So, I was in the race; a few details being left out that need to be considered.

- The DI race is an 18 mile long distance race; the more "durable" cats tend to race out on Saturday and back on Sunday. The rest of us sail back after finishing.

- The regatta host rotates between three area clubs with boats attending from all over the region; most of the cats launched from FYC, but a couple left from BYC as well. e.g. there was not a central point where all of the boats and sailors were guaranteed to be at one time.

- VHF radios were not a required item, but they did contact the skippers and request that we had one on the boat for purpose of over early notifications. Even if we had carried one, it would have been turned off and stowed; had it been turned on, I don't know that we would hear it assuming the RC did make some kind of announcement about weather.

- Due to a "hiccup" with race management, the start was postponed by an hour; looking at it now, that extra hour would have made a big difference...

- Historically entries have been as high as 175 boats; this year there were ~120 boats, of which 10 were beach cats. The cats included a N20c, highly modified T, C2 F18, Bim 18HT, H20, N17 with the balance being H16's; quite a broad range of speed there.

- We watched the forecast all week; my primary means are the NOAA marine site and wunderground. As of Saturday morning, the NOAA didn't even give a small craft advisory for Mobile Bay and simply stated, "chance of thunderstorms"; not, "HOLY SH*T, WATCH OUT!!"

We saw the line on the radar, but based on speed and distance expected that it would be there later in the evening.

- Brief synopsis of our day:
Great race conditions, somewhat windy, but nothing crazy (gusts to ~22) with a moderate chop. The boat performed better than expected and we crossed ahead of Kirk on the N20c by ~1/2 a mile with ~8 miles to go. We went for flat water and didn't tack to cover; he got a huge lift up the inside and beat us by ~5 minutes in a now light and dying breeze. We finished, turned around and put the kite up for the ride home.

Breeze came back a bit and we were clocking 15-16 downwind back to FYC; we heard thunder with about 8 miles to go and started looking at the radar. I keep my cell in a dry bag in my vest for just this reason. The storm still looked a ways off, but was closer than expected. As we went, we noticed that it had sped up since that morning and were making sure to get to the beach as quickly as possible.

We passed Kirk and hit the beach about 5 minutes before he did; pulled the boat up and started to drop cloth. He needed help getting his boat up the beach, so we went to assist before getting our own sails down. By this time lightning was CLOSE and we knew it was about to be on us.

Pulled the jib and rolled it, had the main on the deck and were starting to roll it up as well when all hell broke loose. The N20c started making it's way across the yard at the YC and was only saved by the trap wires snagging in a tree. Kirk helped us hold the boat down, but even without sails up, it took all three of us and it was still trying to get up and go. I was sitting on the stbd hull, looking up wind with one hand on the mast rotation and one on the unrolled mainsail.

As the only person with the vantage point to look up wind, I was calling flying boats and debris as stuff came our way to warn Brian and Kirk. I feel certain that we experienced 70+ mph winds and was surprised that we didn't have one of the big trees just windward of us come down. I've been outside and within 1/4 mile of a tornado and that is the closest thing that I can think of to what this was like, but instead of lasting for 60-90 seconds, the insane wind held for 5-6 minutes! We could see that out on the beach the sea state was BAD and that the wave had built to ~5'. Even with the T trying to fly away, we yelled back and forth regarding the whereabouts of the others....

Unfortunately after several minutes, I couldn't keep the mainsail down any longer with one hand, but couldn't even think about letting go of the mast. The deep chord on the Marstrom 20 mast makes it oscillate like mad in that much breeze; it would have destroyed itself and almost certainly flipped the boat had it not stayed under control. Even with it held straight into the wind, it took all three of us to hold the boat down.

The wind finally backed enough to go recover the now thrashed main (this was it's first race) and start removing debris from the boat and finish our tear down. We immediately started trying to contact the other cat sailors, but to no avail; within another 30-45 minutes though, they started to trickle in, driven by good Samaritans from where they had come ashore during the storm. The last of the "fast" boats to be accounted for was Andy and Rundell, they had sailed past the YC and had to feel their way along the shore to find the club again. Lucky for them, they hit the beach just a minute or two before the storm and were able to hold their boat down even with the sails up.

By now emergency vehicles and news crews were showing up at FYC, we decided to eat at the club and ended up talking to a couple of news crews and other sailors to start piecing together what had transpired out on the water.

Got up Sunday and went to pick up pieces of boats strewn up the coat line.

- Regarding best course of action if faced with those conditions:
Having been on the water, ~1 1/2 miles off shore when the storm hit on the last day of the Worrell in '02, I can tell you that flipping and/or turtle isn't a very fun situation. The boat was still doing 4-5 kts on it's side, which resulted in breaking the top 3-4 battens and damaging the main sail. Honestly though, you don't have a choice, there is no keeping them upright in those conditions. The boats that were destroyed were ridden "to the beach" capsized and then pile driven into rock and wood seawalls. They would have never been able to go full turtle and if they had, even more complications could have arisen; imagine now having mast, sails, rigging, loose in the water and having to negotiate that while trying to not get smashed into the shore by 6' waves filled with debris blown/washed off of nearby docks.

Best possible plan, get to shore and ride it out from there if possible.

I don't know the H16 guys, but almost all of the other cat sailors are long time friends and I consider us very lucky to have not had someone seriously injured or worse.

It's my opinion that for the most part, we, the beach cat group, were better prepared than most of the monohull guys. We're forced to deal with the elements and aren't provided with the shelter, comfort and assurance that most mono's bring. For those reasons, we tend to be more appropriately dressed for the conditions and are almost always wearing a life jacket.

The number one thing that I told the news people and we discussed as a group was that, we are our own arbiters of safety and our brain is the #1 piece of equipment we carry. Know your limits/abilities, maintain your equipment, plan within reason for the conditions and at some point, that's the best you can do short of taking up golf...