I depart tomorrow afternoon for an adventure with Alan Stewart aboard his custom built 22' trimaran "Mosquito". We're taking part in the Everglades Challenge which is part of several challenge events run by the Watertribe (watertribe.com). The race starts just north of Tampa Bay in Fort Desoto Park and finishes in Key Largo. Other than requirements for safety and survival gear, the only real restrictions are that you must launch your boat from the high tide mark (restricts boat design somewhat) and there are three checkpoints we have to visit along the way. In years past, some of these checkpoints were behind bridges that restricted the boat designs (dropping masts, maximum beam, etc.) but this year there are no more bridges or other obstructions along the way. You don't have to do anything other than sign a log book and ping your Spot tracker while "presenting your boat" at the checkpoints. You can stay a while and reprovision if you wish...or just turn around and keep on trucking. Two of the three checkpoints are relatively easy to access but the middle one, Chokoloskee, requires navigating several creeks and over extended distances of shallow mucky water. The backside of the keys in Florida Bay can also be a real challenge and we will have a choice to either pick our way through the shallow Florida Bay or sailing around it and essentially take the Key Largo Steeplechase route back to Key Largo. This race has 144 entries (last I checked) that range everywhere from stand up paddle boards, kayaks, kayaks with sails, to our 24' trimaran and everything anyone can come up with in between. Boats are divided up into 6 different classifications for the race. We're in class 5 "small sailing multihulls" and we're hoping to present a threat to be near the front in Class 5. With regards to our sleep and rest plans...that all depends on how close to the front we are or how closely we're being chased . Every competitor has a Spot tracker and you will be able to follow the race here:
Here's a video from last weekend and a couple of pictures of Alan's trimaran we're sailing. We haven't had much time to test and tune since we made several changes to the boat. My early impressions are that we may struggle a little going hard to weather until we get a chance to work on some trimming techniques but the boat is proving to be a real monster on reaching angles (especially with the giant code 0 Alan has equipped it with). We're carrying sails on a recycled F18HT mast with a square top main, roller furling jib, roller furling code 0, and an F18 spinnaker. We were able to do better than double wind speed on Lake Keowee last weekend and we'll be able to figure some new things along the way.
Alan's blog will also have some information here and I'll probably be posting some stuff to my facebook wall (Jake Kohl). http://www.sailnaway.blogspot.com/
Good luck, looks like a great adventure! Is there a mandatory amount of sleep or can you sail 24/7?
No sleep requirements whatsoever. The race record is just over 28 hours on an Olympic Tornado (Jamie Livingston / Kenny Pierce). The center hatch on Alan's tri has a subdeck under it and it's sized to be able to crawl into and lay prone to do something resembling sleep.
Alan and his dad currently own the monohull record of just over two days and he and his mom own the current 1,200 mile Ultimate Florida event record as well.
Jake, if you're going to attempt a "modicum of sleep like behavior" in that tunnel berth I'd suggest those little foam earplugs. They'll deaden a lot (but not all) of the noise.
I suspect that inside that berth will sound like a wooden barrel rolling down a rocky slope.
I wish you and your skipper the best. Ron White and Mike Fahle on the former 1992 Olympic sailed Tornado, Jamie and Kenny aboard their Tornado, Randy on his homebuilt tri, and Meade Gougeon are names worth mentioning. The talent in the tribe, and the spirit of the Challenge will last a lifetime.
I'm on a boat. I'm not going to tell you how, but we have technology baby! We are making good time on a straight line down the coast. Smyth is slowly getting out of site. Alan and I are leaving the tornados behind and have about lost sight of them. Jamie and Kenny had some sort of problem and headed back. I can't get to the tracking site to see if they're back out or not...hope so.
I wish you and your skipper the best. Ron White and Mike Fahle on the former 1992 Olympic sailed Tornado, Jamie and Kenny aboard their Tornado, Randy on his homebuilt tri, and Meade Gougeon are names worth mentioning. The talent in the tribe, and the spirit of the Challenge will last a lifetime.
Enjoy the journey, Bert
Mike fahle didn't make it for some reason. I gotta get back to sailing before Alan yells at me.
Good luck Jake and Alan. I'm jealous, as every year.
The tracker is overloaded. Discussion and FB said Jamie and Kenny are "out with a busted rudder." I hope they have a spare at the beach if nothing else. Randy is notorious for "forgetting" to turn on his tracker.
Hey Todd, The issue is only with their main tracking page. If you click on Class 5 on the Class dropdown and click regenerate, that works or if you click on SOS on the Challenger dropdown and click Regenerate, that works too.
SewSew (Smyth) is tracking. SewSew 9:49 Past Ten Thousand Island SOS 10:42 Behind by quite a bit just Past North Naples
The last several updates have shown SOS at 0 knts and would appear to be headed back north. I hope all is OK aboard the mosquito.
Swamp mockery has a sizable lead at this point.
Smyth is MIA on my screen.
Edit, changed the view to show tracks and waypoints which put everyone in very different places, looks like SOS is nearing checkpoint #2 just behind Smyth. It would appear to me that they are making great time.
SOS appears to now be in the trees, guess they stopped for some sleep while waiting on daylight to navigate to checkpoint 2, looks like they have a pretty comfortable 2nd place with some time before 3rd reaches them.
Randy's put down some real distance in the last few hours, seems to be keeping 11-12 knts boat speed.
SOS appears to now be in the trees, guess they stopped for some sleep while waiting on daylight to navigate to checkpoint 2, looks like they have a pretty comfortable 2nd place with some time before 3rd reaches them.
Randy's put down some real distance in the last few hours, seems to be keeping 11-12 knts boat speed.
i have the same issue. it was showing SOS in open water, then near the next check point, now back in open water.
i can't see Randy at all and on the results page it doesn't have him making the first check point.
Looks like an interesting race for class 5 2nd. SOS retraced their path west out to open water and Swampmonkey is taking a more direct but potentially hazardous in-shore route. Winds out of the SE means it will be a beat of sorts. In that case, the outer path where the daggers can be all the way down might pay off. Or will it?
Have there been any videos posted to You Tube yet? I love to see all the new creations some of the competitors come up with.
What's Randy sailing? A new design or that scissors folding trimaran thing he had?
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: The Everglades Challenge - 03/03/1404:07 PM
Yes the scissor was there but had different amas than last years. these had remote controlled flood/drain hatches on the stern of each ama. Looked like the same a-cat main body but i am not 100% on that.
Originally Posted by Timbo
Have there been any videos posted to You Tube yet? I love to see all the new creations some of the competitors come up with.
What's Randy sailing? A new design or that scissors folding trimaran thing he had?
I didn't check the times the SPOT transmitted, but my map seems to show SwampMonkee ahead of SOS by less than a mile?
That Steeplechase-esqe route is pretty familiar with both teams so if those tracks are correct, would make for interesting tactics in that last stretch
I didn't check the times the SPOT transmitted, but my map seems to show SwampMonkee ahead of SOS by less than a mile?
That Steeplechase-esqe route is pretty familiar with both teams so if those tracks are correct, would make for interesting tactics in that last stretch
Swampmonkeys time is 10 min more recent, could be pretty close!
Looks like SwampMonkey got em. Saw the boat (and the driver - Ron White I believe - nice guy) in Sarasota last October. Boat looked really sweet. Very interesting wing setup. Some nice carbon fiber bits too such as the integrated snuffer/spin pole.
is the anchor for results. Ron's history in trimarans on the Great Lakes and his devotion to Johnny Lovell's and Charlie Ogletree's Tornado they used in China, revealed to me that he is a mariner... very nice guy I actually met at FWYC.
I asked Donnie Brennan, Boatwright for the Olympic Sailing Team, if that sprit for the code zero was the one he designed and built. After seeing the photo of the boat at Sarasota Sailing Squadron, he said it was.
Small world - sailing can be, hope to hear from Jake soon, Bert
welp, we're back! What an adventure! A brief run-down:
Randy hit the creeks at CP2 just in time to catch the last bit of the incoming high tide and ride the ebbing tide out. We hit the Chockoloskee creeks at a little after 3am and were met with a ripping tide. We tried to paddle sail through it but we getting killed and every time we gained 50 yards, we would lose 100 or hit bottom (remember it's a new moon so it was pretty darn dark). We finally decided to try and tie up the boat somewhere and get some sleep. After spending an hour trying to get the boat secured (the bottom was really shelly and we couldn't get the anchor to set) we tried to sleep while still in our dry suits but it was pretty useless (shrimp snapping under the trampoline and fish or other things sloshing around in the cove...then the gnats found us). We tried to get going again once the morning light started to appear and struggled to gain anything. The current was ripping through those creeks. After about three hours of that, Alan finally jumped out and walked the boat about 1.5 miles up the sides of the mangrove creeks while I spoted for gators . The bay coming into that checkpoint was long, upwind, and about 1.5 feet deep and it took us the better part of an hour to get across that to the checkpoint. By that time, the tide turned and we had to fight it to get out. We lost about 5 hours trying to get to CP2 and it allowed the guys behind us to catch up.
With it being so tough getting out of CP2, we were betting that the Tornado behind us couldn't get out and that we had some buffer. We figured we could shut down for about 3 hours at the Flamingo checkpoint and get some sleep. I set my sleeping bag and bivy under a tree in the grass at about 1:30am but that too was kinda silly. I could hear the mosquitos swarming at me, landing on the netting that was resting against my face, and the bivy isn't the most comfortable thing in the world - kinda like a body bag. I think I actually got about 45 minutes of sleep. My alarm went off right before Alan woke me up pointing out that Swamp Monkey had just arrived. We quickly got back into our dry suits, packed the boat, and took off.
We debated on the inside or outside route for a long time and finally decided that running aground again and again with a head wind would be a PIA and that if we took the outside route we could rip along and stay ahead of Swamp Monkey. Clearly that didn't work and we ended up doing more upwind work than we expected. Swamp Monkey and Chainsaw beat us to the finish by about an hour and a half. Those guys never stopped to sleep and sailed a great race. I don't feel so bad about getting beat by them.
I have a raging cold and am getting ready to go back to bed. I took a tone of video and will be putting those together over the next couple of weeks. Later!
Nice account, and I know there are many more of us looking forward to seeing the story unfold. Posting on this forum, while racing, is a first, to my limited knowledge.
Ditto what Mike said it was great following you guys. It was frustrating as hell when the WT tracker would lock up. Alan's dad sent me your SPOT link and it worked pretty well. Lot's of different strategies on that last leg. Get yourself well.
out of curiosity, do they try to time the start with high-tide?
Or do you just have to hope there's not some huge low tide you have to drag the boat down to?
I like the boat ramp setup they have a short distance away (on the google earth picture). Maybe some cruising boats could follow the course for those less inclined to "rough it" ?
out of curiosity, do they try to time the start with high-tide?
Or do you just have to hope there's not some huge low tide you have to drag the boat down to?
I like the boat ramp setup they have a short distance away (on the google earth picture). Maybe some cruising boats could follow the course for those less inclined to "rough it" ?
Launching from the beach is designed to be one of the few "filters" to restrict the boat size. I don't know that there is any consideration for the tide for the start...it's usually at 7am on that Saturday. The boats have to be above the high water mark on the beach before the start signal. You can self-impose a weather hold on yourself if you the conditions are scary but I think this is the only way you can delay launching...and it needs to be a pretty understandable reason. Waiting for the tide probably won't be an excusable start delay.
Getting into and out of the checkpoints are one of the biggest challenges for the sailing class of boats. The tides at Check Point 2 are incredibly important and caused us to lose 5 hours because we got there just after the door had closed. There is also extended travel through water that's 1.5 feet deep into checkpoint 2...so a cruising boat is probably not the best fit for this kind of race.
These requirements drive a lot of the interesting boat designs - Randy's tri is especially refined for the requirements of this race and sailing single handed. Alan's tri has a lot of features built into it for these things too. I'm already scheming around a design to make it faster through some of the tough spots of the course (I have no idea if I would ever build it). I'm trying to answer the question of whether a cat or a tri is the best fit and I'm not sure what the answer is.
Checkpoint 2 is my freakin' backyard. I agree that it's a challenge when it comes to timing your entry/exit during "full" tides (in or out)with that current kicking. I'd be hesitant to do it at night, too.
Drawing only 18" does have an advantage.
Looks like your track showed you went up Indian Key Pass, and exited Turtle Key.
Swampmonkee went back west and looks like they shot out Chokoloskee pass.
Sounds like successful navigation around CP 2 and CP 3 are the keys to this race?
Jake, You are a man of action to race all those distance races. respect, to all the adventurers.
what SewSew has going for it is the light weight long narrow main hull. fineness ratio is key in displacement boats. He can both paddle and sail with great efficiency, most likely. I think he is able to balance on 1 hull a lot. A twin hulled catamaran can't do that in paddling conditions, so more drag. A fast cat should be able to do better in the open Gulf winds though, i would guess. Perhaps the long narrow light weight hull plus 1 ama could be a solution? A tacking proa of sorts that you put a rack and trapeze off the main hull to take some of the load off the ama when it is to leeward. Yet when you are paddling the ama would have very little drag. Kind of the less is more theory.
From my arm chair it appears that rowing a tri from the center hull would be more efficient than a catamaran. Low freeboard would make it even easier but be much wetter, perhaps this is why Randy's boat is so well designed.
Would like Jake's input on completing the following (as they pertain to your EC experience):
"I wished I would have carried...."
"I never thought I'd have..."
"I'm glad I prepared for the EC by...."
"I wished I hadn't brought...."
"What I SHOULD have used (instead of)..."
"The coolest thing I didn't expect was...."
"The worst thing I didn't expect was...."
"When I do the EC next year, I'll...."
All you'll get out of me for now is "I wish I didn't stop to try and sleep". It took a lot of time, we didn't get much (spent four hours to get 1.5 hours of real sleep), and it partially cost us 2nd place. I'm early and deep into dreaming on designs and/or modifications for next year and it will be a dark shed project to be revealed when it's too late for people to steal ideas.
We were fast...very fast...but not fast enough to catch Smyth. If it weren't for tidal doors and weather windows (i.e. if we were sailing in identical conditions side by side), I'm figuring Smyth probably would have beat us by about 6 hours on 36 hours of sailing...so we need to find 15% more speed / efficiency to at least have a shot at knocking on his door. We have a few other things to refine.
I wasn't thinking much about the boat design, more your preparation...
Ok...I wasn't really overprepped or underprepped. I had Alan's advice and experience which was helpful. A good sleeping bag , bivy, one man tent (again not used in the trip but was in the campground), good sleeping pad. We spent about $80 on food and probably ate 1/3rd of it. Tuna and Salmon packs (just grab with your hand and stuff your mouth while sailing), power bars, cliff bars...the trail mix offered a good alternative. We packed 5 freeze dried meals and made four of them. You can't underestimate the positive effect a hot meal has on you when the sun first sets. We made a second set of freeze dried meals the second night at about 1am but neither one of us could really eat any of them...we were in too much of a hurry. We probably each consumed 4 or 6 power bars, two tuna packs, two freeze dried meals and 2 to 3 gallons of water. BUT! You have to plan for a trip that could have problems and might take longer...so you need to pack the stuff you know you probably won't need.
A good flashlight is important - I have a combo strobe/flashlight on my life jacket shoulder strap that was handy. A decent headlamp is a bonus (especially with a red LED).
I'm also not wearing sailing gloves next time - my hands were really affected by the constant salt water soaking and are still quite swollen.
A dry suit is a must. Two base layers are needed so you have a dry one to change into if something happens to the other. I also recommend a secondary fleece layer (I carried a thick fleece bunny suit). That fleece bunny suit combined with a base layer Zhik hydrophobic fleece top and bottoms kept me nice and warm through the night (temps got to about 49 degrees and we were constantly getting sprayed). I switched to a base layer of the Zhik Marino Wool under the dry suit for the daytime through Florida Bay and was comfortable then too.
A balaclava is also very nice for the nighttime sailing. I have an Underarmor spandex one that surprised me with how warm it was even when wet. Alan has a neoprene one that looks a good bit warmer. I don't need to replace mine but if I was buying again, I would probably source a neoprene one.
If you wear glasses, make sure you have a non-shaded pair for night sailing. I have some prescription 3M safety glasses that served me well at night but I broke my sunglasses before we pushed off the beach...had to constantly tape them up.
From my arm chair it appears that rowing a tri from the center hull would be more efficient than a catamaran. Low freeboard would make it even easier but be much wetter, perhaps this is why Randy's boat is so well designed.
Nice job Alan and Jake!!! Beautiful trimaran Alan, I'm really stoked it's worked out so well for you!
Bacho,
I can speak from some experience paddling my Hobie 18 with required watertribe gear and about 330lbs of crew weight roughly 5 miles. Boat probably weighed in about 150lbs heavier than a stock F18 in racing form, but it was an old, heavy boat to begin with. To say it was tough is an understatement. We ended up using a large wooden stick to pole ourselves across the bottom. I completely feel for Jake and Alan paddling upwind against the current for miles, and in shallow water would have jumped out as well! Timing the current is HUGE in these events.
My guess is 5% of Randy's speed advantage is pure sailing ability and knowledge, and the other 10% is having a design that is faster. On that front, I'd put my money down that he is leaving the beach with the lightest boat designed primarily for sailing, with some of the sailable trimarans coming in pretty close.
Having looked at the Warren Light Craft trimaran in person, I don't believe the speeds, it's very wide for paddling, and possibly a bit under built for this task. I much prefer the lines on Alan's boat, rig setup, sleep-ability etc. The Motive 25R is a really nice boat on the other hand (same builder), but offers very little below deck space (none if I recall) and is very expensive being an all carbon machine. There is something unique about building your own boat that makes the watertribe challenges special.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: The Everglades Challenge - 03/10/1401:43 PM
Originally Posted by Jake
I'm also not wearing sailing gloves next time - my hands were really affected by the constant salt water soaking and are still quite swollen.
In the colder months I carry several pair of gloves so I can change into dry gloves after they get soaked
good point about a "flats pole" used to push you along in shallow water rather than a paddle. I guess a 2-piece oar would work as well if it's long enough..
I have a lightweight anchor which as been useful to kedge off a sand patch... swam it out on a boogie board to set about 75' away and used the winch to crank the boat out of the muck.
I think if I were to do any cruising, I'd add a second anchor and 10 feet of chain to the tipping ring of this one in case wind/current piped up while anchored.
Tiller sticks and kayak paddles make bad poles for shallow water, they are too flexible in general, and carbon too expensive to risk on the bottom. We were in a ~8' deep canal with mud bottom (Harlow Canal), and managed to find a 12' long stick (log?) that was roughly 3" in diameter, which worked very well.
hope you don't mind, but i have another goof ball idea: i wonder if a couple of youths on a N17 (with a special reefing main) could tough it out for a couple days of no sleep. Those boats can hit 19kts. plus. I would think that they could rig the tiller and both riders could stand up paddle in order to be first to the wind line, or to deal with check points, extreme lulls, etc. The long paddles, if customized could be used to pole against the bottom as well. or, if there is like a used Marstrom A class fairly cheap, and put spi., reef points, storage, etc. Then when you need to paddle to the wind line or whatever, you figure out a way to SUP. Maybe build a liteweight deck area for standing forward of the front beam.
Did I not notice they have a class of boats in the EC that have electric propulsion? Was it class 6?
Torqueedo here I come That should help with the tide at CP 2 and 3
Yes - class 6. I don't know that there were any class 6 boats last year. However, the guys with that modified Nacra 5.8 (and the captains chairs with recumbent peddling stations) had intended to be in class 6. They just didn't have enough time to get their electrical kit together. They really had a lot of engineering into the prop and pedal system.
did you have to beach your craft at each checkpoint (above high-tide line) or just for the start?
Maybe attach RATO and a sled in DeSoto
Just the start. We could tie up to docks everywhere else.
COULD or Had to?
CP1: your only choice is to hang onto a dock (unless you are a kayak in one of the other classes and permitted to use the small shallow beach). You have to drop sail and paddle around a couple of 90 degree turns to "present your boat at the checkpoint). Other leisure power boats are getting hauled in and out of the water here and there are only two docks...it's tight for a 14' wide trimaran. The entrance is also very tight...I wouldn't want to be much wider.
CP2: Big muddy silt beach. Imagine Anne's beach, a little muddier and with gators sunning on the shore. Sail the boat in as far as you can and make sure you have shoes that are laced TIGHT before running in to sign the log book and recharge water.
CP3: Marina with a narrow channel entrance. Pretty open with several docks to tie up to (especially at 2am). Also has a bathroom...caution needed, however...I've never experience sea sickness but after being on a boat for however long that was and touching dry land for the first time in a while, I was using the urinal and almost lost my cookies because of the sea legs...the room was waving and bucking (land sickness?...is that a thing?). That's probably why I couldn't manage any of my hot meal that Alan cooked that night.
Finish line...more docks...crunchy beaches. Narrow boat ramp to pull out. Land sickness was probably lessened by being greeted with beer (THANK YOU Taylor!).
did you have to beach your craft at each checkpoint (above high-tide line) or just for the start?
Maybe attach RATO and a sled in DeSoto
Just the start. We could tie up to docks everywhere else.
COULD or Had to?
CP1: your only choice is to hang onto a dock (unless you are a kayak in one of the other classes and permitted to use the small shallow beach). You have to drop sail and paddle around a couple of 90 degree turns to "present your boat at the checkpoint). Other leisure power boats are getting hauled in and out of the water here and there are only two docks...it's tight for a 14' wide trimaran. The entrance is also very tight...I wouldn't want to be much wider.
CP2: Big muddy silt beach. Imagine Anne's beach, a little muddier and with gators sunning on the shore. Sail the boat in as far as you can and make sure you have shoes that are laced TIGHT before running in to sign the log book and recharge water.
CP3: Marina with a narrow channel entrance. Pretty open with several docks to tie up to (especially at 2am). Also has a bathroom...caution needed, however...I've never experience sea sickness but after being on a boat for however long that was and touching dry land for the first time in a while, I was using the urinal and almost lost my cookies because of the sea legs...the room was waving and bucking (land sickness?...is that a thing?). That's probably why I couldn't manage any of my hot meal that Alan cooked that night.
Finish line...more docks...crunchy beaches. Narrow boat ramp to pull out. Land sickness was probably lessened by being greeted with beer (THANK YOU Taylor!).