That title is a phrase you commonly hear when racing offshore…well….actually, it’s more like “TURTLE!” or “TURN TURN!” or worse since we’re typically making 15 knots or better.  However, I must admit that In the miles we’ve racked up thus far, we’ve never had to be on the watch for a six point buck swimming in the salty water.  Below is a picture sent by Dale Steinkamp to Sailing Anarchy who posted it and a couple more this morning.  This was taken just St. Simon Island, GA - one of the Islands we pass on the way to Tybee, GA.

Another flashback…I’m getting antsy…..You can see Carl Roberts, with whom I had the pleasure of sailing the Tybee 500 in 2005, tripping over the rudder as the announcer says something about “tired bodies”. Although I believe that Carl has a competitive spirit that runs about a billion miles an hour in his blood, he’s cool, calm, and collective on the surface - always (even after I was largely responsible for a 3′ gash in the spinnaker after just launching off the beach for a long leg). I learned a good deal about distance racing and patience from Carl.

It’s a long story but there are people waiting to see these…To hear the full story, you’ll need to ask me in person at a regatta or something….

The intro to this video makes me cringe and sweat cold bullets whenever I see it.  I’m pretty sure one of the guys on the boat is a good friend of mine (edit…it wasn’t who I was thinking of)…but I think I’ve mentally blocked that out.  Watching the rest of this video has me pretty pumped about the Tybee next year.

I awoke this morning, filled my belly with grits, bacon, and french toast, and met David Lennard at the boat where he was already busy making a few tweaks to the rigging to make the boat a little easier to sail. We did some minor things, went to get changed, and hoisted the sails. At 9:30am we were the first off the beach and slowly making our way in the very light breeze to the race committee that had setup about a mile away. An hour later (!), we arrived at the race committee. The other boats slowly meandered their way to the starting area and after an hour, the race committee decided to abandon racing for the day and sent us to the beach.

The standings left where they were yesterday - Nigel Pitt and Trey Brown in 1st with 4 points, Wick and Wick in 2nd with 5 points, David Lennard and I in 3rd with 6 points for the low portsmouth fleet. That is a spectacular place for a regatta and the racing on Saturday was a really good time. Can’t wait until next year!

FULL RESULTS HERE

Last weekend, we duked it out out on F18s. This weekend we agreed to bring out the Nacra 20’s. The results are extremely similar and after one day and four races, 1st through 3rde is separated by 2 points! The Team Seacats blue I20 is performing very very well and we’ve got great speed. Our (David Lennard and I) struggle is with some of the rigging details…specifically, we’re having great difficulty getting the spinnaker launched around A-mark. We’ve got some ideas to work through the issues tomrrow and hoping to have a strong Sunday just like last week. We came on strong today and again the finishes were within seconds. We’re currently in 3rd but it’s anybody’s game with the points where they are.

A business trip was cancelled for this weekend which freed me up to attend the Loose on the Neuse (river) regatta this weekend. We’re doing a smash up of the fleet from last weekend and instead of F18s, we’re going to race Nacra 20s (Frank’s blue Nacra 20 is our current Team Seacats ocean racer). It looks like we’ll have at least 4 Nacra 20s this weekend three of which the teams were sailing F18s at last weekend’s Alter Cup Qualifier and David Lennard and I will be sailing together again.

Wick Smith and Wick “bear” jr. sailed an F18 for the first time last weekend and he really got competitive as the wind picked up - Wick has a trophy wall that will put a lot of people to shame. They normally sail a Nacra 20 so they’re are going to be tough. Nigel is sailing a 20 with Trey (Team Velocity) and not only is Nigel always tough (and probably has an extra storage facility for trophies), Trey has been really coming on strong and learning a lot. It will be interesting to see where things shake up.

The 20 needed a little work - the trailer had a bent cross bar that needed to be replaced (we made a quick fix with a 4X4 leaving Tybee earlier this year) so I fabbed up the replacement this evening and should have it ready to bolt in place tomorrow. The trailer lights need some attention too - none of the side markers are functional. I’ll pick up replacements tomorrow at lunch. There are some nick-nack rigging items (a couple of shackles) and a new pair of sailing gloves ordered from Layline this morning and they got them in the mail within an hour of my call! That stuff should be here in the morning. When I was making all the double stack braces for the F18s, I made an extra pair of beam mounts to make a substantial rear mast support for the 20 - I finished that up tonight too (we had been using a big piece of foam).

A good deal was accomplished tonight - but I still have some work to do tomorrow. I plan to grease the bearings on the trailer and go through the rigging to make sure everything is in place. The carpet in the daggerboard wells needs to be replaced too. It will be great to get back on the 20 again and I’m looking forward to it.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

What a weekend of superb sailing weather hosted by Nigel and Tammy Pitt on Lake Hartwell! I’ll try to put up a detailed report soon but in a nutshell, we had 5 F18s and 2 Hobie 17s show up to compete for the qualification spot for the US SAILING Multihull Championship for the Alter Cup this past weekend. On Saturday, the wind was a bit patchy and reached 8 or 10 knots on occasion. On Sunday, the wind built and blew about 12 to 15. I crewed with David Lennard, part of Team Layline and who usually sails with Mike Krantz. Mike is one of the owners of Layline and was at the Annapolis Boat Show doing business. The event was very contested and not a leg went by that didn’t have positions changing on every tack and jibe. Nigel and Tammy Pitt won the event, David and myself came in second, Wick Smith and his “grandson” barely snatched 3rd from Rick Harper. Bonnie observed from the committee boat and took some great pictures (click on the image to go there).

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

An excellent video showing the speed of an Olympic Tornado catamaran from a couple of sailors in New Zealand. They’re gunning for the Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

http://www.sailcam.tv/video.php?vid=42

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

The Weymouth Speedweek starts tomorrow. Everyone appears to have their eyes gazing on the 50 knot barrier. Last year, Finian Maynard (pictured below - photo Bernard Biancotto) set a new world sailing speed record at 44.03 knots on a sailboard while sailing in a specifically designed “trench” in France. There are a ton of sailboards competing, a couple of cats (a Reynolds 33 and some 40 footers), and a sprinkling of custom creations. Good luck to all!

The Speed Sailing Pages