Team Seacats

Had a great start yesterday but lost a bit in the heavy stuff to some of the more experienced teams. Waves off the cape were occasionally quite large with an 8 to 10 footer ever 15 minutes or so. After making the last tack (49 miles without a tack – on the trapeze 99% of the time!) the waves smoothed out a little but it was a heavy slapping chop the rest of the way. Caught up with Castrol II but then they found high gear and took off. Pretty tired yesterday but feeling better today – sorry so brief but gotta get ready for today!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Team Tybee led with a decent margin over Castrol I shortly after 5pm. Castrol 2 followed on the horizon with Tygart and Seacats coming in close together. A few minutes later, Team Space Coast made it to shore followed by Castrol 3. Team Velocity rounded up the bunch. Most of the teams are still pretty worn out from yesterday’s leg. Jake may provide a sailing report later on tonight.
In other news, I neglected to mention that Steve Lohmeyer has replaced Brian Lambert on Team Castrol 1 for the completion of the race.

We have a wide range of gadgets we rely upon to keep us on track and entertained during the Tybee 500: laptop computer, GPS, cell phones, satellite radio, etc. Speaking of the latter, I want to thank the folks at Sprint together with Nextel for outfitting us with the latest in cellular technology so that we can talk to the guys in case they need us or have important news to relay. Each phone is enabled with three modes of communication: regular cellular, Nextel Direct Connect (which requires the user to be on the network), as well as DirecTalk, which is a ground radio that is off the network and accessible to anyone within a six mile radius. They are also fully GPS enabled. Pretty fun for a gadget geek like Jake. It’s just too bad he doesn’t have time to play with it while he’s on the boat!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

It was a short night’s sleep for most of the teams but it was an all nighter for Cat in the Hat who rolled up onto the beach at around 8:30 this morning. What a marathon of a sailing leg! They looked pretty good to me, but have decided it might be best for them to drop out of the race at this point. Larry said they had a great time while they were here. They will certainly be missed. Jake and Frank had a good start and all of the remaining teams looked good as they sailed into the distance, most of them double trapped and flying a hull. It’s going to be a screaming reach for the beach in a fair breeze on the way up to Ormond.

Wow what a long and tough day yesterday. Every inch earned was hard fought. We set our boat up for heavy air expecting to have extensive thunderstorms but that never came to fruition and we struggled in the light air to maintain position – I suspect we weren’t alone in missing the setup though. After the sun went down, we were in a gybing dual for hours with Tygart and Castrol II and the lead (for 2nd place) must have changed hands 12 times. Frank and I nearly got caught inside a break water we didn’t notice until we saw an 8′ breaking wave right next to the boat. We eventually broke from the other three boats, thinking we saw an advantage and lost touch with them for hours. With the finish line 10 miles out, we finally had a fresh breeze and were tight reaching with the spinnaker single, sometimes double, trapezed in the blackness (and I was still having trouble keeping my eyes open!). We were using pinpoints of light on the horizon to maintain course and sailing by feel. The moon finally came out and we could make out a boat behind us – it looked like it might be Tygart. With 2 miles to go, the moon was covered by clouds and we lost contact with Tygart but kept plugging away straight at the finish. With about 1 mile to go, Frank spotted Tygart underneath us and in clear air as we struggled to get though the spoiled air off the buildings on the coast – they had made a brilliant move! We footed to cover and were bow to bow with them for the last run in – only inches away from being able to steal their air. With 100 yards to the finish, we couldn’t close the door on them and they broke out ahead! We safely made the last tack for the beach – not wanting to put on a full fight for the finish line (the fight was mostly over at that point anyway) that could lead to potentially unsafe landings, we tacked comfortably for the beach allowing Tygart room to cover us to the beach. As we approached, just seconds behind Tygart, we noticed a head bobbing in the surf just as a large wave picked up our boat and accelerated us quickly to the beach. Someone put a spotlight on that person in the surf which resulted in blinding us since we had been sailing in pitch black for hours. With our energy low, our vision impaired, and our focus distracted on not hitting this person, we didn’t get our weight back on the boat in time for the landing and we plowed the bows of the boat into the sand causing the boat to come to a violent stop. Frank landed hard on his knees and I rolled forward on the trampoline. Frank has some bruises but I think the boat is OK.

It looks like an upwind run today – we’re sore from the long day yesterday but a few minutes of trapezing in a head sea should loosen us up quickly.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.