Top 10 List for Day 2 of the Great Texas

Here is a daily summary by Steve Piche, skipper of Team Great Texas 300. We hope you enjoy:

1. Down to 20 minutes: Team Quiksilver, Phillipe Bettler and Mike Beuerlein, jumped the fleet on Day 1 of the Great Texas and got a 35 minute lead. However, the old pros, 2 Wire Sailing, John Tomko and Ian Billings, chomped 15 minutes out of their lead today by winning leg 2 of the Great Texas. We now have a great battle for the next two days. Can the seven time winner come back from 20 minutes down and beat the boys who have a couple of seconds but no firsts? Will Team Quiksilver fold under the pressure or rise to the occassion? Stay tuned!
2. Who else had a good day! Hats off to teams Yo Baby, Shannon Galway and Jonathon Atwood, as well as Team Sailboat Shop, Mike Rohrer and Chris Holt. They scored the second and third in todays on and off again wind day!
3. Not such a good day! Nothing like lossing a protest hearing to start the day off but that is what happened to TCDYC. At the finish yesterday, they collided with Team 2 Wire Sailing in the surf line. 2 Wire was on starboard and TCDYC was on port so TCDYC was ruled at fault and given a 30 minute penalty. Not the best way to start off the day.
4. Man Over Board: Good news and bad news for my team. First, the bad news, we got DFL. Now for the good news, we finished with both of us on the boat! At one point today, it didn’t look like we would even do that. Juke was out on the wire with the spin up in big breeze and waves. A big wave punched us hard and he let go of the spin line. After he let go, he needed to come in to grab it again. He got out of his chicken line and started to come in and a big wave hit him and took him of the back of the boat. His safety line caught him at first but the force was so great it broke and he was Man Over Board. At this point, I was on the boat with the spin up in big breeze, big waves and my crew in the water. I was able to drop the chute, turn the boat around and get back to him. I almost flipped going back upwind towards. It was a bit sketchy but we got him back on and that is the really good news of the day for my team! I will take a DFL over a MOB any day!
5. Gumbo: Mike Beuerlein always cooks Gumbo for the fleet in Matagorda. Once again we had a great gumbo at the finish line and it tasted great after a long day of sailing.
6. Rhumb Lining It: The leaders took the rhumb line today. The wind softened up after a couple of hours of sailing and my team and TCDYC decided to take a flyer to the beach. After my MOB issue and TCDYC’s protest penalty, we were both willing to try the old hale Mary play that worked to Beuerlein the previous day. We jibbed to the beach and ran the beach. The rest of the fleet just powered over us and we both ate big time penalties. Oh well, sometimes you got to try to do something different rather than playing follow the leader!
7. Family Time: We have a number of families with young kids join us for this year’s race including the families of John Tomko, Ian Billing, Juke Ball, Shannon Galway and Chris Green. Thanks to their wives for taking care of the kids while dad sails. The kids all seem to be having a fantastic time on the beach!
8. Two Big Legs Done! We just sailed 200 miles - ⅔ of the Great Texas is now done. These are big legs and we have always been quite fortunate to get good wind for these big legs. The sea breeze has always been pretty consistent.
9. Andrew and Melissa: Thanks to Andrew and Melissa for keeping the scoring, web site and T-shirts going. Also, they are running the Dash on Saturday. They do a lot behind the scenes for the GT and Dash.
10. Two More Days: We head to Surfside (about 65 miles) tomorrow and Galveston (40 miles) on Saturday. Forecast is calling for 10-15 out of the south east. We have a real race on our hands here. Can Team Quiksilver hold on to the lead? We will see….