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!