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Race
Report
Winter
Sleigh Ride &ndash
Florida Style!
Anarchist
L_Z sailed the Fort Lauderdale – Key West feeder
race (scratch
sheet), on the TP 52 Decision (ex-Rosebud) arriving shortly
after midnight this morning. I spoke to him around 9:00
a.m., and he was still completely wired from an “un-f**king-believable
ride.”
Luiz
trimmed the main on the 52, which sailed in IRC A, and included
two other TP 52’s, Mike Brennan’s shiny new Reichel-Pugh
45 Sjambok, the big RP 77 Harrier (ex-Black Dragon), the Farr
60 Rima, and another shiny new boat, the UK Rogers 46 Yeoman.
His finger is still pretty mangled from losing a battle with
a Maxi’s cheek block a few months back, but he still
kept up with the young blood on the TP.
“We had mostly 20 to 25 knots, with some gusts to
30 or so, with easy rolling seas. We started with a
headsail and immediately went to a 3A (reaching kite) for
the first part of the race. Sjambok was fast as hell! She
jumped out ahead of us by about a half-mile, and we couldn’t
catch her for the first third of the race. Decision
got ahead by a ways but didn’t really separate much
until dark.”
Aside
from Decision, the three Transpacs and Sjambok ran the
front of the fleet, never too far away from each other.
“Sjambok is just awesome. She seems like she’s
actually wider than our boat, and with her 6-foot prod, she
carries about the same downwind sail that we do.”
With
a bit of a windshift, Decision peeled to her bigger kite
while Sjambok went further out to the West, and when they
came back together, Decision had finally caught the smaller
boat. Luiz said, “When she flattened out a
bit we were definitely a touch faster.” On a reach,
Sjambok’s big ass clearly gives her psychotic speed – I
heard that she was averaging 22 knots in 16 the other day
during a practice session between Miami and Lauderdale.
It
looks like Harrier crossed the line first about a half
hour in front of Decision, with Sjambok another half hour
behind them. The 45-footer beat Detroit’s Trader
over the line, but Luiz didn’t know by how much. Decision
should be ahead of Harrier on corrected time, but whether
they saved their time against Sjambok is anybody’s
guess. The Russian owner and crew of theTP-52 Rusal-Energy
is clearly still getting the hang of the boat, having started
the race with what L_Z described as a “mylar-ish chicken
chute, then they did a bareheaded change to a big white runner,
then another bareheaded change back to the chicken chute,
then we didn’t see her again until this morning.”
Decision’s log didn’t go below 16 knots for
the entire race, and for the 160-mile course they averaged
around 15 knots, since their gybing angles had them sail
quite a few more miles than rhumb. Top speed: 26.6 – YEE
HAW!
Luiz
sailed the race with a finger that was sucked through a
Maxi’s cheek block a few months ago, but he did fine,
and is very psyched for the upcoming week’s shenanigans. His Yacht
Scoring Program is running the feeder race results, and
he will be checking in with us all next week from KWRW’s
most exciting handicap class, IRC 2. As you already
know, SA is the best source for everything, and we’ll
have non-stop reports and action from almost every class
racing at Key West, so check in often!
Other News:
By
now you may already know that at least three boats had
major problems on the feeder race, all of them Corsair
trimarans. The
highly modified Corsair 31 Cheekee Monkee flipped shortly
after the start in less than 20 knots of breeze, with new
owner and very experienced multihuller Ron White aboard.
Monkee had a seasoned crew running her, including the former
owners. The Corsair 36 Double O’ Seven was
dismasted sometime yesterday afternoon, and the F-28R Endorphine
3 broke her rudder. Apparently there weren’t
any injuries, and all three boats are safe in harbor. - Mr.
Clean
01/11/07
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