Jake,

Your last paragraph is certainly where my concern lies as the coast is now very different from what it used to be. My proposal would eliminate structured hotels from the picture altogether-you run what you bring, and get there when you want. If you want to check into a hotel you still can, but that is on you and your ground crew. Checkpoints would need to be approved by the local authorities to allow beach/launch landing. Time of year would need to be carefully chosen. For the moment, ignoring winds, I would look at mid to late October. The summer crowds have died down, breeze is usually still up and temperatures (air+water) are still warm. Early May works okay too, but it is getting close to the start of beach season and municipalities get worrisome over boat+swimmer injuries. Keeping the number of checkpoints to a minimum reduces the paperwork burden.

I would do a trial run from Wrightsville Beach to Virginia Beach next year with one checkpoint just north of Caper Hatteras. This is mostly deserted beach/wildlife/federal land, which carries its own issues, but may be easier to get approval, then push to the full race in 2020.

I would think this would get a reasonable amount of buy-in from the sailors, as its a pretty short race (i.e can be done over a weekend), its centrally located (so teams aren't driving 18-24 hours to get to Florida), the coastline is relatively remote and rounding Cape Hatteras is no easy feet. Doing the race later in the season, despite the hurricane risk-which is real, I grant that, but October is the better month compared with August and September, tends to fit team calendars better, and most importantly, gives teams a full sailing season to train up. I could see a future where this style race is held every other year as part of the F18 Raid World Series, and on alternative years the standard F18 Nationals is held.