Velocity Sailing

It wasn’t quite a rocket launch this morning, but the boats sure launched their way to Jupiter. Reports from our crew on the beach are that Bugaboo, TVS 1, and AHPC are on the beach. That crowd of sailors is most likely headed for the bar and/or spa at the Jupiter Beach Resort. Hopefully the others are not far behind!

What a morning! We are just on the road heading to Jupiter now, at least part of TVS. Had 2 starts, the first one went well, some boats a little slower to get past the gnarly chop. The second start was squirley to say the least. Brett and Alan flipped just off the beach, and drifted back on their side to the beach. Trusty ground crew Mark Smith helped get them back upright and back out.

While all of that drama was unfolding, Ryan and Don did not want to be outdone, so they tried to dryroll it, but Don fell off the boat. He decided to test out his PFD and drift around for awhile. Ryan single handed it after that, came about and was too powered to stop to pick up his captain. So he went and was going to come around again for attempt #2. At that time, Brett and Alan were under way, and spotted Don bobbing like an apple, just chillin’ like a villain. While they were attempting their first man overboard drill, the Blue Wombat flipped with Ryan onboard. Alan and Brett managed to pluck Don out of the warm waters of Hollywood Beach. They zoomed ahead and Don lept from the boat like a marlin and swam over to his crew and boat. Brett and Alan resumed their course up the coast. Don and Ryan made an executive decision to leave the boat on it’s side and drift back in since they were relatively close. Ryan stood on the inside of the hull and rode the waves back to shore. Don didn’t get enough swimming in today, so he body surfed the waves to shore. He was a little exhausted when he made it back, but was in one piece! They got the boat all sorted and low and behold, a few battens up top had pierced through the mainsail. Second executive decision of the day, they decided to call it a day. They will take the penalty and start from Jupiter tomorrow.

We packed up the boat, rinsed the saltwater off the boys and are heading north.

Sam and Kirk broke a rudder eyelet about 2 miles up the beach, but were replenished by Pete and Mr. Spicer.

Also got word that Brett activated his EPIRB, but is now back on the boat. Allison had a nice chat with the Air Force about that whole situation.

More when we get to Jupiter. Check out the video from this morning, it should be on the Live Feed page.

Where are they?

Ryan and Don made it in around 10:30 tonight. Safe and sound. The tiller extension up and broke on them around Key Largo. There was an intra-crew collision between them, the boat, and the tiller extension. Tiller extension did not win. So, Don had to crouch in and couldn’t hike out all the way for the rest of the leg. Made for a LONG leg! They have both been fed, watered, and are laying in bed ready to sleep!

Kirk and Sam broke their boom, right in half. Looked like a bent toothpick on the beach. They were able to make it in too… I’ll get the full story tomorrow.

The ground crew has been at work all night, fixing various things, readjusting, tuning rudders, etc. They have been on the beach with their headlamps and flashlights working hard all evening. Thanks to them, they sailors will shove off in the morning in good shape, a little worse for the wear, but in better condition than they landed.

Some bit of humor….there was lots of peeing on the water, boat, and other things today. One sailor said “By the third time I had to pee, I thought, this was enjoyable!” Another said “So, X was out on the wire and I was on the tramp….I just couldn’t hold it, so the tramp was the place.”

Check out Sailing Anarchy for some good stories!!!!!! Alan Block has been writing some incredible pieces.

Stay tuned in the morning! Tune into the “LIVE STREAM” page around 9:50-55 in the morning for shots from the start!

The lights are starting to fade, blinky has been erected on the beach, and there are still sailors on the water. So far, 3 TVS boats have made it to the finish. Mischa and Eduard of Bugaboo, one of our outsourced boats, pulled in first around 6:05pm. Both were a little sore and still jetlagged after arriving in the States on Friday. Trey and Bailey were about 10 minutes behind them, followed by JC and Dalton of Team AHPC, another one of our outsourced boats. Seacats Orange, a slew of Royal boats, and Seacats Adrenaline were on the beach when I headed upstairs a little while ago. I did hear Chuck’s clown horn go off a little bit ago, signaling another boat ashore.

Kirk’s mom and dad are with us this year, and they are anxiously awaiting the finish of Kirk and Sam’s first leg of a Tybee 500! Cristina (Alan’s fiance) flew in from St. Thomas today, so she is also anticipating he and Brett pulling in sometime soon. Thanks to The Buzz 104.3 St Thomas for their sponsorship!

Kirk's Mom and Dad, awaiting anxiously!

There has been some talk today about the Spots…. they haven’t been completely reliable, for tracking purposes for those of us on land. It looks like Larry and Brian’s stopped working about 8 hours ago, and the others have been slow to update as well. And, to quell any rumors, JC did NOT throw his spot off the boat because it was extra weight… it was still attached when he landed

Tad just came up and told me that Seacats White as well as Sam and Kirk made it ashore just a few minutes ago. Brett and Alan should be here in about an hour. Looks like Don and Ryan are somewhere near Key Biscayne. They have not called to let us know of any problems…

Mischa and Eduard have had their treatments for the night, some sore muscles…Trey has the next scheduled appointment this evening. Hopefully they will all get a good night’s sleep tonight and tank up on the water!

Don and Ryan of TVS 2 heading out on the water

They boys were off this morning for an on the water start. Hopefully some of you caught our live broadcast, which was a little hard since we were far removed from the start. Tomorrow’s should be better! Brett and Alan of TVS 3 were busy this morning working on a spinnaker turning block and spinnaker pole eye strap. They were not the last ones off the beach this year

Word is just in that Todd Hart broke a spinnaker pole and was heading back to land to grab a new one. Apparently, he is wanting to file for redress because he was involved in a port/ starbird incident.

We will update you as we hear!

Here are some pictures from this morning.

Sam and Kirk mushing their boat to the water

Ryan stretching before his first Tybee 500

Pete, Kirk, and Sam of TVS 4

Well, after a long day of safety checks, fine tuning boats, and shake down sails, Team Velocity is ready for the start of the Tybee 500 Monday morning. Most of the guys are tucked into bed and dreaming of a great day tomorrow. Tad has investigated the weather and will update the team in the morning. Skipper’s meeting at 9am, on the water start at 10 am.

The Team at dinner last night

Don and Ryan of TVS2 acting as turtles

Trey and Bailey of TVS 1 discussing strategy

I figured I might as well give my thoughts regarding the weather forecasts for the race this year.  At this point, the only reliable forecasts I can really credit with speculation are for the first two legs.

From Islamorada, the boats have to travel North East to get around the gentle curve of the Florida Keys.  As they get around North Key Largo – the land mass all of a sudden leaves their port side and sights of Miami’s skyline can be see off the port bow.  This is also when you can start heading almost zero degrees due north if the wind allows it.

As the forecast models have been refined over the past week, the direction and the speed have expectedly changed.  However the breeze has tacked to the ENE and increased in velocity to 15 to 20 knots for Monday.  This could mean that the sailors might have to do some short tacking to fetch around the barrier islands.  Once they get to Miami, they should not have to tack anymore – and it will be a race between the N20′s and and the F18′s as to who can carry their chutes the highest  - again – for a second year in a row.  I think even the F18′s would be hard pressed to carry their spinnakers that high and in that much wind.  Comments are welcome to impart more F18 knowledge upon me.

Tuesday is about as typical beachcat reaching weather as you can get.  Wind out of the East at 18 to 20 knots.  The wave buildup will give swells from a meter and a half to two meters from the ENE so there might be an interesting launch out of Hollywood.  The hotel we are launching from this year however, has more of a sand bar off the beach than the hotel of past years and could very well block a lot of the bigger swells from reaching the beach.  Remember to watch it all on our Live Streaming page!

I can’t say that I’m altogether comfortable with two legs where there will be a lot of reaching.  The boats are pretty highly loaded on a reach, specifically the rudders and rudder castings and if the skipper isn’t careful to keep his rudders clean of seagrass then he could find himself in a situation where the castings might fail.  The venerable Todd Hart once broke a rudder casting on the leg from Hollywood to Jupiter in 2008 when he was sailing with Karl.  After cursing the manufacturer of said part for many many hours – he imparted some wisdom to the me, which he is apt to do oftentimes.  He said that you can’t push the boat to 100% of its performance 100% of the time.  It will break.  The good sailors know when to let the pedal off so the boat stays together.  Broken boats are slow.

Last week I announced that we would be streaming live video from the starts.  I with-held more information so I could legitimately test the system before I put it to the ultimate trial on the beaches of Florida.

My Verizon Droid is running a program called “Ustream Broadcaster”.  It will stream low quality but LIVE video over its 3g connection to a server where you, the consuming masses can view it in real time.  All videos will also be uploaded to our youtube channel upon successful broadcast.  We’ll link to that when the first videos are uploaded and available.

Every morning, we should begin the live broadcast at just before 9:55AM.  Since I am pushing TVS 2 (Tad), my lovely wife has agreed to hold the camera and catch as much action as possible during the actual starts.  When we go live, an update to our twitter account @velocitysailing will be made.  A couple of disclaimers I have to make:

1) Even though I’m using Verizon, I cannot guarantee that I’ll have adequate data coverage to provide this at every stop.  I cannot guarantee that Ustream will be a good connection for you.  In other words, the whole thing could fall apart on a technical level – but I’m giving it the college try.  Any complaints will be refunded their money.

2)  The work will be completely amateur.  Please do not complain about a shaky camera or wind noise blowing into the microphone because there’s likely nothing that I can do to fix it.

3) I’m doing this because, as far as I know, no other videography is taking place for the race and this event requires that someone capture the drama on the beach as it happens.

To view the live feed – you can click the LIVE FEED tab at the top of the main page – or click here.

And so it begins… another year, another round…

As I type this, caravans of vehicles from Raleigh NC – laden with sailors and their vessels are headed south to the picturesque venue of Islamorada Florida for the start of the Tybee 500.  They will arrive Friday afternoon – and begin to put together their steeds for their grueling gauntlet of a marathon race ahead of them.

Be safe drivers – you have a long drive ahead of you and remember that you’re leaving early so you can take your time getting there! That goes for all teams making their voyage south.

Lollipops and moonshine

Exciting news. The era of the live Tybee 500 coverage is upon us. It wont be cinema quality – but we are planning on offering FREE LIVE video streaming of the starts and as many finishes as possible during the race.

Check back in this space for more information soon! Broadcasting will be announced live via our twitter at @velocitysailing

Look forward to providing you this service!