Our English brethren bring us this video (it’s about a year old but it’s a goodie!).  Does it top the Canadian video below?  You decide.

From the crazy canucks up north - a terrific F18 video.  Gives you a good shot at why we’re fanatic about what we do!

Having recently put up the video from Steeplechase, and nearly shutting down my server with over 200Gb of downloads, I started investigating other video hosting solutions.  I uploaded this oldie-but-a-goodie from this year’s Alter Cup where Ollie and Kelly Jason pitchpolled a Nacra 20 catamaran going for a pass at the A-mark. I used Dailymotion.com for this video and will probably try one at the infamous You-Tube later.

New Year’s Weekend - Lake Murray Sailing Club…the “Lap of Lake Murray”. I’m sailing with Trey of Velocity Sailing to try and better our record last year we set using the Team Seacats F18 for the Lap of Lake Murray. We sailed the 20.4 mile course #3 in a few ticks over two hours even with several areas that were shadowed with very little wind. Trey is bringing out the Team Velocity Nacra 20 this year. If we can get some breeze this one should be easy to topple.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

FINALLY!  I got the draw bridge video off my corrupted PC and got it up on the site.  This is a rather large 180Mb download but it’s a pretty neat 8.5 minute video of the boats trying to make it through the draw bridge and the healthy current to get to the start line of the Steeplechase.  Download by right clicking the image below and choosing “save as”.  Then play it once it’s downloaded. Thanks to Robin and Wendy for taking the video!

EDIT: Sorry folks…the size and the number of downloads of this video has overwhelmed my server hosting account. Over 180Gb of this video has been downloaded and I had to remove the link to avoid having things frozen for the rest of the month. I’ll upload it to a video host somewhere to avoid this soon.

EDIT 2: finally got it uploaded to dailymotion.com….it appears a little jerky to me though…darnit. For those who don’t know us, our Team Seacats Nacra 20 is the one with the blue hulls. Chris and David are on one of the white Nacra 20’s but can be identified by their sail graphics (the top still has the Team Seacats cat-head on it and the SailMax.biz logo).

Today was just a nice day of sailing.  The wind was up at times to maybe 20 but most of the day was just a great day of sailing.  I messed us up at the start with the spinnaker up and sailing over shallow water with the boards up and the rudders kicked up, I started to loose the helm and the boat rounded up when I called for the spinnaker to be released.  We survived the initial gust, but the second got us and, out of concern for the mast, I was hesitant to release the mainsheet with the spinnaker still up (although it was flogging).  Frank’s intuition was probably correct, he wanted to oversheet the spinnaker, which probably would have balanced the helm more and potentially saved us.  We flipped in about a foot of water.  Once we righted the boat, we set out to try and catch the fleet.  We started to really gain ground on Mike and Dave on the F18 and Team Accelerated Chaos.  We made a navigational error half way back that really cost us some time and we lost contact with the fleet from there.  We finished in 5th place overall.

Some photos courtesy of Mike Hill …

Actually, seven boats finished yesterday.  4 Nacra 20s, 1 F18 (Nacra), 1 ARC22 (with a shortened mainsail), and a Hobie 16 which did, in fact, beat us all on corrected time.

The wind is going to drop a ~little~ for today but will make crossing all those sandbars interesting while we jockey the daggerboards and rudders up and down.

The video upload is still going but it doesn’t look like it will finish before we have to get to the beach - it will probably have to wait a couple of days until I can get to a dedicated internet connection.

Molasses Reef - right where we rounded about noon into the Atlantic Ocean.

Although I’ve got a broadband connection, it’s pretty asymmetrical.  The upload is going slowly.  This video will probably take most of the night…will link to it once it’s up.

For now, there are some photos uploaded HERE

This is the question that Frank and I asked each other after we finally worked our way to the start line for the Steeplechase this morning.  Apparently a lot of people asked that question before pushing off the beach this morning and they answered “this is”.  Approximately 11 boats struggled to get through the draw bridge to get to the start area and it took us four or five attempts to break through the 8 knot current and get through the bridge into Jewfish Creek.  It was mayhem trying to get through there with the other boats making several attempts.  I’ve got a video and will link to it soon (it’s uploading).

Once through, we were waiting in the starting area and I was wondering if it was wise to proceed.  Frank suggested turning the boat downwind and get a feel for what the boat is like in this much wind without the spinnaker up.  After a 300 yard jaunt downhill, we agreed that the boat felt pretty good and that we would commit to the race.

The start sequence was started and we were off.  The boat was manageable but the choppy water was really giving us fits on the trapeze.  I eventually came in to drive the boat while sitting and Frank stayed trapped.  After clearing the first bridge things laid down until we got into the ocean.  Once there, the wind was blowing a manageable 25 with some scary gusts over 30 but the waves were lumpy and irregular giving us fits with random gusts and random wave troughs opening up.  While trying to determine “how much speed is too much”, we found out when we got nailed with a gust when a deep narrow trough opened up under the bow.  We drove the boat in harder than I’ve ever seen a Nacra 20 go, and the sterns shot toward the sky while we tried to stay at the back of the boat.  Resistance was futile and she went over.  Both of us had firmly planted in our brains to stay connected with the boat because even though she was over, she would drift much faster than either of us could swim.  We did and Frank single handedly righted the boat while I rolled on the lower hull to be on the boat when it came right side up.  I kept the boat under control while Frank climbed back aboard.

We decided then and there to kick things down a notch and run at about 80% instead of 90%.  Things were relatively uneventful until we caught up with Team Accelerated Chaos and tried to run them down (unsuccessfully).  With about 5.5 miles to go, the wind and seas were laying down and we popped the spinnaker hoping to get a run on them.  They saw our kite go up and followed suit to try and keep us behind them.  The boat was pretty stable but we lost it in a gybe and flipped for a second time with about 300 yards to go.  We slid up to the beach, the fourth boat to finish - only 6 made it.

BIG kudos go out to the Hobie 16 team that slid in a measly 6 to 10 minutes behind us - they absolutely stuck it out and rocked.  Undoubtedly, they beat us on corrected time.

We haven’t had a chance to look at the forecast for tomorrow - it’s a pretty sure thing that it will be breezy again.

That video should finish uploading in a bit … think we’ll go get some dinner and I’ll publish a link to it when I get back.

We’re traveling that well-beaten path due south to Key Largo, FL to compete in the Key Largo Steeplechase.  Chris Zander and I competed in this race two years ago and although we relished the 18knot conditions, we had some bad luck & decisions that put us back in the fleet.  Then again, this is a race for which experience plays largely.  This year, Frank Moore and I will be sailing the blue Nacra 20 while Chris has teamed up with another local sailor, David Strickland.  Chris and David will be sailing in the Tybee 500 this year so this will be a bit of a shakedown for them.  We’ve got two Nacra 20’s double stacked on the trailer behind us and are making decent progress toward Cape Canaveral - where a shuttle launch was scrubbed this evening due to weather.  We’ll probably shut down for the night before too much longer and get an early start to hopefully arrive in the Keys around lunch time to start setting up.

The weather forecast has been…well…pretty intimidating.  NOAA had been calling for us to be pinched between a low and a high resulting in 20 to 28 knot breeze - these kind of conditions don’t leave you with a high degree of control of these 20 foot boats that weigh only 400lbs but have a mast over three stories tall.  Fortunately, the forecast has recently dropped somewhat to a more reasonable 18 knots.  This gets back into terrific racing conditions where we have a choice to push the boat or not!  It’s shaping up to be a great 110 mile race around Key Largo.

Things are frantically paced here as we prepare the double stack of Nacra 20’s for the Key Largo Steeplechase. It’s a 110 mile jaunt around Key Largo. The first day is a race out of the backside of the keys to get to the Atlantic side and drag race south to Anne’s Beach. The second day, we immediately re-enter the backside waters of the keys and race over sandbars, through creeks, around shoals, and finish back where we started.  Paddling is allowed (but hopefully not needed!).  There is a low pressure system coming across the country that suggests that this one might be breezy. The blue Team Seacats Nacra 20 catamaran and I will be meeting Frank Moore in Key Largo this Friday afternoon to start preparing. Stay tuned!