The 2009 Tybee 500 Race Coverage

The Finish Was Fast

Much unlike the start, the finish had the boat dashing in fast and under control. Well, except for a few that got a little crossed up in the surf (which by the way no way near the surf at Daytona Beach).

The Dutch Team made a huge comeback from the 24th starting spot to take line honors at ar ound 5:30PM. TCDYC had their best finish of the series, coming in around 6 minutes later. Good on Texas.

Velocity 1 closed the time by a couple of minutes on N20 leader Royal Yellow by finishing 3rd. It was a great finish between Royal Yellow and Royal Orange sailed by youngster, Jared Sonnenklar

All day long everyone has been concerned about Royal Green. They had a nice lead as they went by the Fish Shack at Flagler Beach, but on the tracking they stopped right past there. No one seemed to know what happened to them. Well, the finished about a minute behind Royal Green and Orange, and just ahead of Seacats Orange.

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Following then were:

• Stray Cats
• Accelerated Chaos
• Royal White
• Magic Marine
• Adrenaline
• Chums
• Key Sailing
• Pirates
• Cat in a Hat
• Velocity 3
• Velocity 2
• Zhik
• Velocity 4
• Seacats White (limped in with broken beam)
• Cat Fever

And rumor has it that Tad on Velocity 2 just disposed of their second chute. Ouch!

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Here are some pictures of the finish:

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In the series below Magic Marine (Black Sail) had a slight lead over Accelerated Chaos (Blue Spinnaker), with the later edging out the former

The Start was Disastrous

It was ten minutes before the first boat could manage to get through the surf, set the spinnaker and finally get going. One by one, little by little, a boat here, a boat there.

It is now 25 minutes after the official start and there are still 10 boats that have not negotiated the surf and attained flat water

Three boats have returned with broken parts -- mostly rudders.

Having the pole position seemed to pay off for Royal Green -- they and Jake's Seacats Team were the first to get their kites up and running. Royal Yellow got in the mix as well.

While doing the pictures below, it took about 30 minutes. I just checked the beach again and there are still three boats there, one just now making another attempt at it.

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Here are the pictures of the start:

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Another Day Starting with No Wind

It is looking ugly out there -- almost totally windless. The surf is not very large, but after witnessing yesterdays fiasco what little surf there is could be very formidable

I am not sure of the distance to Fernandina Beach, but it appears to be just short of 100 miles. We can only hope some wind fills in and gets the teams rolling along nicely today.

Certainly we are all hoping there is not going to be another Cocoa Beach leg where teams are arriving at 3 AM. Now that was ugly.

So, stand by for the start. I will be on the beach attempting to get some interesting pictures.

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