Practice Race & Welcome Party

Mimi Appel, Santa Barbara, USA, March 28, 2005

Monday 9:00 pm

Skipper’s Meeting 9am
After the preliminary welcomes the Race Committee got down to business quickly. The group was split into 4 groups for the Round-Robin Series with a projected 10AM start. Prior to the first race, a photo shoot was arranged with everyone on the one start line in close to shore. Immediately after the start, the AP flag went up and the committee boat went to set up the course for the round robin series to start.

With the strong shifting winds and deep water, it took a some time for the committee to be able to set the course. By this time several boats were heading to shore as the wind increased significantly. It should be noted that numerous boats were having trouble staying upright. Many boats had flipped more than once and one was dismasted.

Racing started at midday with approx 20 knots with gusts up to 30+ and throughout the first race boats started heading to the beach for various reasons. The beach and Yacth Club work stations was a blur of activitity for the next 4 hours. With the wind blowing over the mountains and onto the course, the gusts were like bullets with thirty knot gusts followed by severe lulls, especially as boats came closer to shore to round the weather mark.

War stories from the beach:
Team Florida, USA of Kirk Newkirk and John Williams were in 4th at the top mark, rounded, hoisted the chute and went screaming downwind; Kirk looked around and screamed “Take the bitch down!” The chute was dropped, the 3 boats in front of them flipped, the 4 boats behind them flipped. They were feeling really good about the decision to drop the chute, they then pitchpoled.

NOAA Weather Radio report shows 18 knots with gusts to 34.

Team Australia of Dale Thompson and Daniel (Drew Carry) rounded A mark and started downwind with the kite up. The crew mentions that the diamond wire is dangling and the skipper replies “that’s not good.” The first thing they did was drop the kite and attempt to limp the boat to shore, too much pressure on the mast. Then tried to drop the main but they could not get the sail unhooked. They then decided to flip the boat to fix the jammed hook, righted the boat, dropped the sail and drifted 3 miles downwind to “South Beach.” They were joined by chase boats and 5 other damaged Tigers.

Team Puerto Rico of Ibraham Mustafa and Karen Ann Xavier were blasting downwind to the finish in a pack of 3 boats. Wanting to head lower for a safer direction to the finish, in the milliseconds it took to weight their options, over they went. While righting the boat, the skipper was tangled in a mess of lines, the boat took off downwind, the crew was hanging onto the dolphin striker and the skipper was being dragged under the boat in the water. The crew managed to get on the boat, tried to head to wind but the rudders were not in the water. The crew cut the main sheet and headed the boat up to allow the skipper to get back on board.

Finally, racing called for the day. Racers retreat to their motorhomes/hotels to get out of the wind. Beach Captain Matt Miller announced from the PA system in his truck a Wind Advisory is in effect, with projected gusts up to 50, till to 9am Tuesday morning.

For more information, contact hobie_worlds@hotmail.com