Worrell 1000 Leg 9 Start
Tuesday, May 15th, 2001
Myrtle Beach, SC, 10:08 AM

By Zack Leonard

Light Southwesterly Makes For Tough Choices

Leg 9 from Myrtle Beach to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina is an 80-mile trek around the famed Cape Fear and it's treacherous Frying Pan Shoals. Local knowledge on these difficult cape roundings can be crucial to success in the leg. Most of the experienced competitors agree that it is smarter to round the cape quite close to shore. Strategy for this leg will be made difficult by a rare West/Southwest wind that's blowing at 6-10 knots off the shore. It may be better to get off shore a bit; to get into stronger velocity that is unimpeded by buildings and shoreline topography. Carl Roberts, of Sail for Sight, says the shore will play a big factor, "We'll stay as close as we can but try to get away from the buildings and shore effect. We've got to get at least 50 times the height of the buildings off from shore to eliminate their blanketing effect."

Jamie Livingston agrees, "out might be better, but I don't know if we'll be there. If Rod (Waterhouse of Guidant) stays inside, we're not going to give up a huge chunk of money." Waterhouse's partner on Guidant, Katie Pettibone, realizes that they'll have a shadow, "we'll try to get rid of them any way we can."

The start was tricky. As the boats sat on the beach, waiting to start, most of the teams hoisted the spinnakers and held onto the bucking boats to keep them behind the starting line. Southwest wind meant that Starboard gybe sent the boats perpendicular to the shoreline and away from the wind shadow of the buildings, but Port gybe pointed almost directly towards Cape Fear and rhumb line. Starting in pole position, Guidant chose to exit the beach on Port, but their spinnaker halyard slipped out of the cleat and Tommy Bahama, starting in the second slot sailed underneath them to take the lead, while Pettibone scurried to secure the halyard. Sail for Sight piled on the insult by rolling over the top of Guidant from the third slot before the problem was solved. Overall leader Alexander's on the Bay started safely in 4th, holding position nicely. Castrol, starting farther back in the pack, countered the conventional wisdom starting on Starboard gybe. They left the beach on a faster angle, getting off shore and into stronger breeze quicker than the rest of the boats. It looked like a good start in the short term.

Team PI Sailing, raced by Steve Piche and Ian Billings of Texas, has taken a decidedly high tech approach to the Worrell 1000. "We have three goals in this order, Safety, Finishing, and Communications," explained Piche, "You'll notice that how we finish isn't one of the three." "I'm not going to win this race, but you win races in different ways, we've had some good legs, but we're fulfilling our goals," he added. Piche is a software engineer who's business is data mining. His team website boasts updates from the race course delivered via cellphone. "We call in even if it slows us down," noted Piche. The response has been fantastic. After notifying the website that they had broken a rudder casting at one start, Piche was amazed to find that a race fan had shipped a new casting to the next checkpoint to help them out. The communications approach has helped the funding as well. Piche noted that they are fully funded largely because of the highly successful auction that they run through the website. "We have a Moorings bareboat charter in the BVI, a trip to Breckenridge and a trip to New Zealand for the next America's Cup in the Auction and we sell tickets over the internet," explained Piche, "every day we come in we've sold more tickets."

Leg 9 should be downwind in relatively light air most of the way, it should take at least 6 hours to complete. We'll have an update from the finish at Wrightsville Beach, NC.