Wetfoot

For what little it's worth (fwliw?) the most frequent did-not-finish cause in the Everglades Challenge is rudder failure. This according to my looks-like-to-me survey, and barring rotten weather. So rudder and hardware robustness seems worth considering. And note what anxiety rudder failure caused Aubry and Maturin in Desolation Island... Pete

SOS at the Finish Line. edit: PaddleDancer photo Designed the boat. Built the boat. Paddled, sailed, navigated and biked the boat. Around the state of Florida. Solo! New class record! Fastest solo time, ever. An Ultimate Champion. +1 on the previous 4 posts.

Posted by CrazyRussian about 8 hours ago: Being old watertriber fan, I root for one container fits all uses solutions. My inflatable catamaran was the one. Alan's (SOS) new trimaran is the one. It is hard to root for your direct competitor. but I'm happy. Alan finally passed us while we were setting this huge Nacra racing machine for the final leg. Go, Alan, go. The race is on. I had wondered if it was legal to change boats a second time. I guess it is. As of 1039 SOS was less than 3 miles from the Cedar Key checkpoint with LRock and CrazyRussian less than 4 miles behind. Seuss, thanks. Yours is the latest in a life-long series of hints which should teach me not to pass on hearsay. It may work one of these days, but i'm becoming increasingly skeptical... Pete

And now he is hammering the portage. He started about 6 hrs ago and he's less than four miles from the Suwannee. -Which is apparently running high and showing significant rapids in places.

Roo and stealth Carlita and MisterMoon, ZeroTheHero and Bandaloop during the EC. Cropped photos from Mike Prince via his post on the WaterTribe Facebook page.

And in First Overall and first and only in Three on a Monohull, we have twobeers, moresalesed and Ninjee (the designer, O. H. Rodgers, who said "I didn't realize how much running aground we would be doing.") on the purpose-built adventure racer Spawn (white, with a safety-orange underbely) boiling the bays at at elapsed time of 1 day, 12 hours! !!! A 22-foot long sloop, with a sliding rowing seat and a centerboard, Spawn's chockablock with upcycled parts: a used Melges-20 carbon-fiber mast, twin rudders from a Hobie 16, a narwhale-like bowsprit fabricated from a Captiva mast, Frankenscot's old shaped centerboard, a massive carbon-fiber boom constructed from an A-cat mast that met with an unfortunate accident, big wide hiking racks made of aluminum tubing, borrowed oars. -from the very well written and often funny blog http://www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/category/sailboat%20racing For Florida waters the clever use of horizontal keels with crew as the bulbs seems to have worked a treat.

Great race report, John! Thanks for sharing it. My wife (she has a CS17) and I enjoyed rooting for you from the tepid comfort of our house. Looking at the winds on the NOAA graphical forecast, that's pretty much what I was picturing. I thought, man, those guys are really going for it. They must be soaked! Pete

Doing ducky in the lee. Whatever lee that little bit of sand offered. As of about 11:30 this morning, he was in Key Largo. A fast finish from last night's anchorage. And by that time Alan was in Miami. Photo by PaddleDancer and clipped from http://www.sailnaway.blogspot.com/

Roo zigging to Key Largo on a windy night.

@alexscott You bet I'm interested. Thanks for posting that. Pete

Fresh and foul for the finish. There have been a number of gear failures and a number of wise people who realized that continuing was beyond their abilities. The winds have been tough on the kayakers for quite a while.

Apparently Alan (green line) got to test his portage system. Mike Vacanti: Thanks. I didn't know about the rules change. Tom Lathrop: Even though Chief is always right, I agree. The two-boaters should at least have to perform some sort of heroic action to compensate. Like starting from the Alabama/Florida boarder. Or at the start, reciting "I am a two-boater, two-boater am I. My mast is too stuck-on, my mast is too high." while patting their heads, rubbing their tummies and dancing a jig. There are a lot of possibilties for creative fairness here. Pete

Graham's version of just a cruise is pretty quick. He's closing on mistermoon and zerothehero who are off Hog Key in the Everglades. Though he needs to hit the checkpoint at Chokoloskee and, I hope, get some sleep. By my reckoning, mistermoon is in fourth place in Class 4 (monohulls). Alan and Jarhead are at the front of the Ultimate Florida Challenge, leaving the vicinity of Rabbit Key. Jarhead is a 73 year old ex-guess-what in a Sea Pearl. He departed on this adventure at the Alabama/Florida border. I have no idea how he's planning to handle the 40 mile portage...

Greg, Here are some build threads from the forum to keep you occupied while you wait: http://tinyurl.com/OB20-by-Ronny-B http://tinyurl.com/OB20-by-striperick http://tinyurl.com/Ocracoke-24-by-nz-lance It might pay to whip up a one sheet (of ply) skiff while you wait, to become familiar with the basics. When we were starting out, my wife and I were poor and i told her she could build a boat as long as it only used one sheet of plywood. We have many fond memories of that low freeboard skiff. You've chosen a sweet looking craft. Best wishes on the build. Pete B