Thursday, May 20, 1999
By Thatcher Drew
This Race Course Has Character -- Cape Hatteras
There is a kind of rhythm to this race. One that goes beyond wind and weather to the geography of the coastline. This 1,000-mile course has its s-curves and straight-aways. There are sand traps and roughs – banked turns and heartbreak hills.
Florida is a racetrack – straight up the coast – land in sight – often downwind with the spinnakers flying. It is gaudy like a race course. The coast is lined with condos and hotels, sometimes tasteful, sometimes not. This is where spring break happens, broadcast live on MTV. You can drive your car onto the beach at Daytona. If you go swimming, you’ve got to look both ways when you come out of the water. There are parking lots and buggy rentals right on the strand.
Next year, we will chart the race on this site (we hope). But for now, take a look at a road map. Ft. Lauderdale, Jensen Beach, Cocoa Beach, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville Beach – almost the only barriers are piers and jetties. The competitors shake out the kinks on these legs. They discover the strength and weakness of themselves and their road crews. By the end they are no longer running on adrenaline.
There is more to this race than highway fatigue. Beginning at Jacksonville, the teams enter new territory. Georgia is deeply fissured with inlets and rivers. Along the coast are low, uninhabited islands separated from the mainland by miles and miles of marsh. They call this the "low country." Many find it indescribably beautiful – even haunting.
The waters off Georgia tend to shoal. You’ll see breakers three miles off shore, scrape the bottom and step off onto a sand bar. To make it into Tybee Island, on that long 120-mile leg, the boats go off shore for the first time. Night has usually fallen before they finish. There are few lights on land to navigate by. The little islands of bright light off shore are shrimp boats. They move. They can be comforting one minute and disorienting the next.
Past the Tybee Island checkpoint and all the way to Isle of Palms, the coast retains this "low country" character. It has been on these legs sailed primarily at night, that the drama has taken place this year. This web site has no pictures of sailors hiding from the thunder and hail between their turtled hulls. It has no images of 45-knot winds hitting without warning from behind, pressing the spinnaker forward with sudden and tremendous force, burying the bows, and flipping boat and crew forward like a bicycle hitting a fence. (See "The Weather"). There are no pictures of these night legs that knocked out three boats. We can only imagine sailors stranded on off shore sandbars, wrapping themselves in sails and spinnaker to keep warm until the tide floats them again.
Past Isle of Palms, the character of the coast changes again. On the way to Myrtle Beach, SC, the low country is left behind for the "Golden Strand" as they call it down there. It is a relatively sheltered half moon of beach that faces generally south protected from the northerlies. It’s not Lake Lemans. Boats still have to round Cape Fear with its shoals and breakers.
Around Cape Fear, the boats reach the Outer Banks and the character of the course changes yet again. Four wheel drive vehicles have pieces of PVC pipe mounted on their front grills – the perfect holder for fishing rods on the beach. Even the nature of the sand changes. It is no longer that fine stuff that gets into everything. On the outer banks, sand is big and gritty. It hurts in your shoes.
Look again at the map and you can see the long barrier islands stretching north, crescents of beach leading first to Cape Lookout and then to Cape Hatteras. The beaches face southeast. The fetches (the distance available to build wind and wave without impediment) are relatively protected from the north. Round Cape Lookout in a northerly and there is a blast of wind and wave. But look at the map again the whole fetch is relatively protected from the north by the grand Cape Hatteras.
The geography of this race builds inevitably towards Hatteras. It is the ultimate Cape. For when you round it, the fetch is all the way to Greenland. Round it in a nor'easter, as the boats did last year, and there is a fantastic blast of wind and water.
The blast is made worse by the confluence of two great currents, the Gulf Stream from the south, and the Labrador from the north. The currents create shifting shoals miles off shore and curious waves that shoot straight up in the air sometimes twenty-feet or more. The locals call them "piss-ups." The sailors try to avoid them by rounding Hatteras in a deep channel that generally runs right along the beach.
Hatteras is a natural surf factory. The thousand fathom line comes within a few dozen miles of the cape. Waves travelling in from the deep ocean hit the continental shelf very close to land, rolling with incredible force upon the sands. It’s surfer heaven. It’s also danger personified for a twenty-foot catamaran trying to get around.
None of that is happening this year at least so far. The boats landed last night at Hatteras in drizzle and light winds. Today has dawned with a northwest wind at 12 to 15 knots. Hatteras will never be considered a beach race. This rounding will be difficult. But perhaps this year it will be more reasonable than last when the boats were put on trailers and hauled by car to Kill Devil Hills.
The Wind is Kicking Up -- Cape Hatteras
Mike Worrell visited the Hatteras Coast Guard station this morning before 8:00 AM to brief Chief Petty Officer Frascella on the race, the safety equipment, and coordinate in case of problems. The wind has kicked up since dawn. It is blowing 20 to 30 knots from the north north west, the worst direction for rounding the point of Cape Hatteras.
The boats will try to stay in the narrow channel right next to the point. They probably won’t make it in this wind. Frankly, this writer can’t describe all the difficulties. But basically, they will have to pick a way through the shoals with strong winds on the nose under conditions where it will be difficult to tack. The worry was plain on Mike Worrell’s face. As he left the station he said, "We could conceivably loose a few boats."
Tactically, the situation probably favors Rudee’s Rest. They need some radical weather to get away from Chick’s Beach and reclaim the 24 minutes they lost yesterday. We can tell you that Chick’s Beach ground crew was out alone at dawn replacing worn lines and generally preparing for a hard rounding. There wasn’t much to do. When asked why come out this early, Tyler Smith said, "To win."
The Internet reporters will be out of touch on the Cape for a few hours. We will try to call in updates.
