From the website, seems my old buddy Lee Wicklund got in some problems at the start today:



Hope it all got put back together.

Do you have a link to the web site?

Lee broke a rudder casting at the start but swapped it out and finished.

website is http://gt300.com
my report from today is at http://tcdyc.com

Chris

Wow, sounds like some wild stuff yesterday! Broken rudders, tillers, masts and mains.
More of the same on call for today!

Steve Piche's Day 1 write up

I'm not sure what happened to my day 1 report - I didn't see it just now when I checked the site.

Day 2 was a tough one - 100 miles reaching in confused choppy seas, some of the most challenging conditions we've sailed in. We flipped shortly after the start and battled our way back all day to get into 2nd place, only to have Team sailboat shop squeak in a couple of seconds ahead when they took a much more aggressive line in through the surf.

The Matagorda surf proved to have teeth - One team on an Infusion (Jim Rehage skippering) flipped on the way in and tore off a rudder and wrecked the spinnaker pole.

Out on the course a number of teams experienced breakdowns. Team Yost dismasted and Team Dallas rendered assistance and was reported as towing them back to Port A. Tim Boudreaux and Jill had a main sail failure and beached on one of the uninhabited barrier islands, making recovery tricky. Steve Piche had a rudder pin come out and bend (missing ring ding) which then cracked the gudgeon, so they finished on one rudder. Aaron and Burlein (Team Quicksilver) had their leeward rudder shear off which cost them second place on this leg (they got 4th, Burlein got swept off the boat in the surf).

All this on top of Tommy Tyrone and Todd bending the mast on their infusion yesterday.

Tomorrows forecast is for less wind (10-15) so we hope the surf will lay down some - it looked pretty stout this afternoon.

Chris

My sympathies. There has been some wind in Texas this year. Normally the wind god's see a white flag as a signal to drop the wind speed to 3kts. This year, just to mess with people, they have been turning it up to 20-25 instead.

It's global warming.... Al Gore was right!

The Great Texas showed it had teeth this year - check out the story on the front page. The image sequence showing a boat going over in the surf was not TCDYC - it was another team which flipped on the way in at Matagorda. Our surf loop was not captured on film, but the photographer was out there with his video camera as we floated the upside down wreck back to the beach.

Collin Casey (aka JackFlash) lent us a mast and drove all the way to Surfside to deliver it so we could stay in the race and still get 3rd place.

Chris.