Tybee 500 Journal 2004

Monday, May 10 2004 - 9:18am (Bonnie's Report)
Richard has just reported that "they're off in a blaze off glory". Everything went off without a hitch from their seventh place start position and the guys have begun the five day journey up the coast on a high note. I also spoke to Jake earlier this morning and he sounded confident and happy. It looks like all these months of hard work and preparation have finally paid off for them. The wind is good so they're looking forward to the ride today. Wish them luck!

Monday, May 10 - 4:29pm (Bonnie's Report)
Jake rang shortly after they landed at around 3pm to tell me they were safe and sound-ish. It seems that they suffered a broken rudder twenty miles into today's leg yet managed to carry on at upwards of eighteen miles an hour for the rest of the way so they opted not to stop and fix it. I'm guessing it affected their finish time, but not nearly as much as a major pit stop would have done. I suppose these things do happen, so let's hope they've gotten it out of the way by sea and land all in one day early on for this race as Richard and Cary suffered a blowout on the RV as well. In any case, Jake and David had a great time out there today. Choppy conditions, mouths full of salt water, knocked down, wrung out, exhilarated, catching a nap before tonight's festivities, and then ready to go again tomorrow. I also have reports that there are photos of Team Seacats from today, but they won't be uploaded until later as the laptop is currently at a different location than the traveling sailgeek.

Monday, May 10 - 7:06pm (sailor's report)
Shaaaaazam! It was a strong bronco ride today! Being that the race is long, we played a very conservative start and started about mid fleet. David and I haven't had a whole lot of heavy air experience and we were tuning as much as we could - it's tough to make those adjustments when it's so windy because the boat will blow over if you come off the trapeze to make them! Besides the standard lines that we had access to on the trapeze, we had to slow down to make a round of adjustments. At least the water was relatively flat with a 1 to 2' chop. We did make few adjustments slowly and were in the back 2/3 of the fleet but now holding position strongly. After running about 18 miles upwind (no tacking) Team Tybee was beginning to pull away from the front of the fleet and we were beginning to contemplate another round of changes. It was about that time we heard a slight bang and David said something along the lines of "uh ohhh". The stainless eye that holds the rudder casting to the top gudgeon had sheared off at the weld and the rudder had bent the lower gudgeon severely. We slowed and removed the dead rudder leaving the cross bar and the tiller. We then placed a call to Richard and Cary to let them know that we had an issue - but they didn't answer! We were baffled that we had to leave a voice mail! However, at that very time, Richard and Cary had their own hands full because they were on the side of highway A1A trying to change a blown out tire on the RV! We decided to carry on a little and see how difficult the boat was to handle. I (Jake) got back out on the trapeze and we measured our speed at 18mph and controllable. So we figured we would give it a go (and hope that the remaining rudder didn't suffer the same ailment). The rudder that broke was on the windward side. If it were the leeward side, there would have been no way we could have continued because we were constantly sailing with the windward hull out of the water. We started losing to the fleet and all the boats except Team Windy Hill had passed us with about 50 miles to go. We had good speed but both of us couldn't get out on the wire because David couldn't reach the broken cross bar. We still made great speed. With about 15 miles to go, the sea state started to get bigger and more confused. It was getting very difficult to predict when a wave was going to wash over the side of the boat - and they were hitting hard. I was on the trapeze with both a fore and aft chicken line attached and kept getting my feet swept out from under me. Several times, large waves swept the side of the boat in excess of 20knots sweeping my feet away. While the chicken lines kept me from being pushed back on the boat, the result was me spinning around the trapeze wire - the last time I spun so hard and fast that my head took off some of the graphics from the hull! We decided that me staying on the wire was becoming a bit of a liability so I came in off the wire and proceeded to try and block the deluge of salt water from hitting David. So much water had been sprayed in our faces that our tongues were swelling and our eyes stinging from the salt water. It was rough out there. We finally spied the finish line and finished carefully so that we wouldn't have to gybe or tack the boat. Whew! Hollywood threw a great little bash and provided dinner for the teams. I've got to get going so I can get the GPS programmed for tomorrow's run. Haven't even had time to check the forecast yet!

Monday, May 10 - 7:53pm (Bonnie's Report)
Check out Catsailor for more photos of Team Seacats and our exciting beach landing (with one rudder)...http://www.catsailor.com/Tybee04/T04Leg1.htm.

Tuesday, May 11 - 4:30pm (Bonnie's Report)
It was another fast and furious day for David and "Cowboy Jake" who landed on the beach with another photogenic and entertaining finish at just after 3pm. They lost a few minutes with a capsize at one point and had a spinnaker halyard jam, but other than that there were no major malfunctions. Pointy side up, rudders intact, both sailors on board, check. Everyone else wasn't so fortunate today. Besides our good friends at Team Weather Mark who had to drop out before the first leg due to a blown out knee incurred during a practice run, today saw Team Brevard Challenge dropping out due to illness and Team Howard's Pub didn't make it off the beach until after the start and with an alternate crew due to reports of a dislocated shoulder. It remains to be seen whether or not Team Loewen will be continuing or not, although I've heard conflicting reports. And don't ask Team Spacecoast about rudders today. Yikes! We wish all those guys the best. I hear that Team Castrol is throwing everyone a pizza party tonight so that's really going to be a good time for the guys to get together and swap sailing stories (and perhaps brag a bit!) compare notes, and keep their spirits up for the challenges yet to come. Thank God that they're all in safe and sound again today. Bonnie's worry mode, switched off for today.

Tuesday, May 11 - 5:21 (sailor's report)
Whewww. Did I say Wheewww? Wow...it was a washing machine today for the first 3/4 of this leg. Countless times did David and I have our feet yanked from beneath us while on the wire. Twice we both landed with our butts on the hull and countless other times were we slammed, butt first, into the hull of DLW. She held though...it is amazing the beating these boats can withstand. I can't even describe the amount of water that was flying. I had hold of the main sheet and when I saw a big wave coming, I would sheet in hard to try and raise the windward hull. Only half of the time could I get it high enough (45 degrees or better) less the wave would hit us HARD. The waves were coming in at us at about 90 degrees. It's amazing how hard water can hit you. We've got a small issue and need to figure out how to keep the spinnaker in the bag. We burned a lot of speed trying to re-secure the spinnaker. It was extremely difficult because the waves were hitting the bottom of the trampoline so hard, it was launching me upwards until my waist hit the boom and I was hanging onto the hiking straps for dear life. We were working hard to try and overtake Team Windy Hill when the spinnaker came loose again! I went in to try and contain it somehow when we went over. David landed hard almost headfirst into the main because the chicken line prevented him from launching off the back of the boat as he would normally. He quickly responded that he was OK and we set out to right the boat - that was easy in these waves and wind and we only lost a few minutes. With the boat going a little slower, we did take five minutes to sit on the hull and regain our breath - this was brutal. A quick Gu carb gel pack for each of us and we were off again trying to catch Team Windy Hill. The wind slowly switched to the south and we debated about setting the spinnaker - turns out we hesitated too long. Not having this kind of wind and sea experience, it's deceiving how much a spinnaker can help you safely increase your speed. Nonetheless, we later went to hoist the chute, but the halyard wouldn't come up - it was jammed, BIG TIME! Seems that a trapeze wire had come loose during the capsize and had wrapped around the skipper's trapeze wire, the spinnaker halyard, and the shroud - everything was practically sewn together! It took us 15 minutes to sort that out and finally got the spinnaker hoisted. The ride got much better and we overtook several boats afterwards. We came in through the surf with a hot landing (beach bystanders screaming "ride 'em cowboy" at me as I stood on the hull ready to raise the daggerboard). We slid up the beach so far that we almost hit the boat of Rick and Brandy of Team OZ! Rick says that he will have some great photos on Catsailor later today of the landing. It was incredible. We were quite surprised that we were the 9th boat to finish today, sailed farther but sailed for an hour less than yesterday! Amazing! I sure am glad that David and I started physical training in January for this when we did. Today was very tough. After about three hours of getting hammered, I made the comment to David that "nothing will ever be quite as dramatic in my life again". Glad to have finished well - glad to be done for the day.

Tuesday, May 11 - 5:21 (sailor's report)
Check out Catsailor at http://www.catsailor.com/Tybee04/T04Leg2.htm as we made press again with the hot landing - David has acquired quite a handle for this boat!

Wednesday, May 12 - 11:45am (Bonnie's Report)
It was a hairy start this morning with the teams punching through some rough surf. Richard rang in to to report that our guys got spun around pretty good a couple of times. After regaining their sense of direction and control of the boat they were off again. It was an equally dramatic start for many of the other teams, featuring near collisions between race leaders, Teams Tybee and Castrol. Amazingly, there was no major damage. Richard said that one team had damage to a rudder and had to come in for repairs before taking off again, but wireless reception was fairly spotty today and I didn't catch the name of the team. In any case, thank God there was no serious damage in a two tier Le Mans start through heavy surf that could have been disastrous. Have you seen the photos? Lordy! http://www.catsailor.com/Tybee04/Tybee04.htm It should be another fast action day for them as well as a good spinnaker leg, so I'm hoping that they won't have any trouble with that today. I'll post back as soon as I hear from Jake.

Wednesday, May 12 -12:45pm (Bonnie's Report)
I just heard from the ground crew that the guys rang from the boat to say that their spinnaker pole had broken and they had subsequently blown out their spinnaker. By all reports, it's a shaping up to be a great spinnaker run for all the boats who are making great time with Team Castrol once again in the lead. At least they're not reaching so this slight setback may not damage their finish time too badly. The good news is that they have an extra spinnaker. I don't know about the pole and I didn't ask. Surely those crafty boys can rig up something serviceable. Richard said that they were okay and in good spirits so that's all I really care about!

Wednesday, May 12 - 8:30pm (Bonnie's Report)
It was a loooong day for Team Seacats today. Suffering the handicap of having their spinnaker shredded to bits and their pole snapped early on in the leg while everyone else steamrolled away on a great downwind run made the day quite a disappointment for the guys. Here's the race standings situation as I understand it: Due to a particular section of the rules (which will likely be rewritten next year) they could have taken a DNF and it would have placed them in at an hour and a half better time than their actual finish time. Richard, Team Manager, called the guys on the water and asked them if they wanted to pursue this avenue since the rules say that a DNF will be assigned the last boat's time plus 30 minutes. David and Jake said, No, that they came to finish, and opted for the longer, actual, time instead. I thought this was the classier move, personally, even if it had them limping into Cocoa Beach at around 7pm. And the shredded spinnaker...what happened? Again, to the best of my ability and recollection of what I was told (I'm learning, but sometimes I still just smile and nod): It's hard to tell in the ocean with these strong swells on these beachcats, just how much is too much when you're pushing these boats for speed. It a fine art and they're still learning it. In short, they were a bit overpowered. They stuffed it, but HARD. That's when the spinnaker pole broke. Then they flipped it and all kinds of hell broke loose. Everything became convoluted and snared: the rapidly shredding chute, wires, pole pieces. It was an unholy mess. David ended up cutting the pole and spinnaker loose altogether. A sacrifice to the wind gods or offshore littering...take your pick. They did consider having a spare chute and pole brought to them by the ground crew but opted out because they had no idea at what location to have them meet and because the condition of the wind and the strength of the surf was such that they felt that they might not be able to punch back through or be able to get out to the place to take advantage of the winds they would need to use the spinnaker. After all, everyone already had such a tumultuous launch earlier this morning. Who knows what they feel about it in hindsight, but I do know that Jake is just happy to be done for the day. They're strategy is just to finish in one piece. Thanks from all of us to all of you guys today: Tad, John, Chuck with Rick Bliss, Key Sailing, and everyone else who either helped or was so quick to offer your help, support, and concern. It really means a lot to everyone at Team Seacats.

Wednesday, May 12 - 9:06pm (sailor's report)
I told Bonnie that I wouldn't be reporting in tonight but I had to turn the computer on to program the GPS units anyway - so I figured I would chime in for a second. It's difficult to know where the edge is with these boats - and when you're frustrated after a poor beach start and capsizing once, it's even harder to slow down when you're making great progress on the fleet in front of you. We don't have much experience sailing in this kind of sea and wind and we certainly wouldn't have gone out for a pleasure cruise in the conditions today! I'm tired, bruised, and disappointed that when the conditions finally became ideal in the last 40 miles, we were without our spinnaker. The waves were pretty amazing this morning. The boat would be just shuddering down the face of a wave, David trying to counter the affect of the acceleration on the sail trim with steerage and me sheeting like mad. When I could get enough courage, I would occasionally steal a glance back at the wall of water behind us with two sizzling white streaks scaring the face of it where we had just been. David and I suffered two capsizes today and both of them made us both do a little soul searching. Early in the day, we were simply hit by a gust when David lost traction on the trampoline and began to slide down. This makes it tough to continue properly steering and we went over. I jumped into the water underneath the boom. When I came back up, David was suspended upside down because he shoe had become entangled in our storage bag lacing. With the boat still laying on it's side but threatening to go turtle, I climbed up to the boom so I could reach David's foot. Previously, I had been carrying a rescue hook attached to my trapeze harness but realized, at this very moment, that I had forgotten to transfer it when I put on a second harness this morning. great. I still had a rigging knife deep inside a narrow pocket on my life vest so I quickly started going for it - but it was underneath my flashlight, power bars, and Gu packs! I frantically dug inside the pocket throwing away our lunch and my flashlight but still couldn't get to the knife while I stayed balanced on the boom. Quickly changing to plan B, I decided that I would swim to the other side of the boat and try prevent the turtling motion but by the time I got into the water, I realized the boat was going to go too fast. By now, both of us are starting to be pretty concerned. My strategy now is to hope David will be able to clear his head past the rear beam to gain breathing room while I frantically hoped to reach my knife soon. Both came true and with a sigh of relief, I was able to cut the trampoline hiking strap just after the boat had gone turtle.

I was pretty surprised that we were able to regain a competitive mental state after sorting the boat back out - but we weren't talking as much as we had been. David kept the hammer down and we were absolutely smokin' while quickly regaining lost time. We caught and passed a few boats at the tail end of the pack when a vertical wall of water just appeared out of nowhere. The boat decelerated with an unbelievable force and my right leg, that had previously been bracing both David and I against the daggerboard in front of us, slid between the daggerboard and the shroud as my body was flung outside the boat. I clearly remember saying through clenched teeth; "don't break!, don't break!, don't break!". Along with most of the boat, several feet of the bottom of the spinnaker went into this wave forcing the spinnaker pole downward and snapping it in two. We tried to save the spinnaker but couldn't get it free of the snarled mess up front and between the sharp broken pole and the daggerboards under the boat the spinnaker met it's demise. The mess that was remaining of the spinnaker finally cleared the boat and while remaining attached to the halyard, ended up capsizing us. David quickly directed me to cut away anything that wasn't crucial - I asked for confirmation twice because the 'MacGyver' in me wanted to hold on to as much as possible since things were failing pretty quickly today. You never know what we might need to rig out of something. Alas, I cut it all away and immediately felt the boat sigh a breath of release as we watched the spinnaker drift down and away. Naturally, within 15 minutes of this event, the sun came out and the wind laid down bit which left us pretty underpowered with 40 miles to go downwind. Richard is still out at the boat rigging up a new spin pole, halyard, and our old backup spinnaker (nicknamed "Buckwheat" - for what I don't know) in the dark with parts that New England Catamarans had onsite.

Tomorrow's rounding of Cape Canaveral will be a little tricky because it's a 'terrorism sensitive area'. We've been warned that the area within one mile of shore of the airport and launch facility will be patrolled by military gunboats who will approach, fine, and/or confiscate our boats if we penetrate the one mile zone without a damn serious reason (other than racing). Got to be careful programming the GPS units tonight! We've made it halfway and we're going to Tybee. Tomorrow's another day - three more to go.

Friday, May 14 - 5:15pm
The lead that Team Castrol had over Team Tybee Island has been shortened somewhat after a bad start this morning when Jay Sonnenklar of Team Castrol was knocked from their boat by a wave. With only six minutes between the two teams, there's still the awareness that anything can happen, particularly in a long distance race like this. It should be quite an exciting afternoon on the beach at Tybee Island as the teams make their way in from the final, and longest, leg of the race, at just around 100 miles. I just spoke with Jake and he said they had another great day day today. They had fun, didn't break anything, and no one sustained any injuries. The only negative thing to report is a nasty case of dry suit rash around Jake's neck. Bless his heart, please don't anyone call my man a redneck. However, if you are able to make it out to Tybee Island to see the boats coming in, then you've earned the right to call both him and David anything you like! Here are the details, if you're interested: The finish line will be in front of the Ocean Plaza Beach Resort http://www.oceanplaza.com The boats will begin to arrive mid afternoon. There will be ground crews on hand (including our guys, Richard and Cary, who should be rolling up from Fernandina Beach at around 1pm), plus other sailing folk with whom to chat, and girl in bikinis for you to ogle, so you won't be alone. Catamaran expert Rick White will be reporting and taking photographs for http://www.catsailor.com He's always got some good stories and is a lot of fun. I've been to one of these beach landings in the past and they're really interesting. I would encourage you to check it out and cheer them all on if you're within driving distance!

Friday, May 14 - 8:01pm (sailor's report)
Great day today! We finally got some weather and seas that us "lake sailors" could deal with...rolling and following 3 to 4' swells and 10 to 15 knot breeze! We had a decent start and were about the 5th boat to pop our spinnaker. It never saw the bag again until we hit Fernandina Beach 90 some odd miles later! After the start we were actually closing on Team Tybee and Castrol (we were in the second start one minute behind them) but they soon found low gear and motored away. It's amazing the speed these guys have. We hung tightly with the second group for the entire rest of the way but were wondering what our new spinnaker (that was shredded two days ago) might have allowed us to do today. The GPS units were marvelous as we were able to lay the very tip end of the Jacksonville jetty from over 15 miles away. We thought we had the advantage on Key Sailing and the Semp Toshiba team because they were waaaay in at the shore line about a mile away with the jetty approaching. We thought that they would definitely have to drop their spinnakers in order to clear the jetty. I suppose it's the old backup chute that we are using - but we were going as high as we could and maintain speed to get to the jetty from where we were when Key Sailing and Semp Toshiba made a slight right adjustment and amazingly carried their spinnakers to the jetty. We finished just behind them but in front of three other boats. If only we hadn't shredded our brand new spinnaker a couple of days ago! It was a fun day - we saw some huge fish jumping (David saw them over my shoulder and I heard the splash) and we saw a baby Manta Ray (about 30" wide) do an airborne back flip about 20' in front of the boat (I wonder what was chasing it?). As usual, we spotted several sea turtles - some quite large. Our rudders are still singing a little and we suspect that they are acting like the 'deer whistles' you can install on your car in that the turtles dive long before we get close to them.

We were about 1.5 hours behind the whole pack three days ago - we made up quite a bit and are roughly 30 minutes behind last place now going into the last leg. The last leg to Tybee presents a couple of options. Option A) follow the bending coast line where you are guaranteed to have good wind but have to dodge shoals and sandbars and travel a farther route. Option B) Shoot 11 miles out to sea to cut the corner straight to Tybee - it's shorter, there are no shoals, BUT even less guarantee for wind. If the regional weather pattern is strong enough, as it has been all week, to overcome or equal the geographical sea breeze then the offshore run to Tybee might be the quickest route; but this doesn't happen often and taking the straight line can be quite a gamble. Does the decision become easier when you are already in last place? We'll see tomorrow!

On another note, I'm sorry for not posting yesterday - We felt so good after finally having a great and competitive day of sailing but it too ended badly - we just didn't feel much like talking. If you've been paying attention to other websites or were watching the evening news throughout Florida or up the coast as far as Virginia we had an incident where we accidentally hit a race official who was holding one of the finish line flags, while finishing yesterday. These I20's are spectacular ocean boats but like all catamarans, once the rudders pop up in the surf we're at the mercy of the wind and the waves and left with very little control. Yes, there was a photographer waist deep in the water in the middle of the finish line and while he was a distraction, we don't feel that we really had to seriously avoid him. However, the good news is that the official is perfectly fine sans a bruise or two and we're thrilled that he was not seriously injured.

Sunday, May 16 8:01pm (sailor's report)
We're all back home now with the antiseptic ointment and band aids applied - fortunately no need for sutures or casts! What a life altering journey this race is. I guess we should talk a little about the run on Saturday first. We did decide to go for the shorter, but riskier, rhumb line route as did several other boats. We had a pretty slow start through the surf and were slowly picking up a few spots on the water. While we were just out of sight of land, the wind got pretty light for several hours and we were just trying to keep the boats behind us from gaining on us. At this point, we were pretty convinced that the rhumb line was probably a mistake because we were not moving very well. However, we were sailing close hauled (sailing upwind) on starboard (with the wind on our right side) which meant that boats farther to the left, on shore, would have to start tacking to stay away from land if they had the same wind pattern. This would be a big advantage to us! Meanwhile, we were casting hopeful gazes at the sky ahead hoping to see some building clouds - which is a good sign of wind to come. While about 10 miles offshore, we passed close to some boats that were fishing. we must have given them a pretty wild distraction. We could see it in their confused stare as we sailed past them at about 8 knots; "what in the heck were these tiny sail boats doing all the way out here!?". Shortly thereafter, we looked back toward the sky and THERE THEY WERE! The clouds we had been dreaming about! Eeeexxxcept, these were REALLY dark and ominous. This gave us a pause for a moment because we were pretty far out to sea in this tiny little boat and it looked like we might be in for a pretty rough storm. We performed a quick listen on the weather radio but there were no severe weather warnings. We relaxed a little while we prepared the boat for a quick 'gear shift' to heavy air mode for when we arrived at the impending weather system. Team Jaypro, on a Nacra 6.0NA, was ahead of us by about 300 yards and Team Space Coast and one other I20 were behind us by about the same amount when the wind started building. I quickly shot out on the trapeze and started making adjustments from there while David kept the boat moving fast. It looked like Jaypro was caught off guard by the strengthening and shifting wind and we sailed right up to them before they really got into gear. Jaypro changed their angle of sail and for a moment we thought they were coming up to block us from passing them which would have been a good tactic. We matched their higher angle (away from Tybee Island) until David was frustrated with how this was taking us away from where we wanted to be going. He yelled through the now howling wind "We're going under 'em!". This was my quick queue to prepare for a sail trim change because we were about to change direction hard and fast. In a flash of flying hull and spraying water, David twitched the tiller to turn the boat down underneath Team Jaypro as I quickly countered by readjusting the sails. We did this quickly so Jaypro wouldn't have the time to react in order to protect their position. It worked and we secured the pass and carried that momentum to a pretty substantial lead over all the boats out here with us! That was encouraging! The wind continued to strengthen and change direction until we were on a beam reach and SMOKING with the spinnaker up. When I could take my eyes away from the incoming waves for a split second, I would glance at the GPS and we were achieving 20knots of speed with occasional bursts higher. This was GREAT! Although the wind had shifted somewhat to the advantage of the boats nearer shore, the wind came from offshore so we had it first and we couldn't see a single boat ahead of us. We actually had thoughts that we might be first to the beach for that Harken Bullet Award! With our backup spinnaker tugging at my worn out overworked hands, I noticed that the plate that holds the spinnaker halyard cleat was bending significantly. Being the Engineer that I am, I remarked to David "wow! I wonder how much more that thing can take!". It wasn't twenty seconds later when, "BAM!", the spinnaker halyard slipped out of the cleat and the spinnaker was released and flowing back behind the boat. I came in off the trapeze as quickly as I could (we're all pretty stiff by now and after being in the trapeze for hours straight it gets substantially worse) and started to rehoist the spinnaker. When the spinnaker resisted going all the way back up the mast, I realized that it had gotten snagged on a batten on the back of the main sail and had torn! The tear was about 32" long but it was vertical and in the top/middle of the sail - we could still use it...PROBABLY. We continued to work hard for a couple of hours in this wind while we quickly closed in on Tybee Island. The wind shifted back to the east and we dropped the ailing spinnaker. We finally saw land ahead and were able to lock in on the big water tower to keep on course. As we approached within a mile or so of the beach, the wind continued to turn more southerly again to the point that hoisting the spinnaker made sense - except that the boats behind us were pretty far back, the wind was roaring, the spinnaker already had a tear (that was currently repairable but could get a lot worse), there were some very shallow spots ahead, and we were exhausted. We decided to sail in safely without using the spinnaker. We were pretty crushed when we could see that there were already several boats on the beach - today wasn't the day for the rhumb line after all. The water around Tybee is very shallow and the waves were pretty high and confused but we had an uneventful landing and were elated to have finished the Tybee 500! We could actually hear the cheer of the crowd over the breaking surf before we slid up on the beach to conclude half a year's hard work by a bunch of dedicated volunteers. We can now look at any globe and point out the very inch that we conquered with a 20 foot beach catamaran.

The effort that this team put forth to keep this boat in the race was absolutely incredible. Richard Leaphart stayed busy all day long with driving and parking the RV, checking in and out of hotels, taking the pictures, repairing the boat (we kept him busy there!), and every finite detail you could never think of. Cary Palmer handled rigging details and made countless sprints back to the RV and the hotel room grabbing things that we forgot just before the start. Cary pushed the boat out into the surf every day and ran beach wheels up and down the beach day after day after day and assisted Richard throughout the week. Cary did all this even through having a nasty sinus infection for the entire week and never complained once. David endured serious butt cheek discomfort and drove the boat in seas and wind that even power boats wouldn't dare to take on - and he drove like a mad man. I pulled strings - a lot of 'em - and my hands are so swollen right now that I can barely type. But it all feels good because we've accomplished a very respectable feat that few people in this world would even consider doing. It was a lot of work to make this happen and we couldn't have done it without the help of our sponsors; The Sailing Pro Shop, The members of the Columbia Sailing Club, IMS of Belton, Bruce Marine, Richard Leaphart, Cary Palmer, Candace Leaphart, and our web mistress; my very own Bonnie. To all of you a Big Big, THANK YOU for making this week a reality.