Team Seacats

The day started out with about 12 to 15 knots of breeze (quite a bit) blowing from the NNW – meaning we were again sailing close hauled and not able to use our speed-boosting spinnakers. Our plan was to stay near shore because I had elected to try the rhumb line the two prior years and it hurt our finish time substantially. So we set out pointing right at the St. Mary’s Jetti that juts out a mile or better into the ocean. Most of the fleet sailed nearly a mile outside of the end of the jetti so we sailed a little deeper to not get separated from them. We found ourselves in 2nd place behind Tybee once we got realigned with the fleet. It wasn’t long before Castrol 2 of Sonnenklar and Livingston got into a groove and started chasing us down. Our strategy today was to be safe and again with no mistakes – Castrol 2 was 45 minutes behind us in the standings so we didn’t fight too hard but intended to keep them in sight. The wind continued to build and the conditions became trying as we would be sailing along in 18 to 20 knots of wind and run into a sudden area with NO breeze causing us to splash down and nearly capsize the boat on top of ourselves (since we were both on the trapeze and depowering the boat madly). We saw a crew member fall off the Tygart boat behind us and capsize shortly thereafter but watched to make sure that they had assistance from a boat behind.  Spacecoast picked up the separated sailor and returned him to their boat and would receive a time credit for doing so. The wind shifted a little as it continued to build and the sailing turned into a deeper reach. Castrol 1 and Spacecoast again demonstrated an ability to dial in great speed in these conditions and it wasn’t long before they were charging up behind us. Castrol 1 capsized while they were beside us which served as a reminder for us to be a little conservitive in the conditions. Spacecoast passed us, and like Castrol 2, we just needed to keep them in sight in order to maintain our overall position. The wind relentlessly continued to build and build to over 25 knots and for an unusual 10 minutes Frank and I were silent on the boat as we tried to deal with the increasing wind. It had steadily gone from “try to go fast” conditions to “survival” conditions and we had changed to where we were simply doing all we could to keep the boat upright. I finally broke the silence by turning to Frank and saying “wow”. He returned the remark and we kept working the boat trying to maintain a deep enough angle to clear the mudflats at Tybee but still keep the boat upright. Eventually the wind subsided a little but the gusts were still healthy. We were still sailing a pretty deep angle to clear the mud flats when Castrol 1 and Castrol 3 started closing on us. We elected to turn the heat back up and sailed a bit higher realizing that we would have to set the spinnaker in order to get back out far enough to clear the flats. We did eventually run the spinnaker for a short while before dropping it and making the final course change to the pier at Tybee. Castrol 1 closed up a good bit of the distance and finished within a minute of us. It was again one tack the entire way – we only changed course slightly to enable us to run the spinnaker for a short while before hardening back up into the wind for the finish. We later learned that Team Tygart continued to struggle with capsizes and that they ultimately received assistance from the Coast Guard RIB to put one of the sailors back on the boat…meaning they were DSQ’d from the race. Tygart sailed a brilliant race and were fast and consistent all week long and it was disheartening to see them struggle yesterday. We very much look forward to racing them again next year.

I won’t gush too much about our team this year but please allow me a moment… I’m proud of the ability that Frank and I showed on the water especially considering that we had never sailed together before this race. Frank has terrific intuition, patience, and focus on the water and it was a pleasure sailing with him in what turned out to be a very physically demanding Tybee 500 – even Team Tybee commented about how difficult this year turned out to be. Our ground crew was phenominal with Daryl Moss, Tim Owens, and Jim Kohl (my Dad). The attitude, skill level, and positive effort these guys put forth maintaining and tuning the boat was flawless. We certainly would not have been as consistent without every single one of them. Bonnie’s reporting and photography provided very popular coverage of the racing again and drove over 100,000 hits to this website this week! Thanks again to Chris, Tim, Chris, David, Courtney, and Travis for helping put this boat together in time – we had one of the best prepared boats out here.

A large thanks goes to Sailmax.biz for helping us with the boat advice and equipment helping us get up to speed. Thanks to Sprint for providing our communications equipment during the race including the phone carried on the boat that helped us mentally get through that 16.5 hour day by being able to talk with our ground crew. Thanks to Mansmann and Moore for their support of this effort. Thanks to Astral Bouyancy for the Tempo 300 life vests that performed absolutely flawlessly and provided mobility and features that we aren’t used to having (ending my search for the ultimate distance racing life vest). Thanks to Bill Hendrix at Mainsail marine with the fine finish work on the daggerboards and rudders and the trampoline and sail repair work. Thanks again to Amigos drysuit repair for the dry ride (I can’t tell you how much more bearable it is to have the equivalent of a 50gal per minute salt water hose in your face while the rest of you stays perfectly dry). Finally, thank all of you for reading all of this and hopefully learning some things about all of these great companies that helped us put this thing together.

I’ll keep updating with other major event coverage – We’ll be dusting off the Nacra Formula 18 catamaran for the NAF18 North American Championship in September of this year. This blue boat will likely be back in action in December for the Key Largo Steeplechase (a 100+ trek around Key Largo, FL through sand flats, prop channels, and mangrove creeks). We also intend to bring all the Seacats back to the Tybee again for another run in the 2007 Tybee 500 too – stay tuned!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.