Wednesday, May 12, 1999
By Thatcher Drew
Team Extreme Capsizes
All boats started successfully this morning. Team Extreme tried to set a spinnaker and capsized; it took them 15 minutes to get upright.
Entegra Drops Out at Daytona Beach
Entegra skipper James Stone dropped out of the race this morning citing health and crew problems. Stone was racing for the first time in the Worrell 1000.
Entegra was in 12th place ahead of Michigan. A protest ruling this morning had subtracted one hour and eight minutes from Entegra’s time -- time lost repairing damage from a collision at the start on Monday. Entegra was sailing with a spinnaker pole donated by Michigan, who was also involved in the collision. We will report later in the day on the details of the protest.
Jim Stone said, "I was unable to keep any liquids down all day yesterday and was throwing up during the race… My crew is family and friends, but none of them know how to rig a Nacra, so I would come in at night and spend a few hours maintaining the boat. We were sailing with duct tape on the hull and some other problems… Last night I just couldn’t do it. I had to get some sleep."
Stone also has the heaviest crew on the course at 440 lbs. We had previously reported that Big Bros./Big Sisters was the heavy weight at 400 lbs. "Also, I haven’t sailed competitively for almost 20 years, so this was a bigger challenge than I expected." Stone is 39 years old, about average for the skippers in the race.
Stone had this advice for new skippers. "Put at least as much time and energy into the crew as you do into the boat. They are really important in this race."
12 Boats Start in Light Winds
The twelve remaining competitors started into a light north east wind this morning. Pomodoro, Taipan, and Chick’s Beach had little control in the light wind, and the surf almost pushed them into a muddled heap.
At the last minute Randy Smyth, in Chick’s Beach caught a puff and sailed off into second place behind Rudee’s Restaurant. All the competitors had to tack out to get around a big pier just north of the starting line.
Big Bros./Big Sisters and Lions Club International rounded the pier in third and fourth place. Guy Selsmeyer of Big Bros./Big Sisters is from from Michigan and Little Suamico, Wisconsin. Carl Roberts of Lions Inter. is from Brighton, Michigan. Both have necessarily learned to sail in the light airs of the Great Lakes and may continue to do well with this wind. A stronger sea breeze is expected to fill in from the south at 15 to 18 knots.
Smyth Captures Lead
Randy Smyth ran up the sand first, came to rest right in front of the television cameras, and leapt off with a big smile. The TV guys loved it. Right behind Smyth came Brett Dryland in Rudee’s Rest. Smyth captured first place for the first time in the race.
Worrell Bros. finished fourteen seconds behind the leader, followed five minutes later by Pomodoro.
In the most exciting finish of the race, three boats converged on the finish line at the same time. Pomodoro and Tybee came in from off shore. Big Bros./Big Sisters came flying up the coast. All three had spinnakers flying in the east wind as they zoomed up the sand., Tybee Island was in front of Outer Banks by one second. Big Bros./Big Sisters was only seven seconds behind.
The Dangers of GPS
Michigan and Extreme came in last. Michigan reported that they were in third place for a while which was obviously a thrill for a first-time team that has had its share of adversity in this race. Despite good boat speed, adversity struck again. Michigan’s GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) device led the team too far off shore, and they lost the entire fleet. Adam Aldrin thought they had another 20 miles to go when they saw the flags flying at the finish line at Jacksonville Beach.
GPS is supposed to provide almost perfect navigation at a glance. Navigation on a catamaran is difficult. You’re out there on the wire. Maybe you have your chart stitched to the trampoline or even the sail, but it is hard to find time to look, and if you do, you can make a mistake and loose time. The GPS is the perfect answer and crews are required to carry them. The GPS is a hand held device about the size of a walky-talky It is usually hung around the neck in a waterproof bag and stuffed into the life preserver, both to keep it from flopping around and to protect it in case of a wipe out.
GPS provides a compass heading, distance traveled, distance remaining, speed over the ground, and velocity made good. It displays the rhumb line from the first check point to the next checkpoint on the screen and gives you a digital read out of how many feet you are deviating from that line (in general stay inside the rhumb line). Some GPS units will show the outline of the coast, a digitized map, or even a chart of buoys, shoals, etc.
The team has to enter the latitude and longitude of the checkpoints correctly, and apparently that was the mistake made by Michigan. Their destination was mistakenly entered twenty miles up the coast. To make matters worse, Extreme, hurried before the start (as they often are) copied Michigan’s settings. Both teams found themselves too far off shore.
The more experienced sailors tend to use the GPS less-often during these Florida legs, which are basically straight, with the coast in sight. Tomorrow’s leg to Tybee Island is a long offshore leg; 121.5 miles compared with 70 or 80 miles for the Florida legs. Within an hour the boats will be out of sight of land and the GPS will be critical.
The Winners Did Not Use Their Spinnakers
Randy Smyth won today by not flying his spinnaker. He flew his spinnaker for about four minutes on the reach up the coast. Rudee’s Restaurant tried to fly theirs. Brett Dryland reported gaining on Randy, but he was blown to leeward toward the beach and lost time in the end. "Randy just had amazing boat speed on a close reach."
With three downwind legs so far, spinnakers have received a great deal of attention on the course and on the beach. Whether it is cut for reaching or down wind and how it is rigged are the subject of endless discussion and modification.
A spinnaker was first used in the Worrell 1000 in 1985 on a Hobie 18. Until that time spinnakers were virtually unheard of on catamarans. The sail’s success in this race contributed heavily to its subsequent popularity in catamaran racing in general.
Randy Smyth makes the most of the spinnakers out here. Three boats have Randy’s new generation of spinnaker: Chick’s Beach, Worrell Bros. and Tybee Island. The sail is generally better down wind than on a reach.
Michigan reported having good boat speed with the Hooter spinnaker made by Calvert Sails. The sail is roller reefed on the forestay like a big drifter genoa.
Extreme has a spinnaker cut by Sabre and put together by Nuclear. It was too full for yesterday’s wind. Big Bros./Big Sisters has a North Sail of Australia. It tends to be a bit flatter, but not flat enough for yesterday’s race.
The spinnakers can be tricky to use. Team Pomodoro had trouble yesterday when they fouled their tack line as they dropped the chute. They did not notice there was a triple twist in the line so when they raised it again they couldn’t pull the tack up. The clew fell into the water. The boat ran over the spinnaker. They had to jibe around, climb out the pole, untangle the tack line, and pull the sail out from under the boat. Bryan Lambert says they lost two boats and had to scramble to come in fourth.
The spinnakers are rigged to immensely strong carbon fibre poles that run forward over the bow between the hulls. At least two crews, Tybee Island and Chick’s Beach, have had to strengthen the poles with carbon tape. The force of the spinnaker was compressing the pole into the hull, bending it in the middle. To fix the problem, the crews paint the pole with epoxy and wrap it with carbon fibre tape in which all the fibres point fore and aft. This gives the pole incredible dimensional stability.
Sea Critters
Sailing a catamaran amongst the sea critters can be like soaring with the hawks. Dolphins seem to like the speedy double hulls popping in and out of the swell, sometimes flying above the waves. They often swim in formation. Sailing a catamaran amongst the sea critters can be like soaring with the hawks. Dolphins seem to like the speedy double hulls popping in and out of the swell, sometimes flying above the waves. They often swim in formation.
Yesterday Randy Smyth reported surprising a shark. The big fish, with its signature fin and mean mouth, jumped out of the water right in front of the boat. It was definitely not a dolphin.
Sea Turtles are gathering for mating season. Michigan saw three sea turtles today and four or five yesterday. Hitting one at twenty knots can put you out of the race.
Ten or fifteen foot Manta Rays sometimes shoal under the boats or fly up out of the water suddenly in a spectacular display.
