Jake,
You are a man of action to race all those distance races. respect, to all the adventurers.

what SewSew has going for it is the light weight long narrow main hull. fineness ratio is key in displacement boats.
He can both paddle and sail with great efficiency, most likely. I think he is able to balance on 1 hull a lot. A twin hulled catamaran can't do that in paddling conditions, so more drag.
A fast cat should be able to do better in the open Gulf winds though, i would guess.
Perhaps the long narrow light weight hull plus 1 ama could be a solution? A tacking proa of sorts that you put a rack and trapeze off the main hull to take some of the load off the ama when it is to leeward. Yet when you are paddling the ama would have very little drag.
Kind of the less is more theory.

From my arm chair it appears that rowing a tri from the center hull would be more efficient than a catamaran. Low freeboard would make it even easier but be much wetter, perhaps this is why Randy's boat is so well designed.

Perhaps one of these would be a good starting point.
http://www.warrenlightcraft.com/ultralight20.html

good find,
or, ha ha; add a rig to one of these type catamarans.---the boat on the right won the race.

The wake didn't look like 20 knots, but it was moving pretty well on a reach in what looked like about 11 kts TWS.

And it could have used more downhaul, a self-tacking jib, a nice bendy wing mast, an a asym spin or code gennaker.

What's the upwind tacking angle?

Would like Jake's input on completing the following (as they pertain to your EC experience):

"I wished I would have carried...."

"I never thought I'd have..."

"I'm glad I prepared for the EC by...."

"I wished I hadn't brought...."

"What I SHOULD have used (instead of)..."

"The coolest thing I didn't expect was...."

"The worst thing I didn't expect was...."

"When I do the EC next year, I'll...."

All you'll get out of me for now is "I wish I didn't stop to try and sleep". It took a lot of time, we didn't get much (spent four hours to get 1.5 hours of real sleep), and it partially cost us 2nd place. I'm early and deep into dreaming on designs and/or modifications for next year and it will be a dark shed project to be revealed when it's too late for people to steal ideas.

We were fast...very fast...but not fast enough to catch Smyth. If it weren't for tidal doors and weather windows (i.e. if we were sailing in identical conditions side by side), I'm figuring Smyth probably would have beat us by about 6 hours on 36 hours of sailing...so we need to find 15% more speed / efficiency to at least have a shot at knocking on his door. We have a few other things to refine.

I wasn't thinking much about the boat design, more your preparation...

Ok...I wasn't really overprepped or underprepped. I had Alan's advice and experience which was helpful. A good sleeping bag , bivy, one man tent (again not used in the trip but was in the campground), good sleeping pad. We spent about $80 on food and probably ate 1/3rd of it. Tuna and Salmon packs (just grab with your hand and stuff your mouth while sailing), power bars, cliff bars...the trail mix offered a good alternative. We packed 5 freeze dried meals and made four of them. You can't underestimate the positive effect a hot meal has on you when the sun first sets. We made a second set of freeze dried meals the second night at about 1am but neither one of us could really eat any of them...we were in too much of a hurry. We probably each consumed 4 or 6 power bars, two tuna packs, two freeze dried meals and 2 to 3 gallons of water. BUT! You have to plan for a trip that could have problems and might take longer...so you need to pack the stuff you know you probably won't need.

A good flashlight is important - I have a combo strobe/flashlight on my life jacket shoulder strap that was handy. A decent headlamp is a bonus (especially with a red LED).

I'm also not wearing sailing gloves next time - my hands were really affected by the constant salt water soaking and are still quite swollen.

A dry suit is a must. Two base layers are needed so you have a dry one to change into if something happens to the other. I also recommend a secondary fleece layer (I carried a thick fleece bunny suit). That fleece bunny suit combined with a base layer Zhik hydrophobic fleece top and bottoms kept me nice and warm through the night (temps got to about 49 degrees and we were constantly getting sprayed). I switched to a base layer of the Zhik Marino Wool under the dry suit for the daytime through Florida Bay and was comfortable then too.

A balaclava is also very nice for the nighttime sailing. I have an Underarmor spandex one that surprised me with how warm it was even when wet. Alan has a neoprene one that looks a good bit warmer. I don't need to replace mine but if I was buying again, I would probably source a neoprene one.

If you wear glasses, make sure you have a non-shaded pair for night sailing. I have some prescription 3M safety glasses that served me well at night but I broke my sunglasses before we pushed off the beach...had to constantly tape them up.

Nice job Alan and Jake!!! Beautiful trimaran Alan, I'm really stoked it's worked out so well for you!

Bacho,

I can speak from some experience paddling my Hobie 18 with required watertribe gear and about 330lbs of crew weight roughly 5 miles. Boat probably weighed in about 150lbs heavier than a stock F18 in racing form, but it was an old, heavy boat to begin with. To say it was tough is an understatement. We ended up using a large wooden stick to pole ourselves across the bottom. I completely feel for Jake and Alan paddling upwind against the current for miles, and in shallow water would have jumped out as well! Timing the current is HUGE in these events.

My guess is 5% of Randy's speed advantage is pure sailing ability and knowledge, and the other 10% is having a design that is faster. On that front, I'd put my money down that he is leaving the beach with the lightest boat designed primarily for sailing, with some of the sailable trimarans coming in pretty close.

Having looked at the Warren Light Craft trimaran in person, I don't believe the speeds, it's very wide for paddling, and possibly a bit under built for this task. I much prefer the lines on Alan's boat, rig setup, sleep-ability etc. The Motive 25R is a really nice boat on the other hand (same builder), but offers very little below deck space (none if I recall) and is very expensive being an all carbon machine. There is something unique about building your own boat that makes the watertribe challenges special.

In the colder months I carry several pair of gloves so I can change into dry gloves after they get soaked

good point about a "flats pole" used to push you along in shallow water rather than a paddle. I guess a 2-piece oar would work as well if it's long enough..

I have a lightweight anchor which as been useful to kedge off a sand patch... swam it out on a boogie board to set about 75' away and used the winch to crank the boat out of the muck.

I think if I were to do any cruising, I'd add a second anchor and 10 feet of chain to the tipping ring of this one in case wind/current piped up while anchored.

I got becalmed in real skinny water in Pine Island Sound. With a mud bottom, the tiller stick does not make a good pushpole.

Tiller sticks and kayak paddles make bad poles for shallow water, they are too flexible in general, and carbon too expensive to risk on the bottom. We were in a ~8' deep canal with mud bottom (Harlow Canal), and managed to find a 12' long stick (log?) that was roughly 3" in diameter, which worked very well.

10 foot fiberglass flats pole under $200

Or... 15 feet of surplus schedule 80... $25?

hope you don't mind, but i have another goof ball idea:
i wonder if a couple of youths on a N17 (with a special reefing main) could tough it out for a couple days of no sleep. Those boats can hit 19kts. plus.
I would think that they could rig the tiller and both riders could stand up paddle in order to be first to the wind line, or to deal with check points, extreme lulls, etc. The long paddles, if customized could be used to pole against the bottom as well.
or, if there is like a used Marstrom A class fairly cheap, and put spi., reef points, storage, etc. Then when you need to paddle to the wind line or whatever, you figure out a way to SUP. Maybe build a liteweight deck area for standing forward of the front beam.

here's what I'm going to build for next year.

Did I not notice they have a class of boats in the EC that have electric propulsion? Was it class 6?

Torqueedo here I come That should help with the tide at CP 2 and 3

Yes - class 6. I don't know that there were any class 6 boats last year. However, the guys with that modified Nacra 5.8 (and the captains chairs with recumbent peddling stations) had intended to be in class 6. They just didn't have enough time to get their electrical kit together. They really had a lot of engineering into the prop and pedal system.

did you have to beach your craft at each checkpoint (above high-tide line) or just for the start?

Maybe attach RATO and a sled in DeSoto