Probably not as well-written as Mike Crawford's, but here's an edited copy of the description I gave to Helen:
I sailed with Bobby Nabors, a friend from college (we sailed dinghies together) and we came out to about 310 lbs. of crew weight plus the usual distance racing gear.
We got a terrible start - I was still tweaking stuff at the last minute, as I'm still changing stuff to be sloop + chute vs. catrig.
Winds were very light. We were between hurricanes, so we started in 2-5kts, and the wind was dying. We were one of the last boats through Destin pass, and even went backwards with the chute up for a moment. We made our line basically straight to P-cola (+about 6degrees out to sea so we didn't get stuck when the wind clocked). We made out well, since a lot of the boats stayed inshore hoping for better wind, but it never came. Most of this time, the wind was 5-ish, and we were clocking 9-ish on the GPS with the chute up.
We got to see a huge sea turtle, and a pod of about 12 dolphins - really made the trip worthwhile!
At about 10 miles from Pensacola Pass, the wind clocked from a spin. reach to the nose, and all the boats converged. In about 6-7kts. (my guess - we ranged from no one on the wire to one on the wire) we were able to catch the back-and-mid-fleet 18-20 footers.
Matter of fact, we passed 2 18ht's upwind! One passed us back during the next 10 miles. The difference was very clear: 5 or less of wind, 18ht's smoked us. Once I could get out on the wire, we came back up to their speed. The 4.9 wasn't faster, but it was nearly as fast.
The wind built to the most of the day as we came to Pensacola pass (maybe 8-10), and we popped the chute as soon as we could, even though it was initially above a beam reach. I slacked the halyard, the crew cranked the sheet, and we rounded double trapped and doing 14-ish plus. We drove above a F31 tri and the f18ht that had passed us.
Then we did something really stupid (hey, 50 miles with no major errors is a record for me!) and rounded the seabouy in the pass - turns out, we didn't have to. The 18 ht didn't, and gained on us. We then compounded it by gybing early, and the 18ht gained a lot more. Then the wind died down to 4-5, and they walked away from us. It was downwind in 4-5 for the next 15 miles, and so we weren't able to make any big gains.
The wind clocked, and blew from the north then. We were able to again slack the halyard, beam reach (or higher), and even in 1-3 kts, maintain double windspeed. We started to pick boats off again. It was really touchy, but we carried the chute WAY up on a reach. The 17.5 meter chute reaches incredibly well! The combination of flat chute/light boat was perfect. We finally (2 miles from the finish) got run over by a parade of tall-mast boats... including a SC22, F31, Mystere6.0, H20, etc., in a narrow neck of the channel with 1-2 kts wind, after we had to finally drop the chute. We started to gain again when the wind returned, but couldn't catch them.
All in all, these boats rock! Bobby, my crew, was very impressed, having crewed last year's RTI on my 5.2. He seemed to think it might be a little more fun ;-)
A thought on spin size/shape: The size is perfect - the F16 class needs to remain at 17.5 meters square. If it performs well with 310lbs in 1-8kts, and any more would make it just too much for singlehanding, there's no sense in messing with it. Also, I think any more would make it difficult to sheet fully to the tramp while reaching with a slack halyard...a really important thing for distance racing.
I hope to see more of you guys and gals there next year!
Michael Coffman
T4.9 #32
