Finally a finish in daylight!

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!

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!

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!

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

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

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!