Fred asked these questions in the Atlantic 1000 thread - so I broke it out here.

I was glad when the race was over simply because the last slide up on the beach into Tybee had been the culmination of 6 months of hard work. I was glad that we were done racing and while I think that maybe I could have carried on it would have seriously been pushing my limits - However, after the day we had on Wednesday, I was wondering how anyone could every sail 1000 miles. I will do the whole 1000 one day. I hope to continue building Team Seacats and eventually do the whole 1000 miles.

Racing the last three days was gorgeous and dreamy. Incredible steady breezes and relatively calm seas. We had no problems getting on the boat each morning to race in these conditions. However, day #3, Wednesday, where we shredded our spinnaker and broke our spin pole, was draining both physically and mentally. The stuffing really hurt (my leg is STILL swollen!) and it took an incredible amount of energy to recover from the two capsizes with spin up. It was hard to get back on the boat the next day and it truly wasn't until the following Friday that we really felt recovered. We were feeling terrific about our good showing on Thursday until we ran into poor 'ol Bill at the finish line too. It was tough to overcome that event mentally as well. We're elated that he is perfectly OK and while we weren't the only ones to have made a mistake in the situation - we still felt like A$$es to have made the evening news in that manner. We were tired at the conclusion of the other days but after a little rest and dinner we felt pretty good and were raring to go again the next mornings. We both have been training physically since January and although I had lost 18lbs and gained about 30% more strength, I wish I had done more. I was nauseous from exertion on two occasions. You can do this and survive pretty easily at my (or slightly less) physical level but to be competitive, you MUST be in top shape.

We had our funny moments - once while the Miami skyline was just coming into view the waves were swiping my feet away from me on the trapeze. I had both a fore and aft chicken line attached (which BTW, greatly reduces personal energy consumption) and the result was me spinning around my trap line like a kid on a tire swing. We were laughing our butts off until the third time got me so hard it about knocked me senseless when my head hit the hull. The mood on the boat, except for the last part of Wednesday, was very jovial. We would sing, sometimes even over the howling wind and waves, (no whistling - that's bad luck) stuff like "Kung Foo Fighting", "Mr. Roboto", and once on the way to Tybee we even broken into "Brass Monkey" (I was doing the horn sounds). I'll have to broaden my repertoire for next time!

In reflection, I’m very satisfied with how the race went. Richard and Cary ran an awesome ground crew and David and I didn’t have to concern ourselves with much after racing. The guys could have used an extra hand on the beach and we could have done some things differently on the water to save us a lot of agony but for a first shot at racing like this and with this incredible lot of sailors, we feel very good about it. At least for me, I am three times the sailor than before this event started. I’ll certainly never have to think twice about going out on a white-capping lake again!