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

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.