The 23rd edition of the Round the Island Race started promptly at 7a.m.on Saturday Sept 27th with one start for the 46 teams entered.The fleet headed due east with a nice double trap northeasterly that carried them to the first turning mark leading to the Destin channel. The outgoing tide was a blessing as the fleet skirted Crab Island and headed under the Destin bridge for the open Gulf of Mexico. First at this point was Eric Roberts on the RC 30 followed closely by Brian Lambert on a Supercat 22. The great breeze allowed the fleet to get out the Destin Pass and into the Gulf in a very short time. Chutes, hooters and screachers were the order of the day as the fleet entered the Gulf of Mexico and turned west for the 50 mile run to Pensacola. The weather pattern held out for the typical September conditions as the wind followed the sun thruout the morning. The first veer was to the east followed by a slight change to the southeast. The great part was that the velocity never died as the wind shifted. The Gulf had nice 2 foot rollers moving to the west so the downwind run was a great time to practice up on your surfing skills. The fleet was on course to set records as there was very little change in the wind strength thruout the morning. The RC 30 and the Supercat 22 were first and second entering the Pensacola Pass around 12 noon with the RC 27 and another Supercat 22 arriving around 1:00. The rest of the fleet stretched out for a fairly long line but all boats were accounted for by mid-afternoon inside the Pensacola Pass. This was a remarkable achievement for all that entered and enjoyed the favorable conditions. As the fleet rounded inside Pensacola Pass the wind also started its shift to the south-southwest as the sun moved across the horizon. This turned the great ride back to Fort Walton Beach into a double trapped tight reach which eventually ended up being a broad reach with all chutes flying ! Eric Roberts along with his dad Bill and their crew Steve Dowell were on target to set a new course record by pushing the RC 30 for all its worth. They were flying a full main, blade jib and roller furling screacher on the tight reach when conditions rquired them to start getting out on the wire. Before long they were triple trapped on the RC 30 and recording speeds of 25 knots having to ese the travellor out to keep the boat flat . Pushing her to her limits in order to set that course record....and the carbon mast broke under compression failure! So with the monster RC 30 dismasted that left Brian Lambert on the Supercat 22 in first followed by the RC 27 and four more Supercat 22's. The rest of the fleet was enjoying great speed battles during the reach back to Fort Walton. As the sun started getting lower so did the wind and it backed more to the west so it then became a port tack run all the way home. Brian Lambert and Larry Franzen on a Supercat 22 were first to finish at 4:40 p.m. ! Not too bad for a 100+ mile race . The remainder of the fleet followed closely thruout the evening and enjoyed great hamburgers and cold beer on the beach as they derigged. Stories were swapped and gut checks challenged as each racer found out what worked and what didnt work. The racing appeared to be tight thru out the fleet with four F trimarans finishing within a 3 minute time span after racing over 100 miles for 14 hours !

The awards ceremony Sunday morning awarded the ENDURANCE AWARD to Bill Stovall and his crew Steve Exley on a Hobie 18 Magnum. They discovered a frayed shroud parting so they went to the beach and secured it with both of the traps on that side of the boat and continued on to finish at 5:40 Sunday morning! Sabre Sails' very own David Laudarini was on hand for the raffle and two lucky sailors walked off with a new main and jib for the beach cat winner and a new headsail for the triamaran fleet winner. Many thanks to the team at Sabre Sails for their great help and sponsorship. For the rest of the results see

http://www.kelleysmarket.com/rti2003/race-results.htm

Mark your calenders now as the 2004 Round the Island Race will be on Saturday September 18,2004 .

Mike-

Thanks for the info. Is t here a web site with pics?

Do you know whose F25c was in the race?

thom

The F25C was skippered by Alain Vachon and the boat was named Tri Blazer out of Gulf Breeze Fl. Pics will be up Monday.

Thanks,
Mike

If you missed RTI this year, you missed a great event. Mike Kelly and his group of people put on a very professional event. Sabre Sails gave away two sets of sail, I didn't win the race or the sails, but the sailing was great, and we had a great time.

Bill Grady cooked ribs and gumbo Friday night, supplied donuts and orange juice Saturday morning ,and had hamburgers and beer after the race. Sunday was brunch on the beach, and then trophy presentation.

Thanks for the great event Mike, see you next year.

S Beach

Many thanks to you Mike and your volunteers for an excellent regatta. Great communication, good food, good sponsorship and door prizes (set of sails, duffle bags, etc. from Sabre) and thanks for the favorable winds and good weather!

Can't wait for next year!

One more thing, -- Congrats on your 2nd place finnish. I hope that we can give you a little closer competition next year.

Seriously........ The conditions were incredible!! Especially on the inside. Great sail!! That was my first time skippering this one. I was expecting a lot more boats? Maybe next year. Mike did a fantastic job!! I'll be back......

AJ

Nacra 6.0 Express

Congratulations to Bill Whitehurst on winning the AA Fleet class on a Hobie 17. Attached is a picture of Bill leading the H-17's at the Hobie Mega. Bill, number 1259 was second overall, Dan Ward,6374 was the winner in the 43 boat fleet.
I was second from the left in my rental, yellow boat, closest I got to them all week.

Caleb Tarleton H-17 6185

I am planning to make it next year (depending again on the conflict with our Alter Cup eliminator again) and I imagine the 6.0s will come back too - we had 18 of 'em last year!

Dang! This really would have been the year to be there. Jake, we really missed a good one.

I know...I know.....oooo the misery. One of these years we'll know what it feels like to finish under daylight.

You might have even been foil born there for a while. I really want to see that sometime!

A finish before 5pm. My, God, you guys must have been flyin'.

From the description of the race it sounds like my boat would have had plenty of time on the foils. To fly, all I have to do, singlehanded, is get it up to 11mph. It was agonizing reading Mike's race recap knowing there was a good breeze all day. I sure would like to have seen those big RC's going full tilt. I guess I wouldn't have seen them for very long.

Maybe we'll have the same wind next year that will give me a shot at dominating the middle of the pack!

Mike,

Are you guys planning to post the total times in the finishes - I'ld be really interested to see that. Hey, and congrats on the last minute pick up and running of this event. Sounds like it was a good one.

Dean

I see that a Rave contended in RTI in the Tri-Fleet but scored a DNF. #105 "Anderson". know him?

Sounds like great conditions-FINALLY!

Too bad I didn't make it this year, as day 2 of Ruff RIder was a wash, with big surf, and light, light air, with a storm in the gulf.

Todd Bouton
N6.0na +

Jake,
I thought you were hallucinating seeing a Rave on the RTI results. Raves are the Sasquatch/Bigfoot of multihulls. Sightings are rare. I don't know the owner of sail #105. I would love to hear of his experience with the recent RTI conditions on a 17' trimaran. I can't find him listed on the three forums that most Rave owners frequent. The company doesn't publish an owners list (they don't even publish a parts list).

The Raves are infamous for being sold and re-sold and never being seen again, so it's not unusual for an owner to pop up one season and to have disappeared by the time the water is warm again. The Raves are bullet proof but you don't see many owners out with them. The boat has suffered from mis-steps taken, or not taken, to grow the class. It's the typical story of a well designed multihull idea that is dying from a company that doesn't know how to promote the boat past the dealer level. A lot of us have owned boats in the past with this problem.

The manufacturer, Confluence Watersports in Trinity, North Carolina, is looking for a sales manager if anyone is looking for a job with a kayak company that is trying to sell plastic sailboats. I believe that would be a tough job.

Mike Kelly, the sponsors and all the staff did an outstanding job this year. Grady fed us with great BBQ again. A SPECIAL Thanks to Sabre Sails of Ft. Walton for thier sponsorship. They realy steped up to the plate with drawing donations. Thank you for the duffle bag, (I was hopeing to win one) they're really cool. But what's really cool is winning the new set of sails ( I couldn't believe it ) for my Hobie 16.

Y'all better come to the RTI next year. It just gets better. I've been hooked for five years on this race. It's one to mark on your calender for the end of September.

Jim Gates
Ocaen Springs, MS