Thirty rugged sailors of the beach catamaran sailing community took sail on 15 boats May 10, to face the elements in a grueling race to Tybee Island, Georgia. The total distance is 560 miles from the starting point. The first day from The Islander Resort in Islamorada, FL to Hollywood, FL. saw stiff breezes on the nose changing as boats rounded ocean side of Biscayne Bay, to continue a tough beat to the finish. One incident of merit was a port starboard issue where a third boat limited visibility of the port tacker, resulting in a colision and Todd Hart, on starboard, in Royal Blue received damage and had to return for removal of the spinnaker equipment, as the spin gear was acting as braking scoop in the water. Several boats capsized but were righted and continued to sail. The distance of 90+ miles took the last boats in more than 12 hours to finish in the dark, but all boats made it, with crews beat up and looking for a comfortable bed. The second day from Hollywood to Jupiter, FL was a shorter leg, but rough seas continued. Crews saw wash board sailing and challenging sea conditions take a toll on the boats. Ground crews were up into the night working repairs. Day three from Jupiter to Cocoa Beach were equally challenging, where inlets caused rough sailing even though winds had clocked to give sailors their first chance to use spinnakers. One boat lost a crew member in early going, recovering, but drifted ashore with broken battens and a decision to take its penalty and a day ashore. Another crew lost a crew member and put panic in the race committee until all systems worked as planned and the crew member was found by use of the required personal EPIRB and was returned to his boat by Boat US, to continue the race. “Spot” tracking gave comfort to ground crews and the RC knowing where boats were throughout the race. Day four involved a trip around Cape Canaveral, where a Shuttle stood on the pad, ready for launch the following day. All boats were required to remain 3 miles off shore for the rounding before arriving in Daytona Beach. The day was a glorious sail for all with reaching winds cooperating for a continuous spinnaker run, after turning the corner off the Cape. Day 5 was equally a great sailing day, traveling from Daytona to Fernandina Beach, Florida in record time. The race committee had to drive ahead quickly just to stay up with speeding catamarans. The final day looked to have light winds and the crews voted to start at 8:00AM in case the forecast held. Actually the winds held, but the course carried to the north east, causing the leg to be full of short and long gibes. But even so, much to the pleasure of all, boats began to arrive at 3:30 in the afternoon.


Final results:
Team Skipper Total elapsed time Finish Position
Crew
(Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
F-18’s
Bugaboo Mischa Heemskerk (Neth) 38:09:51 1
Eduard Zanen (Neth)
AHPC John Casey 38:57:05 2
Dalton Tebo
PepPod Tyler Burd 40:47:59 3
Garth Fasano
SeaCats Adrenaline Todd Riccardi 41:07:41 4
Brendon Scanlon

N-20’s
Velocity 1 Trey Brown 38:15:53 1
Baily White
Royal Yellow Steve Lohmayer 38;23:11 2
Jay Sonnenklar
Royal Orange Jared Sonnenklar 39:31:25 3
Colin Page
SeaCats Orange Jake Kohl 39:41:14 4
Frank Moore
Royal Blue Todd Hart 41:26:33 5
Jeff LaSapio
Royal White Jason Childers 43:25:18 6
Zack Marks
Velocity 4 Sam Carter 44:50:14 7
Kirk Spicer
Velocity 5 Larry Ferber 45:11:19 8
Bryan Paine
Velocity 3 Brett Robinson 25:34:46 9
Alan Friedman
Velocity 2 Don Lenfestey 32:43:41 10
Ryan Boyle
SeaCats White Chris Zander DNF
David Strickland