It is almost time for white flag for the first day of racing. My thermometer is reading 52 degrees. Water temp. is probably 20 degrees warmer than the air.

The wind is about 18 knots out of the north right now and is supposed to drop to 15 this afternoon. In other words, it is chilly and breezy. Small comfort that this is the warmest spot in the eastern United States.

Watching the boats that are already out, it almost is like watching iceboats -- they are just FLYING across the water.

Sixty-eight boats have signed up to brave the chill factor. There are 10 classes: A-Class, F-18HT, N 6.0, Hobie 20, Inter 20, Shark, Hobie 16, Hobie Wave, Low Portsmouth, High Portsmouth.

I'll try to keep you posted. I know you want to know how many are in each class, so I will try to get that to you soon.

Mary,

Keep the reports coming

Hope the sailors don't mind the cool temps. (Just tell 'em that it's 2 degrees here in Brrrrrrrlington, VT at 1 in the afternoon.)

Here's the rundown on registrations, but some did not sail, and several have returned to the beach for various reasons. Some are making repairs and going back out for more.
Hobie Wave, 5 boats
Hobie 16, 8 boats
Nacra 6.0, 10 boats
F-18HT, 6 boats
Hobie 20, 6 boats
Shark, 7 boats
A-Class, 10 boats
Low Portsmouth, 5 boats, Hobie 17, Supercat 17, Inter 18, Taipan 4.9 uni, Taipan 4.9 sl.
High Portsmouth, 3 boats, two Dart 18's and one 14 Turbo

Mary,

Would it be possible to list all the competitors by classes?? We all know you have SO much free time on your hands!

Bob Curry

Very funny, Bob. Do you want registrants or competitors? Right now there is quite a disparity. Anyway, I don't know how to post the list -- you know me, vlt (very low tech). You will have to wait until Rick posts today's results.

Mary,
I was wondering how your friend is doing on Rick's Taipan 4.9 sl. That hooter system looks interesting. I wish I could of seen it in use when we were down there.
P.S. We had 0 degrees this morning when we woke up here in Ohio. It's now warmed up to 18 and we're planning on skiing tomorrow. I think it'll be easier keeping warm doing that than sailing in windy 50 degree conditions. At least your conditions will improve in a couple days. We'll have to live with the cold a couple more months up here.
Jack Hoying
Fort Loramie, Ohio
Prindle 18 #1645
http://www.bright.net/~jmhoying/sailing/prindle.htm

Rick is writing a story right now and will put it on our home page along with results very soon. Hard to type because his fingers are still frozen. No pictures, because he was on the race committee boat.

Anyway, Jack, Henry did not get to sail even one race on Rick's Taipan because the mainsail ripped all the way across the sail from luff to leach -- in the middle of a panel, not on a seam. He says he thinks it happened during a jibe. He didn't even realize it had happened until another sailor suggested that Henry check his sail trim. Whoops! It wasn't the Goodall sail that comes with the boat. He did get to use the Hooter, though, and he said it worked like a charm, unfurled and furled really easy and the boat was very controllable with it.

It is impossible to describe how terrible the conditions are for the race committee people on the committee boat. The RC boat is a flat, open pontoon boat, with absolutely no protection from the wind. I just recently saw a formula for determining chill factor. It said to mutiply the wind speed by 1.5 and subtract that result from the temperature on your thermometer. Using that formula, it made the wind chill factor somewhere between 22 and 28 degrees F. yesterday. It was all they could do to make their fingers work well enough to write down sail numbers for the finishes. You all know how hard it is to get people to work race committee even on a nice day -- sure hope somebody comes back to do it again today.

The sailors fared much better than the race committee, because Rick White (PRO) did his best to minimize waiting time between races. All the people I talked to -- even the ones who came to the beach early or had breakages -- said the wind was very nice (speed, not temperature). Because of the wind direction out of the north, the main difficulties were with launching and returning to shore, especially with the concrete ramp situation at Rowell's Marina. From the perspective of leaving shore, the wind was onshore at a very-close-reach angle, starboard side.

I know you are all wondering what the breakages and problems were with the various types of boats. I did not get very specific information, but I know one A-cat had to come back in at one point and replace sidestays. An Inter 20 was somehow stabbed by an A-Class cat -- the hole was on the inside of the Inter 20's port hull, just in front of the main beam. Even the I-20 skipper didn't seem to be able to describe exactly how that happened, but it is interesting to try to picture it -- apparently, the A-Cat was on starboard and the I-20 was on port, and it did not happen while racing. The A-Cat was able to stay on the water -- I don't know whether it had any damage.

Randy Smyth was out all day yesterday because the transom broke on his F-18HT during the first race. I had originally heard that he broke his rudder, but when I asked him, he said, "Oh, no, they have the rudders really strong now -- it broke the transom instead." He says he was just sailing along, and the rudder pulled out of the transom, taking a piece of the transom with it. He worked the rest of the day Saturday repairing the hole in the transom (used a hair dryer to get the epoxy to kick in spite of the cold air conditions) and should be out there again today.

At one point Saturday, I watched an A-Cat sailing back to our beach under mast alone, somewhere between a beam reach and close reach, and sometimes even appeared to be going upwind. I thought that was amazing. Usually, if you are going to drop your sail before going into the beach, you drop it upwind of your destination, and this guy was sort of downwind of the destination.

In the middle of the night, the clouds suddenly cleared out, and I could see the stars and the beautiful, still-almost-full moon, lighting the water with a silvery glow. Roosters started crowing somewhere down the road. We are going to have sun today (Sunday), and temperature is supposed to get up to the mid 60's. But it sounds like wind is supposed to be 15-20 knots today, out of the same direction as yesterday.

Stay tuned to see if we can get race committee and sailors to venture out again.

Well, white flag was supposed to be at 10:30 a.m., but postponement flag is up right now because it is taking a long time for the boats to get off the beach. Wind is 20 knots out of the north. This regatta is out of synch with the weather by two days -- Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be our usual tranquil 10-15 knots blowing offshore.

Randy Smyth is back on the water today after repairing the transom on his F-18HT, but he went out with a reefed main -- the ONLY boat we have seen with a reef.

Matt Struble and W.F. Oliver on F-18HT lost their rig (mast fell down) and have just been towed in. Ken and Debbie Marshack, F-18HT, capsized right at the start of the first place, and another boat ran over and shredded the top of their mainsail, so they are out, too.

Dave White and Ben Gunn, Nacra 6.0, came back in with some minor problems, and Dave says the wind isn't really bad out there.

Update: The reason Struble and W.F.'s rig came down is the forestay broke.

Most of the boats are on the beach after sailing two races today. Now that the regatta is over, it is a beautiful, sunny day, and the Keys are back to normal, with 15-knot winds. That's the way it goes.
Story and results will be posted by early evening -- check our home page.

Wow, if the F-18HT's are going to break in the Worrell at the rate they're going at tradewinds, theres going to be a lot of fustrated sailors.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't the F-18HT's fault when the Marshacks capsized right after the start and a Nacra 6.0 ran over their mainsail.

And when the mast fell down on an F-18HT because the forestay broke, there was no damage, and they can easily beef up the stays, if necessary, for the Worrell.

The only serious-sounding problem was the transom pulling out on Randy Smyth's boat. The lower gudgeon pulled out and took a pretty big chunk of transom with it. Both he and his crew, Richard Feeney, said they did not hit anything -- just sailing fast and hit a patch of slow water, I guess.

It is good that they are having the chance to find the weak points now in a closed-course environment, so they can correct them before the Worrell.

And, by the way, Randy says the new rudder system that various people, including him, have been working on is almost ready to go -- stronger blades and better up-and-down system.

P.S. I just realized this post sounds like I am somehow in favor of the Jav 2 as the Worrell 1000 boat, which is absolutely not the case. I would like to see more races like this one before the Worrell so the sailors can find the weak points and fix them.