The Tybee 500 Race Coverage

Waterhouse Finally Wins One.., or Does He?

After a long, tedious day of sailing in practically no wind conditions, the fleet finally arrived -- almost ten hours after they started.

The wind stayed pretty decent until early afternoon when a huge storm cell popped up and soaked up all of the wind. And it cooled things off over the land so much that it caused an early land breeze (where the air over the water is warmer than the air over the land.., causing the air over the land to move toward the sea). This is the opposite of a sea breeze. Worse, this event does not just happen in moments -- in this case it took all afternoon to decide what it wanted to do.

Meanwhile, the boats just sat there bobbing around.

When they finally hit the finish line it was Rob Waterhouse/Rob Renner of Team Pirates in the lead. Waterhouse, a 3-time Worrell Champ, had expected to be in the winners circle long before now. However, there is a clowd of doubt lingering on whether or not his victory will stick.

At the skippers meeting and in the rules the boats are required to round certain marks to port in order to stay clear of Cape Canaveral. They were also told that failure to comply would result in disqualification from the race. And it seems that two boats did not do as required. Rumor has it that the teams were Pirates and Spacecoast.

A protest has been lodged and a hearing will be held tonight on the subject. So, it seems possible that Waterhouse's finish may be tarnished, if they were indeed the culprits.

The finish line was a real bear to navigate. The wind had switched around to make it a close-hauled beat to cross the line and there was a large surf line. This made for some pretty scary finishes, as you will see by the pictures below.

Coconut Grove Sails was the second boat across the line. Tybee Island had been following 3rd place boat, Sailmax I. John Casey saw the problem and began reaching across the surf to make his last upwind charge very short. It worked and not only passed Sailmax I, but beat them across the line by four minutes. Tybee was the only one that did it right.

Sailmax II had their best showing as they crossed the line in 5th, followed by Morada, St. Louis, Windy Hill and Key Sailing. At this time Velocity is still not in, but is reported to be pretty close.

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As mentioned before the finishes were pretty hairy. Take a look at some of the pictures of the finish:

Coconut Grove Sails was the second team across the line. The following pictures show their bumpy ride to the line.

Sailmax I had the lead over Tybee Island, then sailed too far with the spinnaker before heading up to close-hauled and finishing. He not only lost a position, but over four minutes as well.

But, Tybee Island reached across the surf, cutting the corner, took the lead away from Sailmax I and gained another four minutes. See the pictures below:

SailmaxII had a daggerboard stuck in the down position and could not get it up. So, Carl Roberts trapped off the leeward side of the boat to raise the hull so the crew could get the board up from below.., and all in the roaring surf.

Spacecoast did a little surfing to get in

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The Fleet Got Off to a Nice Start to Ormond Beach

It is the 4th leg of the race from Cocoa Beach to Ormond Beach (Daytona). The winds for the start shifted around to the southwest so it made for a nice spinnaker start.

I was able to get some really pretty, albeit not particularly exciting, shots of the boats all adorned with their kites, but I seemed to have suffered a "senior moment" and all the pictures disappeared from my hard drive. Bam! Just like that! Really sorry about that.

The good news is that the wind should pipe up with the sea breeze and I should be able to get some nice pictures at the finish in Daytona.

There won't be any scouts along the way on this leg -- first you have Cape Canaveral followed by the Canaveral National Seashore, both of which are off limits. Smyrna Beach is the first place where anyone can get a view of the fleet.., and by that time they are almost to the finish line.

Wait.., Chip and Barb Short came to the rescue with some pictures of the start. Here they are:

I have computed the accumulated scores for the entire fleet. Too see it, click here!

For more rumors and comments see the following links:
Catsailor's Hot Line Forum
Bonnie's Sailmax.biz

To check out the Official Results, click here!

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Looks Like Another Slow Day at the Start

Forecast: Partly cloudy. A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 80s. South winds around 5 mph becoming east in the afternoon. Chance of rain 30 percent.

So, we will have another drifting start but they should be able to fly their spinnakers. It will certainly be another paddling start. The big hope is that the sea breeze will fill in to get the boats on up to Ormond Beach.

This leg from Cocoa Beach to Ormond Beach takes the fleet right by Cape Canaveral, home of NASA. It seems they are getting close to another launch and security is very high. Therefore, the fleet will probably have to stay about 3 miles off the cape, or risk arrest.., or being shot at.

Stand by for the start