Why not just move the start to the south side of the bay, not have to cross the shipping channel and continue on down the coast? Seems it would be a lot less hassle, especially with the Coasties.
There must be a place to launch somewhere on the south side of Tampa Bay, why not use Anna Maria Island or someplace in that area?
There is an advantage to crossing a tough patch of water right at the start...you can weed out some of the bad apples right there. It's hard to police skill level and wisdom but if given the choice of having the fleet struggle within 3 miles of the start or 100 miles into the Everglades, the start is probably a good place for a tough patch of water to cross.
Regardless, this is going to be a pretty big black eye for this kind of event and they'll probably have to change something or the Coast Guard will probably prevent them from running in the future. One of the better ideas I've seen is for the organizer to have chase boats at the start. Everyone keeps talking about some sort of skill filter too - but that would be a tough one to define and manage.
