Lambert and Livingston Sweep Florida Legs
Brian Lambert and Jamie Livingston of Alexander's on the Bay held off
Rod Waterhouse and Katie Pettibone of Guidant to win their fifth
straight leg and build on their overall lead. Lambert and Livingston
led from the start and built a 15-minute advantage, but Waterhouse and
Pettibone had superior speed in lighter wind and reeled in the leaders
as the breeze died at the end of the day. "In the puffs we would pull
away and in the lulls they would chase us down," said a smiling
Livingston. The wind never built above 10 knots and frequently dropped
as low as 5 knots. The still lumpy seas were frustrating to many of the sailors.
A tired David Lennard of Sail for Sight lamented the conditions, "[the
sea breeze] never came in and we were just too heavy."
The wind angle was North of East until the last 5 miles of the leg.
Early in the race the fleet couldn't quite parallel the shore on
starboard tack, causing the boats to sail short port tacks to get away
from the shore and then tack back to starboard to stay on the longer
tack. Most of the sailors agreed that it was important to stay just the
right distance off shore. "If you get too close to the beach you get
headed in a shore effect," noted Nigel Pitt of Tommy Bahama, "and if you
get too far off shore you seemed to have less breeze." This caused the
boats to sail upwind in a small band of wind within 3/4 of mile of the
beach most of the day.
With the change in wind conditions there were some new faces at the
front of the pack. Pitt and Shafer of Tommy Bahama finished third and
Kirk Newkirk and Glenn Holmes of Key Sailing came in 4th. Team Fully
Involved had another strong leg to finish 5th followed by Castrol,
Dinghy Shop and Pyacht Men. The top group had a strong Floridian flavor
today. Four of the five teams hail from the sunshine state or sail there
regularly. "We were back in our element," noted Pitt, "we're starting
to figure out how to sail this boat in the lumpy conditions."
As with any high-performance boat, crew weight is an important factor in
boat speed, but each boat has specific characteristics that require
unique techniques. Six-time Worrell 1000 Champion Randy Smyth explained
some secrets to the Inter 20. "Upwind in light air it's important to
keep the big sections of the bow above the water without sinking the
sterns. Fore and aft weight placement is key. These are the conditions
where it is most difficult to sail the boat heavy. Downwind in light air,
the weight doesn't seem to hurt as much."
Smyth has just returned from sailing around the world in "the Race"
aboard Team Adventure. After 5 months away from his family he was not
able to make the race this year. When asked how he would have faired in
this year's event Smyth laughed, "it's been nice reading about it on the
cover of my paper each morning. I guess if we rolled the dice right
and picked the right time to leave the beach in the waves, we'd be doing OK."
After winning the first five leg, Brian Lambert and Jamie Livingston
probably deserve and introduction. Lambert is an architect from the
Fort Walton Beach area of the Florida Panhandle. A multiple Nacra
Champion, Lambert spent some time in the Tornado and is a regular
fixture in the Florida cat circuit. His local fleet is strong. Smyth,
Lambert, Newkirk, Bob Curry and a bunch of other top cat sailors all
live in the area and have good racing year round. Livingston is a
Computer Programmer from Miami, but he's probably spent more time riding
on the side of a catamaran than any one in North America over the past
20 years. He's been a member of the US sailing team in the Tornado
class many times and pops up at nearly every catamaran event in Florida
each year. Both sailors have completed the Worrell 1000 4 times.
The surf shrunk to 4 feet by the finish today. Local surfers were still
having a field day, but the landing wasn't very difficult for the
sailors. Rod Waterhouse, of Guidant, put on a clinic in light air beach
landings at the finish. Guidant gained at least a minute on Lambert and
Livingston with a slippery approach to the finish. Waterhouse and
Pettibone were the first to set a spinnaker as the wind went South of
East near the finish line. They reached parallel to the surf just
outside the break, generating at least 8 knots of boat-speed on starboard
tack, then gybed to port perpendicular to the beach just as a large wave
rolled under them. The boat turned the 8 knots of speed into a surfing
safari and Pettibone slowly gybed the spinnaker without collapsing it as
they accelerated down the wave with their sterns perfectly square to the
surf. The boat coasted across the line going almost twice the
wind-speed. It was a work of art.
Team Tybee Island suffered a broken rudder at the start today but decided to
try to race with it in the light wind. As they tacked up the beach
they had to remove the good rudder and switch it from hull to hull to
keep it on the leeward side. Finally they admitted defeat and came to
the beach where their shore crew did a record pit stop and pushed them
back into the fray. Lohmayer and Pierce were early favorites and have
suffered a lot of bad luck, but they've continued to fight.
As the sun goes down over Jacksonville Beach the Worrell 1000 prepares
to say goodbye to Florida. Florida was all a blur as café con leche and
Ricky Martin gave way to Daytona's checkered flags and Confederate Flag
emblazoned beach-wear. The Saltwater Cowboy north of Flagler Beach
stirred images of lazy, blue-jean clad cowboys in 10-gallon hats tending
quiet rods in the surf. A dead armadillo lay on the side of the road
just south of Jacksonville Beach as Charlie Daniels' "The Devil went
down to Georgia" permeated the airwaves. Florida has something for
everyone.
The next leg is the longest of the race at 121 miles. It will bring the
fleet farther off shore than they have ranges yet. The beaches of
Florida's Barrier Island will give way to the wetlands and deltas of the
Georgia coast. It will be a long day. We'll have a report from the
start with more detailed weather information.
