Jake, Nice strategy with the jello shots! Get the competition in a compromised condition before the racing starts! In all seriousness though I do wish you guys the best! Your yankee bro,

Hey Thanks! We'll get one of those high-fangled wireless cameras on out boat one way or another! :-)

We had a good day today with some practice races in some pretty light stuff. We went way too far out to the offshore corner for the first race and it cost us big time. The next race, we started in the pack and fought to the second row with speed at the gun and managed to work for clear air pretty quickly thereafter. After tacking a couple of times to work some shifts and try to stay closer to the center of the course, we found ourselves rounding A mark in 4th place! Unfortunately the race was abandoned. After rounding A mark and the offset mark, we couldn't find the R/C and and assumed the practice sessions were over (as did half the boats) so we headed back to the beach. After getting the sail down we realized they were still at it out there and that the R/C had moved to setup for the sea breeze they had seen coming. It wasn't much to bet the week on (especially since it was a practice race) but it's encouraging and we're feeling good about our light air ability so far.

The race spot is perfect. We're in a large open park with a large flat sandy beach opening into the Chesapeak bay. The RV's are a stones throw from the boats. We couldn't be happier with the location. Hopefully the wind will show up.

As it has been for the last couple of days, the wind farts around until 4pm (you can almost set your watch by it) when the seabreeze kicks in very rapidly. I hope it can figure out how to make an earlier appearance throughout the week.

Hope you get the camera! Brian sure does some great stuff with video! Great interviews too! I'll be watching... If you decide to throw in the towel head out the bay and turn left. You might make it to the Island Hop Saturday! Good luck!

is the race setup near or around chic's beach?

What a day today! We're pretty happy with our performance today. Blog and photos up at www.teamseacats.com

Dave, Nice recovery on the snag! You guys do seem to be sailing quite well overall! Jake gotta say I really enjoyed the video! Great to see the interviews too! Gotta love the New England contingent! Good luck Div. 12 sailors!

got a 5th place today in lightish breeze which we feel really strong in (since we're lake sailors - as were most of the top 15 today). Redress was filed and heard in a closed hearing by 7 teams and the race was thrown out. I'm not going into much detail but 21 teams have filed to reopen the hearing and it starts at 8:30 tomorrow morning. This could go on for a while.

UHG

LESS POLITICS

MORE RACING

WIN YOUR RACES ON THE WATER PEOPLE!

(ps, nice work Jake. Tell Power Dave to saaav it up)

Way to go Seacats! Nice sailing Jake and Dave!

What can I say? We had a pretty bad finish in the 2nd race today because I choose to lower the sail before the start because the top batten was loose. As soon as the sail hit the trampoline, the horn went off! We tanked a 34th place finish because we were terribly late to the line.

So we got mad - real mad. In fact, we're still not sure what we have done differently but two top 6 finishes in the last two races in a double trapped breeze was something very new for us! We started each race by going left starting about 3/4 the way toward the pin end of the line...getting clear air. David worked the main sheet and chastized me anytime I started pinching. We weren't pointing as well as the other boats around us but it wasn't hurting us because we had great speed. We banged the corner and headed for A. When we got there, we had a few boats on our hip and two boats tacked in front clear - Jacques and Greg and Nigel and Alex! We tacked onto port about 4 boat lengths away from A mark. Two boats tucked in under us at a - they may have not had overlap at the two boat length circle but I wasn't concerned. We reached the short distance to the offset mark and David made the most beautiful spinnnaker set you've ever seen. We had 30 yards on the other boats by the time they were moving with only Jacques and Shafer ahead. We held this around the course and finished third - elated and hooping it up over the finish line!

The next race went similarly. The start was congested and a lot of collisions took place. Mike Krantz and David Lennard had a boat drive over their stern pushing them ahed on our right without steerage when about 4 boats drove under us within 8 inches of each other with every one screaming "up up up!". We couldn't hedge David and Mike because they had a boat impaled over their rear beam and we had another boat ride a bow over a wave and land on top of our rudder arm. We heard the sound of gel coat scraping away and "thump thump thump" as the bumper boat command took over. David wisely advised me to forget it - 22 seconds to go! We ran down the line accelerating away from this fray. We started with a Tiger on our windward hip and clean air. We footed slightly and outran our windward Tiger to get clear. Nigel and Alex had gotten a terrific start and were barely within shouting distance ahead. We tacked for A mark and cleared all the starboard tackers behind. We round A in fourth and held that position, slightly distancing the boats behind us for the next two laps. While approacing the last A-mark rounding, we watched as Alex and Nigel cought the anchor rhode on the A mark and stopped. Trying to focus on boat speed we both agreed to disregard it and stay focused. David then let me call the layline to A and I left us tacking pretty tight to the mark. We pinched up when we got there to leave some extra room for the anchor line. Turns out that we didn't leave ~quite~ enough room as we snagged the mark too! It was anchored FIRMLY and David and I both lost our balance on the trapeze nearly capsizing the boat. David ran and raised the board quickly clearing us within seconds. As we were speeding up and heading for the offset with two boats fairly close behind, a third (who's heading for A) says "Wanna see turns!". We jibed at the offset and realized we have room to do our turn. We hammered the quickest damn 360 you've ever seen but the two boats behind us JUST got around. We held our position downwind. We could have gone more into attack mode by David going on the Trapeze wire but I was more concered about driving deep and getting to the finish line safely - 6th place not being too bad for us carolina boys.

Very well written, Jake. The video was great too. Congrats on a well done effort. I don't know much about the rules of racing anymore but it sure sounded like you got screwed by a few whiners.

signed: another proud North-easterner

Jake,
You are allowed to snag the anchor rode. But, if in doing so the mark touches your boat, you must do a 360 at your earlliest convenience. If you did not hit the mark -- only snagged the rode -- you do not have to do turns.
Rick

Jake,
Bill Gillespie is there as well. He won the Sandusky Steeplechase in 2004 and I am trying to find out his crew and type of boat he was sailing to get the plaques up to date. Could you ask him for that info and/or have him contact me either by email or call 305-451-3287
Thanks,
Rick

Rick,

I'm not sure if I would have known that for sure at the time - but I probably would have guessed that I wouldn't be in trouble had I only caught the rode...but we caught the rode and brought the mark right to us pretty hard - no doubt that we hit A. Thanks for the info though. If I ever need it, it will be very handy to know for sure!

I saw Bill all week but unfortunately didn't see your message until now (I just got home). I can track him down by other means if you need (and if he doesn't see this post first).

Jake,
I don't have an email address for Bill, and am not sure he is a Forum User. If you have some info, let me know, OK?
Perhaps Tracie has something from registration.
Rick