and up the east side to where ever? You could have multiple beaching points, check in points and like the GT 300, others could come out and race legs or sections for experience and a taste of the action. If you allowed others to take part you might generate intest for future years with large groups of racers. Given you have a lot of folks in Florida that would do it also. Even if they weren't racing, how many might be willing to man or volunteer at a check point to be a

part of the race?

Just an idea.

Forrest
I-20

Didnt Randy win the Worrell one year with a custom built cat with racks? That was my reference.

If increase course distance, budget, and helm time is an issue?
I would like to see sailing team municipality rules. (a la A1GP)
My dineros would be on Team Fort Walton ?
By country it would be 1st Australia ?, 2nd ??

>A1 Grand Prix (A1GP) is a 'single make' open-wheel auto racing series. It is unique in its field in that competitors solely represent their nation as opposed to themselves or a team, the usual format in most formula racing series. <

>Unlike almost all other forms of auto racing, drivers do not score points individually; instead the points they earn are ascribed to their national team. This means that teams can change drivers between rounds, which is often necessary because some drivers have commitments in other formulae, and still accumulate points to their score.<