John Casey Coverage of the GT300

If you're looking for a more generic write-up of the GT300, John Casey, who was there commentating for Sailing Anarchy, has one on his blog here. Congratulations to the overall winners, John Tomko and Ian Billings of Team Ruff Rider!

Day 4 Recap - Surfside Beach to Galveston

Day 4 started with me helping to push off Team Flip, Flop, and Fly for the Dash Race. The Dash is a one-day race over the same course as last leg of the GT300, designed to get more people interested in catamaran distance racing. I'd call last year's a success as it got me into the GT300, and this year's even more so as there were something like 25 boats on the starting line. After getting wet, I donned my harness, camel back, goggles, life jacket, knee brace, hat, GPS, boots, gloves, and all the other crap I wore every day:

I was excited at the prospect of completing the entire GT despite our mechanical issues and the fact that Michael and I had only a pair of good knees between us, but it was a little bittersweet as I was not ready to end all the fun I was having!

After the Dash started, the wind began to die down. We started and planned to stay on the rhumb line again, as it was actually very close to the beach on this day, but it appeared that all the F18s were in better wind close to shore. With a new set of gudgeons, we gybed without issue and headed back into shore. After several more gybes in light air and about 15 miles behind us, we worked our way into first place. The larger I20 spinnaker really made a difference, and we continued to put distance between us and the lead F18s. The wind did eventually build and I trapped out with the spinnaker up, Michael joining me in the heavier stuff. My friends on Team Savla Vida Vela were kicking butt behind us in second place, then we could not tell who was behind them. We saw the other two I20s who were far enough behind to not be a threat, but in addition to holding first place in the Open Class, we really wanted to be the first to the beach. Fortunately, the wind held and we retained our lead. Apparently all the Dash boats had gybed into the surf and the swimmers on Galveston's North Beach weren't really prepared for a big cat with its spinnaker up tearing through the breakers on a perfect rhumb line. Between pulling up the daggerboards, I was yelling as loud as I could for the swimmers to clear away. We were coming in at a tight angle and as such our window to finish on starboard tack was only a few boat widths wide... we didn't want to screw that up because of a few kids in floaties. They managed to get out of the way, though, and we hit the beach with the lowest elapsed time. I couldn't immediately see her, but I heard my niece, Kennedy, screaming out "Uncle Ryan! Uncle Ryan!" and I smiled from ear to ear. She and my sister, along with my parents, had made it to the finish to cheer me in. What a great ending to an awesome race!

Day 3 Recap - Matagorda Island to Surfside Beach

Rudders? Who needs them??? After a decent start to the 3rd leg of the GT300, Mike realized that the leeward rudder had been bent off the pintles as we emerged from the surf. If it were the windward rudder, we could have gone on, but the leeward rudder is much more important as it is guaranteed to remain in the water on the starboard tack, whereas the leeward lifts out of the water whenever you fly a hull. We turned back to the beach for a fix.

Unfortunately Michael did not have any spare gudgeons (to which the pintles are welded), so we had to take off the windward gudgeons and put them on the leeward hull. This process took about 10 minutes, but only after spending 10 minutes searching for the right tools. We then taped the tiller extension to the crossbar and loosely lashed both to the rear beam. There is some interesting video of this whole process linked in the post on the Justin.TV highlights below.

It was another day of main and jib reaching, with me on the wire, the chicken line keeping me steady. The wind died a little over the course of the day, around mile 30 of 50 (as opposed to the first two 91 nm legs). I tried the spinnaker, but we could not hold it with just me trapezing. Michael would have joined me, but the way in which we taped his tiller would not let him extend it to the length he needed to steer. We retained all our angles and calculated when we would be able to re-hoist the spinnaker.

About 10 miles from the finish, we passed the last place boat, Jack Flash. We could see several others, but catching them was unlikely. 5 nm out, I popped the chute. Our prediction was a bit off, though, and we ended up having to search for power a bit, heading a little higher (and down the beach from the finish) than we intended. We decided to put in a gybe about a mile out, which was a precarious move with only one rudder. On the port tack, we sailed very conservatively, then gybed back to starboard for the finish.

I estimated that we lost 25 minutes for the repair, then a good amount by not being able to carry our spinnaker. Without this deficit, we would have surely been in the top 5 boats... possibly even another third place? But we felt good about our handicapped performance, and headed out to shower up for a delicious pasta dinner. More on that in another post, though...

Day 2 Recap - Mustang Island to Matagorda Island

Picking back up on my GT300 summary, I thought I would hit on the highlights of days 2-4. In comparison to the boom-breaking weather we experienced on day 1, day 2 was a "lollipop ride." The wind started on the high side of the I20's design wind, maybe 16 knots or so. The start was a bit interesting as the first place F18 team, Ruff Rider, took off exactly 1 minute before the horn. Sounds like someone set their watch wrong! This led the other top 2 boats, Velocitek and TCDYC, to take off along with them, as well as several of the slower teams at the other end of the line. They would all receive a 15 minute penalty, as well as the amount of time they started early... about 16 minutes total.

After the starting issues, we raced off with the other F18s, headed about 5 degrees higher than the rhumb line. The sea state was fairly confused, with 3-5 foot swells, some occasionally larger. We were headed high enough in relation to the true wind that we could not carry the spinnaker, but not so high that we needed to double trap. I remained on the wire for probably the first 50 nm of the day, securely attached to the boat via a chicken line, which is a basically a preventer line for your body that keeps you from flying forward whenever the bows stuff into a wave and the boat slows rapidly. Somewhere between miles 20 and 30, the F18s that had been heading 5 degrees higher than us decided to pop their chutes and double-trap reach for the remainder of the race. Both teams Velocitek and Ruff Rider, who were about a mile or so further offshore than us, began to bear down, eventually crossing our line only hundreds of yards ahead. I believe they made it all the way down to the beach with their spinnakers up and rode the sea breeze to the finish. 

At some point Yost and I tried our spinnaker and the best we could hold was still a good 10 degrees lower than our bearing with both of us on the wire. Keeping this number in mind, we decided to ride it out single-trap reaching. Around mile 50, the wind started to die down a bit so I came off the wire and began sitting on the windward hull. As the wind continued to die, I eventually began riding the leeward hull, occasionally dashing back up to the high side in the puffs. We were committed to the rhumb line, so we did not dare head for the potentially higher winds closer to the shore. Instead, we decided to simply continue on our heading, still about 5 degrees higher than the rhumb line, then pop the spinnaker as soon as we could. We were far offshore and our only company were the numerous oil platforms. Main and jib only until our bearing was such that we could hold the spinnaker. We could only speculate as to the wind the other boats were experiencing, and we were anxious to finish so that we could determine whether or not our tactics paid off. 

8 or so nm from the finish, we determined that we could hold the kite, and Michael and I both got out on the trapeze. We calculated perfectly, and were able to hold this configuration to the finish. As time passed, we spotted the 3rd and 4th place F18 teams, TCDYC and Rudderless, a bit further back along the beach. If we didn't screw up, we were headed to a 3rd place elapsed finish. Screw up we did not, and we were greeted with cold beers at the finish. After all the boats were done, Mike Beuerlein, skipper of Team Quicksilver who had been rescued the previous day and had yet to recover his boat, cooked us all a nice gumbo. Mike isn't from Louisiana, but I am, and after a day of racing I deemed his gumbo top notch!