Well, I was totally wrong about the guys getting bored on the boats during the final leg up to Tybee Island from Fernandina. I had based my prediction on a faulty weather report and had not factored in the early start or the reasoning behind it.  Truth is, it was said by a meteorological expert advising the officials that the early start was vital to avoid that situation from happening. The wind was decidedly there for the teams, even though it varied in strength during the initial part of the trip. Once they were a little over halfway through the hundred-ish mile trip, they were able to heat it up and head North with the kites full and in a fairly challenging chop.

After reaching Fernandina the night before, it finally occurred to Jake (from our Seacats Orange) that if he rigged up a doubler on the spinnaker sheet to reduce the effort needed to work the line that he could save Frank a good deal of effort. After coming onto the beach at Tybee, Frank asked, “Just how long have you known about this?” Honestly though, Jake simply hadn’t thought of that little trick…most likely because it wasn’t his hands that were blown up like crazy balloon animals. As for next year, Frank (the most seasoned veteran of the Tybee 500) is thinking about taking a year off on 2010, while I’m trying to sell him and Jake on the idea of heading out Lee Wicklund’s way and doing the Great Texas.

Team Seacats White were understandably disheartened by having to withdraw from the race but they’re certain that they made the correct decision for the last leg as it was no place to suffer irreparable damage and attempt to be trailered out without anything approaching convenience. In fact, it would be entirely possible that the guys might even have lost their phone signal during any given point from the shore along the longest and last leg of the race. While Chris and their ground crew Bjorn got on up the road, a bunch of us had dinner last night with David and his wife Robyn. David remarked  that they’d like to make a run at the race again, but would probably take a year off before doing so, due to work and other considerations. They’ll make the necessary repairs on the I-20 quickly enough and be back on the lakes all over the Cackalacks and in Georgia.

Preliminary overall results can be found by clicking here: Again, I apologize that the boats beat us to the finish line and therefore I have no juicy details; but as I posted late yesterday, there are plenty of other quality options for photos and stories of the results. Chris Titcomb of Accelerated Chaos did tell me that they took honors during a photo finish with Seacats Orange. That would have been cool to see but Lord knows I’ve seen my fair share of thrilling finishes over the years. The close finishes, hot landings, and (I have to admit) the excitement of single hulled, near flippage in the surf are the most entertaining to watch – even while you’re praying that no one gets hurt in the process. Speaking of hot finishes, I heard that Catfever came in like a greased pig with wings yesterday. That was surprising considering how careful Todd Hart is in general with the pristine slickness of his hulls but everyone was well impressed.

The top three overall winners were Whike, Magic Marine, and Microwind. The top three in the F-18 class were identical. This reinforces the general theory that the light air week may have favored the F-18’s, although we’re talking about some seriously talented sailors leading the pack, some of whom could have won on any boat. The top three I-20’s were Royal Yellow, Velocity 1, and Royal Green. A hearty Congratulations from Frank and Jake to all of their friends and fellow competitors who did so well in the race this past week. Seacats Orange came in at a respectible sixth place, eaked out of the top five by Catfever to the tune of a mere six minutes. To this day I am amazed at how these boats can finish so closely together even after a distance of over five hundred miles. As I posted at the outset, this year’s roster included some really great sailors in contention for victory (including past winners of the event), making it almost too close at attempting to place odds on anyone in particular. That said, I’m not especially surprised that Mischa with Eduard and JC with Carrie took the top spots…because they rock.

Now I need to begin a list of Thanks You’s to all of those people without whom both our team and the race in general could not maintain its spirit and structural integrity. First I’ll address the folks from Seacats Orange. Obviously, Frank and Jake are the reason for the season and we wouldn’t even be here without them. They had some great starts, felt good about their performance on the water and – most importantly – had fun during the race. Our team manager, Tim Owens, did a superlative job, as always. A veteran of many Tybee 500’s with Jake and later Jake and Frank together, he anticipates both the boat’s and team members’ needs like no one else could and is always prepared for any scenario. And if something totally unexpected comes up then he starts running to get it done! He even goes out of his way to take care of me, which is totally unnecessary but much appreciated. Our pusher and helper extraordinaire is Daryl Moss. He began as ground crew during the years that Frank was sailing with Mike Ferrara (who is a sweetheart and joined us this year for part of the trip) and then stayed on board with the pairing of Jake and Frank. Not only the sweetest and most helpful guy on the beach (and, in my opinion, the yummiest member of any ground crew), Daryl is an enormous asset to the team and we don’t know what we’d do with his skill set, good natured attitude, and helpfulness towards any and every team in the race.

Seacats White also had a super group this year. Chris and David made a valiant effort during their maiden voyage as sailors rather than ground crew this year. As they will tell you, having now done each job enhanced their ability to empathize for the other one! While the days can be long and arduous as ground crew, the sailors are the ones literally busting their tushies and taxing their brainboxes nonstop for the entire leg. Their team manager, Bjorn Kronquist, did a fabulous job working on the boat, organizing the needs of his team, as well as selflessly assisting other teams on the beach. When Team Zhik had some serious trouble getting through the surf in Daytona (the same day so many teams had rudder breakages), Bjorn was considered the hero of the hour by David Lennard and Mike Krantz for working so hard to get them back out into the race. A native of Sweden, Bjorn is a great guy and was very good company during the trip. He also brought along a super duper camera and caught some really nice moments that he very graciously allowed us to add to the Team Seacats 2009 Tybee 500 photostream on Flickr. David Strickland’s wife Robyn was also a tremendous addition to the Seacats White. Having only attended the finish at Tybee Island in previous years when her husband and our other friends were ground crew members, Robyn did a fantastic job helping out her boys by both taking care of organizational duties but also running errands, acting as team cheerleader, and so much more.

The only thing I regret from the week is that I wasn’t able to spend more time socializing with the rest of the gang (as well as other sailors and ground crews), as I always seemed to be typing or gathering information from other people and places. I consider so many of these people to be my good friends and it was so nice to be spending the whole week with them. One special shout out has to go to my John-John, aka John Williams. He worked so hard a race official for this year’s race yet always had time for me whenever I phoned him with a question or for an update on a particular situation. He’s the sweetest and the best guy around, as anyone who knows him will attest.

That brings me to the official Race Committee for the Tybee 500. As per usual, Chuck and Judy Bargeron did an outstanding job organizing the race. A huge Thanks goes out to the two of them for taking time out of their lives to put so much energy into this event. They assembled a first class group to work with them during the race as well. In addition to the aforementioned John Williams, Sean Ferrell returned to act as PRO for the race and Claude Nix did a terrific job on the Tybee 500 web site. I also saw other familiar faces during the week and I apologize for not being able to remember both first and last names of all of them.

Finally, let’s remember to thank our friends and family (and dogs!) for supporting us in this event, whether it be monetarily and/or emotionally. It can be difficult for wives and husbands left to fend for themselves and their children for a week while their signifigant others disappear for an extended romp up the beaches of the East coast. Fortunately, many of the spouses and even children were able to enjoy the week with the teams.

Here are some more photos from the week. Thanks to everyone for reading my little blog here and for your comments and emails. They were much appreciated.

Seacats Orange

Seacats White

Daryl Moss

Tim Owens and son Cole

Bjorn Kronquist

David and Robyn Strickland with Chris Zander

Chris, me, and David

I’ve gotten word that the teams have been forced into a crabwalk day of sailing due to the wind direction, zigging and zagging their way up the coast. As of the latest map I saw on the official Tybee 500 web site, they’re near or passing Sebastian and so are a little over halfway to Cocoa. Of the boats who are equipped with the TopoFusion locators, Royal Yellow appears to be in the lead and may well take the line honors again today. I’m hoping the wind fills in for them or stays steady out of the East so they can at least begin to have a healthy reach and get here before after midnight. I remember a coupla-few years ago on this leg that it was 2:30am before a boat finally emerged from out of the darkness. They were practically in the breakers before we could see them easily.

As I mentioned, la luna may be a blessing if they do indeed arrive after dark. I’ll let you know as soon as I have any updates, either from a boat or race official. For Ground Crew, it may be a safe bet that you have time to go grab a quick sandwich without worrying that you’ll miss them. The bad part is that their tardiness is cutting into your Happy Hour since you’re officially still on the clock. Naughty sailors! Well, one rum and Coke never hurt anyone…except those who’s mantra is buy one, get three free.

Sidebar: We’re thrilled to finally have Rick White from Catsailor finally here covering the race, so be sure to check out his coverage this evening!

I wanted to take an opportunity to shine the spotlight on one of my personal favorites of our many sponsors: Costa del Mar sunglasses. Not only do they look spiffy, they are an optimized performance product to suit not only the the particular needs of those who  enjoy outdoor sports and also for anyone who enjoys crystal clear vision mixed with great fashion sensibilities.

Costa del Mar produces a great palette of frame sizes and colors, lens materials and colors, and are all polarized to minimize glare, optimize depth perception, and enhance your viewing pleasure and efficacy whether you’re depth fishing, sailing, or simply spending time on the lake, river, or beach. The Seacats teams have been both impressed and amazed at the results from our Costa del Mar sunglasses; and this is not the first pair for many of our teams.

Please take a chance to try some on at a local dealer (which can be found on their web site) so you can see the Costa de Mar difference.

First off, you may have noticed that there’s been a rash of blowouts involving brand new kites this year. I won’t go into that that in detail. Suffice to say that that everything has or will be worked out. Seacats Orange will be using their back-up chute today…not that there will be any need for it as it’s going to be a light air day with a possible scattering of rainage. Bless their collective hearts. They may have to start playing bobbing for Gatorade bottles just to pass the time. Hopefully things will pick up as they near Cocoa. Honestly, I haven’t seen the forecast.

As of the start, there was quite a breeze from the previous dead zone that it had previously been.. There were some threatening skies quite a ways off on the horizon and maybe three distant thuder boomers but in the last fifteen minutes leading up to the horn, the dark grey bits were drifting off to the South, leaving them with much clearer skies for their journey to Cocoa. Now I’m not saying that they won’t experience some drips and drops along the way ut it seems unlikely that there will be anything  even approaching rough weather.  It was a mandatory Port start due to the Southwest wind direction which would avoid any bumps and grinds between the boats during the two tiered start.

We enjoyed the company of Nigel Pitt and Alex Shafer in a rib boat, accompanied by Sailing World magazine’s photographer extraordinaire Walter Cooper, who will have some great shots of the start and beyone, depending on how far they were able to follow.. I will see if I can find a link to the photos although they willmost likely end up on the official Sailing World site.  Interesting sidebar, He got a great shot of Seacats Orange’s kite coming unhinged and failing whilst they were in second place. Ouchie. Between John Casy and Carrie Howes’s rudder problems, Jamie Livingston’s and Jake and frank’s kite blowouts from yeasterday’s leg, it goes to show ho just how these fivkle malfunctions can really affect both class and overall finish times in a race like this.

There was no carnage between the boats during today’s start. One boat nearly flipped while double trapped and and smoking hot but they managed to pull it back in. To be honest, the long line and doule starts (even if I had been using my binoculars), wouldn’t have made much of a difference as the leaders were way out of sight very quickly. Seacats Orange caught some dirty air from Cat in the Hat and weren’t able to power up and trap out immediately while Seacats White got a bit further out and had a great start. As I said, it’s difficult to gauge  the leaders due to leangth of the lines, especially when I’memotionally invested in staicking closer to my teams.

News from Nigel on his craft has reported that at this point it seems that the fleet has divided into two factions. Roughly ten boats have opted to run up to fifteen miles out while the remainder are huggin the shore. No news on who’s in the lead and it remains a mystery which tactic will be the most favorable.  They’re all dragging a bit and it’s a good time to jus sit on the tramp and save their butts from the more unforgiving position of the hulls themselves. The upshot is that no one specifically is mangaing to heat it up. It may well be one of those days where the fleet wil arrive late enough to merit the blinky lights of the finish line which could be problematic for the newbies who aren’t cognizant of the pier near the end of the leg.  Mother has smiled on the boys (and girl)  in one respect in that there’s a fullish moon that can help improve visibility.

I’m posting this from the car so forgive any typos and may well not have a chance to get this information up until we actually arrive in Cocoa so I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got. Lordy, please don’t let me have any more problems with this air card. technology giveth and technology is also a rancid bitch who taketh away. For my friends on Facebook, I was able to put up some crummy-ish phone shots from the morning’s start. In additional photo news, I now have an all purpose adapter so there should be superlative photos upcoming courtesy of Bjorns super spanky camera. Ours is just fun sized.

That’s it for now. More news of the race and highlights of our various sponsors later on today.

Bonnie…outtie for now.

Overall, it was a good start for the teams today. They left the beach in two heats, one minute apart and based on yesterday’s finish times. Of course, all the boats are being judged on corrected time between the two classes so finish times into Hollywood (or those during any other leg) aren’t necessarily representative of the actual statistics.

It was a spinnaker start with a good breeze coming from the South Southeast and will clock around to a South wind for the remainder of the day. It should be a fast ride up to Jupiter. Team Royal Green bumped into Seacats Orange at the bow and then at the stern like a pair of bumper cars. There was not enough contact to cause damage, thankfully, and the guys were trying to physically push each other apart. By the time I left the beach, the favored starters Team Royal Yellow seemed to have the lead with another boat bearing down on them hard. My guess is that it was Whike or Magic Marine. One boat (unknown, but it may have been one of the Velocity teams) flipped shortly after the start but was righted within a few minutes and they are back running behind the pack.

An update on the mishaps yesterday: Todd of Catfever apparrently bumped his noggin during his dismount off the high side of the boat when they flipped in the surf. Todd Riccardi of Team Adrenalin may have gotten too big for his britches when he blew out the heinie of his harness. Jake of Seacats Orange also has a smallish split in his harness but is sailing with it today before considering the purchase of a new one. Fingers crossed that works out okay. Karl Langefeld of Stray Cats wasn’t the only on to split their kite yesterday but they managed to have it repaired overnight at a local shop. Now that’s good customer service.  They were going to borrow our spare if worse came to worse. I’m not certain what Royal Orange fixed their torn spinnaker but, between their four teams, they were mosy likely prepared for that possibility.

See you in Jupiter, boys and girls!

Ater a fantastic dinner last night at Morada Bay Cafe, we shot back to the hotel room where the guys took care of the last minute preparations such as filling their Camelbacks water systems, programming GPS coordinates, and contending with general pre-race hubbub. Our guys, and probably all the team, were antsy to get the show on the road, or on the water, more like.

I have to apologize for spacing out that this first leg is to Hollywood and not Jupiter as I sorta inferred yesterday. Though I will be pleased to find myself at the Jupiter Beach Resort (http://www.jupiterbeachresort.com/), the last several Tybee 500’s have begun set-up and the first day of the race by sailing south for a round trip sail to Fowey Rocks. It’s a lovely hotel as well. They have a great spa, though I don’t believe I’ll have time to patronize that establishment today!

Let me stop for a moment to say that I have been texting so often lately (Hi Kar!) that it’s making it difficult to type normally. I don’t have to simultaneously hit alt to make a period, contractions (dont) don’t automatically fix themselves, and holding down the key for a second longer doesn’t turn the letter into an upper case…it only makes for a line of the same letter, which iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii find very confusing at this point. It’s harshing my flow, in the parlance of our times.

Back to the reason for the season: It was a good and steady start on the water this morning. No one seemed to walk away from the pack. As it was such a long line, a couple of teams (Team Seacats Orange, Team Chums,  JC and Carrie, that I know of) were over the line early, or at least thought they might have been and so some corrected themselves.

The breeze is steady out of the South Southeast which will give the boys a chance at a hearty spinnaker run up to Hollywood, approximately 85 miles away. Photos will be forthcoming, as Bjorn has a much better zoom. That’s all for now. Speak to you again up the road.

This video is a little longer than I usually post – but it’s awesome. Enjoy.

Some video from the A-cat event in Florida a couple of weeks ago…nice.

A-Cats at Ft Myers from Fly Rod on Vimeo.

Up this week?  A video shot by one of our good friends Brian Karr with www.adventureonline.tv as he filmed David Ingram leaving his wife to fend for herself on his Nacra F18 while he saves his hat.  We also get to see a really great angle of Scott and Dior Huble drive their Hobie Tiger into the deep.

Technique: 10

Speed: 6

Flare: 8

Bonus: +1pnt  for immediate turtle

Score: 9.0

126.1 Mph – a new land sailing speed record set by the Greenbird Project crushing the previous 116mph record that has stood since 1999 and was set by Bob Schumacher in the Iron Duck! Now that’s quick.

PS – no news about the America’s Cup Ruling yet but I’m keeping a vigilent eye open.

Oh, this is a goodie….well done.  Great soundtrack, good editing, great angles, and good action….and Ronald, thanks for the helmet.  This gets an A++!   Be sure to hang in there for the “deleted scenes” at the end.

How Not To Sail from Frankfurter Sam on Vimeo.

Caught flying off the coast of Spain is the new(ish) Banque Populaire G-class Trimaran.  They’ve been waiting some time for a good weather window to launch their attempt at the Route of Discovery Record (the path of Christopher Columbus).  In absence of the good weather, they went out for an afternoon sail.  Wow…what a speed demon.  Report and video courtesy of Valenciasailing

I had a conversation with Mike (from Zhik – a company that manufacturers some of the greatest specialty sailing gear I’ve ever worn) this past weekend and he pointed me to a blog on the USACA site (US A-Catamaran Association).  Tony Arends, aka “Racer-X” is home building an a-cat of his own design and is chronicaling the process.  It’s pretty neat stuff and after catching up and watching the details of his build so far, I think this is doable!  Check it out.