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Rick Bliss's Sailing Log 2004

Story telling Rick Bliss

For the sake of our sponsors and team members I would like to clarify the results. There were two classes, Nacra 6.0 and Inter 20. The results were lumped together and we are attempting to get this changed.

It was fun beating the Brazilian team (Semp Toshiba) by 2 seconds overall after 500 miles even though we weren't in the same class. They took line honors from us the last day in Tybee Island by 3 seconds. Very exciting finish for both teams and the crowd. The Feldmans will have this on their video.

This race is within reach of many sailors who are thinking about doing it in the future. Reduced hotel rates, many free or inexpensive buffets set up by teams and race organizers. (Hobie Fleet # ? put on a super, free spaghetti dinner in Ormond Beach). Jim Stone hosted a steak and egg breakfast in Tybee after the race. Of course we had good weather which made everything easier. Some legs are long, the winds were strong at times but nothing unreasonable. We averaged around 15 mph over 500 miles. The entire group was fun to be with and everyone helped each other out where needed. One suggestion, don't go into this race thinking you don't need to get in shape. And woman 'can do' this race. Brandy was very ready to go the next 500 miles.

Rick Bliss
Team OZ

In case you didn't see my post on Cat Sailor, Team OZ (Brandy Wood and I, with Frank Keefe and Andrea Jannarone as shore crew, Matt as pusher and catcher) won the N6.0 class in the Tybee 500, with Team Morada 2nd, Team OBX 3rd, Team Jaypro 4th and Team (broken leg) Mezzo Speed 5th.

Notes: Mike Ferrara will work out next year prior to the race and people will believe Frank Dimeo when he says he thinks he broke his leg (fracture). One dislocated shoulder on Team Howard's Pub during a surf launching, one destroyed knee in practice the day before the race, one very ill female skipper the second day, one very, very ill skipper when he took a handfull of Bonine for seasickness instead of just one, tons of huge turtles in the way, lots of destroyed hands and fingers from the first day of double trap reaching. All in all it was a fun, very fast, fairly easy time (except the first day when the muscles weren't ready) in comparison to other years of the Worrell. No big seas, little upwind sailing (only the last day in fairly flat water), not one tack, just a few jibes, no pouring rain, no cold water and no night sailing. We got in mid afternoon almost every day with no long floater days. 34-35 hours for us in comparison to when Stephan Najmy and I did the Worrell in approx. 125 hours. No breakages to the N6.0's except a few battens, although Frank and I both broke rudder castings after the race as we left the beach to go to the haul-out location.

The 100.7 mile Tybee leg started out a little windy and then dropped to single then no trapping. The wind increased slightly about 30 miles from the finish. We were leading Semp Toshiba by about 1/8th mile and Tybee and Howard's Pub by 1/2 mile or more. Brandy mentioned something about a big cloud. I grunted acknowledgement but didn't look. I will next time. The front caught me with my goggles down. We went from 11 kts to 20-25. We were trapped way back on the boat with Brandy hand holding the jib and traveler. I had the main way out as we were close reaching. No goggles made it tough to see most fo the time. The waves were starting to build quickly but we were only knocked off the traps a few times. The leeward bow would drive under menacingly in the puffs and Brandy would ease the jib and traveler and then pull them back in. She also managed to get the GPS out several times to give a bearing and our track. We were going as fast as a beach cat could be asked to go. Both of us said later we were expecting to pitchpole at some point. Just when you thought there was more wind then we could handle a stronger sustained puff would hit. Toshiba reeled us in initially but we pulled back away as they went deeper toward the rough inlet washing machine. They hit bottom a few times and almost flipped. Having had a bad experience crossing Hatteras inlet in the past I decided to go out around. When we drove deep a 1/2 mile from the finish they crossed 4-5 boats ahead. We jibed inside of them and both of us screamed past the end of the pier. They jibed and we again jibed inside. We had gained back some ground. We gave it everything we had and were closing fast when they blasted across the line 3 secs. ahead of us. There was a huge crowd waiting on the beach and I had a momentary feeling we were going to take some of them out but luckily the beach crews grabbed us and brought us to a screaching halt. Everyone was running over saying, "That was the most exciting finish I have ever seen". Toshiba won the battle but we won the war. We had left the beach that morning with a 5 second lead (I know we weren't racing in the same class but what the heck!!) We ended up 2 seconds ahead of them overall. This is a team that is sailing from the Antartic to the Artic in stages and on beach cats. They sailed a modified Hobie 21 to the Antartic from Cape Horn. They will continue to New Jersey this year and then next year will go from New Jersey to Greenland. Roberto Padiano (sp) and Duncan Ross are the sailors. Roberto is about 6'7" and only 190 pounds. He won the 1989 Hobie 16 Nationals but didn't receive the trophy because he wasn't a U.S. citizen. He says he is having dreams about a certain yellow boat. He came over one day and said that when he was beat and didn't know if he could hold the spinnaker anymore he would think of the little woman on my boat and he would get inspired to keep working. He told himself that if she could do it, he could too, especially since we had a larger spinnaker. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that we had a doubler.

Rick Bliss
New England Catamarans