Miami Race Week 2009 -Official repository for any information/results

[Motley]

This thread is really quiet for a major regatta with mostly out-of-towners racing.
No reports?? Somebody down there has to be able to give something up.............

I agree

I think allot of the sailors at this level think SA is a joke but still read the forum

Seems SA and premier are in a pissing match as well ,

while they should be working together to promote sailing

I cant say much more for fear of being blackballed by the "ED" and his west coast peeps

 

[hhn92]

This thread is really quiet for a major regatta with mostly out-of-towners racing.
No reports?? Somebody down there has to be able to give something up.............

I agree

I think allot of the sailors at this level think SA is a joke but still read the forum

Seems SA and premier are in a pissing match as well ,

while they should be working together to promote sailing

I cant say much more for fear of being blackballed by the "ED" and his west coast peeps

The first couple of days were active, and now.....................dead.

Pissing match or no, SA has usually had some input/observations from the event. Even J boat regattas.

 

[Exit_Strategy216]

Wasn't SA that hired you either - it was Archambault, an SA advertiser. Nice job, too.
Wasn't SA that hired you either - it was Archambault, an SA advertiser. Nice job, too.

My bad Clean. Marco was the one you talked to and maybe he and I got it mixed up. Thanks for the opportunity. Hope you guys liked the photos.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

This thread is really quiet for a major regatta with mostly out-of-towners racing.
No reports?? Somebody down there has to be able to give something up.............

I agree

I think allot of the sailors at this level think SA is a joke but still read the forum

Seems SA and premier are in a pissing match as well ,

while they should be working together to promote sailing

I cant say much more for fear of being blackballed by the "ED" and his west coast peeps

Oh for christ's sake you are such a drama queen. There is no "pissing match," and no one cares about what you say enough to blackball you.

As at every event, there are people that love us and hate us - though you're certainly right that everyone reads SA. Most of the sailors in the F40 and M32 class won't post on SA because they do not want to risk losing their crew positions should their comments turn into the usual SA furball - there are an awful lot of out-of-work pros right now, so GP sailors are being very careful - even some of the high-level guys who usually party pretty hard had it turned way, way down this week.

There are hardly any observations from the event because there were hardly any boats at the event - it's that simple! I'm writing it up right now for the front page, but don't expect much - at the end of the day, it was a small F40 fleet, a good M32 fleet, a TP-52(ish) class that turned out to be a match race between Ran and Rio, and a weird little IRC 2 fleet that had the podium decided by the fourth race, when Soozal showed what she could do, and when the Archambault proved faster than the J/44.

FWIW, the only really close boat-on-boat racing in our class was between us and Gold Digger, and it was a pleasure to race against Bishop and a quality crew of nice folks. Unfortunately for the racing, the breeze was a little too soft for them to be able to beat us on rating - if there had been 5 more knots of breeze, that green battle cruiser would have been much more of an issue, but in the 12-18 knots that most of the week presented, she was basically a bit faster upwind, and a bit slower downwind, and owed us time so there wasn't much question of who'd end up second. The Swan never had a chance with their rating, and they had a couple of nasty kite issues that really knocked them out. Spider Glide is a little boat and can't keep up. The SC37 is lovely but is a small boat that can't hang upwind in moderate air and chop - big surprise. It certainly makes up time downwind and nearly passed us on the first run a few times, but their rating is brutal and downwind just doesn't matter that much in W/L racing. The Mills 43 Cool Breeze never had a chance either with their tough rating, despite being a lot faster than the rest of the boats in most conditions, and a gorgeous boat. The Archambault has one of the best deck layouts of any boat I've sailed - very intuitive and lacking nothing - and with some major tuning work, some more sail development, and a few dozen less mistakes, we'd have been right there with Soozal. Besides having such awesome talent aboard, Soozal also did a huge amount of fairing work on their bottom and keel and the boat points like a banshee. It was also a pleasure to be spanked by Robbie Haines, Tom Lihan, and the rest of the crew - class acts all.

I still don't understand why anyone would want to go buoy racing on a new boat that goes downwind at 9 knots in 16, but clearly some people like to do that so more power to them. Both the King and the Archambault would be good choices for those people if IRC is in their area. I think distance racing would be much better though. The SC37 also might have some promise on reachy point to point races - there were times when she was probably going 13 knots while the rest of us were going 10 - I could see doing a transpac on that boat, but IRC racing? Nuts.

 

[T22]

Well done Ciao! and crew, looking forward to seeing you on the water back Home!

 

[Infidel]

Did I hear right- 7 bullets for Soozal?

Nice job gentleman. What the heck do you do to top the past 6 weeks of sweeping up trophies?

 

[hhn92]

This thread is really quiet for a major regatta with mostly out-of-towners racing.
No reports?? Somebody down there has to be able to give something up.............

I agree

I think allot of the sailors at this level think SA is a joke but still read the forum

Seems SA and premier are in a pissing match as well ,

while they should be working together to promote sailing

I cant say much more for fear of being blackballed by the "ED" and his west coast peeps

Oh for christ's sake you are such a drama queen. There is no "pissing match," and no one cares about what you say enough to blackball you.

As at every event, there are people that love us and hate us - though you're certainly right that everyone reads SA. Most of the sailors in the F40 and M32 class won't post on SA because they do not want to risk losing their crew positions should their comments turn into the usual SA furball - there are an awful lot of out-of-work pros right now, so GP sailors are being very careful - even some of the high-level guys who usually party pretty hard had it turned way, way down this week.

There are hardly any observations from the event because there were hardly any boats at the event - it's that simple! I'm writing it up right now for the front page, but don't expect much - at the end of the day, it was a small F40 fleet, a good M32 fleet, a TP-52(ish) class that turned out to be a match race between Ran and Rio, and a weird little IRC 2 fleet that had the podium decided by the fourth race, when Soozal showed what she could do, and when the Archambault proved faster than the J/44.

FWIW, the only really close boat-on-boat racing in our class was between us and Gold Digger, and it was a pleasure to race against Bishop and a quality crew of nice folks. Unfortunately for the racing, the breeze was a little too soft for them to be able to beat us on rating - if there had been 5 more knots of breeze, that green battle cruiser would have been much more of an issue, but in the 12-18 knots that most of the week presented, she was basically a bit faster upwind, and a bit slower downwind, and owed us time so there wasn't much question of who'd end up second. The Swan never had a chance with their rating, and they had a couple of nasty kite issues that really knocked them out. Spider Glide is a little boat and can't keep up. The SC37 is lovely but is a small boat that can't hang upwind in moderate air and chop - big surprise. It certainly makes up time downwind and nearly passed us on the first run a few times, but their rating is brutal and downwind just doesn't matter that much in W/L racing. The Mills 43 Cool Breeze never had a chance either with their tough rating, despite being a lot faster than the rest of the boats in most conditions, and a gorgeous boat. The Archambault has one of the best deck layouts of any boat I've sailed - very intuitive and lacking nothing - and with some major tuning work, some more sail development, and a few dozen less mistakes, we'd have been right there with Soozal. Besides having such awesome talent aboard, Soozal also did a huge amount of fairing work on their bottom and keel and the boat points like a banshee. It was also a pleasure to be spanked by Robbie Haines, Tom Lihan, and the rest of the crew - class acts all.

I still don't understand why anyone would want to go buoy racing on a new boat that goes downwind at 9 knots in 16, but clearly some people like to do that so more power to them. Both the King and the Archambault would be good choices for those people if IRC is in their area. I think distance racing would be much better though. The SC37 also might have some promise on reachy point to point races - there were times when she was probably going 13 knots while the rest of us were going 10 - I could see doing a transpac on that boat, but IRC racing? Nuts.

Thanks Clean. I guess we get spoiled on all the volumes of info that we get normally from these regattas so when there is very little it get disappointing for those of us at home and bored.

Will check-out the front page..............

 

[Dixie]

Saw a few anarchists on the water in sail boats and powerboats...Clean and I referred an RBI boat for TP452 Rio which was out and they were VERY happy about, so happy in fact, that they will use them as their regular support boat in the future. They were quite appreciative

There were 12 Farr 40s racing and in a down economy not so bad...2 years ago there were 16. Last year the Farr40 worlds were in MIA, so you'd expect an uptick in the numbers (there were something like 26).

Watching those Farrs round the mark, is like watching a prima ballerina do a pirouette. They work hard and for the most part sail as if they were being filmed. It was my understanding that the Bermuda team, Abracadabra, was all amateur and they took up the rear, but stayed in close contact throughout the regatta. More practice and they'll be in the thick of things.

A good picture of the economy is John Kilroy's Samba Pi Ti program. In 2007, he was in Miami on a TP 52. This year he downsized 20 feet and 6 or 7 heads to a Melges 32. Star wasn't out this week b/c the owner had obligations outside of sailing to take care of...bummer as they would have added to the shoot out at the top end of that class.

And finally, Clean mentioned the lack of two circles on the front page....It doesn't really make $ense to pay for two volunteer race committees for two circles with 2 smallish classes a piece. On the other hand, 4 seemed like a lot. While there were CERTAINLY people on hand to change a mark if needed, and it did happen though only btwn races, it was a challenge to do if there are 4 classes rounding. Think about it.

Finally, Miami put on darned good weather last week. It was clear and sunny with consistent easterly breeze that ranged over the course of the week from 10-20 knots (not sure about where anyone saw 25). There was some drama, like the kites blowing out, the accident with Q and Synergy hitting the pin boat with a loud bang yesterday, but mostly there was gorgeous sailing in fantastic conditions.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

As always lovely Dixie, it was great to see you. I actually thought the RC work was pretty damned good - sure there were resets that could have made the racing a little more fair, but Dave got a lot of starts off, didn't screw around too much trying for perfection, and was very communicative - all in all, the organization on the water was awesome. The land was terribly disappointing, but that's what happens when an event falls below critical mass - it becomes just racing instead of something special.

I'm sure this is going to piss a lot of people off, but before I get in the car and head north, I wanted to get me thoughts down here. It's going on the front page now, I think, with some photos.

No Beach Party

This week I broke a bunch of promises. Last year I pledged not to race handicap around the buoys anymore after having a string of completely uninteresting regattas that made sailing a chore.. Last September, after the Beneteau 36.7 NAs, I promised myself I'd stay away from boats that sailed at 165 degrees TWA downwind. After all the conflict between us and Premiere Racing at Key West last month, I promised to stay away from Peter Craig's events for a while. And after some nasty nights last year, I promised Mer that I'd stay away from rum drinks. And of course, this week in Miami, I broke all those promises.

Less than a week before Miami Race Week, Philippe Paturel, the North American importer for Archambault Boats, asked me to come down and sail with him at Miami Race Week. After looking at the entry list for the 7-boat IRC-2 class I'd be sailing in I wondered what the hell I was thinking, but Philippe is a hilarious dude who takes great care of his crew, he let me recruit a phenomenal trimmer, and I figured, “what the hell?”

Miami No-Show

If you've followed the fortunes of the SORC, you know that the event (now called Miami Grand Prix) has been losing entries for about five years. From nearly 200 boats a few years ago to just 42 entries on the line this week, Miami Beach Marina was a sad sight compared even to last year. No more docks full of race boats and bustling activity, no more hardcore partying until all hours with dozens of crews - this was a lonely event populated almost entirely by the ultra-serious, ultra competitive teams: Top pro tacticians and crew, dedicated boat staff, matching top-of-the-line team gear, and fully equipped trailers. Some of them came because they'd already paid for their hotels and air fare before the recession, but most of the small fleet came because Miami is a truly fun town, and March provides reliable breeze, warm(ish) water, and great racing. The problem is that almost everyone stayed home. No Mumm 30 fleet, no J/boat fleet, just two OD classes and 11 other mixed IRC boats.

Only the 19-boat Melges 32 fleet had anything resembling a “Grand Prix.” The Farr 40 fleet may have included 4 past class World Champions and more America's Cup and Olympic sailors than you could shake a stick at, but 12 boats on a long line meant lots of separation, and the familiar sight of thirty Farr 40s rounding a weather mark in less than a minute seems to be history - and there's just nothing else that this old design can offer to modern racing any more. The Italian Nerone had a strong event after a year of lousy ones, and neither second place Goombay Smash nor third place Joe Fly could get near them. Snooze....

The Melgi had much closer racing, and Pieter Taselaar's Bliksem was the surprise runaway winner with regular tactician Jeremy Wilmot running the show. Wilmot brought brother Nathan aboard this week fresh off his dominant gold medal performance in China, and clearly that had some impact, as did the presence of Bear Peet and Willem Van Waay. “The crew is awesome, but what really made the difference was Peter's starts,” Jeremy explained. “We spent hours and hours aboard borrowed Laser SB3s last week just drilling start after start after start, and that gave Peter the confidence he needed to win.” Jim Swarz's Q never seemed able to get back on the horse after one of Premiere's photo boats crashed into him and damaged the James Bond story on Thursday, and John Kilroy couldn't stop screaming for long enough to catch Taselaar. The real story in this class was the fact that so many people showed up while the rest of Grand Prix racing was fizzling out - a direct credit to the folks at Melges that push so hard and market so intelligently - it will be instructive to see how strong the European circuit is this year. And the feel-good story comes from a J/24 sailor from Mexico City, with the first Latin American Melges 32 - called “La Calaca.” Iker Belausteguigoitia brought his lovely wife and two adorable kids in to watch the racing, and his big smile and open attitude was refreshing in a class that's become loaded with egos, attitudes, and pros that think that anything less than a military bearing might make them less likely to keep their gravy train rolling.

Handi-Capable

If the one-design fleets were disappointing, the handicap fleets were just bizarre. Four TP-52 sort of raced, thought it was clear almost immediately that only the two British boats, Ran and Rio/Team Origin had a chance to win, and they ended up match racing a lot of the event away while the Russians on Synergy sailed around alone, and the corinthian Maryland-based Anema & Core sailed around trying to avoid tearing any more expensive spinnakers. While it's always fun to see 52s blasting around, there was really only one remotely interesting thing about this class - the 180-foot yacht filled to the brim with smokin' hot Russian “models” that was the HQ of Team Synergy - now that's some style.

The IRC-2 class was bigger, though no less predictable - an eclectic mix of 7 boats including the Key West dominating King 40 Soozal, our Archambault 40, a Mills 43, Jim Bishop's venerable J/44 Gold Digger, a Santa Cruz 37, the KW class winning Swan 42 Vitesse, and the Sydney 36CR Spider Glide.

After the first day of racing in the strongest breeze we would see all week, it looked like there might actually be some close competition, but we were all fooled. With the wind down under 17 knots, Soozal proved untouchable, running the table with 7 bullets from Friday morning onward, winning a number of races boat-for-boat despite a slower rating than both the Mills 43 and the Swan 42. It was a parade of boats all week as these heavy boats slogged around the course in not enough breeze to make the sailing itself exciting, since the locked-in-place competition certainly wasn't inspiring, and the boat-on-boat action was nearly non-existent. Here's the anatomy of an IRC race with this kind of fleet:

1) Start. Depending on start, it will take between 2 minutes and four minutes for the faster boats to either climb up to your line or roll you.

2) Tack.

3) Prepare for one or maybe two lee bows on the first beat.

4) Set kite. Pole Back. Start sweating.

5) If it's a French boat, watch for 7 cigarettes to magically appear in their owners' mouths almost before the jib is down.

6) One gybe and douse. Repeat.

7) Make bets on whether the Sydney or Santa Cruz took last place.

I honestly just do not understand what the point of this kind of fleet is. A 7-boat buoy race under a rule that obviously has no ability to handicap the fleet in a useful way is remarkably uninspiring for a supposed “Grand Prix.” The boats themselves - the IRC forties - are somewhat strange beasts. They are fast and comfortable upwind in moderate breeze, being fully powered up in about 12 knots and rolling through waves rather than slamming over them. They are silly downwind on a windward leeward course, with tactics largely taken out of the equation since they point almost directly at the gates once the kite is set.

For a distance race, I get it - in fact, our Archambault 40 had a brilliant deck layout and very kindly motion, and a big interior with easy headroom for 'my 6 feet, 2 inches. I plan on trying to sail with Philippe and the boys later this year on a distance race - clearly something the boat will excel at (along with getting women). And for people who want to buoy race their cruiser or distance boat in IRC classes, both the King and the Archambault are likely to be winners - in truth, if we had the bottom job, preparation level, and talent level aboard the A40 that the King had, we'd have beaten them - and considering that this is the second regatta for the boat, that's good news for the builder. But after two major Florida regattas in 2009, the IRC 40s are definitely not lighting the US on fire - and without closer-rated boats, or perhaps better-formulated ratings, there's no way that people will come back for more of this.

Then again, I'll be surprised to see anyone come back to Miami at all next year regardless of the economy. To spend tens of thousands of dollars for a truly mediocre event just can't make much sense, and most of the Melges 32 Class has said they prefer stand-alone events like the successful Lauderdale Gold Cup.

It seems that finally, thanks to recession and years of declining participation without any attention to it, the SORC is well and truly dead.

May she rest in peace.

3/9/2009

 

[NautiGirl]

So are you thinking of doing marblehead with Ciao this summer, Clean?

 

[Dixie]

Thanks Clean. I hope you had a good time down here, even with the lower-key rum parities and odd IRC configs.

I am curious for those that follow such things:

Are there any annual multi-class events that have been held since last September that have MORE participants than they did last year?

Are there any annual multi-class events that have seen consistently increasing numbers since 2004? If so, what are they doing right???

 

[Dixie]

PS: Anyone who wanders over to the Premiere-racing.com site will be extremely surprised to see who is on their front page....

 

[hhn92]

Clean, would part of the 'boringness' of the regatta and your fleet just lie in the fact of the numbers being so thin? If instead of 7 boats you had 15-20, with more than one of each type of boat. Packing the fleet tighter might have caused more decisions and maneuvers?

I can see with the small number of boats and the spread in rating group where the race was just as you said; start, tack, round, hoist, gybe, douse, round, repeat.

Of course, one design is always better.

 

[Exit_Strategy216]

Thanks Clean. I hope you had a good time down here, even with the lower-key rum parities and odd IRC configs.
I am curious for those that follow such things:

Are there any annual multi-class events that have been held since last September that have MORE participants than they did last year?

Are there any annual multi-class events that have seen consistently increasing numbers since 2004? If so, what are they doing right???

Dixie,

The answer to your question #two right now is Charleston Race Week.

Check out the photos from day one and two at imagesbymarco.com

 

[..............]

The one thing I did not see mentioned in the article or in any of the posts is that in 2006 everyone was told that there was a issue with finding space in the main harbor and that moving forward there would be no PHRF invited, and that the OD would be hand chosen classes. I think the reaction from everyone I know was that the event would be dead in 2 years.

It is unfortunate, I love this venue and have been on a few great programs in Miami both pre and post the SORC resurection.

Sad to see its demise, but I think cutting the fleets to some mythical elite core in 2007 killed it.

 

[bcopper]

The one thing I did not see mentioned in the article or in any of the posts is that in 2006 everyone was told that there was a issue with finding space in the main harbor and that moving forward there would be no PHRF invited, and that the OD would be hand chosen classes. I think the reaction from everyone I know was that the event would be dead in 2 years.
It is unfortunate, I love this venue and have been on a few great programs in Miami both pre and post the SORC resurection.

Sad to see its demise, but I think cutting the fleets to some mythical elite core in 2007 killed it.

This certainly explains alot...

 

[IshmaelHatesThatDamnWhale]

I was doing bow the the SC37 Southern Crescent this weekend and I can tell you we had a great time, even knowing from the start that we would probably correct out DFL. The build quality is excellent, which is what you expect from a boat aiming to continue the Santa Cruz Yachts heritage. Since I only go to the cockpit in between races for lunch I can't speak for its layout, but the trimmers didn't seem to have any complaints. The only annoyance I heard was the lack of a 1:1 ratio on the cabin top winches, as the kite was usually trimmed off these winches. A Harken Quattro winch would be perfect for this application, but the winch pads might be too close to the companionway for the lower drum. All the winches looked a little small, but they're the correct spec (Harken 48 power ratio) and I'm probably just used to seeing the more squat 3 speed winches of bigger boats.

The interior is really nice and definitely has the Santa Cruz feel of beautiful wood, yet it remains light and functional. One complaint is that the opening to the forepeak is too small to easily fit the packed spinnakers through and the door handle would sometimes catch a strap on the bag until we taped it. Ideally you would remove that door for racing, but with the possibility of an even worse IRC rating it's probably better for your bowman or squirrel to just tape the handle and deal with it.

We had a few issues with the boat, but that is kind of expected with a new boat at her first regatta. The rudder was far too balanced from the factory and the back of the boat was reporting lee helm issues the first day. After almost every day of racing we filed off more and more material from the rudder head in hopes of adding rake and a little feel to the helm, but it still needs improvement. Also, there have been issues with the keel lifting mechanism on this boat since its delivery and the owner is currently looking at having it re-engineered, to his displeasure. With all Santa Cruz's talk of a great lifting keel mechanism, it should be better.

Then, after racing on day 2, the prop didn't seem to be opening right, even with a fast shift from reverse to forward. 3000 rpm and we weren't really going anywhere so we continued sailing in. While taking the main down it was apparent we weren't getting propulsion, but our friends on the Sydney gave us a pull back to our slip. I hopped overboard at the dock to take a look and the thing was FUBAR'd. The blades and hub were gone, with just some shredded black rubber that I assume to be a vibration dampener which was still bolted onto the shaft. We called the factory and they were pretty confused, saying the prop shouldn't have any rubber in it, but they shipped us a new prop overnight with early am delivery. Big credit to them, we just explained the problem and they asked for our shipping address. The next morning we had a diver install it and we were on our way. From what I saw, the factory was very good about staying in contact with us and doing everything they could. Still they should stick to Bill Lee's ideology: If the boat is delivered two weeks late but perfect the owner will hate you for two weeks; if the boat is delivered on time but screwed up the owner will hate you for the boat's lifetime.

Sailing-wise the boat is really fun, especially downwind. We had no chance upwind, off the start everyone except the Sydney would roll us. The short chop would just stop the 37 while the bigger, heavier boats chugged past us uphill. The rudder issue definitely didn't help either and the boat is really steered by the sails. Coming out of a tack the keel would be a little stalled, bows down for speed, the foils would start working, and the sails would come all the way in. However, we still couldn't point with any other boat on our fleet; maybe due to sail development and the need to power through the waves. Time in the boat will improve this, she's not an easy boat to sail, especially in the conditions we had. But once we rounded the windward mark all that was behind us.

Our AP spinnaker had been upped to 145 square meters from 129, and that definitely made a difference. The new kite helped us plane down waves in the marginal surfing conditions and was worth the rating hit. The kite exploded after a bad gybe and it got caught on a spreader tip for a second. I have since put Teflon tape on all the spreader tips, as well as backstay where the main battens hit and around the inner lip of the foredeck hatch. Downwind speeds were 9-10 knots at a minimum with frequent surfs to 13-15 knots, depending on the wave. We had a perfect wave line up once and hit 18.X knots, so the sea state was definitely a limiting factor in our maximum downwind speed. Unfortunately, with this speed came extra distance sailed and our downwind gains weren't enough to pass the lead sleds going right for the mark at 9 knots. This boat needs to be sailed aggressively downwind and doing so will reward you with plenty of speed and fast is fun. Plus, as the AWA moves forward during a surf, soaking low to make better VMG is very effective, so long as the wave you're riding is big enough to keep pushing and you can get the bow up at the end of it to power over the back of the next wave. When you're in the groove the ride is great, but with the little waves it was hard to keep this up.

On a reaching leg or distance race the Santa Cruz 37 will boogie and she should go well into the 20's surfing down the California coast like her ancestors. It's obvious this boat was not designed for IRC, so racing in IRC will only cause frustration and poor results. But once you're surfing down big rollers and passing the slow, heavy boats all this will be forgotten. Whoever sails this boat to Hawaii will have a permanently attached smile. The boat is also surprisingly dry, both up and downwind. I'm sure you can shove the bow through a wave, but this is definitely an offshore design with plenty of freeboard and forward reserve buoyancy. I really hope this boat takes off, one design racing in these would be a ton of fun and really put a premium on crew work and steerage. The Santa Cruz 37 is a great design and once the final kinks are ironed out the boat will be awesome.

 

[IshmaelHatesThatDamnWhale]

Also, does anyone know the photographer on the seafoam green hard-top center console with 2 white Evinrude outboards? They were in the perfect spot when we hit 18 and we would all like to see the photos, especially the owner who was driving.

 

[Manfred]

I was doing bow the the SC37 Southern Crescent this weekend . The Santa Cruz 37 is a great design and once the final kinks are ironed out the boat will be awesome.

Thanks for writing up this extensive report. Have read it with pleasure and a cup of tea.

smooth sailing

Manfred

 

[MR.CLEAN]

So are you thinking of doing marblehead with Ciao this summer, Clean?

If the timing works out, absolutely. Great bunch of guys, and a comfy offshore boat that will probably enjoy reaching quite a bit.