You may also try yourself in adventure races, hold by Watertribe www.watertribe.com

Races aimed to small boat cruising community, and they are NOT sailboat races, you can bring any small boat as kayak, canoe, monohull dinghy or catamaran. They have some intentional filters to keep boat size down and slow down fast sailboats– such as beach start from highest watermark, and, on Everglades course, fixed bridges and long passes to get in and out of checkpoints. Races are self-supporting, no ground crew, no motels, no sandy beaches. You have 8 days to complete 300 miles course. No race postponing because of bad weather. Races proved to be grueling, on the first E-Challenge(Tampa – Key Largo) we have small craft advisory with winds 30+ knots first 3 days, on the second E-Challenge we had small craft advisory 6 days out of 8. On the Lake Michigan course (from Manistee to Tawas Point around northern point of Michigan) we’ve been crossing Grand Traverse bay in 20+knots winds and 6’+ seas.

You afraid to get lost behind spi boats, well, there are some world class paddlers capable of average speed of 6 knots regardless of conditions and finishing a race in 3 –4 days, it can be painful to see them passing you

We would like to see more sailors in Watertribe Challenges. Website contains a lot of info about surviving on a water, it can be useful for Catamaran long distance racers too.

Regards

Vladimir(Known as CrazyRussian)

2-nd overall and 1-st solo in 2002 LM Challenge