From This Morning:
They're Off, Race Fans!
Another running of the Worrell 1000 was started in Southeast winds of around 8-10 mph amid screams, whoops and
hollers! A sea breeze should reinforce the already decent wind and get the winds up to around 15 or so.
Thirteen teams pushed off the beach in Ft Lauderdale with a big splash and lots of cheers.
Randy Smyth and Keith Notary had the pole position (1st spot and closest to the next destination. They were a bit
slow pushing off the sand, but were the only one that flew a spinnaker before the starting horn. They immediately
bore off wind and filled the chute and took off.
Meanwhile Bob Onsgard and Jamie Livingston from the 3rd position popped quickly through the waves without the headsail,
then immediately set it. It appears that they took the early lead.
Many of the other boats were slow putting up their spinnakers.
 Onsgard and Livingston of Worrell Bros. Restaurant got a great hole shot and a quick chute set to take the lead off the beach |
 Smyth and Notary were the only ones that had their spinnaker up before the start. Being the first boat and on the pole position the had to only bear off and fill the sail, but they were a bit tardy in pushing off. |
Mothers! Don't Worry! They were thinking of you on this special day!
 Todd Hart is always concerned about keeping MOM happy! |
 Others express it in a different way! |
Stay tuned. We will report to you as soon as we get the first boat in. After that we will have the full story about
what happened out there.
As of 3:30 this afternoon (Sunday) there are no boats in sight. We all expected them early with the good downwind air they should have gotten. But it appears that perhaps a big storm may have sucked the wind up for a while and left the fleet in light air. No records will be set for this leg apparently.
We'll keep you posted if anyone appears.
Around 5:30PM the first boat finally landed at Jensen Beach. It was the Aussies. And only five minutes behind was the defending champion for the past two years, Randy Smyth with teammate Keith Notary. Then they started flocking in.
 Randy Smyth and Keith Notary crossed the line only 5-miinutes behind the Aussies. This is shaping up to be another classic battle between these two teams. |
"Who would have thought the Gulf Stream wouldn't pay off," said Hans Meijer of Team Pomodoro who finished 4th. "We were one of the farthest out there, and after the storms took the wind, it filled back in from the shore."
Randy Smyth confirmed the wierd wind. "The wind went around in circles three times, said Smyth. It even did so right at the finish line.
Most of the teams were pretty close for most of the race -- as many as five teams felt they had the lead at one point.Most of the teams crossed paths a number of times. When asked about the storms, one sailor said, "It was scary watching the clouds all around us like that, but nothing touched us."
At this moment the following is the order of finishes:
