stumblingthunder

I think you left the Impala out of the pen too long!

Then Dad must have pulled all of that prior and put it back in. He was not one to even try to bend the meaning of the rules. I knew Makaira well. Spent most of the 70s on the weather rail of Tina, racing against them.

If I remember correctly, provisions were allowed to be on the boat when weighed. My father would stow cases of beer under the quarter berths and forward vberths. I did a deep cleaning of the boat out on several occasions and would remove between 24 and 27 cases of beer stowed on a Morgan 24. That was between 755 and 800 pounds of beer! Boat never ran out of beer on an outing, as long as you didn't mind the label faded off of the cans. Were sails allowed to be onboard for weighing in MORC?

I crewed on Panache the Lindenberg 28 as well as Panache the J-24 regularly and Ligero occasionally. I was in college and was suppose to crew on Ligero for the 1985 Labor Day Race from Davis Islands to Sarasota, which was the year that Hurricane Elaina took up residence offshore from St. Petersburg. Parents basically said if I stepped on the boat, I would be paying for the rest of my college on my own. I liked being in college, so I didn't ride. Thanks for making the ganglia dance in recall!

tracker on my ph shows them near end of Nightmare, though resolution is poor. Theyre nearing low tide though. Hope they made it through, they were looking forward to it.SO/DWSB have opened up a good lead on the Thistle. That's a bit of a surprise to me. Winds at Key Largo are still 10-15 knots. If it is towards 15, the permanent-no 1 reef would not be a hinderance. Finally, dswsb/sos got more waterline than skinnygenes. Waterline rules upwind if you are not planing.thistle points like crazy though. That should have saved a fair distance and many tacks. The CoreSounds are cool boats, but I've never seen a cat-ketch that could out point a sloop upwind. That's why Linton opted for sloops in Frankie and Spawn. The EC 22 is a turbo Core Sound and SOS/DWSB know more than a bit about how to handle it. If you're going to see it, now will be the time. I squinted a little closer to the tracks and it looks like the EC 22 had far fewer tacks up the chain of keys than the thistle. Only explanation I can think of is the wind had a more southern component, favoring stbd tack when the EC went through than when Skinnygenes. Further North you go, the more north you have in your track. Wind backs to a more true east or a little north of east and the door gets closed on those behind.

tracker on my ph shows them near end of Nightmare, though resolution is poor. Theyre nearing low tide though. Hope they made it through, they were looking forward to it.SO/DWSB have opened up a good lead on the Thistle. That's a bit of a surprise to me. Winds at Key Largo are still 10-15 knots. If it is towards 15, the permanent-no 1 reef would not be a hinderance. Finally, dswsb/sos got more waterline than skinnygenes. Waterline rules upwind if you are not planing.

That is one slick rig. I did not get a chance to see it rigged with sails at ft desoto.

...that doesn't sound too inviting "Whatever you do, don't get out of the boat!"

Possibly, but not that I'm aware. It would certainly haul ass. The boat came with an oversize spinnaker, and I knew a guy that put on a square top main.In the prototype, we did a harbor race in Key West following the Ft Lauderdale-Key West race. Blowing 35+ at the start we averaged 24 knots down two broad reaching legs under single reefed main and #3. By the beat wind was over 40 gusting to 50...all we could handle with a double-reefed main and storm jib. Only 3 PHRF boats finished, IIRC none of the IOR boats finished. Yeah i always thought they were a pretty bad ass precursor to the heavy ballast ratio deep draft narrow waterline sporties that came after. Once we were able to build em light enough to put the weight in the bulb the wings went by by but still one of those with 1400 s.f. assos on a 10' prod would be pretty damn quick and you got to love the massive dance floor deck It was mesmerizing to hang your head over the wing and watch the boat go through the water. The wide beam was a big PITA at the dock or rafted up, if somebody stepped on or off the crew aboard had to be ready to compensate. I can certainly attest to the reduced stability at dock. I slept on the deck of Adrenaline two nights at Antigua Race Week in 1986 in English Harbor. Any time someone shifted in their sleep, the boat would have a big change in heel. Rum certainly mitigated the impact on the sleepers! I believe JT was crewing on Adrenaline that year, but he was sleeping in First Class in the Inn.

A few more memories came to me after my previous post. First one was tacking in 'very' close to the Great Isaac Lighthouse at night after crossing the gulf stream. I thought we were going to taste the bricks before we tacked away! The second one was rounding Cape Maisi on the Western end of Cuba. Another late at night event and we were very close to the point, well within Cuban territorial waters. A few years prior, patrol boats captured a race boat and detained the crew for a while. There was quite an air of tension on the boat until we got back outside of their territorial waters. We were lights out and had the running lights dimmed to squeak around that point so that we could free up and set the spinnaker for the final run to Montego Bay. Except for the 'political drama,' it was a wonderful experience to have crewed on such a storied vessel and the team mates were all great people. I had more fun than I can express in words! I have photos somewhere in storage and will get them scanned and posted soon.

Thank you Larry! No, never got married to Didi, she was English and was looking for a posher ride into the US than I could have provided. She was on the prowl for Doctors, Lawyers or captains of industry. I was a newly minted college grad who was doing all the long distance racing I had read about over the years. I was doing race boat deliveries to the next race for food money. The Miami-Montego Bay race had a lot of drama. We were real light with crew, only 16 on board, could have used at least 4 more bodies to rotate through the watches. Had a lot of inventory torn up, luff tapes on the heavy 1, jib top and # 2, and cracked a runner base (may have been already done but was discovered during the race.) There was a 24 hr sewing bee down below to put some luff tape segments on the heavy 1 from another torn headsail so it could at least be set (slowly, had to load each luff tape segment at the sail went up.) We managed to be come entangled in a lobster holding pen in about 100ft of water at the end of Long Island in the Bahamas while ghosting along in light air. Took quite a bit of time to clear from that mess. There was also a power play going on between the Owner's personal assistant and the Boat Captain. All the most experienced people backed the boat captain and all the noobs were in the personal assistants pocket. I could see where that was going and graciously turned down a position on the boat, offered by the personal assistant. Condor went on to to the Caribbean circuit and the next race, the boat captain was fired and most of the crew went with him in support. Condor was a wreck the rest of that series due to lack of experience on the deck. I raced the Montego Bay raceweek on Man-O-War (J-35) and did a delivery of that boat to Antiqua for its raceweek. Crossed paths with Condor in Charlotte Amalie and caught up with the new boat captain, Simon the bowman, when they were hauling the inventory over to the sail loft. Hell of a good time!

Thank you very much for posting this, Larry! Brought back wonderful memories when Tampa Bay was the cross roads of serious sailing in January through March. When I was growing up, my father would take me over to the St Petersburg Yacht club every year to take a look at all the SORC boats. I had vowed that I would race the SORC. Did it finally after I graduated in 1986, on Picante, a Soverel 33 with the engine mounted in the bow for IOR rating improvement. It was like having a permanent person on the bow. After doing the whole series as 'Mastman - Navigator' (hell of a lot of running back and forth!) I vowed that I would only race on the largest sailboat that I could. After the SORC, did the Miami-Montego Bay race on Condor. I remember that it was around 110' above the deck and about 115' above the water. I remember going up the mast to do de-macrame the halyards, it was dang high above the deck! That was a fun ride and wonderful memories! Ran out of food on the morning of the 4th day and water by the middle of the day. The cook on the boat, Didi, stripped down about half way through the trip on deck and proceeded to take a sponge bath... That was ... distracting. Got 'put in the tide' the day after we finished for my birthday celebration. Didi then proposed a marriage of convenience while the whole crew was having a beer with me pool side at the Mo-bay YC for my birthday celebration. I got wet a second time by falling over backwards into the pool when she said that! I could go on and on.