The Milt Ingram Memorial race around Anacapa Is. took place this past Saturday in near perfect conditions. Race distance ~42 miles.

5 beachcats took part...1 Tornado (Full Tilt), 1 Nacra 5.8 (Smoke 606), 1 H21SC (Stimpy), 2 Hobie Tigers. An I20 from Phoenix also showed up but had to return to the ramp after suffering a mainsheet cleat problem prior to the start.

Conditions were ~8 kts and building at the 11:30 beachcat start...seas moderate chop & building swell.
The first 20 min. saw insufficient breeze for my crew Erik L. to use the trap on the Tornado...we managed to get a good start and slowly pulled out a small lead...but the 8.5 ft beam boats were flying & pointing higher.

As the wind built to about 12 kts, we could single and then later double trap...and then we really put the hammer down, extending on the fleet all the way up the leg. At about halfway up the leg, we could still see Afterburner (52 ft LOA, 30 ft beam, 80 ft carbon rotating rig beachcat on steroids)...she had started 5 minutes prior to the beachcats. Normally after 45 min. of sailing, she'd be on the horizon...but she was only ~1/4 mile up the course.

Shortly after our 1st tack, we saw 'burner suddenly round up head to wind and stop! She lowered her main to put in a first reef and then got back to business (we learned later she was having her mainsail clew straps pulling out and so was forced to reef to keep racing).

We had gained a lot on her and were now about 10 mins back. Although she was sailing again, she was still getting larger...we were faster! By the last tack to the oil rig Grace, her lead was under 5 minutes. We arrived at the rig right between two big keel boats (Deception & Funatic...starting some 25 min prior to the beachcats). We had to dive beneath them to round the rig and just was we got up to top beam reach speed we slammed into their combined wind shadow. Our boat went flat and big wave scooped me off the aft trapeze position, depositing me between the transoms. Somehow I managed to grab the tiller connector bar and lucky for me the trap line was still engaged....I was body surfing at about 14 kts! I jammed the helm hard to lee to round up and get back on board with the help of Erik.

Here is a screen shot of tracks from Full Tilt & Smoke 606 during the weather leg to oil rig Grace (the small yellow blip right after Grace is my body surfing ordeal):





We took off after 'burner...now well down the leg. The other cats were still back on the weather leg...at least 10 or more minutes back after 90 minutes of sailing.
The rest of the beam reach leg was relatively uneventful...save for a few bow stuffs...one of which resulted in a huge amount of water entering our mid-pole snuffer. The crew retention devices (aka "chicken lines") I had installed earlier in the week proved to very useful on several occasions!

Once at the east end of Anacapa, we could see 'burner trying to find her way down the backside...she was having trouble filling her hugh head sail about 1/4 mile out from shore. We decided to try going in close under spinnaker. This seemed to work well and we reeled in the big boat once again. We didn't see another beach cat until halfway down the back side..some 3 hours into the race....it was a Tiger with blue spinny (sailed by Alex). They were going out...way out to look for wind. The other Tiger sailed by Justin later told us they were in a strong second until they pitch poled after the rig. They tore up some batten pockets and lost a place to alex. Once going again, they hit a seal! However, they manged to re-take the position down the backside of the island.

Burner disappeared around the bend and took off on the homeward reach. We gave chase some 4 or 5 minutes later. Double-trapped and hitting the high teens for the next 50 odd minutes, we never saw another beach cat in our wake.

We finished after 4hrs, 9 min elapsed....just 8 minutes behind Afterburner and she started 5 minutes before the beachcats! A new course record to Afterburner (Multihull fleet) & Full tilt (beachcat fleet).

Finish order after number crunching:

1st: Tornado Full Tilt
2nd: Hobie 21 Sport Cruiser (Mitch)
3rd: Hobie Tiger (Justin)


A full replay of the tracks from Smoke 606 & Full Tilt can be watched here:

Milt Replay