A Day To Rest and Rebuild, Cold Front Hits Fleet Right On the Nose
Leg 8 from Isle of Palms, SC to Myrtle Beach, SC will cover 86 miles in
the dark of night. The wind has shifted to the Northeast, so this leg
will be straight upwind until the fleet rounds Cape Romaine. Cold and
fatigue will play a factor tonight. The leg could take 8 or 9 hours to
complete if the breeze diminishes as forecasted.
The start went off in a 10 knot Easterly. The fleet pushed off the
beach and sheeted into an upwind course. The boats fell into line in
an orderly fashion with yesterday's winners jumping out to an early lead
with their upwind starting position. Alexander's and Castrol, in the 1st
and 2nd starting positions, were the first boats to tack to starboard and
parallel the beach. The rest of the fleet kept sailing away from the
beach on port for about a mile.
The forecast calls for the wind to diminish and shift back to the North.
Most of the teams plan to stay close to shore in case the wind shifts
to the North. Reigh North of Dinghy Shop had other ideas. "The
pressure map shows better wind off-shore," said North, "we may head out
a bit for the breeze."
Like yesterday, the fleet used today to catch up on boat work. Laundry
and various other logistical tasks filled much of the day, but most
everyone made time to call in for Mother's Day.
Jamie Livingston is upset with Brian Lambert after their victory last
night. "Brian called me his little piñata," complained a hurt
Livingston, "I was hanging upside down from my restraining line,
swinging between the hulls after we capsized and he starting laughing at
me. He said he was going to swing a stick at me and out would come
knives and cliff bars."
Rick Deppe of Pyacht Men has become a "pusher". Like many Worrell sailors,
he has come to worship the crazy ritual of this race. It is fast
becoming the highlight of his sailing schedule. When you follow the
Worrell 1000, it's easy to forget that it is still just a catamaran race
to many sailors. Catamarans occupy a sort of separate but unequal
status in the tradition-minded world of sailboat racing. Many fantastic
mono-hull sailors are never exposed to catamaran sailing, either because
they don't think the racing is any good, or they still subscribe to the
notion that cats aren't "real boats". Although cat sailing is still a
small sub-segment of the sailing universe, more top mono-hull sailors are
making the switch and Deppe is a proxy for what they've discovered.
People like Lars Guck, Johnny Lovell, Richard Feeny, Charlie Ogletree,
Peter Alarie and Phil Kinder tried beach cats and never went back.
Deppe has a funny way of explaining how catamarans fit into the sailing
world. "Cat sailors are Mac users in a Windows world," laughs Deppe, "
the machines are better, more elegant and more fun to use, but somehow
the masses keep resisting them for no good reason."
Tomko and Gaines, of Spitfire Racing, paraded around the beach in matching red
t-shirts emblazoned with the logo for the hit MTV show Jackass. They
wore the shirts to remind themselves that they should have done better
on the last two legs. In both cases they felt that they went too far
offshore. "We're not going to fall for that again," vowed a repentant Gaines.
