Florida 300 Race Updates

Wind conditions for leg 1 look pretty brutal. Should be interesting to see whether boats go out in the gulf stream or not. I'm guessing a big benefit for the current, but not sure if the waves would offset that.

I'm seeing 15 - 20 right now out of the north east....noaa has it a little more east (which would be better for them). I wouldn't call that

brutal

...more like a short day! Tracker still shows a bunch of them on the beach...are they delayed for some reason?

heading NE into a ENE @ 20+ knots. Man... thats not looking like a lot of fun.

A lot of sore grinder arms tonight....

Jake,

It looks fun, but remember they're heading to key biscayne, not hollywood. So to me it looks like its going to be a tough beat turning into a short reach.

I haven't studied the weather but Noaa is saying it should go more east...hopefully they may have to tack a time or two early today - but it's probably going to be a little more direct after noon. That wind direction should also keep the Biscayne Bay washing machine on low.

boat speeds are around 6 knots...so it can't be that windy at the moment....edit; 6mph at Molasses Reef out the East (which is a great direction...only if it goes north of NE does it start to really be a slog.)

looking at their vectors, I'm betting a few guys are trying to tight reach with kites.

Marspeed's spot hasn't transmitted in like 45 minutes...

Then the tiger is laughing to the bank.

looks like Key Sailing has launched ahead on the Carbon 20 (as should be expected). I'm guessing from their track that they headed out a bit on what appears to be close hauled on port and then put up their kite to reach back down. They won't be able to hold that kite angle for too long though.

I wish the tracker would extrapolate positions but it doesn't. It just shows the last known location but given that one tracker may not have updated in the last 5 minutes over the other one, the map is a little inaccurate.

Looking at the vectors, all of the F18's are pointed a solid 10degrees higher than the I20's. Pretty telling.

Wish Marspeed's tracker was working....

Both Waveyhaven and Keysailing and royal yellow updated simultaneously, and it looks like they're pretty neck and neck...

don't do it Todd! Don't go for the stream! It never works! The fee you have to pay to get back to the beach is just too much.

WE HAVE A RACE!
All boats are off, the race was delayed about 15 minutes to get all boats through the one ramp. One of the trackers are not posting now but hopefully will catch up.

We are in route to Key Biscayne. We are the RC tracker. Entering Tavenier Key, we saw the boats off to our right.

Bret's tracker is in a small pelican case in a net bag on the deck near the rear beam. I told him where I wanted it on the rotation limiter arm where we have put it in the past and he did not feel comfortable with it there. So we compromised.

OK, whew...he dropped his course back down and is still inside the reef. Looks like the Brothers Ding's (Solar Wind) tracker isn't updating either.

Marspeed did update and it looks like they're neck and neck with Key Sailing on the CF20. That should be an interesting battle.

I think Todd might catch some people on his tack back in - but he has a lot of ground to cover... there seems to be a great line close to shore that Royal White and Yellow were using for a while.

TMS 20 is Race Committee helping with photo/video. He said it was a good thing the race is during the WORK week so yall can all follow it.

Speed is kicking up... Key Sailing is up to 12knots. They're getting better angles now.

Team Solar Wind's tracker is updating again - the boys are near the front!

looks like the RC won that leg.

Which hasn't always been the case... I recall one of the W-1000 when a few competitors beat the RC to the beach?

I think there might have been one Hiram's where the boats beat the RC to Hiram's too...

Man the F18's look like they just had to tack away while the M20 and the N20c are just pinchin away at around 7knots. Looks like Brett and JC are out in front at this point.

I hope they keep a close eye on the shadows close to the finish.

Great White Katherine

If it's blowing 18-20 why are they only going 7 knots? Would think they could be going 12-14 unless we go slower than I thought we did.
Looks like the first leg of the last Tybee... I think we hit the beach at 7:30... miserable way to start! Even Mischa said he would be okay if it was over after that first day.

Todd, looking at the weather report, the big wind isn't supposed to hit until 3pm (still a bit away). At Key Biscayne right now I'm showing 6knots from the NNE.

I've been getting really strange

data

from Molasses reef this morning too. I would see 6 and then jump into the historical chart and see it at 18 (sustained to current). Didn't have much time to dig into it deeper. Clearly, it's not that windy out there right now.

They've probably got another four hours to go. I remember that last Tybee 1st leg - I didn't wear enough gear and got hypothermic on that long upwind slog.

Sam Carter said it was blowing almost 20 at the start.

From what I tell the front runners should be finishing within half that time. Remember they don't have to go past all of Miami this time <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />

This is not 20.

Yeah, a little less than that I suppose. They're 2/3 of the way there and have been running almost 5 hours. Another 2.5 hours for the front if things remain steady.