5/8/2000
By Zack Leonard
The Worrell 1000 is an obsession. Australians Brett Dryland and Rod Waterhouse are back for their third attempt to unseat perennial champion Randy Smyth. "He's beaten us the last two years, we've had our chances but we let them slip away. This year the boats are one-design, it will be more even. We're prepared this year, we've been on ferocious diets and a hard physical training program."
The Worrell deals out physical scars like merit badges. It can leave unlucky or unprepared sailors with a glassy stare that signifies an unwelcome meeting with the creator and a hasty negotiation to avoid immanent repayment of overdue karmic debt. Ask Jamie Livingston, who's back despite an epic cartwheel capsize onto the beach at Cape Hatteras two years back. "I was hanging on to the shroud 15 feet in the air thinking - hang on until the carnival ride stops, and then get off. You don't want to be attached to a big piece of equipment that's flailing out of control on the beach." Gerard Loos of Holland is frank. "The first year [I did the race] we lost 5 boats to the surf on the first leg. If you have really good team work you might make it to the finish."
Each May some 40 sailors sign on for the toughest, orneriest sailboat race this side of the Volvo round the world race. The challenge? Sail a small beach catamaran 1000 miles up the east coast of the United States. The prize? Finishing.
The Worrell 1000 is a 12 stage distance race that begins May 8th on the broad, sunny beaches of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and careens up the coast in roughly eighty mile chunks to finish in Virginia Beach. On the left side the beaches of Florida give way to the wetlands and salt marshes of the tidewater region of Georgia and South Carolina. As the cold Northern currents meet up with the gulfstream, the coastline becomes a dangerous graveyard of unmarked sand bars and shoal-water surf-breaks off the outer banks of North Carolina. Then finally the fleet parades to the finish at Virginia beach where the lucky ones - the finishers - can celebrate. While the unlucky weigh their resolve and begin to plan a better attempt for next year. For this reason the Worrell 1000 has been called the X Games of sailing and the first extreme sailing event. In 1998 only 7 of the 21 entrants reached the finish. The Worrell has broken masts, it has washed sailors over-board, it has even pulverized entire boats into small bits of fiberglass and Aluminum. But a small, rabidly loyal group of enthusiasts have embraced it and built an event that is coming of age.
The Worrell 1000 was born of a barroom bet at Worrell Bros., the Virginia Beach resort-restaurant that belonged to Michael and Chris Worrell. On October 1, 1974 Michael Worrell and crew Steve McGarrett set out on a 20 day journey that covered 1000 miles and crossed the paths of two hurricanes. When they pulled their crippled Hobie 16 up on the beach in Fort Lauderdale they had more or less won the wager. In 1976 four other teams signed up for the first Worrell Bros. Coastwise race. 24 years and 17 races later, Mike Worrell has refined his concept and the world has finally caught up to his vision. The smashing popularity of outdoor adventure sports has shined a spotlight on the Worrell 1000.
Today the race attracts a broad spectrum of sailors. Florida beach cat champions, Olympic sailing medallists, professionals from Europe and Australia and veterans of the Whitbread and Americas Cup are all joining in to form a deep talent pool for an event that is quickly becoming highly professionalized and hotly contested. Most teams are backed by sponsors, but there is also a large group of less professional sailors who are chasing more personal goals. Even the favorites admit the first goal is simply to finish, but the physical strain and mental fatigue that accompany the Worrell attract some sailors who just want to test their limits, and hopefully to finish.
After the start on May 8, the fleet will work it's way up the coast of Florida, making stops at Jensen Beach, Cocoa Beach, Daytona Beach, And Jacksonville Beach. Then the race hops to Tybee Island Georgia where the course really gets tough. In light winds an 80 mile leg might take 18 hours and leave the competitors burnt and dehydrated. In stronger breeze the fleet may cover the distance in 6 hours, effortlessly clicking off the miles. Some days bring thunder squalls with 40 knot gusts and breaking seas that test the endurance and seamanship of the sailors. But Tybee is the start of the first night leg. At 6 PM on Saturday May 13th the fleet departs Tybee for the 83 mile race to Isle of Palms, South Carolina. Then the following evening a second night leg will take the sailors to Myrtle Beach, SC. After a transition day the race switches back to day mode with legs to Wrightsville Beach, NC, Atlantic Beach, NC, Cape Hatteras, NC, Kill Devil Hills, NC and the finish at Virginia Beach.
The night legs in the Worrell are like the Alps in the Tour de France. If the race is close the night legs will usually proclaim the winner. Two time runner up Brett Dryland says "the night legs are really hard, you can't sail the fleet, you can't see anything." Skipping over the water into the darkness with nothing but a handheld GPS to guide you can be quite dicey. Sometimes the moon is bright, other times the sky is deep black. Jamie Livingston recalls a dark night last year when he was clipping along at 15 knots with phosphorescence flying off the bows like flames and a long thin wake of glitter marking the wake of the two narrow hulls. "We were in the middle of the ocean and with no warning another boat emerged from the dark only 20 feet away and disappeared just like that, we didn't see them again until the finish."
This year the race will be sailed in the new Inter 20 class, a high-performance, double-trapeze beach catamaran with a powerful sailplan and a large, asymmetrical spinnaker. The Inter 20 is capable of speeds approaching 30 miles per hour in heavy wind. But the boat is somewhat untried in ocean sailing and some competitors wonder if it will be as sea-kindly as the Nacra 6.0s that were raced in years past. Some competitors think the boat may be more prone to pitchpole or nosedive, John McLaughlin of Baltimore says "When you really get into the power and it gets rushing, it's gonna want to go under."
The odds-on favorite is 5 time champion Randy Smyth with crew Matt Struble. Smyth is a two-time Olympic silver medallist from Fort Walton Beach, Florida and hopes to win his fourth straight Worrell. Two time winners Brett Dryland and Rod Waterhouse of Australia have been runner up the past two years and are eager to upset Smyth. The Dutch team of Gerard Loos and Mischa Heemskerk have finished as high as third in the Worrell and think they can improve. Florida cat sailors are well represented by Brian Lambert, Jamie Livingston, Kevin Smith, Glenn Holmes, Stephan Lohmayer and Kenny Pierce among others. The wildcards in this race will be the Whitbread contingent, led by Paul van Dyke of Groton, CT and Richard Deppe and Tom Weaver of Annapolis, MD, all former Chessie Racing Team sailors in the round the world race. All three have small-boat experience on their resumes, but haven't put much time into beach cats recently. Their seamanship, navigation and ocean racing skills could make them tough.
Today at 10 AM the shore crews will push their teams off the beach to begin 12 days of grueling ocean sailing. It's hard to tell what will happen in the next two weeks, but you can be sure that the course will challenge the sailors. We'll have reports twice a day and results updated each evening. Stay tuned.
