2010 Summer Summary

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

Heineken High Performance Dinghy Open

Start at the Heineken High Performance Dinghy Open

Finished the 2010 Tybee 500!

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

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

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

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!

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

Looking over the charts before the start in Hollywood

Inched out for 6th place into Jupiter

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

7th on leg 1

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!

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!

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!

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.

We made it!

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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/