Got a report from Bob Grubb. Tybee Island Just passed Delray with a mile lead over a white boat. He thinks that Team Seacats is in third.

I will be on Singer Island for another report. A few things would be helpful for spectators following and identifying.
- pic of each boat
- spinnaker color
- sail number
- hull number

Team Castrol was in second followed closely by Team SeaCats then Red Spin boat? .Some boats stayed way off in Gulfstream most tacked closer following Team Tybee's lead .Most boats after tybee were within striking distance of each other should somebody flip lets say.

Post deleted by cyberspeed

Tybee Island- 1:26pm (staying close to shore)
Castrol 1- 1:33 (close to shore)
Team Seacats- 1:35
Tygart- 1:37
Space Coast- 1:38(space coast passed Tygart after they passed my line)
Castrol 3- 1:43(Big gybing duel)
Castrol 2- 1:44
Team Velocity- 1:49 (trouble with spin but back under full power)

No sign of Cat in the hat.

I am so proud of Jake, I can hardly stand it!

Thanks Sunny! That was the only day we could run the spinnakers for the entire leg. With relation to the fleet, we were quick with the kite up. It was very physical but still a great year this year. Even though the finish at 2:30 am was grueling, the stories we have about a 2 hour gybing fight in the pitch black with Tygart and Castrol 2, the 12 or so lead changes in our group during that time, sailing by sound and feel without being able to see the water in front of you (and barely the competition), breaking from the three boats and catching a nice lift by the shore and not seeing another boat for 3 or more hours, moon comes out with 10 miles to go at 1:45am and we see Tygart less than 1/2 mile on our tail, the moon goes back under cloud cover and we were surprised by a brilliant move by Tygart to get outside of us and beat us by one wave to the finish line. What an incredible experience.

Great racing Jake .

Thanks Carl - you tought me a lot of very useful distance racing tactics last year that really helped us this year.

wanna start a new thread to give away your secrets jake? A friend and I are thinking about making the tybee run next year <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I mean, how hard can it be? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

No real big secrets - two fairly obvious things will allow you to do well in a race like this...but while they're obvious - achieving success at them is not necessarily: 1) Boat speed - you have to be up to speed with the pack in varying conditions and points of sail. It's interesting how some teams were really fast in some conditions and not in others. Our largest weaknesses were moderate reaching, heavy air upwind, and light air upwind (moderate upwind was OK). On the day we rounded Cape Canaveral, after our angle to the line cracked off a little, we ran Castrol 2 and Tygart down from a mile back in the 16-18knot breeze. Then it lightened up slightly and Castrol 2 absolutely took off and left us and Tygart by almost a mile. Bouy course racing is a good way to work on boat speed - but you don't get much reaching practice. Speed is the 'easier' of the two.

The hardest thing to learn, which applies readily to bouy and distance racing, is patience. If we fell back in the pack, we never pushed 110% because a capsize in a race like this is costly. We tried to stay fast and safe and have confidence that if we remained relatively mistake free, that we would climb through the pack - and we usually did. I used to get terribly frustrated if I found myself in last place but I try not to anymore. There were times a team was overtaking us but we felt like we were already at 99% so we let them go - most times, they capsized right in front of us. Have the patience and confidence to keep doing what you know is right...ALWAYS go to the correct side of the course, don't push rediculously hard, don't take fliers unless ALL (and I mean ALL) hope is lost, etc. Patience is one of the hardest things I've had to learn.

Jake I think the remark about Patience is more profound than you think not only on the race course but in the overall success of the sport. People run out of patience very easily with this sport.