New Ronstan trapeze shoes

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

*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...

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

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!

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.