Team Seacats

We had an exciting view over lunch at High Tides restaurant near Flagler Beach. The fleet passed us at around 11:30 and the top five was the same as when we’d passed them in the van just a bit earlier. Then, just as they were right in front of the beachside dining area, Team Tybee rolled under Pirates to take up the lead. SailMax I had lost some real estate between themselves and the two drag racing leaders, but Coconut Grove and SailMax II were still holding onto their relative distance and positions bringing up the top five.

We passed the pack on the A1A at exactly 10:48am. Tim blew the horn and I yelled at them. Mike on SailMax I heard us and waved back! It was so incredibly cool. As of our passing, the order of the top five was as follows: Pirates, Tybee, SailMax I, Coconut Grove, and SailMax II. It was another light air start with paddling allowed through the surf this morning with Pirates getting well away of the other boats followed closely by Tybee. Both SailMax teams had a good start as well. Morada seemed to struggle a little bit through a couple of waves, but then made up time and quickly pulled ahead. There was some talk of delaying the start of the race for an hour to allow the sea breeze breeze to build, but they began exactly at 10am. The racing committee has determined that two teams will incur a twenty minute penalty from their overall time. Hopefully, they will be able to make up that time with a strong, competitive leg up to Fernandina today. There have been some threatening clouds overhead further onshore today but they have begun to clear and now it’s just a hazy, sunny day. Oh, and our resident naturalist, Chris Zander, found a nurse shark egg on the beach this morning. There’s a photo of it in today’s photo gallery. Also, a big Thank You to the Steve Caron and the local Hobie 80 fleet out of Daytona Beach for the great Italian buffet dinner last night!

It was like waiting for the right wave on a crummy day of surfing today for the cats finishing at Ormond Beach. Upon reaching the finish coordinates, they all stuffed their chutes only to be hit with a (slight, but strong enough) beach headwind that resulted in the race officials allowing two members of the Ground Crew to help get them through the surf up to the finish line. Pirates of the Tybeean hit the beach first without much trouble, as did Team Coconut Grove and Team Tybee Island. Rounding out the top five were the guys from SailMax I and SailMax II within a few minutes of each other. It would not have been such a very few minutes had not SailMax I rested on a series of waves, waiting for just the right one, until Chris Zander and David Strickland went out to help bring them in. When Chris went back to do the honors for SailMax II, he ended up being dragged underneath the port hull for about twenty feet through the surf before regaining his footing. Then, the spinnaker came out of the bag and rolled into the water, filling up and dragging under the starboard hull. People were screaming instructions and tipping the port hull way up to try and release a stuck daggerboard. My heart was pounding. They finally got things under control and safely parked. All the boats were in by the time I came up to make this report and batch my photos, except for Team Velocity. At last report, they were in view of Team Key Sailing. Their Ground Crew is a little worried over the fact that Key Sailing is back on the beach and yet Trey and Tad are not in view and have not checked in since that time. Don’t make your Ground Crew worry, fellers, or else you won’t get the keys to the car this weekend!

In the South we have an expression of sympathy and I’d like to extend it now to all the sailors involved in the Tybee500: Bless your heart. They are bobbing for apples, folks. The fleet, or the greater portion of it, anyway, is clustered within a mile of each other at about a distance of twelve miles from Ormond Beach. And there they sit. For the Ground Crew, it’s turned into a wet bar in one of the Morada hotel rooms and one of the guys from Key Sailing has ordered pizzas for hors de oeuvres. We feel really bad, but what can we do? As for the Sailmax teams, the only news we have is that SailMax I fell into a hole in a bid to maintain their position among the frontrunners. When the wind dies, everyone was making a bid to gain momentum in the less than favorable circumstances. Reportedly, Coconut Grove has Tybee in sight as they lead the pack.

Late breaking news is that as of 6:11 SailMax I is in the lead, Morada is second, and Key Sailing is third! It looks like they have and ETA of 7pm.

Still nothing visible on the horizon. The last word we had was from Lisa of Space Coast, who heard from her husband, Mark, who was still 27 miles out as of 4pm. What I don’t know is if his team is near the front or back of the fleet. I do know that he’s had some other problems today: broken crossbar, tiller, and rudder (I’m just guessing starboard since he didn’t ask her to come bring a replacement). There was some scuttlebutt of another team breaking a rudder, but that’s completely unsubstantiated and may have been information that was being confused with that of Space Coast. Here on Ormond Beach at 5pm, the race officials and most of the Ground Crew have been commiserating in light showers that have faired off to a generally overcast sky with glimpses of sunlight. There were storms lingering earlier on the horizon. I was mildly worried about the concept of, “When lightening meets hyper competitive alpha males” until Captain Morgan convinced me that everyone would be okay. If anything, the storms quickly abated and took all the wind with them. The fleet should be meandering in eventually.