I sailed across Lake Michigan at night one time at about 4 knots. That was sketchy enough and I knew I was in open water.
Not knowing if you will even see what you'll hit until you have broken your neck against it is not my idea of a good time. Especially if you are going 15kn! It is one of those things you might look back on and glorify a little but when you are there I am sure it sucks.

This isn't W1k, but the first year of the T500, we were doing the last leg on the HT from hell. There had been a lot of rain inland and the rivers were spewing tons of debris, trees, piling, parts of docks, etc out of all of the inlets between Jax and Tybee. We had been hauling butt the last couple hours dodging *noodle* right and left. The sun starts setting and Dave looks over and asks, "how are we going to see/miss this stuff in the dark?" I told him not to worry, that stuff doesn't come out at night...

We never hit anything and finished around midnight - much better than the English boat next to us that hit a Manta Ray and split the hull.

Like a knife through a bannana <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

But if somebody revived the Worrell 1000, I wonder how many people would actually participate.

We hit a manta ray in the Tybee last year doing about 12 knots with BOTH dagger boards. Both of us almost went over the bows. We managed to stay on board but still had about 40 miles to go. Thank God the Nacra 20 is a bit more stout than the Jav. We made it to Fernandina but had to withdraw with a split daggerboard trunk. We left the board in to plug the hole. Looks like we are going to do it again this year.

Lee Wicklund/Team Chums

This is the first I have heard about manta rays being a problem. It always used to be big turtles.

I would if I were in the appropriate situation (team etc). To me, the fun part is North of Tybee!! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

The water was very murky. I am assuming it was a manta since we saw a few earlier and the fact that what we hit was atleast 8 feet wide to be able to clobber it with both boards. A turtle would have chunked up the leading edge of the boards and ours weren't. Team TCDYC t-boned a shark with thier Tiger on the second day that almost sent them into the water. They said it was abot a 6 or 7 foot hammerhead that got "tacoed" around the bow.

Lee

Sharks are no problem, you just gotta be faster on to the hull than your teammate(don't read this Karl). They're great incentive to get the boat righted and moving quickly.
The darkness will definitely make you see stuff. I saw the Charleston jetty on my first Worrell about a hundred times from 15 miles away until we passed it. Only saw it for real for a couple of minutes.I know Carl Roberts got real sick of hearing "I think I see the jetty".I have never NOT trusted my GPS so much. It's the ones you can't see that should worry you.

The last time they made the race 1000 miles, only 5 teams decided to do the "upper half"

And it was most excellent,dude.

When Chuck first came up with the Tybee 500 idea, I thought it would be a great event, but hated to see it go in conflict with the Worrell 1000. I suggested at the time to run it in the fall and not butt heads with grandaddy of events.
As it turned out, that was the year the Worrell was canceled, so there suddenly was no conflict.
The second year, they offered two venues at the same time.., Tybee 500, or OBX 1000. Most teams did opt to only go half way.., sort of ruined the event, in my opinion.
Love to see the W1k come back, and move the Tybee to the fall.
But, wish in one hand, and s*** in the other and see which one gets fullest fastest.
Rick

I don't think that having the two races, Tybee and OBX, back to back was a bad idea - but there just isn't a sailor base to support that kind of racing every year anymore. I think if the race was run every two years or so that attendance would go up quite a bit.

Maybe not enough sailors can afford to take a week or two off from work to do either of the above. And it can't be that easy to jump from doing simple buoy races to a 500-mile race. Maybe there should be some weekend distance races, say 250 - 300-mile ones, that last from Friday to Sunday. They might build the base for they Tybee or Worrell 1000.

Or maybe start with 120 miles.

The second annual Border Raid 120 from Suamico, WI to J.W. Wells State Park and back will be held September 6-7. NOR coming soon ( http://crawsailing.org/events.htm ) or contact me for more information.

There are single Worrell legs that are that long.

I think that alternating between the north and south 500 might be an interesting idea. i.e. this year south beach to Tybee, next year, tybee to VA Beach.

What a lot of the people that have done the T5 but not the W1k don't realize is that it's a VERY different world as you keep going north.

All I hear is talk...none of these so-called "Iron men of sailing" show up for these races anymore. They just type on the intarweb and reminisce about a life gone by. C'mon, it's not too late to enter the Tybee...

Any one ever picture a west caost Tybee type event?
I know this probably has been discussed but, damn thats a long drive.

Mike Worrell studied many different possible venues (I'm sure that included the West Coast), and he concluded that the East Coast of the U.S. was the only place in the whole world that was viable for a 1,000-mile race because there is so much beach most of the way.

When I envision the West Coast of the United States, I think cold water, big surf, and lots of rocky areas of coastline.

If there is a 1,000-mile stretch on the West Coast that the West-Coast sailors think might work, I guess you should do a test sail of it, just as Mike's little group did on Hobie 16's back in the mid-1970's. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Bajan Bum,
There are lots of mini distance races around the country and are very popular, i.e., the Hogsbreath-Keys 100 coming up in a week or so,
The Key Largo Steeplechase (100 mile trek) is coming up on its 24th year.
Sandusky Steeplechase,
and many others.
Most are listed in our events page (click events on the top of the page on the masthead) and then click on Distance Races (a category devoted to just those type of events).
Rick