Fort Lauderdale to Key West - Some like it cold, we like it fast.

Crew included Kevin and Greg Thomas, Mike Henk, Nicole Neely,  Camper Pete Petersen, Bob Declercq, Brian Finocchiaro, Karl Kuspa, and Art Levassuer down below playing with the computer

Soon after the start.
The red, black, and white chute
is the shoal draft J/120 Tampa Girl

The day before the weather was in the 70's but overnight a northerly was settling over Florida, bring colder temperatures. The course at the start was nearly south. The current was negligible at Fort Lauderdale. We got a pretty decent start but the boats that went farther out in the ocean got a little more push from more wind pressure. Thin Ice, an Aerodyne 38 managed to slide in front of us and we were never able to make it up. As we slid farther down the course the temperature turned colder and the wind built. By 03:00 it was blowing around 24 knots and as we bent right it became more of a reach.

You can see from the chart that Thin Ice & Galilee has already pulled ahead

Just before sunset

Although it was cold at least we did not get rain.

The last mark was an unlit buoy and passed it just before dawn. The last leg we went to a #3 and tacked to finish about 15 minutes after Thin Ice. 

The object was to stay out of the current without hitting the reef.

At Mackinac Island it is horses
but at Key West it is wild roosters in abundance.

It did not end well for this race. We just could not get that breakout even though we were sailing a reach. It was really frustrating to be sailing neck and neck with a Hobie 33 and a full spinnaker J/105. You can see the tracking of the race at http://www.kattack.com/webplayer/?raceGUID=22cb9f15-b4ad-4016-a96c-1f5e772a9acb&startTime=38# This is the last southern race for Carinthia so when you read this she will be up on the stands at Bayview with all the other sailboats waiting for warmer weather.