and when they hit the stream, it will make the apparent wind feel all weird.
That looks like a serious
horizon job
going on there.
I am enjoying watching this race! It's good to see teams racing up the Florida coast again.
Steve
Last data shows 13.2kts. Doubt anything is broken.
Maybe I spoke too soon. Marspeed doesn't seem to be setting the world on fire at the moment. Catfever in the F18 is right on their hip.
Having raced against Brett and JC at Tradewinds on a C2, that Marstrom is amazing how fast it is.
Remember that Marstrom is a unirig. If they're in tight reaching conditions it may explain something.
incoming wind, with cross current made for an interesting start. All boats got off. Marspeed had a rough time getting out of the surf because the boat is designed to run without a jib. They have managed to come back into second place but Key Sailing has a substantial lead over the rest of the pack who are running close. This could cut down Marspeeds lead overall by a bit.
All boats are tracking well. Check it out:
http:/
It looks like the tiger never made it back to the water, is that correct?
Anybody watching the live stream?
http:/
I love how he is posting so quickly after the live stream. Great coverage considering this is the first running.
Was that a broken spin halyard on the last boat in?
well...at least it looks like a spin run tomorrow. As per the forecast I'm seeing now, it's going to be a bit light but they should be able to keep moving. The day should start with a straight spin shot down the coast and evolve into gybing down the coast as the wind veers more south.
I'd like to see the results of today so we can see what the delta is for tomorrows' lead horse race!
I heard Marspeed broke a rudder on the launch. Apparently they were advocating for port start which really paid today.
Brett voted starboard.
Watch Solar Wind FL 300 on Livestream: http:/
The link above is today's start brought to by SolaWind
Great move on the port start, David!!! Awesome to see on video.
Great move, Ding. You made that look too easy!
Mike
Mike
Definitely...people yelling at you and stuff. Cool Calm, nope! That was awesome.
The forecast changed pretty wildly again this morning. It's going to be a LIGHT start likely with wind from the south at around 4 knots. The good news is that the surf probably laid down a good bit and the southerly direction will be good for a spinnaker set off the beach to have plenty of power to get through the waves. We shouldn't see any discussion about port/starboard start - expect the fleet to start on starboard. Sometimes the fleet will hesitate to launch their kites before the start for some reason and this will occasionally give a couple of teams teams an opportunity to pounce on their competition with a surprise kite launch at T-10 seconds. I don't think the spinnaker launch will be much of a question this morning, however. We'll probably see all kites go up with about a minute to go.
Later in the day, expect the wind to turn more east and pick up a ~little~ strength as a very light sea breeze will setup with the sun heating up the land. Humidity is still low, so there is practically no chance for the seabreeze to kick into high gear. Wind will probably peak around noon-1pm at 7 to 8 knots. With the easterly shift, crews should be able to leave the kites out all day. They'll be gybing back and forth early but should be able to settle into a nice long gybe up the coast later today.
Playing near shore again will be the order for the day - any seabreeze effect will be tight to the beach. Expect teams to run the kites just outside the surf and sandbars. Teams battling early today may find themselves in a game of surf chicken. This is a lot of fun and you can sometimes get a little boost of speed by using the waves as they stand up just before the surf line - get too close, however, and a sandbar that sticks out just a little further will kick up a wave that catches you by surprise and will break turning them toward shore causing them to lose some position. Fun stuff!
I hope there's some wind at the coast, it's flat calm here in Sebring, (80 miles inland) right now.
The lake out back looks like a sheet of glass, not a ripple in sight. I think I'll go fly fishing in the canoe today!
Good Luck Ding, and all the rest, I hope you guys get to use your kites finally!
I missed the earlier discussions on the two fleets, is it 20's and F18's?.
In 20 words or less, on the video link Ding posted above, of yesterday's start, why was there a C2 starting with the 20's, and an I20 starting with the F18's?
Or were they just doing it wrong?
Think it had to do with finishing order of the previous leg.
In 20 words or less, on the video link Ding posted above, of yesterday's start, why was there a C2 starting with the 20's, and an I20 starting with the F18's?
Or were they just doing it wrong?
they all start together. Two rows. First row starts at 10:00am, second row starts at 10:01am. They are lined up on the beach in the order of finish from the day before (but I'm not sure if that's on corrected or actual finish time).
To this point, they're keeping an overall finish order and a handicap on the entire fleet. The NOR and SI's indicate there will be an overall award (fastest to finish on elapsed) and several fleets...which presumably are
open
(Marstrom and Carbon20), F18, and N20.
I've got to say, the Google Glass video stream from the start provided by http://www.solarwind.solar/ is pretty darn cool. We've seen guys put together a lot of quality effort in live coverage in the past but the internet connectivity has always been a bit of an issue and it gets pretty frustrating to watch. I wonder if we're finally getting to the point where those barriers are easier to overcome.
I honestly find that just being able to watch the start through someone else's eyes is a really unique perspective and I like it. It's much better than having to listen to Clean's banter.
I might suggest that we have a fixed camera on a stick (tripod) beaming live stream of the start from a point on the beach where we can see the start rows. We can probably stream that over cell phone data now. If we do this race next year, we'll probably look into that.
Ahhh Soo...
That makes sense. Thanks!
I'm seeing a couple small patches of ripples out back right now, out of the south, only about .5kt gusting to 1kt. 90% of the lake is still glass.
I sure wouldn't want to try to sail in it!
HOLY COW. Ladies and Gents, we have a race. Overall (handicap) between the Marspeed on the Marstrom and Key Sailing on the Nacra Carbon 20 are separated by a whopping total of 8 seconds going into the last leg today. That race basically resets for these two today and this one is for the marbles.
The wind is LIGHT. But there is wind. They will be able to move anyway. Surf doesn't look like any kind of an issue. It's hard to tell from the low res beach cam...but their appears to be a little more wind offshore.
Bouy reports are consistent with the camera observation. 8 knots off shore, 4-5 knots a little bit out, and not much on the beach. Teams will need to be careful to balance being way out for the morning breeze vs. being at the break for the light sea breeze that should start at around 11-11:45am
The team that nails the timing of getting on the surf line right when the seabreeze starts will get a little advantage. I would probably hang 2-3 miles offshore and watch the wind angle like a hawk. As soon as an easterly shift starts to present or you see some clear wind circulation close to shore, try to start working down to the beach. Pay particular attention the the compass heading when on port gybes and watch for it to start veering west as you get closer to the beach. When that happens, take that western veer (although it feels
bad
) and run it all the way back in. If you time that right, the gybe back to starboard at the surf line might be the last gybe that will take you to straight to Cocoa.