Watching Royal Yellow and TVS1 duke it out from 20 minutes away was exciting. There was a palpable excitement on the beach (yes I stole your buzz word JW...) as we would watch yellow chute in front, then white chute in front as they'd cross and zigzag each other. As they were approaching the mark for the gybe into the finish line, TVS1 rolled Royal Yellow and caused them to lose their breeze. TVS1 should have gybed there but Bailey told me that he was so focused on trimming the kite that he lost situational awareness - its the kind of thing that happens when you've been on the water for 7 hours. Exciting stuff to watch.

Tad,
Was it a police officer or a life guard with a badge? Most of the guys on our beach are pretty understanding but there are a few that let the badge go to the head.

Anybody wants to speculate on why 3 N20s came in ahead of the leading F18s this time? That didn't happen on any of the previous 3 legs. And it's clear that the F18s, as someone said, were still "dooking it out".

Early morning light winds allow the N20's to build a lead. Once the sea breeze kicks in, the F18's are powered up and able to recoup some of the initial distance lost in the light air.

The Seacats White video I uploaded earlier was cut short in the upload. I could not swap it so I had to add it again:

Seacats White Final Report >>>

Repositioned Royal Yellow and Royal Orange SPOT units. Hopefully all will track correctly today.

Kinda quiet here. We got to stop at High Tide for Lunch and watched the boats pass. Then got to see the space shuttle launch while waiting for the St. John's River Ferry.

Most of the boats are staying close to shore while Cat in the Hat is WAAAAAY offshore about 10 miles.

This could pay off for Larry and Bryan as the breeze starts to clock around from the East.

Man royal yellow and velocity one are only 12 minutes apart overall on time. Looks like RY out front trying to get that 12 minutes back!

Ahpc and bugaboo are 35 minutes apart overall with both boats very close to each other on this leg.

This may come down to the last leg in lighter winds if their prediction is right...WOW. What a close race!

AHPC seems to have really turned it on in the last hour or so - moved up through the fleet to get back in striking distance.

I was told that F18s have the edge when reaching to pointing. The N20 has it from broad reach to downwind due to the sail area and large bows.

Race Replay Day 5 is up:
http://sailseries.com/tybee/day5.html

8am start as per skipper vote yesterday. All boats off ok and all tracking fine.

Mighty quiet today...
Finally got a good internet connection and was able to post some videos. I am posting HD which requires a lot of bandwidth to post. Videos posted on Tybee 500 Playlist:

Tybee 500 Video Playlist >>>

going to be an interesting battle between royal yellow and velocity1

AHPC going for broke on the outside - risky move. Bugaboo seems to be letting them get some separation, which is dangerous for this leg. Only nine minutes between first and second place in the 20s and 36 minutes between the top two F18s... this may turn out to be one of those finishes where everyone on the beach is counting seconds!

The way things oughta be.

My guess is that this year the N20 are not as overpowered as last year
Bugaboo seems to be the closest to the rumbline, Seacats Orange is the furthest away from the line right now.
Judging from the GPS plots wind direction is less favorable near the shore.

Why do we still not know who the winner is? I checked the Tybee 500 site and nothing, nothing here since noon yesterday, Velocity hasn't updated yet either.
I would think Mischa won the F18 race and maybe overall on corrected but who won the I-20 battle V1 or RY?

At least we have the Savannah Morning Herald.