TEAM ADRENALIN

2010 Summer Summary

2010-10-29T19:02:00.006-04:00

Well I don't even know where to start! I apologize for not having updated since the Tybee.

It's been quite the season, we started sailing in March and ended in early October, I can count the number of weekends we didn't sail on one hand. I even managed to sneak in a Hobie 16 and an A-Cat regatta. We traveled to sail in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Ontario... my truck isn't very happy with me.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about each event, mainly because it would take a month, but also there really isn't too much spectacular to write about. It was a boring season dominated by light to medium air.

All of our results are up on our site, they were mediocre, mainly because we are a big breeze team. But we had our moments in light air and won more individual races this summer than last. We don't mind light air, but the medium air just seems so tough for us to get the boat moving.

-We ended up 4th in the summer series again, this year newcomers to the fleet John & Pete Guiliano snuck in 3rd ahead of us, these boys are both still in college and they are fast! I can't wait until they start racing on the national level.

-The Joe Manganello Memorial Regatta and Hampton Beach were good... day 1 of Hampton was the breeziest of the year, we had some great battles with Mike & Tripp which resulted in Mike falling in the water and us pitchpoling, both my fault (a story for later). The next day in light air as I was trying to get to the beach to head out all the parking meters went offline and we missed the first start, costing us 2nd place.

-Once again the Statue of Liberty Race plagued us, in my 10th consecutive year we were really hoping for the win (especially with Mike & Tripp at the Worlds) we were first to the Verazanno, first to the Statue then as we're ripping back double trapped with the chute with a good lead we hear a "POP!" our spinnaker exploded, almost 10 feet down on each side. We sailed the last 15 miles with it hanging from the luff and leech tapes... not particularly fast... of course neither was getting stuck on the lee side of a moving barge for several miles. We just can't seem to catch a break in that race.

-F18 North Americans in Wisconsin was a bust... light, fluky winds, fog, and basically just the worst sailing week one could possibly envision, but most there wouldn't even qualify it as a sailing week. However, the parties were good and the regatta organizers did an amazing job hosting the event. The last race was the only good one for us, the only solidly double trapped race of the regatta and we managed a 10th. We ended up 29th overall out of 56, there's always next year.

-Canadian Nationals was the highlight of our summer, 2 days of 20-30 knots in medium sized steep waves. Upwind we felt great, we were just as fast as all the top boats, but while downwind was a blast, we couldn't get in the groove and lost a lot there. We had our one allowed tanker of a race and it looked okay as our throwout to keep us in top 5. But then 2 races later, as we were in the top 3 nearing the windward mark, a silly crossing with situation with Olivier Pilon caused us to crash tack and capsize, the other boat later told us that he was telling us to cross (sure sure.. I believe that!). I'd say our best battles were with Olivier, one race we rounded ahead of him at the windward mark but after setting he sailed lower for a few seconds and got in a lower lane. We jibed to lead him back and he jibed to windward of us. We got sucked up to leeward of him and I ended up having to slow down a bit to get behind and try to roll him, well as we were 2 feet behind him, his tiny Wildcat bows decided they wanted a piece of a wave and the boat went 3/4 underwater. I'm not sure if he broke the wave for us or because we were on an infusion but our boat barely stuffed and we were headed at his transom FAST! Brendon screamed (yea the big guy gets scared) and without any communication he luffed the chute and I headed up missing the Wildcat transom by inches, sheeted in and we rolled them. The last day was 1 race in 3-5 knots and we managed to pull off a 5th, it's a great feeling to sail well at both ends of the spectrum. We ended up 7th overall out of 39 boats.

-The Heineken High Performance DInghy Open was a great event with most of the racing done in 10-18 knots. This was the fastest our fleet sailed all summer with Mike & Tripp being pushed to work hard for this win by Bob Merrick & John Farrar, but the Gangstas won a battle in the last race and took the win. The 2 visiting Canadian teams also turned on the heat, we found ourselves out of the top 4 almost the entire regatta. In the last race we were in 3rd at the leeward mark and finally feeling good but during the last jibe to the gate I threw myself off the boat, I held on and got back on but the spin sheets were under the bow and we had sailed off the course, we recovered to finish 8th but it wasn't a fun way to end the season.

-The boat is currently undergoing a little makeover at JibeTech in Portsmouth, RI because we leave for Florida in just one month! We'll be going down a bit early to do a little bit of training / bask in the Florida sunshine then sail in the Key Largo Steeplechase, fly home, then return in January for F18 Midwinters / The Tradewinds Regatta.

I'll try to tell some more good stories from the summer as I think of them and have time to write about them. Thanks to everyone we race against for making it another amazing summer!

On tap for next summer, probably a few less events, no Tybee, but we are aiming high at the World Championships in Hungary and then North Americans in our neck of the woods Hyannis, MA.

Below are some picture highlights from the season.

Pedal down, downwind at Hampton, in the lead in the last race of Day 1

Maybe a little too pedal down... dammit!

"HAHA there is a God!" -Michael Easton

Hampton

Top 7 at Canadian Nat'ls. Toronto skyline in background

Battling it out with Olivier Pilon

Good sized waves in Toronto

NEW YORK CITY!!!! Leading to the Statue

Dammit Chris get off our ass, he pitchpoled soon after this, giving us the lead back until we blew up our spinnaker

More Toronto

Still Toronto

Us trying to be the New England Gangstas at the Joe Mangenello Memorial Regatta

Heineken High Performance Dinghy Open

Start at the Heineken High Performance Dinghy Open

Finished the 2010 Tybee 500!

2010-05-17T11:24:00.002-04:00

Leg 6 from Fernadina to Tybee was a pretty rough one for us, we finished 10th for the leg but didn't get done what we needed to. We were running with the leaders well for the first 5-10 miles and ahead of Team Pepod, whom we needed to beat by around 15 minutes to move up in the standings. After the start we were just ahead of Team Pepod but realizing it would be hard to beat them by 15 minutes by drag racing them we made the bold decision to jibe in early, one of the first boats to do so. If you watch the tracking on Tybee500.com you will see what we realized 3 hours later as a pack of 5 or so boats including Pepod came into shore a few miles ahead of us, we jibed way too early. The wind was still light when we jibed and making terrible vmg towards shore put us back in the pack. The group that came in later waited for more breeze and had much better vmg on their way in. After jibing back and forth along the desolate Georgia coastline we found the angle we needed to sail to Tybee and held it for the last 40 miles. During this time we ground down Team Velocity 2 and gained on Pepod but couldn't quite catch them as they beat us by about 5 minutes in the leg.
The biggest pain during the day was 1) every time you jibed into shore your vmg was horrible and depressing to look at 2) in the murky brown GA water's we had our rudders kick up 6 times, we know that 2 times it was from jellyfish (amazing how loud the pop is as you make these guys explode sailing at 18 knots) but the other 4 we aren't so sure and it's pretty creepy not knowing what's down there! At the end of the leg we found a quarter size chip in the leading edge of our rudder blade. I'm just thankful for not getting the chance to mingle with a 12' Hammerhead again this year, we only saw a few smaller sharks this year.
All in all we are very happy with our performance at this year's Tybee. Us being there and finishing this race would not have been possible without Team Seacats... Frank, Jake, Tim, Chris, David, Robyn... thank you very much! You have all been so kind to us and we are proud to have been part of such a great team... the awesome team t-shirts that Jake made were worth it on their own! Also thanks to the team groundcrew's Tim, Chris T. and Bjorn for helping out our road crew Chris. B... it was amazing to have a full on NASCAR style pit crew waiting for us on the beach. it was There is no way we had the energy to do everything you did for us off the water. Chris B, thank you for stepping in as the all-star perfect ground crew, you did everything we asked and more making it possible for us to focus on sailing. There is no way we could have done half the things you did for us and still make it through this race, especially after the first 2 days.
I also have to thank everyone involved with this race whether it be RC, competitors, other ground crews, and so forth the camaraderie blows my mind each and every day.
I'll try to update this blog with some more stories from the week over the next few days, i'm a little bit fried right now after driving straight through to CT all night.

Perfect sailing for leg 5 to Fernandina

2010-05-14T18:48:00.003-04:00

The start of Leg 5 was in about 8 knots from the Southeast allowing for a spinnaker run. This was a big advantageous once again for the 20's. We had an amazing start, even though we started 1 minute behind on second row we got up to the lead pack almost immediately and hung in with them for a while and then jibed into shore. When we came back to some of the lead 20's we had caught up a lot and only lost a bit to them over the course of the day.

We saw some new types of sealife today including a manta ray the side of our trampoline, a few more turtles, and a couple small sharks. It's really cool to see so much sealife through this race.

Team Pepod had a 33 minute lead on us going into yesterday and we've now cut into that lead by about 18 minutes. We have been going lower and just as fast as them downwind the last two days and hope that can allow us to gain another 15 minutes on tomorrow's 120 mile leg which start has been moved up to 8AM.

We picked off 1 boat right before the finish today while we were double trap spin reaching the last 15 miles and finished 7th.

Off to dinner now!

We made it to Daytona

2010-05-13T18:53:00.002-04:00

Not in quite the best placing as we have been the last few days, but not too bad, 12th place. It was really ideal Nacra 20 conditions with light winds upwind and dead downwind and a low jib reach around the exclusion zone that was too low for us to carry our spinnakers.

We battled it out all day with Team Pepod, the other F18 Infusion and ended up being them by 9:59, for the first time so far this race.

After being dropped off Cape Canaveral we decided to keep going out, we were too far behind to see that the leaders had jibed in and didn't feel like it was the right move. We ended up going nearly 20 miles off shore, we lost sight of land for several hours. It's really hard to trust an arrow on a GPS when you look where it's pointing and there is nothing there! Going around Cape Canaveral it was very light winds and it slowly picked up as we got closer to Daytona. Unfortunately we found out upon arriving on the beach that the wind had filled on shore much sooner.

Unfortunately our teammates on Team Seacats White have retired from the race due to damage... this is very dissapointing as they are great guys and this is the 2nd year in a row this has happened.

Tomorrow we are off to Fernandina, one of my favorite stops of this race. If the conditions are like they were at the finish today it will be a great run.

Below are pictures of our finish in Cocoa Beach Yesterday.

6th place again into Cocoa Beach

2010-05-12T18:34:00.004-04:00

The day started off with a launch through pretty big breaking surf but perfect wind to get through it flawlessly. We started off double trap 2 sail reaching and eventually the wind shifted allowing us to put the spinnaker up and sail single trapezed. At these angles, for the first half of the leg the 20's were at an advantage and we lost a couple of them.

Halfway through the leg we were jib reaching out and spinnaker reaching back in as long as we could as the 20's were powering through on a jib reach parrallel to the shore. We were holding off Team Seacats Orange but they were coming on strong, in an attempt to hold them off a bit longer we launched the spinnaker and double trapezed, this didn't last long as our hull buried sending us both around the bow in what the guys on Seacats Orange claimed was a "9 pointer" with both rudders way clear out of the water and everything!

We righted the boat in about a minute and started to grind back at them but in that little time they had already pulled way ahead, almost to the horizon. Later in the day the wind clocked a bit favoring us for a spinnaker double trap tight reach and it allowed us to grind down some boats in front of us. The last 15 miles or so we used the lifts off shore to our advantage and hugged the coast on a very tight and on the edge spinnaker reach allowing us inside of an ahead of Seacats Orange and Team AHPC who was jib reaching as they had broken their spinnaker halyard.

We pulled into Cocoa Beach at 4:20, 6.5 hours from the start, amazing speed for 90+ miles especially when last year we got in at 2:30AM!

BIG thanks to Harken's Scott Norman who showed up to the start today and supplied us with a brand new lower mainsheet block to replace the one which the ratchet had gone out on on day 1!

Tomorrow we're headed to Daytona, this leg will drop us about 15 miles offshore and possibly out of site of land at points after rounding Cape Canaveral.

Close call photo sequence at Jupiter finish!

2010-05-11T21:38:00.004-04:00

SOMEHOW we saved this! But lost 5th place in the process.

sooo ugly!! And only the 2nd time this kite has been flown!

Last minute chart inspection

2010-05-11T21:19:00.002-04:00

Looking over the charts before the start in Hollywood

Inched out for 6th place into Jupiter

2010-05-11T16:35:00.001-04:00

After managing to get out decently of the surf at Hollywood, at which apparently was a fairly wild start (we were way to flustered with everything going on to pay attention)... we turned North and never looked back.

Blasting through 4-8 foot waves on a jib reach we were in 7th place right after the start, we were getting pounded by some waves and getting airborn off others. Within a few miles one boat ahead flipped and we zoomed by them, we then continued to roll 2 more Nacra 20's and open up about a 1/8th of a mile gap on Team Royal Yellow, we held that position for nearly 50 miles but when the wind shifted right and lightened up it put them in a great opportunity to use the 20's power to get by us just 10 miles from the finish. Soon after they passed us we were able to put the spinnaker up and hang on to them a little bit but not catch them. The last 10 miles was torture as the next 20, Trey Brown was able to start reeling us in. To make the last jibe into the finish we were pressured to jibe early and get inside him which was a BIG mistake. We understood the layline and ended up getting into the surfline sooner than expected and being forced to jibe while surfing breaking waves. During the 2nd jib we were hit broadside by a wave and completely onto our side, somehow we managed to save it and bear off just in time for Trey to be right next to us. Without the power the power in our spinnaker Trey slid in front of us to beat us by just 2 seconds!

We ended up just 15 minutes behind the leaders, finishing about 10 minutes before 2, 65 miles in under 4 hours... not too shabby.

Picture sequence from our awesome finish in Hollywood

2010-05-11T16:19:00.004-04:00

7th on leg 1

2010-05-10T20:19:00.003-04:00

We started off the day with a great start right behind Mischa and held with him for a few miles until he began to pull away.

Battling upwind breeze of about 12-15 on the nose and confused sea state we were averaging between 9-12 knots. Hiccups today included our mainsheet ratchet giving out 10 miles into the 76 mile leg and running aground twice.

We were right up in the lead pack for the first 30 miles or so but struggled a bit from then on and lost touch with them.

We hit the beach in 7th place, about 15 minutes behind the boat in front of us. After running the boat really far onto the beach we were told "nice landing" by several people... apparently we ran the boat up at least twice as far as anyone else... it was pretty awesome... we were probably 50 feet above the tide line.

Tybee starts tomorrow!

2010-05-09T23:34:00.001-04:00

Well we spent all day doing a bit more boat work, tricking the boat out for distance racing to get any edge we can.

We also got out for a quick sail in which time we tested out our brand new North spinnaker. We are very happy with how it performed and it should be a good sail choice for the week. It's interesting since it's a bit different shape than our old Performance Sails spinnaker in the it has a fuller shape which will change our sailing angles a bit. It definitely has plenty of power though as we had the hull easily out of the water while the Nacra 20 behind us did not.

The forecast for tomorrow is for low teens building to mid to high teens mid day. However, i've heard conflicting reports that it will be windier. Either way, wind from the East / Northeast will make for a fast sail which means we will get in time to go to dinner at Taverna Opa in Hollywood!

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow evening, maybe even in the morning.

Tybee starts tomorrow!

2010-05-09T23:34:00.000-04:00

Well we spent all day doing a bit more boat work, tricking the boat out for distance racing to get any edge we can.

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow evening, maybe even in the morning.

Tybee starts tomorrow!

2010-05-09T23:24:00.002-04:00

Well we spent all day doing a bit more boat work, tricking the boat out for distance racing to get any edge we can.

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow evening, maybe even in the morning.

We made it!

2010-05-08T18:54:00.002-04:00

After spending the whole day working on the boat in 90 degree heat and little wind, it is a relief to be sitting down in an air conditioned room!

The scene at the Islander is very cool with a bunch of 20's and 4 F18s including 2 new designs the Hobie Wildcat being sailed by one of the top F18 sailors in the world and a AHPC C2, also being sailed by a pro sailor from Europe (though with American roots). We are certainly going to have our work cut out or us.

We didn't get out sailing today but need to tomorrow as we are using a brand new North Sails spinnaker and need to figure out how to handle it.

Rumors have it that the first two days of the race will be nuclear winds from the east... meaning jib reaching and REALLY fast sailing.

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow evening.

1 week until Tybee!

2010-05-02T22:03:00.002-04:00

After spending the whole weekend working on the boat it's finally ready to head south for the 2010 Tybee 500!

Brendon was not able to get off work so Todd will be sailing with Trevor Burd. We will be leaving RI Thursday night to get to the Keys Friday night. Luckily we have no boat work to do and can just get down there, rig up and get some sailing in.

We got a few more practice days in, sorry I missed updating this blog. While the ocean sailing and wind conditions can match up to that of Tybee, no training will truly prepare us for the long legs of Tybee, it's not very smart to sail for that long in the conditions we still have up north.

We will update this blog daily, also read our updates on our Tybee team site www.teamseacats.com

Thanks for everyone that has shown us support in preparing for the race!

6th at the Southern Area F18 Champs / Spring Fever

2010-04-05T18:28:00.004-04:00

It's a little hard to call this event the first of our season since we already sailed one event earlier this year in January and our weekend after weekend regatta season doesn't start for another month or so. But since the boat went into winter storage for 2 months, we went skiing in between, and spring has sprung we will call the Spring Fever Regatta the start of our 2010 season.

77 boats showed for this year's Spring Fever at Lake Hartwell in Georgia. With 16 F18s this regatta served as the Southern Area Championships for our class and the competition showed up in force.

Friday & Sunday were light 2-5 knots, very spotty conditions, typical lake sailing.

Saturday started out light but in the first race as we rounded the windward mark in 2nd the wind clocked and piped up to about 13 knots leading for an exciting spinnaker/jib reaching drag race around the course with Alex Shafer as the rest of the fleet sat struggling to get around the windward mark, but it wasn't long before regatta winner Nigel Pitt caught back up and was nipping at our heels, we managed to hold him off for the only time we would beat him the entire regatta, though we came VERY close in one other race.

It's tough to be consistent in these conditions and we were were all over the place with two 2nds, two 4ths, a 9th, 10th, and a 12th. We had great starts most of the time but sometimes didn't find that first shift / puff and in those conditions it's very hard to claw back.

After Saturday's racing Nigel Pitt was clearly in the lead with Mike Krantz, Alex Shafer, Karl Langfield, Dave Ingram, and us all somewhere in the top 6, it was anyone's guess as to where. At dinner we were all comparing what we thought our scores were and no one could figure out for sure what the order was, this built some excitement but definitely made everyone a little tense Sunday morning as we rigged our boats.

The RC informed us that they would not tell us the final scores incase we didn't get any racing in and they were the final results. However, despite the late wind the previous two days, the wind filled in just enough for 1 race.

Brendon and I were ready to race and just like our competitors knew that we could end up anywhere from 2-6 depending on how we did in this race. We had a mediocre start but felt a bit slow running with the pack to the left. Really wanting to tack out right with a few boats but pinned in by a couple windward boats, we suffered as the pack in front of us tacked away, we wanted to lead them back but the boats to windward didn't tack until it was way too late. The race just went downhill from there as we struggled to get through the parade of boats but it seemed like there was a speedbump everywhere we went. Rounding the leeward mark in 10th to find ourselves with 9 boats directly in front of us we tacked off and then made the decision to tack back on the inside into the middle of the course. As if we hadn't enough go wrong in this race, we really felt like we shot ourselves in the foot on this one. By the finish we lost two more boats and overall ended up loosing to David Ingram in 5th place by 1 point! To make matters worse loosing to the Ingrams meant we had lost a bet that Dave had with Jake Kohl, sorry Jake!

Krantz and Langfield sailed really well the last race with Krantz winning by a large margin to set them into 2nd, Langfield into a tie with Alex Shafer for 2nd with Shafer winning the tiebreaker, Dave Ingram in 5th and then us in 6th. As mentioned before, Nigel Pitt ran away with the regatta for the win.

I can't remember the scores past that but i'm sure them and pictures will be up on Twinhulls.com and Waltercooperphoto.com soon.

While we were a bit dissapointed to be shot out of the back of the lead group we learned a lot as we almost never get to sail in light shifty conditions making the trip totally worth it, not to mention the awesome food, parties, and the amazing Southern hospitality shown to us by Nigel & Tammy, and everyone else. The RC, led by Wick Smith did an excellent job of getting races off in challenging conditions. I asked Wick on the water on Friday if he missed racing and he said yea but then we both agreed that in those conditions the pontoon boat's engine was much more enjoyable.

We look forward to going back next year!

Brendon and I will be on the water Sunday with our new North Sails jib and spinnaker. Trevor Burd and I will be getting some practice in for our next event, the Tybee in May.

Spring Training Day 1 & 2

2010-03-28T18:29:00.003-04:00

Despite having sailed in FL just 2 months ago, we quickly got a bit antsy to get back out on the water.

We need to thank our friend Malcolm for allowing us to store our boat in his basement for the harshest winter months and thanks to our friend Ernie for doing some amazing boat work at an amazing rate.

We had a 2 hour shake-down sail this past Thursday which was highlighted by me going for a swim when I went out the trap without being hooked in! Floating the 38 degree water while Brendon circled around to get me was not very enjoyable.

Today we met Tyler Burd & Garth Fasano, another F18 team for us to train with. Winds were a gusty 15-20, perfect sailing except that the thought of flipping when the air and water are only at 40 degrees is not a happy thought. We agreed on a plan to head upwind out the East passage into the ocean and around the R2 Buoy off Brenton Reef. Blasting through 3-4 foot waves we settled into a nice groove, working hard to keep the hull and our butt's out of the water. Brendon was working hard at the mainsheet while I steered around the waves despite that neither of us could feel much of our fingers. We got to R2 and luffed up to discuss the beat with Tyler & Garth. We then headed downwind into Narragansett Bay through Newport up to the south end of Prudence Island. At the south end of Prudence we turned around and battled it out upwind. During this beat Brendon and I started to get REALLY cold so we put the throttle down to get in as fast as possible. As we neared the Newport Bridge I told Brendon to be prepared for a wind shadow from the support column. I've never been able to figure out exactly how the wind shadows come off these things and as soon as we neared the column, powering up in a puff the breeze immediately shut off sending us into the water and off the back of the boat. The boat nearly flipped over on top of us and as I fell I pulled the tiller to turn the boat onto a beam reach and headed right at the next bridge column. I did all I could to steer the boat to keep it from flipping but as Brendon had dropped the mainsheet we needed to get back to the boat asap. Luckily we found the strength to get back on the boat and get it straightened out. Garth later told us they were very worried for us as the witnessed this. As if the cold hadn't gotten to us enough this put us over the edge, luckily it was a quick upwind sprint through the harbor to Sail Newport. Overall we sailed for about 3.5 hours and covered 29 nautical miles, a pretty amazing training day.

The boat is now packed up and ready to head to Georgia for the Southern Area F18 Championships / Spring Fever Regatta. Expect updates from this over the weekend or early next week.

2010 Tybee 500

2010-02-16T17:42:00.007-05:00

It's official! We are registered for the 2010 Tybee 500.
We are extremely excited to announce that we will be sailing as part of Team Seacats this year.

The team roster includes 2 other experienced teams, Team Seacats White - Chris Zander/David Strickland (whom we battled with A LOT last year) and Team SeaCats Orange - Jake Kohl/Frank Moore. As a well established and experienced team we are looking forward to the support that these race veterans are showing us!

We will start practicing in Newport (where the water is currently 32.2 degrees!) in late March, will compete at the Southern Area F18 Champs / Spring Fever Regatta in Georgia over Easter weekend and then continue practicing in Newport until the Tybee which starts May 10th.

5th at Midwinters

2010-01-21T18:55:00.004-05:00

photo courtesy of www.racebook-us.com

We've finally recuperated from the drive north and am finally able to sit down to summarize our experience at the Tradewinds /F18 Midwinters this past weekend.

After 12 races and 3 days of racing in 10-25 knots we came out in 5th overall, 5 points behind fellow New Englanders Accelerated Chaos and 19 points ahead of Team Zhik. While the top 3 boats clearly had an extra gear than the rest of the fleet, we managed to beat a couple of them in a few races throughout the series. Between the 3 of these boats they have more Nat'l titles and high level sailing experience than I could ever dream of. It was rewarding to be able to mix it up with them at times, scoring a 2nd place in the first race affirmed that we are capable this and that we have come a long way in the last year.

The rest of the fleet found ourselves in tight battles, we may as well have tied a 10' line between us and several other boats because that's about the most separation we saw the entire race!

This tight racing and fantasy level sailing conditions made this one of the best weekends of sailing any of us had ever experienced!

The two days prior to the clinic we took part in a clinic put on by Robbie Daniels. While the wind wasn't on our side during these two days we still learned more than we had all season. Robbie is an amazing coach, add in Jill & Enrique and you have the best multi-hull coaching team imaginable. Jill was also kind enough to provide us with water & lunch all through the regatta... that alone made it worth every penny! We will definitely be taking part in another one of their clinics in the future.

Pictures and story at www.catsailor.com We will add some pictures to here as they become available on www.racebook-us.com

Tradewinds day 1

2010-01-16T07:47:00.002-05:00

Amazing sailing conditions of 10-12 with some gusts to around 15 and completely flat water! The F18s got 4 races in... the top 5 is John Tomko, Alex/Nigel, Mike/Tripp, us, and Chris Titcomb/Sam Adleman that means New England boats in 3 out of the top 5! It is really competitive though, in the last race of the day we were in 4th with a big lead over the next boat and small mistakes within our final minute of the race let a few boats sneak in and push us all the way to 7th.. that's all it takes.

We sailed hard for a 2nd place finish, but it appears they might throw the first race out as timing was off at the start. We are hoping they don't but will admit that the timing was way off... I hit my watch at 1 minute and the start was still 20-30 seconds late.

Forecast today is calling for 20-30... should be a fun day!

More info and up to the minute results can be found at Catsailor.com on the open forum.

FL bound again!

2010-01-11T16:11:00.004-05:00

It's been 20-30 degrees everywhere along the eastern seaboard but as we get on our plane tomorrow it will be 18 and it will 48 in FL. By the time we arrive it should be around 65... sounds better right? The forecast is calling for progressively warmer temperatures over the course of the week maybe even reaching 80 this weekend! We are just hoping we can get some good sailing in, maybe a little drinking, and catch a nice tan.

We're arriving in Lauderdale around 10:30 where we will pick up the burban (thanks to the Sonneklars for donating a parking spot in their driveway for the last month!) and head south to Islamorada in the FL Keys. Our boats have been enjoying their vacation in Key Largo (thank you to the Shorts for storage!) but it's now time to put them to work!
Wednesday and Thursday we will be taking part in a training clinic put on by Robbie Daniels. Friday- Sunday we will be racing in the annual Tradewinds Regatta, a giant catamaran regatta which we treat as our Midwinters. We're expecting 15-20 extremely talented F18s... we will be putting Robbie's advice to good use to hopefully stay near the top of this fleet!
Stay tuned for details and results and hopefully some more video from our FLIP camera.
More details can be found at http://www.catsailor.com/

Cruising around Newport

2009-12-24T00:59:00.001-05:00

I love the change of season... it's why I live in New England... but looking outside at almost 2' of snow, having left the FL keys 2 weeks ago, and having to wait another 2 weeks to go back, i'm getting a little jittery... I NEED TO GO SAILING!!! Here's a few videos that i'm hoping will get me through, maybe it'll help you get through winter too.

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Onboard during the Steeplechase

2009-12-24T00:04:00.003-05:00

New England 100 video

2009-12-24T00:02:00.000-05:00

Taken while doing RC for the New England 100

KL Steeplechase Day 2

2009-12-15T00:59:00.005-05:00

For the third year in a row the Key Largo Steeplechase provided ideal conditions. Temperatures in the high 70's low 80's both days and 10-20 knots all weekend, I knew there was a reason we made this journey down there every winter!

The day 2 start from Anne's Beach on the South end of Lower Matecumbe Key is always interesting. For starters your sailing for about a mile in water that is 6" to 3' deep. Once you reach Channel 5 you put your rudders down, turn, and sail under the bridge into the backside of the Keys, entering the Everglades. The goal is to go as fast as possible with your rudders barely in the water and be first to the bridge, there is a lot of force on the helm at these speeds with the rudders up makes it quite the task to hold onto the tiller.
The Lemans start off the beach is fast because you can't push your boat too long without getting sucked into the sandy bottom. From there usually the options are hug the "channel" (the parentheses because you still can't put your rudders down) near shore or heat it up and go fast over the shallows.
We got off and put our spinnaker up and were ripping along with the lead boats. Trying to hold onto the helm and keep the boat going fast it's tough to pay attention to much else. We were sailing along with the spinnaker up on the hotter route over a foot or so of water. There are the occasional crabpots and I thought we were going to make it above one until we got a puff, forcing us to bear off but I noticed a line trailing off the buoy and bore off a little too hard throwing mysellf over the side of the boat in the process! I had the mainsheet in my hand but somehow it got wrapped around my ankle, dragging me at 10 knots (painful!). Brendon managed to grab the helm, slow us down, and keep us upright. I got the mainsheet off my ankle, grabbed it and pulled my self back to the boat which was still moving at 5+ knots. With Brendon's help I got back on the boat and we got back in the hunt, we didn't even have to drop the spinnaker!
We got into Channel 5 put our rudders down and gybed. We sailed past Randy Smyth who's crazy homemade trimaran had crashed but there were already two 2 other boats helping him so we continued on. Apparently his 2 amas scissored the wrong way and led to him crashing.
We got the to bridge, dropped our chute and tight reached to the first channel at about 15 knots. Reeling in the boats ahead of us was a blast, the infusion reaches great, especially with 385 lbs on the wire and a beast sawing the mainsheet!
When we got the the channel it became an upwind sail. Continuing on we clawed at the boats in front of us, eventually reaching a Nacra 20 Team Royal White. Unable to pass them for quite some time we nipped on their heels for over an hour. Finally we caught our break when a sandbar came up. They slowed down but we made the decision to go as fast as possible so Brendon ran in, pulled the boards, and I stayed on the wire sailing across the shallow covered sandbar with the rudders barely touching the water at almost 10 knots. As soon as the water was deep again we put the rudders down and we were in front of them sailing at full speed again.
Soon the wind lightened up a bit and they got in front of us again. This little battle pushed both of us and we eventually caught up to and almost passed Team Accelerated Chaos. As the wind lightened more the 20 took off an our's and Chaos's F18s started to suffer.
Entering the second mangrove we got in a traffic jam with Chaos, and a Nacra 6.0, side by side the 3 of us took up the entire width of the mangrove. Carrying our spinnaker into the mangrove entrance, the momentum carried us past these boats and right behind Royal White again.
Leaving the last mangrove we got caught up in some motor boat wake which contained tons of kicked up weeds. This, combined with flukey winds gave the couple boats we had caught an opportunity to open a gap and with just a few miles left we knew it would be hard to catch them again.
Entering the last mangrove we noticed 2 other boats catching up to us. Knowing we had our work cut out for us, when the wind died, Brendon grabbed the paddle and started stroking! It was dissapointing to see the 2 boats come around the last corner of the mangrove, bringing in the new wind with them and getting within a couple hundred feet of us. Leaving the last mangrove with this small lead we made the final mile long sprint to the finish line. Taking too long to make the decision on which way to go, we watched the 2 boats the had been almost a mile behind us all day caught a huge lift, sailed inside us, and beat us too the finish. There wasn't much we could do but it was alright as we still had both of them overall.
With a series of small mistakes and some misfortunes on day 2 we got pushed back to 6th overall, a result we are pretty happy with. In our last 3 years of the race we have gone from 18th to 11th to 6th... a pretty steady improvement! AND the best part of all... in past years we have ran aground 3-4 times each year, this year we didn't run aground at all! We need to thank Karl "hot karl" Langfield for this as he provided us with great GPS coordinates since our GPS broke earlier this summer. "The Hot Karl" is a little inside joke you will hear us mention in the video attached below.

Our attending this regatta may not have been possible had it not been for our gracious hosts Chip and Barb Short. Also, the Sonneklars for allowing us to park our Suburban at their house until Tradewinds. The catsailing community is such an amazing family... thank you so much to everyone for all the support!

Finally.. stay tuned for more video in the coming week or so.

New Ronstan trapeze shoes

2009-12-15T00:15:00.004-05:00

Below is a short video clip on the new Ronstan ultralight trapeze shoe. This shoe is PERFECT for cat sailing or any other trapeze boat. Upon putting the shoes on I noticed how incredibly light they are, I almost forgot I was wearing shoes!
These shoes feature a sole with spiderweb like grip that is the grippiest sailing shoe I have found. A velcro strap across the top of the foot and a neoprene big toe separation inside the shoe snugs up the fit and eliminates any slop.
The lightweight and flexible construction allows great contact with the boat.
You'll hear me say in the video that the cuffs are "almost high enough"... prior to use I thought that the cuffs were too short and would leave a gap between my wetsuit and the shoes allowing sunburn. After sailing in the sunny Florida Keys for two days I didn't have a problem and all my skin stayed covered.
While the front top 1/4 of the shoe is covered in a thick rubber for protection, these shoes are likely limited to trapping or light hiking.
Amazingly, you can purchase these shoes for only $40!
Also note... While I say in the video some stuff Ronstan has provided us, I failed to mention the Ronstan Racing Trap Harness that is our favorite harness for buoys racing, we absolutely love it, it provides great support, especially when lying flat. In distance racing however, we do a lot more sitting up and as you may notice we are not wearing the Ronstan harness in this video.

KL Steeplechase Day 1

2009-12-12T17:02:00.003-05:00

*Typed this initially really quickly Saturday night, i've made a couple edits.
Day 1 of the 2009 Key Largo Steeplechase tarted out high teens, puffs of just over 20 maybe.
From the start we were tight double trapped reaching to the Card Sound bridge, ripping along at 20-25 knots. We even got a great show of an F16 pitchpoling in front of us.
We were running even with the top first couple boats when Brendon's trapeze adjuster let go and he hit the water, swinging back into me and sending us both trailing off the stern. We managed to climb back on without capsizing but still this let a couple boats get by. We climbed our way back into the lead pack and turned upwind with them after the bridge.
Going through card sound we were chasing the leaders who decided to sail past Angelfish Creek, the mangrove exit to the ocean! Normally this wouldn't be our plan but it was the leader's 15th time doing the race, we figured they knew where they were going! Our gps was telling us we were going the wrong way but we convinced ourselves we were fine... soon after the leaders make a quick U-Turn and we realized we had sailed past Angelfish Creek. We got back to the creek and only a few boats who had not made this mistake had beaten us.
We entered the ocean and jib reached for a while in 12-15 with puffs a bit higher, averaging speeds in the mid to high teens. After not too long we got the spinnaker up and that picked us up a few knots but the occasional bow stuffing was pretty pretty pretty hairy. We were pushing it really hard which allowed for big gains! Immediately after putting the chute up we passed the Dave Ingram who didn't follow suit right away, probably to see if we could carry it, a question we were wondering ourselves. One of the stuffs was so hard that the spectra chicken line holding Brendon from flying forward snapped and his stainless steel trapeze ring bent! We took it easy for a a few minutes as we sorted out a new chicken line with some spare spectra and soon got back to pushing it just as hard. Soon the wind died down a bit so that it wasn't quite as hairy and we were able to push fast forward without any stuffing.
We managed not to flip but saw plenty of other boats do so.
We made our final jibe into the beach and ended up 5th overall, 4th on corrected, 2nd in class to the beach about 10 minutes behind the leaders. Chris Titcomb and Tripp Burd on Accelerated Chaos and our double stack partners for this journey finished about 5 minutes ahead of us and corrected out to first overall after Day 1.

FL Keys here we come! again...

2009-12-04T19:14:00.004-05:00

Wednesday the boat will once again travel down a very familiar stretch of I-95. We've made this venture nearly every year for the last 6 years.
The 2 big regattas in Flordia during the winter are the Key Large Steeplechase and the Tradewinds.
The Steeplechase is a 2 day 110+ mile drag race around the 3 Northern Keys of Key largo, Islamorada, and Mattecumbe. Check out the picture below to see the course. The race goes North from marker "C" which is the Carribean Club in Key Largo to Anglefish Creek then out to the ocean for a 60 mile run south to Anne's beach at the South end of Mattecumbe. Day 2 we leave Anne's beach and go under the Channel 5 Bridge (part of the overseas highway to Key West) and venture through the southern Everglade National Park, through narrow channels, mangroves, over sandbars, and whatever else this amazing place can throw at us. The best part is because of all the weather down there, it changes every year! We manage to find the bottom every year and last year only ran aground 3 times! Hopefully we can improve on that this year :)

Below is a picture of us sailing a practice day before the 2007 Steeplechase through the widest and last mangrove of the course. Sailing through these narrow cuts can be tricky as the water can be complete glass and without any notice you can be hit by a 15-20 knot puff and if your not on your toes you can end up sailing into or capsizing into the brush that is VERY close to you on each side. If this happens all you can do is hope you don't see any crocs!

The second regatta, Tradewinds is basically a giant midwinters for all types of catamarans. This year is the first year it will be 3 days, usually one day gets blown out (as it will blow 30-40) but luckily if that happens, your in the keys and a nice cold drink will make you forget about racing real quick.
We also plan to take part in a 2 day training clinic ran by Robbie Daniels prior to the regatta this year. 5 days of intense sailing in the Florida Keys!
All of this could not happen without the generosity of many fellow catamaran sailor. Barb & Chip Short are graciously putting us up for most of our time down there! In this economy, this trip would not be possible this year if we had to pay for hotels. Mike Ferrara is loaning us his Suburban to leave down there in between races, the Sonneklars are allowing us to keep the Suburban at their house between events, and Brian Paine is housing us for a nite on the trip down!
Catamaran sailors really are one big happy family... I can't express enough gratitude towards everyone that has helped us out over the years! Thanks so much!

Interview during Tybee

2009-10-30T20:47:00.004-04:00

Team Adrenalin Interview at on Jupiter Beach Tybee 500
Sorry to add this a little after the fact but once again, better late than never!
Mr. Clean from Sailing Anarchy interviews Angela, Brendon, and Todd after the shortest leg of Tybee, especially with the breeze we had this year!

It's a wrap!

2009-10-26T10:25:00.002-04:00

Well our last regatta of our regular season was the Heineken High Performance Dinghy Open October 10-11th. It was a tough regatta with winds peaking out around 30 knots. Despite 2 capsizes, putting a trap hook hole in the main in one, we managed to hold it together enough to place 3rd overall. This 3rd place finish put us in 4th for the final season standings of the Narraganssett Beer F18 summer series.
We're very happy with our performance this season. We really think we took our sailing up a level. It took a lot practice and time in the boat but it paid off. Keeping the boat at Sail Newport, we most likely sailed the most out of any other F18 teams in our fleet. Help towards our improvement also came from all our awesome sponsors who provided us awesome gear to outfit our new boat and ourselves. Thanks again!
Our next event is the Key Largo Steeplechase December 12-13th. Tradewinds and the Tybee are still up in the air for financial reasons. We will be sure to keep this blog updated with our plans, which we hope to have sorted out soon.
Also stay tuned for some late regatta writeups that I have but haven't posted yet.

8th at Canadian Nationals

2009-10-26T10:08:00.006-04:00

The above picture is from one of the starts. That is us reaching down closest to the camera. We found the only way we could get off the line was to start on our own, it seemed to work. The one time we tried to start in the middle of the fleet we found ourselves clawing back.
Below is a little writeup I did to summarize the Canadian F18 Nationals. Todd partnered up with John Harmuth for their first regatta together. Thursday's 2 practice races went well as we had one mediocre finish then won the 2nd. I've always heard that winning a practice race was bad luck but never read too much into it. I will in the future as on the first day of racing, while waiting around for the start, sloshing around in the waves, we both started to feel sick. We struggled through the first race than while sitting before the 2nd race started to feel even worse. Barely making it through the 2nd race we decided we were a danger to ourselves and others and sailed in, missing 2 races. A tough decision as we thought this would take us out of the regatta. Friday night we were in 28th place, we definitely thought we were out of the running. However, with 8 more races on Saturday and Sunday (Saturday in moderate to heavy conditions, and Sunday in very light conditions) we managed to string together a very consistent regatta with all 8 finished in the top 9. This was good enough to move us into 8th overall! We are very happy with this result but can't help but think where we would have been had we had our A game on on Friday.
The 2009 Canadian F18 Nationals took place last weekend in Toronto out of Etobicoke YC. With an initial entry list of around 25 boats the word spread and more entries poured in. It quickly became evident that this was going to be one of the largest fleets of F18s ever in North America. The final number was 37 boats, nearly doubling the fleet from last years regatta! Boats came from all over Canada and the U.S. and by the regatta end everyone was happy they did! The regatta organizers put on a top notch regatta with amazing food (literally half a chicken for each competitor for Friday’s dinner!), a live band, AND the weather cooperated for the whole weekend providing 3 days of excellent racing in all sorts of conditions.
Racing was close with many different boats mixing it up each day, especially in the top 15. Proving to have another gear than the rest of the fleet Team MicroWind, Mike Easton and Tripp Burd of Marblehead, MA put on a clinic, winning the event by 50 points!
Thanks again to EYC, the organizers, and competitors for such a great event! The New England Fleet (which has about 25 boats) is looking forward to the continued competition between us and the Canadians in several events next year.
This regatta is a great representation of the F18 class and it’s tremendous growth in the last year or two.
Photos courtesy of Rob Van Den Enden
Full results and more pictures can be found at: Cat-Alist.com

Summer of the F18

2009-07-20T23:09:00.006-04:00

Taking delivery of a new boat gave us no time to rest after Tybee. Todd spent all his free time working on the boat at Sail Newport, tweaking little things, tuning, changing lines and etc. Boat work on these racing machines seems never ending. In order to keep everything running smoothly to be competitive and not break anything, boat work is imperative.
After a couple shakedown sails our first regatta was the Sakonnet Challenge. 12 F18 catamarans showed up to this event, the best turnout of a single class in several years in our area. After a strong day 1, and a bullet in the last race of the day, we were in second place. Flukey conditions on day 2 got the better of us pushing us back to third for the regatta. All in all not a bad finish for our first outing on the new boat. Mike Ferrara was pretty happy with the new boat, pronouncing on the beach "My name is Mike, and this is my little boat!"
Our second regatta was the Hampton Beach Regatta where 11 F18s showed up. Todd invited 2nd time cat sailor Andrew Vachon to crew for him. The last time we sailed together was Sakonnet Challenge two years earlier on the N20 and we sailed very well. Once again, we proved to be a fast pair rattling off three 2nd places, a 3rd and a 5th. We even managed to lead speed demons Mike & Tripp around the course a couple of times only to have them get the better of us just before the finish. We woke up on the morning of day 2 to find nasty conditions (large waves, drizzle, and lots of breeze). Racing was quickly cancelled, leaving Saturday's scores final with us in 2nd overall. A couple of boats mustered up the courage to venture out through the large surf. We decided just to watch, it wasn't worth breaking anything! Sure enough they got through the surf, both broke their rudder casting retainer clip, one of them capsized then they sailed back in. We sure didn't miss much!

Team Accelerated Chaos launching at Hampton on Day 2

Regatta 3 was the Statue of Liberty Race. This is one of our favorite regattas of the year, this year marked Todd's 9th year in a row and Brendon's 3rd. We had some timing issues at the start and were late to the line. This left a line of boats for us to screw around with in order to get a clear lane. It was a screaming double trapped jib reach and we were faster than almost every boat we came up behind. By the end of the Navy Pier, John Sullivan on a tiger decided to make it hard for us and fended high and low, nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition! Finally after several minutes of being slowed by John we got a big enough gust to surprise him and take him on the high side before he knew what had happened. From there we had a clear lane in the front of the main pack. We put some distance on the pack and caught some ground on the leaders only to lose and then gain again. Upon nearing Liberty Island we were in 2nd in the F18 fleet (out of 7) and about 5th overall. Just before the rounding mark the two Capricorns managed to get above us and roll us. After the rounding mark we went down the center of the river, more towards the Jersey side while the Capricorns blasted down the Brooklyn side. Under the Verazanno the situation was the same, both us and the Capricorns raising our spinnakers for a couple minutes to get through the lull the bridge/land was causing. The wind quickly forced us to douse and continue on a dreadfully wet double trapped jib reach. About halfway back between the bridge and the finish line we noticed the leeward board had slipped down but didn't think much of it as this had been okay on the 20. It wasn't too long before we heard a SNAP! and saw a yellowish white thing float up behind the back of the boat. We weren't sure if we had hit something or the board had snapped but decided just to keep going, figuring the board would break off flush with the hull. Well apparently carbon is a little tougher than we thought as 1/2 of a half of the board was still being dragged in the water. We were going so fast we thought "oh well, let's just figure it out when we get to the beach". We got back to the beach 2 hours and 14 minutes after the start, about 15 minutes after the first place boat (an F18). The two Capricorns managed to slip by us during our daggerboard ordeal and we had to settle for 4th in the F18 fleet. Our time was good enough to correct us out to 10th overall out of 41 boats.

Cha-CHING!!!

Regatta 4 was the Newport Regatta. Unfortunately Todd had to work on Day 1 and we missed an epic day (so most of the competitors thought, but really it's just typical Newport conditions). We joined the racing for day two and had a good day despite having really bad luck with dealing with mark roundings with the monohulls sharing the course. It's great seeing them out there, just not when your on the outside of them in an 8 boat pinwheel! I think the frustration is mutual. The RC ran 6 races on Saturday and only 3 on Sunday so we couldn't be contenders at all, it was fun acting as the spoilers though! It was great practice for us just to get on the water as this was Brendon's first buoys race on a cat.

1-2-3: Bob & Tripp, Sandra & Mark, Todd & Brendon

Next up for us is Hyannis Regatta and BBR. Look for an update after these events. It's really cool sailing in these events as we will get exposure to 3-400 other sailors from V15s to Lasers from 505s to 420s to PHRF boats! Stay tuned for more updates.

After 5 events Team Adrenalin sailing as Team Jaypro Sports for the summer stands in 2nd in the Narragansett Beer F18 Summer series. Team MicroWind has a strong lead with Team Bad Dad in third. Almost 25 teams have participated in the series so far!

Additional thanks!

2009-05-28T00:36:00.002-04:00

We've acknowledged our sponsors, team members, and etc. Other people that deserve a great big thank you are our family's and friends. From our parents, grandparents, sisters, and brothers we saw tons of support from everyone! We can't thank all of you enough. Without you we never would have made it to where we are today in the sport of sailing or through the Tybee.
In addition, our friends the Novick and Maco families were gracious enough to make donations to our team. These donations are huge! We made sure to make an as accurate budget as possible pre-race but the expenses of doing this race just never end and can't always be predicted.
Thanks again to everyone!

Team Adrenalin videos on Sailing Anarchy

2009-05-28T00:27:00.002-04:00

Team Adrenalin finish in Tybee Island, GA
Mr. Clean of Sailing Anarchy interviews Team Adrenalin

Tybee 500 and a long, long, long drive home

2009-05-20T23:36:00.003-04:00

Our new boat!
The plan for after the Tybee was to drive to Pensacola to pick up our new boat then stay there for the night then drive back. As the week unfolded Brendan realized he had to be home for 8AM Tuesday morning. This meant staying overnight would not be an option.
Of course we had to celebrate in Tybee after finishing, somehow we didn't end up getting to bed until around 4AM. Luckily, we were smart enough to get the boat almost all set to go before we started celebrating. We woke up Saturday morning at 8:36 and ran to the awards ceremony. Here we found out the final standings. We placed 16th out of 24 overall and 10th of 17 in the Nacra 20 class. We are quite happy with this performance for our first Tybee, especially since our goal was simply to finish.
Afterwards, we made a few last minute preparations to the trailer and reorganized the truck a bit. We finally got on the road around 11:30 and drove straight to Pensacola through some nasty T-storms. Perhaps the worst part of this drive was the irony of it all, driving back to FL after having worked so hard to get out!
We arrived at Key Sailing and met up with the new owners of our 20 and handed over the reigns. This was a very sad moment for us as we loved that gray boat. Luckily the new owners are great guys and we are sure they will treat it well. The boat will be in New Orleans but will spend plenty of time in the Pensacola area being sailed.
Next we received our new boat, a 2009 Nacra F18 Infusion. Capt. Kirk Newkirk gave us a great deal on it! Despite being a major pain in the butt, he is a great guy.
From there we drove 3-4 hours into Alabama until we realized we were just too tired to go on. We pulled into a rest area and slept between some 18 wheelers for a few hours.
Once we woke up, we hit the road again, next stop was Trey Brown's house in Greenville, SC to pick up a couple trailer boxes. After that stop we had to stop at Trey's old house in Raleigh to pick up one more box!
With all the stops we ended up rolling into RI about 6:30AM after a solid 2.5 days in the car!
Nothing like sailing 500+ miles and then being cramped in a car for that long!
Upon arriving back to RI, Brendon dealt with some school stuff and then went racing on Swan 42 that night. I slept for a few hours and then passed on the chance to go racing with Brendan as I was too eager to rig the Infusion.
One important word of advice for anyone considering this long of a road trip is to have some company that you can goof around with. If you can't have fun then it's going to be one miserable trip! For all of those that don't understand what I mean... take a look at the following picture:

Team Moose-Burd sail 38 miles under jury rig!

2009-05-20T23:05:00.004-04:00

As mentioned in my below post... Tyler Burd and Morgan Kellogg of Team Moose-Burd folded their mast about 38 miles from the finish. They set up a jury rig mast using their spinnaker pole and flew their spinnaker. They spoke of speeds of 6-10 knots. We waited on the beach for them for an hour or two and here are a few pictures of them pulling in.
Tyler later told me they ran aground on sandbar and the crashing waves got them really nervous. They lost the boom overboard during these waves.

We made it to Tybee Island!

2009-05-20T22:09:00.005-04:00

Photo Courtesy of Sailing Anarchy's Meredith Block. This was about 250 feet before hitting the beach at Tybee Island.
Thursday morning in Daytona the Race Committee announced that the start from Fernandina Beach would be at 8AM. After a sleep deprived week this was a brutal announcement. However, once we found out the reasoning, wind decreasing later in the day on Saturday, we agreed it was for the best.
After an early finish in Fernandina we did some minor boat work to get the boat ready to sail to Tybee. The coast of Georgia is very desolate and there is almost no where to pull out if you break down. A few years ago a team broke down and had to overnight in a remote area of the GA coast and sail to civilization the next day.
We started off in about 3 knots of wind. The start was brutal for us, we had the poll position in the 2nd start but the surf was the biggest at this end. We pushed off with the spinnaker full thinking we would punch out. Suddenly a wave set came and pushed us back and back and back until we were almost back at the beach. We started paddling and got through the first waves only to be pushed back again by a 2nd set. It was really frustrating and it led to a poor position once we got out of the surf.
Almost immediately we were in GA, crossing the opening of the St. Mary's river, avoiding a large tugboat and commercial fishing boats. From there we saw an hour or two of light (3-6mph). The forecast was for the wind to die after 11AM, we were trying not to think about this, but we were doing the math in our heads... 114 miles divided by 3 is a long time! We were praying this wouldn't be the case... as 11AM neared there was no sign of the wind letting up, infact around 10:30 the wind picked up to about 12 and then continued to climb and settle in around 15 knots. This fresh breeze led us to a double trapezed tight spinnaker reach. For the most part the 80+ mile speedy spinnaker reach was uneventful, we went back and forth with around 5 boats that were around us about 10 miles off the GA coast. One of these boats was Team Moose-Burd who was there one minute and gone the next, we later found out that their mast folded in half. These guys sailed the rest of the race (38 miles) under jury rig finishing about 7 hours after us.
This leg featured the least amount of sea life of the whole race. We saw a few dolphins about 2 feet off our bow early in the leg but that encounter that really shook us up was later on when we were sailing at 16knots, double trapezed with the spinnaker up and looked down to see a 8 foot hammerhead shark right below us! We both looked at each other and exchanged some words not to be repeated on here. We figure the shark was only about 6-8 inches from our daggerboard. After this sighting we decided we were going to try REALLY hard not to capsize and have a closer encounter with this guy or any of his friends.
As we neared Tybee we had to drop the spinnaker and jib reach for a bit. Within a few miles of the finish we raised the spinnaker which took us most of the way to the finish. There is a cool video of us finishing at:
Sailing Anarchy TV
The video of us is "Team Adrenalin Finish" it is the last of the Tybee videos.
It was great to pull up to the beach in Tybee and finish the Tybee 500 in our first attempt! The welcome was amazing with hundreds of onlookers and beachgoers. Tons of people came up to ask us about the race, we almost felt like celebrities. Apparently back in Daytona, one racer was asked for his autograph!
Making it to Tybee was made possible by all of our sponsors, family, and friends who supported us this year and all throughout our sailing careers. We know you will all continue to support us and we greatly appreciate that! Thanks again for everything!

Finally a finish in daylight!

2009-05-15T22:50:00.002-04:00

Starting in Daytona was quite the adventure... very very light wind and pretty decent surf. Many teams had a hard time getting out of the surf. Luckily we got out in just a couple minutes, right behind the leaders. We got out of the surf, trimmed in and realized that our main halyard had come unhooked so we had to re-raise and lock our sail on the water.
Once we got going we were sailing at around 5-7 knots then the wind slowly started picking up and we went to single trapezed and eventually to double trapezed. We sailed the last 70 miles of the 99 mile leg double trapezed, fully powered up with the spinnaker up sailing at speeds of 11-16 knots. We were made up some ground sailing just outside of the surf line up the Florida coast for 40 miles or so until we came across the Jacksonville jetty. Unforunatley we were not aware of this obstacle and by the time we saw it were forced to sail straight upwind for 2-3 miles to go around it. During this time we lost a couple boats that we thought we had passed by sailing inshore. It was a dissapointment but we marked the end of the breakwater on our GPS for next year!
We saw TONS of wildlife today from Manta Rays, to turtles, to dolphins, and etc. It was very cool. The scenery on the shore was also neat... we saw lots of interesting architecture... leave it to FL.
We pulled into the beach at around 6PM in 13th place... tying for our best finish yet. Luckily the best part about being 13th is it means we will be the furthest left in the second row of the start tomorrow.. much better than being last in the first row.
We will need any advantage we can get as it is going to be a long sail to Tybee Island tomorrow. The mielage is around 107. If we break down there is pretty much no where to pull out, a couple years ago some guys had to overnight on the desolate GA coast. We look forward to getting to Tybee in one piece and completing our first Tybee 500!
Hope to see you at Tybee Island!

Another night finish!

2009-05-15T01:38:00.003-04:00

Photo from after the start in Jupiter... Taken by Walter Cooper Photography (waltercooperphoto.com)
Sorry for the late post... we got in, went for dinner and passed out. I woke up and have a slight boost of energy... just enough to write this.t Leg 4, Cocoa Beach to Daytona Beach started off with a light and tight spinnaker reach off the beach. The breeze was just too light for several teams to power through the surf. It took a few attempts from many teams, including us to punch through. Once through it was a short spinnaker reach then a close hauled beat up to the first Cape Canaveral restriction buoy. Several teams were confused by a second set of buoys further in and failed to honor the ones mentioned in the Sailing Instructions. We had done our homework and sailed to the further set... those teams will likely be suffering a strict penalty. After rounding the buoy it was a great spinnaker reach for another 30 minutes to an hour until the wind started to die. Despite boat speeds 10-11mph of Between the dying wind, large waves, and wind angle, we were struggling to make just a couple of miles per hour towards Daytona which was straight downwind. It was looking like at the time that we might not make it in until past midnight again. Luckily we finally started making some progress and sailed the last 40-50 miles at 10-13 mph. We sailed into the surfline, timing the breaking waves perfectly this time and coming to a stop around 8:10.
We had a great dinner at Ruby Tuesdays h here Frank Moore of Team Seacats bought us and Team Moose-Burd a round of beers. Thanks Frank!
Tomorrow's forecast is for Southeast 10-15.. it'd be nice if it was actually at the higher end of that this time for more than 30 minutes!

Off to Daytona!

2009-05-14T08:17:00.002-04:00

After just 4.5 hours of sleep we are up and getting ready to head off to Daytona. Todays forecast is 10-15 from the East. We will be rounding Cape Canaveral today and getting 9-15 miles offshore when we do so. After that we will take a hitch back in and follow the shore til Daytona. We hope there is a bit more wind today! The last boat got in around 4AM last night. Stayed tuned for another update tonight.

Finally in Cocoa!

2009-05-14T02:13:00.003-04:00

After around 15 hours on the water we arrived in Cocoa.... We started off with a strong 15 knot jib reach that only lasted about 30 minutes. That died and we decided to jibe in to play the shore, at the time we were right with the lead boats and the boats that won the day. Those boats continued out and went a rumored 12 miles off shore to take advantage of the nearby gulfstream current. This is just reported but it seems really probable. The F18s that took advantage of this were first and second to the beach, beating the first Nacra 20 by 2 hours.
We had a really slow day, almost stopped at time in 3-4 foot chop. We managed to entertain ourselves and the company of dolphins and turtles made it that much better.3
As dusk set in we separated from the last boat we were near (Royal White) and tried to take an inventory of the boats around us. Immediately as it got dark we lost sight of all the boats around us but one (Team Chums). We eventually lost sight of him as well. We sailed for another hour or two until we came across Tad of Team Velocity with a split spinnaker that was holding on by the tapes, as I write this he is still not in.
As we got 6 miles from the finish we were hugging coast, we were surprised no other boats were near us until we turned around to see 3 boats 200 feet behind us. We had to hold them off sailing at 2.5-4 knots... as we got within 2 miles of the finish the moon finally came out from behind the clouds and we noticed there were not just 3 boats behind us but 5. We entered the surf and we let out a sigh of relief... that was until we heard "watch out for the wave" and turned around to find a really steep 5 foot wave chasing us down, our spinnaker was still up and the wave turned us sideways nearly taking out the race committee and several others. Luckily our awesome ground crew and friends grabbed us to take the boat under control and get it out of the surf. We were welcome by BBQ pizza and cold Coronas which we had requested in a bored phone call about 6 hours earlier.
It was a LONG day but we ended up 15th or 16th, not too bad. It was mostly REALLY light averaging 2-7 knots but there was some time we were trapezed or double trapezed reaching speeds of 10-14 knots. It was truly amazing to finish within minutes of 10 boats after 102 miles and 15 hours of sailing. Time for us to sign out.... we need to wake up in 4 hours and do this again!

102 miles to Cocoa

2009-05-13T07:48:00.002-04:00

Today we have the 2nd longest leg of the race, from Jupiter to Cocoa Beach, as the crow flies is 102 miles. Last year teams sailed around 130 miles and didn't get to the beach until after 10PM.... luckily the forecast is not looking to put us in the situation today. The forecast is for East wind 5-10 increasing to 10-15. This would mean a beam reach which would be very fast if the wind is up. We shall see, I don't want to make any premature predictions like I did yesterday! Well it's time to head down to the boat, we have to drive to the starting area as the beach just outside the hotel is not suitable and we have to be sure to avoid the turtle nests that liter the beach. Stay tuned for more updates from Cocoa if we are still functioning.

A few pictures courtesy of SA

2009-05-12T22:04:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the short post earlier... we had to high tail it to Craig Van Eaton's annual Gumbo party. Craig supplied tons of beverages and of course excellent Gumbo for all the Tybee competitors who packed his ocean side condo. Here are a couple pictures from the Sailing Anarchy coverage:

Team Seacats (foreground) and our sail (background):

Our sail through the palm trees:

Us after the start battling it out with a few other teams:

We made it to Jupiter!

2009-05-12T17:49:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the premature post earlier.... the wind actually filled about 30 minutes before the start. We started off going around 7-8mph with the spinnaker up, gybing back and forth. Soon we were single trapezed and later double trapezed. While we were double trapezed we were reaching speeds of 15-19mph. The wind eventually clocked around enough that we were single trapezing at 20+mph (top speed 22.5) pretty much straight down the shore! This continued until the finish. It is really cool out there with 24 boats, we were able to see 15 others boats or so all the time. It makes it really tough when you need to eat, drink, or do anything other than sail fast because you are constantly try to pass someone else and fend off those trying to pass you. We were the 13th boat to the beach, this was partially because of a couple boats breaking down, but that's all part of the Tybee! Hopefully our hard work to get the boat prepped for this race keeps paying off!

We were also interviewed by Sailing Anarchy today after getting off the water. I'd guess it'd be on their On The Water Tybee coverage later on... check it out... SailingAnarchy.com

Uhhh... this is going to be a long day!

2009-05-12T07:36:00.002-04:00

This is the view from our room of the Hollywood Beach Marriott at 7:30AM. It looks like it is going to be a long day! The forecast is calling for 5-10Knots from the Southeast... not too promising, a 20% chance of thunderstorms could make it interesting though. An area of high pressure moving into the area is certainly not going to help the rest of this week. We are remaining optimistic as yesterdays actual wind was a bit more than the forecast. Also, we only have 60 something miles to go today. Jupiter here we come!

We're in Hollywood!

2009-05-11T18:17:00.004-04:00

We are in the middle (grey boat, we are wearing red) in this picture taken right after the start. We got held up behind a crowded group at the boat that resulted in a t-bone. It resulted in a rough first 30 minutes or so trying to fight for a clear lane.

First off we're in Hollywood, FL... we aren't quite rockstars yet.

We sailed around 90 miles today starting just after 10 am with a light upwind beat with speeds of 6-8mph. Soon into the race some F-18s were able to put up their spinnaker on a tight reach. Unforuntatley, the 20's spinnaker cannot be carried as high. It was quite frustrating watching them sail quicker because of this. We tried to put it up but it forced us to bear off way too much so we dropped it. A couple hours in the wind clocked around just enough that we were able to put the chute back up and start sailing a double trapezed reach. A double trapped reach in flat water is really a distance racers dream, however it kept taking us in toward the shallows so we had to drop it and head upwind away from shore a few times. Only a few hours in we saw our first turtle (we saw 2 or 3 total)... they really blend into the water well! Over the course of the day we sailed by many shallow spots, luckily our new GPS held up perfect and showed all of them to us, we didn't even have any close calls (feels good after running aground several times in the Steeplechase).

The wind lightened up a bit entering Key Biscayne so we took turns being alone on the wire. That didn't last long and we were double trapezed again reaching up the beaches of Miami at speeds of 16-21mph. We got lucky enough to see some other sealife but we aren't quite sure what one of them was as it dove under the water once we got closer.

About 85 miles in we spotted the finish and were reaching REALLY fast, double trapezed, towards the shore. We got close to shore a little too soon and had to drop the chute for a few minutes but raised it again to try to slip by Pirates of the Chesepeake who was right ahead of us. We were flying in on starboard tack but in order to avoid uneccesary risks chose to take their stern and give them some room before we finished. We then gybed and screamed into the beach, dropping the spinnaker about 20 feet off of it and running the boat up on the sand. All and all we are really happy with our performance. We didn't stick around to see how many boats we finished ahead of but we think it was 6-8. We can't forget that there is a LONG way to go and anything could happen. We are psyched for tomorrow, it's actually a "short" leg coming in at just over 60 miles!

Final note: Our Spot locater beacon turned off at some point early on. We apologize for that and will try to make sure it stays on tomorrow.

2 hours until the 2009 Tybee starts!

2009-05-11T08:01:00.002-04:00

We have 2 hours left until the start. Today we will be sailing from Islamorada, FL to Hollywood Beach, FL, just over 90 miles. The forecast is calling for 10 out of the Southeast but possibly switching to the west as we near Hollywood. Looking outside at the palm trees swaying, I would say we already have 10, maybe more. I hope this stays up or it could be a long long day! Sorry I don't have any more pictures, we've been busy the last 3 days mostly doing boat work but we did manage to sail for a few hours each day to get our boat and ourselves dialed in to handle the next 546 miles. The boat is rigged and all we have to do is get dressed and go, pretty good feeling! I can finally say that we are actually 100% prepared. All our efforts over the last 6 months are finally about to pay off! Thanks again to family, friends, sponsors, and etc for all the support you have shown over this time.

Stayed tuned for more updates... maybe tonight if I can muster up the energy.

1 Day until the start of the 09 Tybee 500!

2009-05-10T07:59:00.003-04:00

Team Adrenalin is in Islamorada, FL making final preparations for the 2009 Tybee 500. Today we will finish up minor boat work, do our safety check, and get some more time on the water to be 110% fully prepared for what the next 560+ miles will throw at us.

Getting here was pretty much a logistical nightmare, despite starting planning 6 months ago, it seems as if there is always something else that has been overlooked! My friends and family are all happy that it’s finally race time because they are sick of hearing me talk about it and quite frankly so am I!

It's been in the mid to high 80's here every day since we've been here. The air is humid and there hasn't been all that much breeze so boat work has been brutal. Between the sun and the heat it really sucks up your energy! We sailed for the first time yesterday in the most incredible water ever! The water is like bath water, it literally was almost too hot to stand in the shallows. Once we got out past the shallows (which go out really far!) we found ourselves double trapezing in turquoise water which you could always see the bottom even when it was 50 feet deep!

Our boat is pretty much set to go. With all the awesome gear donated by our sponsors the boat is really tricked out. We only have a few final minor tweaks to do such as finalizing our chicken line set up and etc.

The scene down here is really great. Pretty much all the boats are here and most teams are in final preparations. Last night, Team Seacats hosted a Cruzan Rum party which certainly didn't aid in our waking up early this morning! It was a great night though, the vibe among the sailors, ground crews, and friends is incredible, I suppose it should be in such a beautiful setting. This was the last time we are drinking until we reach Tybee Island though, this is definitely not a race to take lightly and we are not.

Well its time to get over to the boat but stay tuned for more updates today and the next several days!

On the road tomorrow!

2009-05-06T00:36:00.003-04:00

We are off tomorrow morning to head down to FL for the Tybee 500. The plan is to be there midday Thursday and in Islamorada for Thursday night. Unfortunatley school is getting in the way for Brendon, he will be flying down Saturday morning. Todd will be picking up team manager Bret Sullivan in NJ and the two will be driving down from there. Sometime Thursday we will be picking up our other road crew, Angela, the coolest chick ever!
We have been busy practicing up in Newport, RI for the last month. Barry Moore was gracious enough to loan us his boat as ours is in South Florida in the enclosed trailer. Despite 40 degree water, we got some great practice days in. Almost everyday was 15-25 knots, perfect practice!We managed to only capsize once and of course we chose our first day which was by far the coldest. Maybe if we pretend the water during the Tybee is only 40 degrees we will make sure we stay upright! In all fairness though, as I write this the water temps in Newport are a toasty 48 degrees so we did get spoiled a bit towards the end haha. Team Moose-Burd also joined us for our last week of practice, those guys are looking good and with that big dumb animal in control of the front of the boat you can be sure they will be pushing it to the limit.
Stay tuned for an update at the end of the week from Islamorada!
The above picture was taken by the friendly Race Committee of the local Laser frostbite fleet on April 5th.

Unofficial Tybee 500 Teaser

2009-05-04T22:23:00.003-04:00

With the 2009 Tybee less then a week away what a better way to get excited than with a little video action.
A little something I put together using footage I took soon after the start of last years race.

Sponsor Spotlight: Kinder Industries

2009-05-04T15:29:00.003-04:00

Team Adrenalin is purchasing a Nacra F18 infusion the day after Tybee.
In order to keep it nice and clean on the drive back from Pensacola (where we are picking it up) we purchased some hull socks from Kinder. 3 other guys from the Northeast also purchased them and Kinder set us up with a great deal! I picked the covers up today and they are sweet! Really well built! If you need anything for your boat I highly reccomend these guys... they have the pattern for almost any boat out there or can get it.

New Sponsors: Glowfast Marine & Bluestorm

2009-05-04T15:16:00.003-04:00

Glowfast Marine:
It's been a concern of mine for some quite time that we will be sailing the Tybee with a black spinnaker and if we end up sailing in the dark how that would play out. I was wondering "how will people see us?" "how will we see our spinnaker?" we will most likely be too tired to hold the flashlight on the spinnaker. I tried going to local sailmakers here in RI but no one had anything that would work well enough.
A great solution came across when Glowfast Marine was featured on the main page of Sailing Anarchy. Glowfast's glow in the dark sailtape was featured as draft marks and chevrons on a bigger boat. I immediately called Jason at Glowfast and he agreed to send me a 10 meter sample. There is a cool history that is tied to A-Cup stuff on their website (click logo at right for link). In addition this stuff glows for 20 hours after just 10 minutes of light exposure! I tried it out in some dark rooms and it was really neat.We stuck the chevrons on the other day and they look really cool... I just hope we don't actually have to find out how well it really works! I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes if we do.
Bluestorm:
In order to compete in the Tybee, a USCG approved lifejacket is required. I got rid of my last one a couple years ago when I switched to using CE approved buoyoncy aids. When I saw this in the sailing instructions I wondered what I was going to do as the USCG approved ones were usually so bulky and obnoxious to wear. Luckily I found Bluestorm! I went up to their warehouse which is housed in Massachussets based MTI, s msrine technology company that offers gear to paddlers, fishermen and etc. Bluestorm is their new line to cater primarily to sailors. When the amazingly friendly and sailing experienced staff at Bluestorm brought out their products and let me try them on I was psyched! The Spray lifejacket was the most comfortable USCG approved lifejacket i've ever tried on! In addition, all the rest of their gear spraytops, infltable PFDs, jackets, and etc was all spot on... these guys know how to design a great product! Check out their website by clicking the logo at the right.

Day 2 Steeplechase.. FINALLY!!

2009-05-02T09:45:00.001-04:00

So it’s May and we are about to leave for Tybee and I still have not posted the day 2 story from the Steeplechase. To be honest, I wanted to wait until right before the sailing season started to give everyone something to get pumped up over! Haha That’s my best excuse and I’m sticking with it!
Day two of the 2008 Steeplechase was almost identical to day two of the 2007 race (and I’m assuming many others) the start was a downwind run off the beach to the channel 5 bridge where it was became an upwind beat in 15-20 with some nice jib reaching towards the end. For all of you that haven’t done this race, day 2 is the most challenging part of the race, it’s a journey through the southern Everglades National Park. The leg consists of sailing through narrow channels, over sandbars, through tiny cuts and mangroves, in between all that there is some great flat water sailing but unless you’ve done the race a lot of times (we haven’t) there are still plenty of shallow spots to discover (we found out the hard way).
We sailed the leg pretty similar to last year. The main difference was that we had a new jib that wasn’t so blown out that we had to foot off 5-10 degrees below our competitors. This made a huge difference in keeping us ahead of the boats we got ahead of at the start and passed through other opportunities, usually when they run aground! However, when a boat ahead of you runs aground you usually take precautions not to do the same. As we ran aground 3 times we lost a couple boat including Team Davis Island who we had been battling with pretty much all weekend. They sailed by us as we attempted to navigate through a NARROW channel, ran aground, and backed the boat up almost taking out a channel marker piling in the process. Luckily all of the bottom we hit was soft sand and we didn’t do any damage!
The final few mangroves and bays saw the strongest wind of the weekend reaching almost 20 knots. Even cooler, the third to last bay was a very quick jib reach in which our self tacker track decided to explode (not the cool part). Brendon quickly hopped off the wire in an attempt to tame the flogging jib but it was impossible and the boat shook violently as we reached across the bay at around 23 knots towards the next mangrove. We were able to jury rig the jib in the mangrove and were set for the final few miles mostly upwind sailing but we did get to pop the spinnaker in one of them and gained a bit on the boats ahead. Spinnaker sailing in the mangroves is always a bit sketch as you can’t see the wind coming and you run out of ground FAST if you have to bear off. We later found out or buddy Jim Zelmer from Vermont capsized in one of the last mangroves while doing the same. They got stuck in the brush on the side for quite a while apparently… poor Jim.
We finished up 11th of 21 overall but very close in time to the 4 Nacra 20s ahead of us and we can account for that time in silly mistakes. We felt good about how we sailed and it got us very excited for Tybee!! Bring it!
It’s hard to chose which is more fun, a 50 mile spinnaker run down the ocean side of the keys on day 1 or an obstacle course inside the keys on day 2. Either way, this race is incredibly fun and totally worth all the effort of traveling 1,500 miles to get there. If you are on the fence… just do it… you won’t regret it. I’d say this is my favorite race of the year.

New Sponsors: Kinder Industries & PLBrentals.com & Holmenkol

2009-02-26T11:59:00.004-05:00

We are happy to welcome on board the addition of two new sponsors.

Kinder Industries located in Bristol, RI made us a beautiful mast bag for our Nacra 20. These guys are really professional, I simply took some measurements off a mast and gave them to them and they made up a product that works even better than I expected! The quality material they use will be really helpful to protect our carbon mast for the 5 months that it sits on top of a trailer in Southern Florida. If you need covers or anything I would highly reccomend these guys. Click on the logo to the right for their link. Thanks to everyone at Kinder!

PLBrentals.com has graciously donated two PLB's for our use for the Tybee 500. This will be really helpful as this will save us $120 that we can now spend on other much needed gear. The guys at PLBrentals.com are really helpful and really supportive. If your looking to rental PLBs, Epirbs, or etc definitely check out their site by clicking their logo to the right. Thank you PLBrentals.com!

Holmenkol has sent us three of their products Seal N Glide, AquaSpeed, and Sport Polish. The Seal N Glide will help improve our spinnaker snuffing while not allowing the sail to absorb water. We have used this stuff before and it is really slick! The AquaSpeed and Sport Polish will make our hulls really nice and slick to give us the couple knots of extra boatspeed which will really add up over 500 miles!
In addition, these guys set us up with the Care Fleece for applying these products and made sure we were 100% clear on how to apply them! Thanks to everyone at Holmenkol!

Steeplechase 2008 Day 1

2009-02-26T11:55:00.001-05:00

We woke up early Saturday morning to find a forecast of 20-30knots. This is quite breezy for any sailboats, especially Nacra 20 catamarans that start to become overpowered in 15 knots! There was no way were backing out as we knew this would be great practice for the Tybee 500. After a quick breakfast we headed to the beach for 7AM to do last minute boat work and rig the boat. We were ready to push off the beach by 8:30 just as the last few boats pushed off. The wind was now blowing 20-25Knots and we had to sail straight upwind to the starting area. Soon after leaving the beach, we noticed fellow New Englander, Team Accelerated Chaos, capsized. Confused, we sailed by and noticed Trevor was ¾ of the way up the mainsail fixing a batten. They waved us off, but we heard some interested stories later on the series of events that led to their intentional capsize.
Once we got to the start it was only blowing about 18 knots. The line was heavily boat favored and the fleet was grouped up there. We managed to sneak in underneath all these boats, staying out of their traffic jam and in our own hole. We had to do quite a bit of protecting of this hole but ended up starting with good speed right below the main pack and punching out fairly well. Only the Tornado, Marstrom 20s, and a couple others managed to get off the line ahead of us.
From there it was an upwind beat, double trapezing through the bridge. On our way to the bridge we were doing well, having crossed many boats until we decided to sail conservative up the middle and the boats on the left made gains on us.
We came up to the bridge only to have to bear off to avoid the big wooden structure in the middle (not sure what it’s called) when all the sudden we saw a fishing boat, but it was already too late, we bore off but still went very close to them! We heard some yelling and screaming from their boat but we just kept sailing. A couple minutes later we noticed we were going slow, I turned back and saw a weird pattern in our wake and realized we had taken the fisherman's line with us! Brendan hopped off the wire and spent several minutes pulling up rudders and daggerboards until he finally realized the only way we were getting rid of it was to cut it. Once that was clear he hopped back out only to have his trapeze adjuster line slip and in the water he went. We were really moving at this point and he had a hard time getting back on the boat while I tried not to let him knock me off the boat and not capsize. Once we got all settled from these 2 ordeals Mike Hill who had been right ahead of us was long gone and Karl Langfield had just passed us. We managed to get going again and sail out from under Karl much to his dismay and battled him back and forth until Anglefish Creek. Nearing the end of the channel Karl hoisted his spinnaker only to have it fouled, at the time it was quite entertaining and we decided to antagonize them a bit. We had decided ahead of time to hoist late as last year an early hoist forced us to bear off out of the channel right into the reef. Once time came for our hoist we discovered that our spinnaker was even more fouled than Karl’s and they let us know it! We ended up having to sail very slow while Brendan fixed it. During this time we watch Karl and other boats sail South away from us. This was very painful to watch. Once we finally got going we figure we wasted about 10 minutes and had to make that up. Spinnakers in the distance seemed small and we weren’t overly optimistic of catching them but we still had around 50 miles to do it!
We got going only to find our tack line was slipping in the Spinlock, forcing us to tie a stopper knot and knowing that the only way we were taking the spinnaker down was to cut the tack line. It was beautiful single trapped spinnaker reach all the way down to Anne’s beach. We managed to make some gains on several boats and ended up close behind Todd Hart on Team Cat Fever. We would jibe and cross his stern many times, everytime hoping we had gained but it wasn’t meant to be. Finally after a couple hours we had a navigation error and ended up sailing over a reef covered by only 6” of water. This was perfect opportunity for Todd to sail away from us. By the time we got sailing full speed again he was long gone! As we made the final approach to Anne’s Beach we were on a high reach, we tried to hold it with the spinnaker up for as long as possible but it ended up taking us away from the beach so we decided it was time to take the spinnaker down, now remember we had to cut the tackline so once it was down it was down for good! Brendan brought the spinnaker down onto the boat but dropped the knife with the blade open! Luckily the spinnaker managed to avoid the knife and was not torn.
The finish was much less eventful than last year as we were actually able to sail over the finish! Thanks to Rick was listening to everyone! Not to mention the fact that I was not severely dehydrated and almost unconscious this year thanks to my camelback.
Despite all our issues that cost us around 20 minutes we were only about that far behind the top few Nacra 20s so we were still in the chase and knew what we had to make up for day 2.

Stay tuned for Part 3 about day 2 of the race!

2008 Steeplechase - Getting there

2009-02-26T11:48:00.004-05:00

Upon our arrival and opening of the trailer, Trevor getting really excited about riging!

Better late than never! I decided to write a detail story about this year's steeplechase and never got to finishing it until now. Stay tuned for Part 2 and 3

We were extremely excited about this year's Key Largo Steeplechase. Knowing we were more prepared than the previous year gave us the confidence to know we would actually be competitive this year rather than just trying to complete the race.

However, my excitment was soon halted when 6 hours before our flight I found out that the plane was already delayed, not because of bad weather in the Northeast, but because of snow in New Orleans! The airline informed me that we might not be able to make our connecting flight and all scenarios didn't place us in Key Largo until noon or later on Friday. With already a full day of boat work planned I knew this was going to be a huge problem.

Despite the grim situation, we decided to go to the airport and just go with the flow. Our flight was infact delayed 3 hours but this gave us plenty of time to run our tab (exactly what we didn't need to be doing!) up at the T.G.I. Fridays at the airport. During this time we were joined by many other delayed travelers including a local Newport Laser sailor we know. Many interesting topics can be brought up at an aiport bar, but my favorite was that this was truly a conspiracy by the airlines to meet a quota set by the bars in the terminal to sell alcoholic beverages.

Finally after the long delay we got on the plane to be greeted by 3 heavily intoxicated middle-aged mothers who insisted on not letting us catch any rest during the flight. Luckily, 21 people from our Providence to Orlando flight were connecting to our flight to Fort Lauderdale so they held the plane 2 and a half hours. Needless to say, the people that were sitting on the plane were not happy campers when we all got there. We were not bothered by this as we were just glad to be getting to Lauderdale that night!

Upon arriving in Lauderdale, a friend picked us up and arranged for us to stay at a mutual friend's house. Thanks to Jeff and Nick for this!

At 7AM, it seemed like we had just gone to bed (probably because we just had) when I got a text message from Chris Titcomb of Team Accelerated Chaos saying him and his crew, Trevor Burd, were on their way. We struggled of the couch and into the car to head down to Key Largo. On our way down, I cannot fail to mention our finding an Ihop and stopping for breakfast as no real trip can be complete without a huge breakfast!

After stuffing our stomachs, we finished our trip to Key Largo, picked up a fellow catamaran sailor's truck (Thanks Jack!) to move our box trailer from Tiki Watersports to the Carribean Club to start setting up our boats.

Our list of boat work for the day consisted of removing our existing self-tacker and replacing it with the current style, removing and replacing our tramp lacing slugs, putting new lines (courtesy of Paraloc Rope) and blocks (courtesy of Ronstan), and much more. Our boats were also completely disassembled in the trailer! We had to watch as everyone went sailing all day while our mast was not ready to go up until around 5PM. By 5:30 the sun had gone down and we no longer had any light to work on the boat and knew we would have to be up early in the morning to finish the work.

As always, registration and the skipper's meeting were held at 6PM at Rick White and Mary Well's house. After attending that, we went out to dinner then retired to the hotel from last minute GPS and chart review then much needed quality time with our pillows.

New Sponsors: Paraloc, Ronstan, Magic Marine, Murrays, Hall Spars, and H20 Audio

2008-12-10T21:34:00.005-05:00

We have begun our sponsorship quest for the Tybee and with that has come the donation of many products that will help us tremenously in our quest.
All these companies have treated us very well... please check out their websites by clicking the logos on the right of our blog.

Paraloc Swiss Rope:
Paraloc has donated new line to outfit our whole boat and more! This line is really cool stuff! Throughout the line, the cover is stiched to the core to prevent slippage or wear. R&W Rope, of New Bedford, MA is the U.S. Distributor and really has gone out of their way to outfit our boat with all the proper lines. They even gave us a spool of NovaTec shockcord... we are confident to say this is the best shockcord!

Ronstan:
We can't thank Ronstan enough for how much they are helping us out! They gave us everything we asked for! From their amazing wetsuits and gloves (which already were our favorites) to their new Orbit Series blocks for our spinnaker. They also gave us their new Racing Trapeze Harness which we are excited to try out. All of this will make us and our hardware fully capable of withstanding anything mother nature can throw at us!

Magic Marine:

Magic Marine also has provided us with gear that will make it much more comfortable for us to compete in our upcoming endevours. We are well aware of the reputation of Magic Marine gear and expect it to be perfectly suited for this type of sailing.

Murrays Marine:
As always, Murrays came through for us... they provided us with excellent deals on Barz Goggles, storage bags, and etc. I personally am excited for the Barz as last year by eyes had a tough time in reaction to the salt concentration of the water in the Keys. Steve Murray has treated me extremely well ever since my days sailing Hobie 16s... he and his company are a true supporter of the sport!

Hall Spars and Rigging:
Hall Spars in Bristol, RI has been nice enough to extend us a substantial discount on rigging and lines. This was extremely helpful as we were in dire need of new standing rigging. Hall made us some really fine rigging and in only a couple days! In addition to custom rigging services, they also splicing, and much more! These guys really know there stuff! I think we can trust the guys who built the mast for the BMWOracle DoG boat to build our rigging!

H20Audio:
H20 Audio was nice enough to contribute their waterproof armbands and headsets for our Ipods. While this might seem a bit odd, we are Team Adrenalin and what better way to add to our adrenalin than to listen to some "pump me up" music?!

24th Annual Key Largo Steeplechase

2008-12-10T20:56:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow night, Team Adrenalin flies down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to compete in the the 2008 Key Largo Steeplechase. This will mark the second time our team has sailed this race.
This race is run with a low key demeanor, however it is not forgotten that it is indeed an extreme endurance race. Race committee, legendary Rick White recommends that only experienced catamaran sailors participate. Racing over 110 miles on a 20 foot catamaran is no easy task no matter how you look at it. Over the years, teams have endured various conditions, from gail force winds to calm conditions. Either can be equally as tolling on sailors. High winds test sailors and boats, while calm conditions can lead to a long day on the water possibly even a finish after dark.
This race is a true gem of catamaran sailing, it is the favorite event of the year for many competitors. Where else can you race in the clear blue waters of the jet stream on day and the mangroves of the Florida Everglades the next?
We are extremely excited about this year's race. We hope that we can use our experience last year to improve our results this year. This is a race that you really need to be familiarized with the course to do well!
Stay tuned for updates over and after the weekend on Adrenalinsailing.com!
Also, checkout Catsailor.com for updates from the race organizers.

Late wrap up of Nacra North Americans

2008-10-24T23:41:00.004-04:00

Well we made it all the way out to Michigan for Nacra North Americans.

I apologize for not updating the blog while we were there... for all of those who have been to Caseville, MI, which is likely nobody, you would have known we would not have had internet access. There was NOTHING there, this included internet access, I think there was spot in the corner of the booth in one bar the the town that if you sat in exactly the right spot you might pick up a weak signal but that was it.

It was quite the trip, about 28 hours round trip.

The sailing conditions at this event were great. Almost every race we were double trapezing.

We had our ups and downs throughout the week. We did very well in light to moderate air which included leading 2 races. However, we the lightest team there at exactly minimum weight and had a tough time keeping the boat going fast in the heavy stuff.

We ended up 10th but we learned a lot! It was great to hold our own with guys who have been on the boat for years in our first Nacra North Americans.

I think the highlight of our week was the last race, when we were over early and Kirk Newkirk was nice enough to yell to us about 2 minutes after the start that we were over so we turned around and went back to restart. We decided to sail the hardest we had all week and try to catch back up to the fleet with a few minute late start. We ended up at the windward mark ahead of two boats and right on the tails of the lead pack. This felt really amazing as it confirmed that we had improved our boatspeed over the course of the week.

Going to the Nacra North Americans was much more about sailing for us. It was a great opportunity to pick the brains of great sailors such as Nigel Pitt, Alex Shafer, Captain Kirk Newkirk, and etc. These guys are all awesome as they are more than willing to help out and offer their advice, this is what sailing is all about!

We can't wait until next year's NA's in Fort Walton Beach, FL.

We're in for the 2009 Tybee 500

2008-10-24T23:23:00.007-04:00

Adventure Online TV - Tybee 500 Catamaran Highlights 2006

Well after lots of consideration... we have decided that we are officially going to compete in the 2009 Tybee 500, to be held in May. The Tybee 500 is a 500 mile race from Key Largo, FL to Tybee Island, GA in 6 days. We will sail a Nacra 20 catamaran which is extremely fast but also very physically demanding. This is the premier small boat endurance distance sailing race in the world.

This race takes a lot of time, commitment, planning, financing, and preparation. We have decided 7 months ahead of time that we are going to compete so that we can make sure we are 110% fully prepared to take whatever this race can throw at us.

We still need help though! Anyway you can help, whether it be monetary donations, product donations, or etc. we would greatly appreciate it!

Please email us at TeamAdrenalin@AdrenalinSailing.com for more information.

We have a sponsorship proposal and other material to give you a better understanding of what we are looking for.

Stay tuned for periodic updates on our progress.

Nacra North Americans here we come!!!

2008-08-23T00:20:00.001-04:00

This has been quite the week for me! Working all day Monday and Tuesday packing up all the boats and etc. at the junior sailing program that I headed this summer. Wednesday was spent moving out of my apartment (i'm moving back to CT for a little bit) and finishing up Thursday then driving home to CT. I was so busy I had to skip the last night of team racing V15s Tuesday night and PHRF racing Wednesday night! Friday (today) was spent working on the boat from 9AM-9PM and running a few errands for parts and etc.But the good news is that this hectic week is all over and tomorrow morning at 6AM we are leaving for Caseville, MI for the Nacra North American Championships where we will be competeting in the Nacra 20 class. My crew for this event is Sean McQuilken, who I have sailed with quite a bit and work well with. It's a 13ish hour drive to Caseville so we'll be arriving tomorrow (Saturday) night. Since I got all the boat work out of the way today we are planning on practicing all day on Sunday. Racing takes place Monday through Thursday. This is my first Nacra North Americans so we are shooting for a modest goal of being competitive by being consistent and sailing smart.Stay tuned for updates.... i'll be trying to update this blog daily. If you have any questions about whats going on shoot me an email at Todd.Riccardi@gmail.com and i'll get back to you asap.Since this is the first time i've released this blog address to the public I wanted to make you all aware that we do have a team name in the works to replace "Nacra 20 #642 sailing campaign" but it is staying top secret until our Tybee plans are firmed up for next year.

2008 New England 100

2008-08-22T23:54:00.003-04:00

Photo courtesy of Bill Vining

The New England 100 is a approximately 100 mile race, over the course of 2 days, which starts at Quonset Point in North Kingston, RI and finishes at the same point. There are 5 race course options that included sailing around the islands of Rhode Island.

Talk about an amazing weekend! Started off light (practically no breeze) both mornings and just past the Jamestown bridge the trust Newport seabreeze graced us with it's presence and led to double trapping in a steady 15-18.

The days were almost identical... upwind out the West passage, around the tip of Beavertail, down through the East passage, flying through Newport Harbor with the spinnakers up, passing through the Lighting class North American Championships', the N.Y.Y.C. team race, several other regattas, and the armada of boats anchored off Fort Adams listening to the Jazz Festival. It's really and awesome place to sail and a great place to give our boats publicity!

Mike and I led from the start on Saturday, but got sucked into a black hole by the Jamestown bridge and got passed by half the fleet. We managed to escape and find some wind and hang with the rest of the fleet and catch back up to the leaders. Unfortunatley as the day progressed, Mike and I were a bit off pace and let Chris Titcomb and Joe Valente get a good lead on us. We still however were a while ahead of the first F-18s. After rounding the North tip of prudence we tried to make up ground on Chris and Joe by sailing along the shore and out of the ripping current... it seemed to be working. By this time it was beautiful sailing, 18 knots double trapped, we were loving life. Our game plan of sailing along the shore included lots of tacking.. well one tack we slipped up and somehow we went into a tack without either of us holding the mainsheet... as I crossed the boat I looked back and saw it was too late, the mainsheet was cleated in tight and we were going over. After flipping we tried to right the boat as fast as possible as we noticed the current was really pushing us back towards the F-18s and they were coming fast! It ended up taking about 10 minutes to right the boat because the current kept pushing the bows out of the wind! It was really frustrating. We righted the boat and got sailing, rounded the South tip of Prudence and ripped on a screaming reach (top speed of 20.4 mph) to Quonset Point finishing 3rd overall but not so well on corrected as the F-18s were right behind us. We figure we lost around 15 minutes in our little ordeal.

The 2nd day featured much of the same course, we were able to lead off the start just as the day before and hold it this time all the way until the Newport bridge. Chris Titcomb was right on our heels so we had our work cut out to beat him overall, but looking back at the 3rd place boat, Joe, we saw we had around a 20 minute lead! Perfect! We had to beat him by around 15 to beat him overall. At the bridge Chris and ourselves split tacks and did our own thing. Once we convereged again several miles later Chris had taken a 5 minute lead. We were sailing nicely just flying a hull with the spinnaker up, headed towards the bell buoy just South of the Mount Hope brdige we were supposed to round. Suddenly, we noticed a rather large obstruction, a GIANT tanker headed directly towards our mark and in the path we needed to sail. By jibing inside it we were able to stay clear and eventually passed it and rounded the mark just ahead of it then got the heck out of its way! At the bell buoy, Chris still had around a 5 minute lead. We had a feeling we could catch him... but as we turned around we noticed the hole rest of the fleet had cut our lead to only about 5 minutes as the seabreeze had built to about 20 and they were coming downwind much faster than we did! Going up the bay, we again split tacks, Chris went right, we went left, hugging the shore to get current relief and take the nice lifts we were finding on this shore. By the time we convereged again at the South tip of Prudence Island we were in the lead again! We rounded Prudence and just like the day before had a screaming reach to Quonset, our lead over Chris grew from 100 feet to about 500 feet and we took line honors for the day. However, the rest of the fleet finished only 6 minutes after us, putting us in not such a good position overall. Now if only we could have the 15 minutes back from the capsize on Saturday.

All and all we had a blast... we could not have asked for better sailing conditions and competition. This was probably one of the best weekends of racing i've had in a long time!

2008 Statue Race

2008-07-20T10:27:00.003-04:00

Our favorite race of the year turned out to be a little bit of a letdown this year! It was light wind and we ended up turning around only 5 miles away from the Statue of Liberty. However, this was my 7th year participating in the race and my first time not finishing. I know plenty of people who it took several tries to complete this race so I am still content with my record.

We woke up to ZERO wind! It was a pretty dreary sight and all we could do was pray for the breeze to fill.

After a postponement flag was put at 10:00AM they lowered it and announced they planned to start us.

Taken off guard as there was still no wind, we scrambled around to get the boat in the water and out in time for the start. It turned out all our rushing was for nothing as we got out with plenty of time before the sequence.

At the start we noticed a bunch of boats starting at the pin end and we were about mid-line. We figured our game plan would be that with a few seconds to go we would launch the spinnaker and go for a clear lane above everyone else. It worked like a charm! At 5 seconds we were sailing at about 4 knots (in what felt like no wind!) as everyone else sat jumbled up at the pin. At GO we were still moving as everyone else sat still watching us roll them in dismay. We got a good lead off the start but somehow a couple boats managed find more wind and sneak by us for the lead. After rounding the first mark of the race we were in 4th with a good lead on all but one of the 20's.

As the wind came and went for the next couple hours we would accelerate away from the pack, catching the leaders, then we would slow, and so on. As we were still only seeing winds peaking at about 5 I felt I would be more comfortable not having my harness on. This was the first time in my life I have ever sailed in a race without my harness on! Suddenly, like hitting a wall, the wind increased to 12-15 and we were single trapezed with the spinnaker! But it wasn't enough! Our VMG angle was way off to make the bridge! We watched Team Velocity coming on strong double trapezed with a much better angle. Knowing I needed to get on the wire too, I handed Brendan the helm and scurried around the trampoline trying to get my harness on! Once I got it on we were double trapezed for about 5 minutes before the wind died back down. While it lasted, the wind had allowed us to make substantial gains on the leaders. We were now contesting the Capricorn about half a mile to leeward of us for the lead. It appeared we were pulling into the lead, as the race committee drove by to cheer us on. We had decent breeze and were going faster than all boats to leeward. Suddenly Brendan said with a nervous tone "Todd... look over your shoulder... theirs a giant tugboat and barge!" I turned around and saw the monstrosity. I knew this was going to be a problem. Traditionally, out of the two of us I tend to be much less cautious when it comes to encounters with commercial traffic. I tend to put us in risky situations in favor for not disrupting our race. Brendan wanted to jibe away but I told him it would set us back way too much. I was hoping we could cross the tug, but I secretly knew in the back of my mind that there was no way this was going to happen.

I told Brendan to relax and focus on the spinnaker I would worry about the impending encounter with the tug. For a couple minutes I continued on course to what looked like we might (big emphasis on MIGHT) cross the bow. I was slightly nervous but tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Next thing I knew I heard a few loud airhorns and realized the tug was thinking the same thing I was, we were on a collision course. Now my mindset went to getting the heck out of it's way but not damage our race. I turned the boat downwind more and ran on a low reach alongside the tug. We were keeping pace with it so I hoped we could keep it from passing us. No such luck, it soon passed us and we got stuck in it's lee. Still not wanting to jibe back, we sailed slowly for a few minutes and watched the boats to leeward catch up and pass us.

We neared the Verazzanno and converged with the boats that had been to leeward with us including Team Velocity and Team Accelerated Chaos. The 3 of us sailed side by side, dueling it out for a while, fighting the currents and trying to make it to the bridge. The Capricorn was the only boat ahead of us and as they crossed under at 2 hours and 47 minutes! The cutoff time for the first boat making the bridge is 3 hours! We knew that having taken so long to reach the bridge it was going to be a long race! We had hoped the Capricorn would turn around but since they didn't and none of us wanted to give up we kept sailing. We ended up crossing under the bridge at 2 hours and 58 minutes! We continued to sail up towards the Statue, it was in sight! As we jibed back and forth across the river with a boatspeed of about 5 knots our GPS was indicating that the Statue was 5.3 miles away and it would take us another hour and a half to reach it. We were so close! But the wind kept shutting down and soon we were averaging 2-3 knots, at that rate it was looking like 2.5 hours to the Statue. Running the numbers through our head we figured we would not return to Sandy Hook til 10PM. In our hurry leaving the beach, I had forgotten our flashlight. The thought of sailing in New York harbor without a flashlight did not appeal to me. Apparently Team Accelerated Chaos was thinking the same thing, they dropped their spinnaker and turned around. We soon followed suit. We were astonished when we saw that several boats opted not to turn around. We informed some of them what our GPS was telling us, as they did not have one, they seemed to debate turning around but as we sailed back towards the beach, they kept sailing towards the Statue. At that point we could do nothing but wish them luck and think we were making the better decision. As we sailed back, Team Accelerated Chaos, Team Velocity, Team Moose-Burd, Flash Gordon and several others all joined us. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who were happy with our decision.

About 30 minutes after turning around the wind filled and we were soon averaging 13-14 knots. I could not help but wonder if the wind had filled past the bridge. Brendan and I were disappointed but overall knew that we had made the correct decision, cautioning on the side of error. It was 4th of July weekend and we had no intention to spend a whole night out on the water!

After returning to the beach we indulged in some hot dogs, hamburgers, and beer, a true 4th of July style beach BBQ. We derigged the boat and around 8PM as we were pulling out of the parking lot we saw the first boats coming in. I looked at Brendan and said "Oh well!... We had a blast either way!"

Despite the sailing conditions the Statue of Liberty Race once again did not disappoint and I will be back again next year, hopefully looking for the win!

2007 Tradewinds Regatta

2008-03-05T01:12:00.003-05:00

Joe and I on final approach to the windward mark.
Bret and James, just before they capsized and Bret put a human shaped hole in the mainsail.
Bret and James on Wednesday, our training day prior to the regatta.

The screaming reach in the first race. Team Key Sailing about to capsize.

My two weeks in Tampa went well, Angela and I did lots of awesome sailing, we were joined by my friends Tyler and Morgan from Connecticut to do some intense training as they get ready for the Tybee 500.

While in Tampa Angela and I participated in a short 30 mile distance race which developed into a blind sail in the fog, weathering out a massive thunderstorm on an abandoned island, and then abandoning the race and sailing back to the beach. Out of the original 13 boats Tyler and Morgan were the only die-hards to complete the course. Ourselves and another Nacra 20 did come close as the island we weathered the storm on was the turning point of the course, we failed to circumnavigate it though as we sailed past it in the dense fog.

After two weeks at Angela's I was ready to go to Islamorada (one of the Florida keys) and sail in the Tradewinds Regatta.

Little did I know however, that all this time spent in Florida waiting for this regatta, and I would not even complete a single race.

My friend Joe from my college sailing team joined me for this regatta as Brendon could not make it.

We spent Wednesday and Friday training with my friends Bret and James from New Jersey. We had some amazing conditions and beautiful weather! Thursday we chose to take a day trip to Key West. Joe and James had never been, while Bret and I have made it a tradition to go every year during this regatta. We had an amazing night on Duval Street which ended a little later than planned followed by James driving us back to Islamorada.

Finally Saturday morning came, we got out on the water and did a few nice double trapeze upwind beats and spinnaker runs. As it was blowing around 20mph and gusting to the high 20's. We did everything we could do to de-power the boat but it just wasn't enough, at this point I informed Joe that we were going to have our hands full.

Now for race one: We had a decent start and as we approached the first windward mark we witnessed our first capsize. We blew by the overturned boat and assessed our mid-fleet situation. This assessment didn't last long as we were hit by some strong gusts and were double trapezing on screaming reach hitting speeds into the mid to high 20's. The scene in front of us can be seen in the picture above as Team Key Sailing flipped in front of us. At this point 2 boats out of 14 were down. At the jibe mark, right in front of us, Team Key Sailing 2 capsized as well. Thankfully, we jibed successfully, I thought that if we made it to the leeward mark still upright we would be golden. As we approached the layline for the leeward mark, we turned into the jibe when I saw a boat go over behind us, realizing there was likely a strong gust coming our way I tried to prepare but it was too late. Over we went! Another boat in front of us went over from the same gust. By the first leeward mark 6 boats had been blown over.

We righted the boat, sailed back around the course only to flip in the same spot and in the same manner as the first time! After righting the boat this time Joe and I were exhausted. We decided to slowly sail up to the starting area and wait for the next race. We were still ahead of some boats, but I was pretty confused as to who as we had spent so much time on the side. I figured we would cut our losses and go all out in the next race. A minute after making this decision, we were sailing upwind, both on the trampoline and pinching up into the wind to de-power when a wind gust blew us over again! I managed to climb onto the top hull as it flipped, I sat on top of the hull, 9 feet up in the air, half trying to comprehend what had just happened and half contemplating how I was going to jump down without hitting the boat and at the same time not getting separated from the boat that was drifting/ sailing on its side way faster than I could have swam. Before jumping down I looked for Joe. He had been thrown about 30 feet away and was trying to swim back to the boat. Seeing a Hobie 16 nearby I waved them down and pointed to Joe. I told Joe to save his energy and grab ride rather than trying to swim. He was given a ride back to our boat where he informed me he was "legally blind" as he had broken his glasses. We made decision then and there that after righting the boat we were going in 1, because we were exhausted, 2 because his glasses were broken, 3, because a batten in the mainsail was broken. We righted the boat, but nothing was going right for us, so why would it be that easy? The tiller bar was flipped over causing one of the rudders to be pointed straight, so no matter how hard I tried to point the boat into the wind, it was not happening. Joe and I dragged from the back of the boat by the chicken lines, trying to head the boat up, for over 5 minutes, as the boat sailed off to God knows where. Had the boat flipped again I am not sure we would have had the energy to right it again for a while. We finally miraculously got back on the boat and had the most cautious sail in possible.

We arrived to the beach to find Bret had been thrown through his mainsail during a capsize and could not find a replacement. Many other boats were on the beach for broken parts such as, ripped sails, broken booms, etc. One boat even split it's bow open! Others had felt the conditions were too much for them and returned to the beach. Many people did not complete the first race. 9 of the Nacra 20's either didn't finish the first race or came in after they finished the first race. Few boats remained racing in what many called "survival" conditions.

Sunday we woke up, saw the forecast was for winds 35+, looked outside, noticed the trees blowing in the wind were indicating this was true, and decided to have a nice long breakfast and then go de-rig the boat. We arrived at the regatta site to find everyone else de-rigging, we had made the right call! Races had been called off, so we de-rigged as sand blew around us, stinging as it hit our skin, it was that windy! Awards were given, we said our good-byes, and finished derigging.

We got on the road to Fort Lauderdale to Brets grandparents where we would rest for a few hours before beginning our trek back to the frozen north.

Another great annual sailing trip to Florida over, I was excited to return home for the first time in a month! Now as I write this I wish i was back in sunny Florida sailing again! I guess I will have to wait until next year! I can't wait! Everyone should try to participate in these regattas sometime in their sailing careers.

Next possible regatta on the schedule... Spring Fever Regatta in Hartwell, GA over Easter Weekend. Then we will have a busy summer schedule with regattas throughout the northeast as well as the Nacra North American Championships in Michigan in late August.

Please stay tuned for updates! I still plan to tell the story of our 3,000+ mile round trip drive from Rhode Island to Florida and back.

Vanguard 15 Midwinters

2008-03-05T00:55:00.002-05:00

Lindsay and I about to round the windward mark.
One of the starts. Photos courtesy of Sarrahhh

I returned back to Florida on December 26th. From Jamie's house I drove down to Miami and relaxed in Coconut Grove with some of my friends who were there for the Orange Bowl Regatta.

On the 28th, my friend Lindsay and I drove up to Jensen Beach, FL for the 2007 Vanguard 15 Midwinters. 57 of the nation's top college sailors descended upon Jensen Beach to compete in this event. Lindsay and myself competed in the fleet racing part of the regatta. We finished in a disappointing 51st. We raced the best we could but we could only muster a 29th as our best finish. There were many other talented sailors who finished near us and we were mixing it up with the best sailors in the fleet in several races. We just could not manage to stay in a good position. This was likely due to my lack of experience in big fleets and that Lindsay and I had never sailed together before.

We had lots of fun and sailed the best we could. That is all that matters! Right?

I chartered my boat out for the team racing section and hung out with a large contingent of my college sailing team that came down for the event.

After the event I took off for Tampa to spend the next 2 weeks with my friend Angela until the Tradewinds Regatta.

Better late than never! 2007 Steeplechase: long distance catamaran regatta in the FL keys

2008-03-04T23:37:00.000-05:00

Skipper, Todd Riccardi practicing the day before the Steeplechase
Crew: Brendon Scanlon, practicing the day before the Steeplechase
Us sailing through Cardfish sound to Angelfish Creek which leads to the ocean.
Leading our new friends from North Carolina.
Awesome silhouette shot of us through our sail. Shots courtesy of Sailseries.com

Well, 4 months after the event... here are some pictures and the story from the Steeplechase which was held December 8th and 9th, 2007... a 110 mile distance race in 2 days on small 20 foot long "beachcats". The course took us around several of the northern Keys including, Key Largo, Islamorada, and Mattecumbe. For this race I teamed up with my friend Brendon on a Nacra 20. Out of a field of 17 talented teams, ourselves and another boat were the only rookies to participate.

I probably should tell you about our drive down in my friend Mike's 1996 Suburban with a Vanguard 15 on the roof and 2 Nacra 20's on a trailer behind it, the 40-50 mph crosswinds, snow, and etc. we experienced as we drove through the night the first night from Rhode Island, but then what would I have to write about later. Also soon to come, maybe in another 4 months, will be a posting about Vanguard 15 midwinters and the Tradewinds Regatta.

Okay back to the Steeplechase...

Day one: We had high hopes after being the 4th boat to the first significant waypoint on our GPS, the card sound bridge. My hopes soon diminished when I had difficulty pointing as high as our competitors. I want to blame it on our old and blown out jib but I shouldn't make excuses.

The first day day is approximately 65 miles. Most of this leg was a screaming, double trapeze spinnaker reach. Once our 2 easily accessible water bottles were empty I thought I would be fine until the finish. This is when I learned one of the most important rules of distance racing, drinking tons of water! BEFORE, during, and after sailing! One bottle certainly is not enough, especially when racing with temperatures in the mid 80's and the subtropical sun beaming down on you. So needless to say, I began to suffer signs of dehydration and sunstroke. From his position on the trapeze, Brendon could not make out what I was attempting to say, but he presumed it was just because of all the splashing water and etc. After some time he noticed me slouching a bit and came in off the trapeze to check on me. At this point I was on the verge of passing out. I was refusing to slow down as we had been on the heels of several veteran teams.

Realizing my situation Brendon scolded me, diminishing my self pride (which is exactly what I needed) and dove for the drybag containing the rest of our water. I drank some but soon that was gone too and I was still suffering. Boats began creeping up from behind and passing us.

At last we spotted the candy cane building which was the landmark to tell us we were nearing the finish. We took a few jibes inland to make sure we didn't overstand the finish. These last few jibes were the most difficult boat maneuvering of my life! We finally saw the finish and began screaming towards the beach full speed, spinnaker up, daggerboards most of the way down and etc. It was then that I realized we were quickly approaching mudflats and there was NO alternative route to the finish line. I managed to yell to Brendon to pull the boards up and drop the spinnaker. Immediately after completing that both rudders kicked up. I held on with every ounce of energy I had left (which wasn't much) as our boat and rudder skimmed through only a few inches of water. We came to a halt 2 feet from the finish line, I immediately sprawled out on the trampoline to rest. I was so excited to rest that I forgot that we had no finished! Rick White and several other sailors were yelling at me with encouragement to drag the boat through the finish. As soon as we did that I retreated to dry land to attempted to get rested and hydrated.

Believe me, I learned a huge lesson! This will not happen to me again!

Day two:

I woke up to being reminded that we only had to sail 45 miles today. Great I thought, we did 65 in 4 hours the day before, the winds blowing around 20, should be a breeze. When we got to the beach I realized the short sail to the channel 5 bridge would be the only downwind sailing we would do all day. The rest of the day would include beating upwind, avoiding sandbars,and sailing through mangroves. I suddenly realized it might not be as easy as I had thought back at the hotel. The situation became dyer when I realized the waters we had packed in the car had disappeared! The day before was echoing in my head... but we had came so far to not finish the race! After rigging I sprinted around to several teams that had dropped out and scrounged up 4 water bottles. While that was not as much as I would have liked, beggers can't be chosers. I had the bottles in my hand and then hear the announcement that we only had a minute until the start! I sprinted to the boat, threw the water in the trampoline pocket and we pushed off, literally as the starting gun blew. Still winded from my sprint, I now had to fight the rudders as I could not lock them down for about half a mile because of shallow water. Finally getting them locked down we got up to full speed, went under the bridge and began our upwind adventure through the Everglade National forest.

We started off with about 5 Nacra 20's behind us after going under the bridge. Throughout the course of the day some of them slowly passed us, again due to us not being able to point as high as them. We also lost some boats where their experience with the race navigation paid off. We truly experienced what the Steeplechase is all about by skidding over sandbars at full speed, sailing through narrow cuts through mangroves, and etc. Brendon and I took the experience from the day before and fed each other water bottles throughout the day. We entered the last mangrove right on the heels of Mike and Frank, veteran distance racers with many Steeplechases between the 2 of them. We thought we might be able to catch them, we paddled our hearts out through the mangroves but in dismay watched their sail above the top of the mangroves moving much faster than ours. We exited the mangroves with them nearly out of sight.

We finished day 2 in 10th but combined with our time from day ones fiasco we dropped to 11th. We were infact the last place boat to complete the race, 6 boats out of the original 17 dropped out. I am confident we would have done better had we not had those issues. However, it was our first Steeplechase and we know it was a feat just to finish it.

Brendon and I left happy with how we did, drove up to Jamie Livingston's house who graciously let me keep the car and trailer there while I flew back to Rhode Island until I returned later in December.

*Please note I did not proofread this, it is past midnight and I have to wake up for a 7AM sailing team workout. Hopefully i'll get to the proofread and editing later. Hope you enjoyed!

**Note: A few items were placed on my wish list after this regatta.

#1: Camelback! Had I had one I never would have suffered from dehydration during this event.

#2: New jib sail! Our pointing ability suffered from a blown out jib. The draft has moved way back in the sail and no longer works effectively for upwind pointing.

#3: A new spinnaker! We were fairly concerned our spinnaker was going to rip to shreds during this regatta, it's pretty stretched out and has many small tears, this is not fast.