Team Seacats

After snoozing my alarm clock on my phone twice, I begrudgingly hopped down from the overcab bunk, brushed my teeth, and slid into the driver’s seat this morning at about 6:30am. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and got back on the road. A short while ago, our navigation software crashed on the PC so David and I swapped driving while I got the PC back in order. It’s working again and we’re about 15 minutes from a fuel stop and about 1.5 hours away from the site.

No…we haven’t stopped at Waffle House…yet… (stacked, smothered, and covered is common Waffle House wait-staff slang for pan fried potato shavings covered with god-knows-what). We got on the road about three hours later than we had expected and we’re currently about 20 minutes east of Nashville, TN and it’s 11:30pm central time. David and I had a to-go dinner (term used loosely) from Krystal’s because they were conveniently located next to the gas station we were using at that particular stop. David has never experienced Krystal’s before (I lived a while in Tennessee so my ‘antibodies’ are developed) and unfortunately hasn’t built up the proper resistance to it – he’s suffering at the moment with some subterainian quakes. We’re going to push for a little more than an hour to reach a Wal-Mart parking lot in Clarksville, TN to shut down for the night. That will leave us with about 4 hours to go on this 12 hour journey and should catch us back up with our caravan of cat sailors headed to IL. There are two other RV’s from our area pulling boats that are staying in campgrounds in that general vicinity but we don’t see the point in the time and expense to check in and shut down the RV for 5 or 6 hours when a parking lot will serve just fine (especially considering we got a late start – but having the time to grill out a steak would have sounded pretty good!). We’re not sure if we want to try and tag up with them to caravan into Lake Carlyle, or if we want to tip-toe away early in the morning to beat them there – we are racers afterall. Anyway, the double stack rig with the 150cc scooter is doing just fine – it’s actually towing better than I had hoped and barely wiggles back there. We’ve had to tighten up a couple of straps when we check at fuel stops but the bearings are running luke warm and the tires seem to be agreeable. The RV got about 9mpg through the mountains of western NC … which is an improvement over the previous 5 and 6 I was getting on flat ground – looks like I did find the problem in the signal to the engine management computer from the O2 sensor. Hopefully we’ll hit 10 or perhaps 11mpg when we reach some flatter ground. Still though, it’s not bad considering what we’re pulling.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Sorry I’ve been absent – I’ve been really struggling to get everything ready to go for the North American Formula 18 Championship. Everything is packed and David and I should be getting on the road this afternoon for the 12+ hours away for Lake Carlyle. We’ve got quite a gypsy-ish arrangment with the RV, two boats, and a scooter. Pics coming this evening from the road. I also hear that AdventureTVonline.net will be doing video features again from the racing. Our player will have those videos the second they go live (the annoying “Click…For…Video” thing up top).

Kristofer J. Harley speaks out about what really happened during his failed launch of Sea Biscuit. Personally, I think that planning a three day departure window from the North West US/Canada in order to clear the “Mexican Hurricane Season” is a little short sighted for such a vessel. Click the image and read on.

An excerpt from Duckworks Magazine:

“Before I could dry her out, the tide was already rising again. It was now that I made the decision to take her home on the trailer. It would allow proper repairs with more cloth and epoxy and wouldn’t use up underwater epoxy intended for emergency repairs at sea, but I had now lost my window. The Mexican hurricane season was already starting, and I had already wasted too much time. I called my Wife, Chuck at Duckworks Magazine, and David of The Captain Humphreys Project and told them the sad news. We had lost our chance at a 2006 departure.”

Duckworks Magazine

Found this over at Tim Zim’s website (http://timzim.blogspot.com/) – it’s a great ongoing read about a guy who is restoring an old rusty fishing ship to live in. I think we’ve talked about him in the past but he’s doing a top notch job and his motivation is inspiring. He found this picture somewhere on the web and linked to it on his site – help me with a caption…something like; “One minute you’re being hand fed strained peas, the next minute you’re licking the pig”.

Originally uploaded by Tim Zim.