Wow!  What a journey that was!  Team Seacats departed and caravanned down to the Keys in two separate groups.  David double stacked his F18 on top of Seacats Club member, Allen Bruce's, Supercat 20 and they departed Columbia, SC Thursday afternoon December 9th and drove 10 hours straight through.  Jake and Chris left Greenville on Thursday evening, met up with a fellow F18 (Hobie Tiger) sailor, John Suprenant, in Atlanta, and drove until about 4am stopping for a couple of hours to get some sleep outside of Orlando.  By Friday afternoon all Team Seacats equipment was accounted for and being assembled for the start of the Key Largo Steeplechase.  This would mark the first time any of us had competed in the Steeplechase and we knew we were in for a wild ride.  This race is a 110 mile race, broken into two days, that circumnavigates the land mass of Key Largo and Islamorada and crosses countless sandbars, cuts, and mangrove creeks...hence the name "Steeplechase".  Experience pays huge in this event as no map is accurate enough to truly convey what is and isn't passable on our speedy, but shallow drafting, catamarans.  The weather forecast was calling for a steady healthy breeze  that would change direction such that it would be an upwind race both days.

The first, but uncontested, obstacle of the course was to get through the Jewfish Creek drawbridge to enter Jewfish Creek to reach the starting area.  The current was flowing pretty healthily under the bridge and one I20 team  found themselves caught too close to the closed bridge without enough sail power to escape the current.  They ran into the bridge sideways but quickly and wisely capsized their boat and flowed neatly underneath!  They fortunately escaped without damage.

With the start time looming, we began to position ourselves within the crowded fleet as a steady 5 to 8 knot breeze allowed us to maneuver easily.  Jake and Chris opted to start on the uncrowded end of the line not wanting to get caught racing boat for boat at the very beginning of a very long race.  This turned out to be a dreadful decision!  David and honorary Team Seacats sit in Shambie followed Jake and Chris after being a little late for the start.  Feeling good about being in good clean air, near the front of the pack, and away from the gaggle of boats Jake and Chris felt pretty good ... for a little while.  Slowly but surely Jake and Chris were not able to sail the same angle as the group of boats and kept having to run out further and further to the right, away from where we wanted to go.  Thinking that there must be a little shift in the breeze that will certainly reach them soon, they stayed the course - but the shift never found them.  In hindsight we discovered that the different wind we were sailing in was a result of the wind bending off the 50 or so boats that were all packed together on the other end of the start line!  David and Shambie, who trailed Jake and Chris, were clear of the bent breeze and held the higher line and were able to sail all the way to Card Sound Bridge.  Jake and Chris crossed under Card Sound Bridge, only 3 miles into the race, frustrated, bewildered, and in last place by almost 6 minutes!

"ohhhh the pain."

Hell bent for leather, Chris and Jake put up the spinnaker just after crossing under the Card Sound Bridge.  It was going to be a tight reach to make the entrance of Angel Fish Creek and everyone else was sailing deeper to the right to try and reduce the spinnaker power to a manageable level.  Jake and Chris saw an opportunity IF they can keep the boat right side up and hold the spinnaker in a straight line to the creek several miles ahead.  The GPS route that Jake had previously programmed said they needed to bare off to the right in order to miss a shallow sandbar that crossed the middle of the sound...but this is a steeplechase - right?  With boards raised, Jake steering from the trapeze and Chris fighting the spinnaker and hiking hard, we skimmed over the sandbar and proceeded full bore to Angel Fish Creek.  Meanwhile, David and Shambie were strutting along out of sight boats ahead.

Entering Angel Fish Creek, Jake and Chris caught up to the Team Cyberspeed Supercat 20, Eric Arbogast on his Supercat 21, and a couple other boats.  We slid through the creek able to run dead downwind with the wind and current.  Escaping the creek into the Atlantic ocean, we all turned right across a very shallow flat and were now in a long 45 mile drag race to the finish line for day 1.  Right after exiting this flat area, Jake and Chris got caught trying to run the spinnaker too high and hot and capsized.  They made a miraculous 1+ minute righting of the boat and quickly got into the groove and began to motor.  Unfortunately during the capsize, Jake's trapeze line had detached from it's retaining bunji and was stranded useless on the other side of the boat.  Only Chris could trapeze!  The wind was honking now with about 18knots on the nose.  Chris is on the trapeze and using his knees to help support Jake while he hikes out as hard as he can.  In unison, Chris spills the gusts by easing the mainsheet while Jake steers to compensate both trying to keep the boat balanced on one hull and fast (there's less water drag when only one hull is in the water).  They considered stopping to fix the trapeze problem but they were still passing boats and not willing to give up the time to fix it - they were still making great speed and knew they needed to do everything possible to try and make up for the bad start.

"Groove: ON"

We caught up to David and Shambie about the time we reached our first land/shallow obstacle on this side of the Island.  Had Jake been able to clear the salt water from his eyes enough to look closely at his GPS, he would have realized that deeper water lied about 30' to the left of their course.  However, before Chris could finish saying "we need these daggerboards up like yesterd....!" the boat ground to a halt in the crushed coral bottom!  With a wince in regard to the previously impeccable finish of the daggerboards, Chris scrambled to lift the boards and Jake the rudders and slid across yet another shallow spot.

Eventually the finish line was coming into sight.  A large group of Inter 20 boats were visible but appeared to be grouped and barely moving just short of the shore line.  Trying to avoid the large "weed trees" growing from the bottom surface we all continued screaming toward the finish line occasionally having to slow down to clear the weeds from the boards and rudders or put a rudder down that had popped up from contact with plant life.  Jake and Chris reached the finishing area first and along side a Nacra 6.0NA they had been trying to pass for the last 15 minutes.  They tacked toward the finish line feeling a bit redeemed and just starting to relax when they realized suddenly that they were about to run aground again!  Up came the daggerboards...getting shallower...up come the rudders....still getting shallower!  Finally the hull bottoms ground into the bottom 80 yards away from the finish line and the boat came to a stop!  Thinking that this would be a temporary situation, Chris jumped off the boat to start pulling the boat - but he sank in the bottom silt nearly to his waist!  Now this was getting interesting.  He strained to move the boat for about 15 feet when we realized that this was going to be this way all the way to the finish line.  Jake jumped off joining Chris and they both began hastily trudging toward the taunting finish line pausing every couple of minutes to double over and catch their breath while muttering something about working out harder.  They finally crossed the finish line in 26th place out of 40 boats.  David and Shambie came in 15 minutes later but had the good fortune of an incoming tide and deeper water and didn't have to struggle through quite as much silt.

Day 2 started with a Lemans start off the beach in a heafty 18 to 20knots of breeze.  We were able to leave Anne's beach with our spinnakers up.  Jake and Chris made yet another blunder on the start by trying to cut too close to the shallow shoreline prior to getting to the large bridge (and actually Chris had advised against it!).  They nearly lost control of the boat several times near the rocky shore and ended up going slowly while those that stayed further out were able to go full speed.   David and Shambie played the more conservative game and went out for deeper water before turning south toward the bridge and they got to the bridge in good position.  We all had to douse the spinnakers as we turned to go under the bridge and the right turn north put the wind hard on our nose again!  Both Team Seacats boats did well in this breeze battling with many of the bigger catamarans.  We entered several narrow 20' cuts were we were in tacking duels with other boats.  These F18's tack very well and we were able to outmaneuver and pass a lot of boats in here.  We skidded over sandbars, sailed through mangrove creeks, and actually sailed very close to one another for the entire day.  We changed positions about 5 times making  for a challenging and educational journey.  All in all, Jake and Chris tacked over 150 times getting through the creeks and the cuts to the finish line where David and Shambie awaited their arrival.  Team Seacats finished 26th and 28th out of the 38 boat fleet.  After finishing the race, we quickly packed the boats away, ate a burger, attended awards, and got back on the road for the 12 hour trip back home.  We're going to plan for this one again next year!

GPS log snippits:

 More Photos in the Team Seacats PHOTO GALLERY! 

  Results Page

Photos courtesy of Rick White, Jerry Wolfe, Jake Kohl.

More pix @

www.acceleratedchaos.com

www.waltercooperphoto.com

www.catsailor.com