Steeplechase finish!

{I'm a bit tired so parden any gramatical errors}

Winds were harsh at the start today. We again fell victim to bad decision making at the start by trying to cut right too early through the flats (my fault - Chris wanted to stay out further). Initially it looked like a great idea when we popped the chute and took off like a rocket following a few boats and undercutting the majority of the fleet. However, we shortly found ourselves trapped in 12" of water for about a mile! It is not easy to to handle these F18s on a spin reach without boards or rudders and once we thought we might have to quickly drop the chute when a gust took over and steered us dangerously toward the rocky shore. We finally emerged from the flats and were able to get back up to speed and there were about 10 boats still behind us.

We entered the backside of Tavernier and where the wind was howling at about 18knots and chop was about 1'. We were able to catch a couple of Nacra 20s and Nacra 6.0s in the heavy breeze. We lavished in the wide open "deep" (relatively) water here and were beating hard upwind in long legs tacking occasionally to get to the first narrow channel in a long sandbar. We entered the channel with fellow Team Seacats member David Mosley on our tail on his Nacra F18 and an Inter20 close ahead. Immediately a nasty tacking duel ensued in the 25' wide channel as it was straight up into the wind! Tack, Tack, Tack! Although we were making ground each time on the I20, we tried about three times but couldn't gain enough to cross him on port and narrowly ducked his sterns. We managed a quick triple tack so we could get the starboard advantage and managed to punch out ahead and pull out a slight lead and exited the narrow channel in front.

I think the next obsticle was a flat area but they're all merging together in my mind! We passed through four or five 100 yard long areas of 12" water and entered tacking duels in four more narrow channels.

The wind began to slacken a bit in about half way through today which gave the advantage back to the 20 foot boats. David Mosely had out run us at the sheraton bouy and John and David S. were making us fight hard. We must have all passed each other 3 to 4 times before rounding the sheraton buoy. With a huge shifting breeze, we entered another narrow channel but not before John and David had passed us again. This is a .5 mile channel that opens up into Tarpin Basin which is about .5 mile wide before entering another .75 mile long channel that opens into Blackwater sound. On board our boat, the frustration was high as we just couldn't seem to find the speed we've had in the last couple of months in this medium wind - but we were tacking well. Chris took out his frustration on the kayak paddle and we slowly gained on John and David. In the middle of this next-to-last mangrove creek, and tacking vigerously, the wind fell to almost nothing. Chris separated the kayak paddle handing me one end and we outpaddled the other F18 around the corner. As soon as we cleared the creek, the wind angle allowed us to finally fly our spinnaker for about 2 minutes before rounding a corner to enter the next creek. This creek was long but we entered with a pretty good lead and the other F18 now had a Nacra 6.0 to deal with. We must have tacked 40 times to get out of this narrow, mangrove lined, creek but we managed to stay in a decent wind. We emerged from the creek and could see Mosley in the distance ahead. The last 3 miles of Blackwater sound were sailed in lightish breeze hard on the nosebut without difficulty. We were able to close on Mosley and I thought we had a chance to catch him before the finish at one point but it was not to be.

At the end of the day, we lost one position and fell to 26th. Our combined time was enough to eeek out over Mosley's F18 - but it was close, extremely challenging, and a hell of a great time.

We put Plays with Matches back on the trailer, took our pink champagne at the awards, and got back on the road trying to make as much ground back towards South Carolina as possible (leaving the champagne corked for now!). I'm here in the car writing this while Chris takes his turn at the wheel for this 13 hour drive. I love this sport.

Well...the tally is in. 153 tacks today. wow. Here are the tracks from two of several narrow cuts we passed through - most of the time in duels with other boats!

another shot.

Jake, did you notice if there was any current in the mangrove creeks?

There was a bit of opposing current in the first narrow cuts and the first mangrove creek (about half way back to Gilbert's). After the wind dropped to 5-10, the current seemed to quit and the mangrove creeks leading in and out of Tarpin Basin were pretty still.

Jake, Thanks for the great account of your race experience! I was thinking of you and Dave, and wondering how it was going, but had no idea what the course is like, and wondered how the winds were as well. Glad you had such a great time! Sounds like a fantastic event!

Jake, that was a good story, I was there as ground crew and had no idea it took that many tacks. I have two questions for you; how did you manage to get this post going when it seems you were on the road at the time, and what model GPS did you use to get the data you posted.

Thanks

I have a Sprint wireless internet card that allows connection up to 100k over the cellular network - it's a lot of fun to have internet while riding down the road!

They're garmin GPS units and those images came from Garmin Bluechart.

Jerry,
What an excellent ground crew and photographer you were. We coulnt have pulled it off without you. Thanks!
We used a Garmin 76S, Allen Bruce used a Garmin 76, and I bet Jake used the little (either Vista or Legend) and a Garmin 72 mounted to the boom. Get the Blue Chart and downlosd from your computer, then you can see bottom features as you sail.
Im just learning mine, but Jake is the Master! He navigated us around the Tybee with pinpoint accuracy, its amazing what these little gadgets can do in the right hands.

David

thanks and thanks for the info, Dave if you have Allens address could you send it to me (wolfe@catsailor.com), I wanted to send some pictures and he said he can't get them off his dang PC. Also, I'll be back and if not as crew I'll do road crew again, it was pretty awesome.