Great Texas 300 Updates

The real question is, is Sail Revolution going to be wearing that flippin' cowboy hat?

I'm sure they are. They love that thing!

Oh, and BTW, be sure to Like this!

Wearing a 10 gallon hat and driving a Jetta on bio-fuel. Santa Cruz cowboy.

See y'all at 9:30am Central.

Safety Third

That’s the Sail Rev motto, not the GT300 motto. Here in South Padre, Texas, one day before the start of the GT300, it was all about making sure that the racers stay as safe as possible. There’s a whole litany of items that the GT requires that the sailors carry aboard in order to be able to participate in the race. The GT folks take safety seriously, and in addition to a presentation from the local Coast Guard, they have a dedicated person, Trey Garrison, who is in charge of the safety check list. Trey makes contact with each team, and meticulously catalogs each piece of safety gear. I had the opportunity to chat with Trey before the race, and find out exactly what’s involved with being the GT 300 Safety Officer.

Sail Rev:
What is some safety gear that the racers are required to carry?

TG:
The number one thing are life preservers for each crew member, because it’s a big ocean out there. They have safety lines, personal strobe lights, signal mirrors, whistles, VHF radios, GPS’s, and one of the most important thing is each sailor has personal EPIRB that they carry with them at all times.

SR:
How are teams doing so far this year with required gear?

TG:
Most teams have done very well with safety checks. So far I ‘ve only had one team that had an issue, and until they can resolve that they are not allowed to race. We’ve got one team that were still waiting on to do safety checks. As soon as they get here, my job is done.

SR:
So the first leg here, we are leaving from South Padre Island and we’re going to Mustang Island State Park. What are some of the most dangerous parts of that stretch that the sailors should pay attention to?
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TG:

It's about 90 nautical miles as the crow flies. At the start we'll have ten boats, and the surf is a little on the rough side. As a matter of fact, we had one boat go out to practice to day and broke a rudder. They went over a wave and broke a rudder casting. That’s probably the hardest thing at first, when you’re out on the water it’s pretty basic sailing. You get some waves, some chop, some wind, the only bad part between here and Corpus, is once you leave here and you start north, there’s nothing in between here as far as civilization. It’s barrier island from here all the way to Mustang Island. So if you break down it can be very difficult for your crew to get to you to rescue you and it’s a technical challenge, it’s a logistics challenge, but you know that’s why the sailors here go over their equipment on their boat, traps, mast. Once you get out halfway you can’t turn around very easily. Sometimes coming in on the surf at Mustang, it can be a challenge. A couple of years ago, there was a big thunderstorm, so some of them didn’t get in until midnight. A couple of teens had to get rescued by the Coast Guard. It’s a long stretch.

SR:
In the next couple of days, what does the forecast look like?

TG:
From what I’ve seen, probably around 15 knots maybe a little higher the first couple of days. After that, it may slack off a little bit in the last couple days. I haven’t really looked that far ahead.

Trey and the CG

Skipper's Meeting

We're getting ready to go live!
http://www.justin.tv/greattexas300

Join us!

Unfortunately seems the stream failed about a minute after the start.

They are off!

Everyone locally was streaming it in their phones, made connectivity tough.

Watching the reply of the start, I get the pre-start nerve pangs like I did in person during the T500 days

At the finish now. Fairly steady wind at 16kts. Looks sporty out there. Beat I can tell with my phone compass its about 188

Blue kite on the horizon.

Not certain, but through the bino's looks like a white main. Tomko?

I was just told eight of the competitors have blue kites......

Wow... how boring. Why do people get single color kites these days?

Tomko
Casey

Those two are having their own race.

What was the delta between Tomko and JC?

~90 seconds

We are outta juice.

Team Dallas, safe and sound, all boats in and accounted for.

Thanks Karl, John and Jeremy for the great updates.

It's tough tapping out texts to all my female fans, updating this thread, and keeping the camera trained on something other than my sunburned feet.

Epic day of racing here in Texas! Tomko and Billings claim the first spot...but not without a fight from Casey and Tebow, who finished just 1:30 behind! An incredible finish after almost 100 miles open ocean racing!

John Tomko and Ian Billings

Tomko and Billings didn't finish without damage, they broke a rudder on the way in to Mustang Island.

Casey and Tebow smolder onto the beach!

There was some drama on the beach!
Team Chums came in hot, spun up and almost lost it. If it weren't for the quick thinking of their beach crew, they might have gone over.

...that's not all.

Steve Piche fell off of his boat just inside of the surf line, and his crew had to manage a powered-up spin on his own with marginal success!

Join us tomorrow at 9:30am Central for another action packed live stream at Justin.tv/greattexas300

First day rusty racer ruckus!

There must me something about that mainsail that likes to flip on the beach 😛

Oh! is that wolf-toes' old main?

PS...how did that ground crew dude NOT break that spinnaker pole? Never grab the pole and defend it from anyone else who might think of grabbing the pole! Our ground crew got that speech before each of our early Tybee runs.

Spin was still up keeping held from top.