2015 Race Recap by Ron Kern


The pre-race.   The SE 5-10mph Saturday forecast for the weekend made Saturday the choice when the wind came up to around 10-12 mph in the morning.  Sunday was pretty iffy with much conflicting weather forecasts.  It made an early start a tough call so noon became the first possible start which gave time for entrants to show up and rig big.

Race Day.  Saturday morning at the beach around 10 a.m., found wind around 10-12 mph despite looking really light on the water and mostly sunny.  We had the skipper's meeting at 11:30 a.m. which answered questions and gave the course for the race.   

The start and upwind to Port Everglades Inlet marker, (PE).  The start went off on schedule after the 10 minute countdown at around 12:45.  Christophe Waerzeggers, Leif Givens and I started on port and went towards the shore.  Leif was behind me, I could hear him but never saw him, disappeared after tacking out and I never saw him again.  Christophe was ahead and to weather making better time towards the mark.  I tacked first and went out to sea, Christophe kept sailing on port for quite a ways.  Tacking back to port and heading across the inlet Christophe was a ways in front but stopped to clear weed and I caught up a bit.  He overstood the mark which helped a bit more, but I rounded hundreds of yards behind. 

Downwind leg to Hillsboro Inlet marker, (HI).  I wanted to stay outside in any possible north running current.  We all had a discussion about the wind being light and agreed if it took us more than 30 minutes to get about even with the start going downwind we'd head to shore and call it off.  It was close to 30 minutes and I wasn't sure when Christophe out in front sailed towards the beach if he was going to call it a day.  He didn't, so I jibed before him further out than he and off downwind we progressed to Hillsboro.  The weather was marginal with spots of rainy looking weather here and there offshore which was affecting the wind.  For a long ways we maintained about the same separation as we had rounding the upwind mark, but it seemed that Christophe was sailing into better angle and wind than I for quite a while and opened up a bit more of a lead.  The wind got lighter, more weed near Hillsboro in the outgoing tide, made getting around the marker take longer than we would have liked.  I rounded about a minute behind or so of Christophe with somewhere 1 hour 20 minutes elapsed time.

Upwind back to Fort Lauderdale Beach and finish.  Christophe sailed towards the beach I sailed out.  Bad call for him, good call for me.  I put some distance on him and then opened it up with some good lifts and better pressure than he was finding.  I think he was having a more difficult time than I with the seaweed too.  There were pretty bad patches of weed from the outgoing tide for about a half hour or so upwind until we got far enough away from Hillsboro Inlet.  Storms were around us, the wind was up and down but enough to keep planing, but it was light wind and our upwind angles were bad because of the lack of real solid pressure.  At around 3 hours elapsed, the storms were getting worse and then it was rain.  Pretty heavy rain.  Then the inevitable happened and the wind switched hard to almost straight offshore.  For quite a ways I was on a close reach sailing straight for the finish.  That didn't last long enough and it shifted a bit more to the southwest and started dying.  The last mile turned to a slow upwind slog.  Leif greated me at the beach under an umbrella and helped get the board and sail back to the sand.  A bit later Steve Campbell came in and then Christophe.  All accounted for and another year's race completed.

Party.  This year's party was at our house. 

Awards.  Thanks again to the generosity of Adventure Sports, Neil Pryde, JP, Sandy Point Progressive Sports, Aerotech, Exocet, Liquid Surf & Sail, Next-Sports, North Sails, Fanatic and Nautical Ventures, Hobie, because we had plenty of awesome prizes which were awarded after pizza & beer.  The i-to-i does build up your appetite!

Wrap up.  It was a great race again this year with all kinds of weather thrown at us.  It was fantastic to see new entrants along with the veterans.  I was really happy everybody made it back to the beach and no pick ups were necessary!

Next Year.  Hope to see you all back next year along with some new entrants. Give it a try!  Thanks to all for helping make the event happen.  13 years now!

Ron