Must be a full moon. Now we have a few things in common...

Mike

I've known who you are since you came on the scene with the brew 16. Same place,same time but still little in common.

Don't get all warm and mushy or anything. I said a FEW things...

Better?

Mike

The author of the SIs has stepped in, and we have cleared up concerns from the PHRF Class by moving a few items off the "required" list in order to accommodate sailors who may only do an overnighter once a year. The author's pen and a consensus between the MHC and the OA from SYC has reached an agreement that now offers our multihull entries the same requirements as their keelboat entries. This will save one team from purchasing over $1,400 on EPIRBs and PLBs.


The one area of interest for catamaran sailors is the course. Keelboats are required to sail out into the Gulf of Mexico to Gulfport Sea Buoy (approx. 2.5 nm), proceed down the coast, leaving Mobile Sea Buoy to port, to the finish line off Pensacola Sea Buoy (3 nm offshore). We are considering a change in that plan for the catamarans.

Rather than have the catamarans that far offshore, we will push for a coastline sprint such as the Florida 300 or GT 300 style. We are hoping to have five boats this year, so some of you join us in Mississippi for a salty adventure.

Bert, I can't tell from the NOR, is there a size restriction for the multihulls? If there are going to be Hobie 16s or F18s on the water, I can see the concern about being 3 miles out (although that's not terribly far), but if it's all big boats (offshore tris), I don't see the concern.

Mike

We are pushing for the F 18s, I 20s, and other open DPN designs. These designs have proven to be "ocean worthy" by virtue of their history in Tybee contests and more recent challenges. These boats have a realistic target time for the race, and can be patrolled more easily than an open fleet with older designs mixed in.

We would consider an F 16 if the team is credible.

Simply put, the OA has the right to accept or deny entries, and they will defer a decision to our committee for consultation if there is a team on the fence of eligibility.

The inshore route is less contaminated with old oil and gas rigs. Some of which may not be lit. Once a boat is past Mobile Bay, they come into deep, open water on the Florida side.

Copy, thank you.

Mike

Can you expand upon this a little? I've been trading emails with Kett today on the safety equipment requirements b/c of the ambiguity of what is in the NOR. In what you said above, do you mean that the "big cats" (i.e. Sprint 750's, etc) are exempt from the requirements?

He's also asked me for a PHRF for the boat, which... doesn't exist. Regardless, Brian and I will be under a provisional D-PN or mod factor number; is that going to be accepted?

Really glad that you guys are interested and regret the confusion. This is the first year for a Multihull "Division."

That being said, the regs for cats (sailing with DPNs rather than under the PHRF Rule) are a dealt with, in general, within the 'Recommendations.' There are subtle differnces which vary between the PHRF Class (different needs) and beach cats (need for safety thing again).

Kett has done a great job and helped make this happen, but he was unfamiliar with this ambiguity when he drafted the NoR.

Since then we have been in dialogue, and he has published an amendment specifying requirements for the PHRF Class. Now that beach cats may truly become involved, I am sure we can arrive at a fair baseline start by telling you if you carry the same safety equipment you are used to carrying for overnight races, then you will be fine.

We will need to track the boat for progress, and we will need you to provide means of locating a separated crewman in a dark and angry sea state. Our recommendations are largely based on recent safety equipment employed by sailors in the Everglades Challenge, Florida 300, and GT 300. Those are your best guides.

I will contact him with this traffic.

Keep Sailing,
Bert Rice, PBYC and FWYC

Ok, you might want to check with Kett, now I'm told,

"Unfortunately, that's going to be a problem. Per the NOR, your entry cannot be accepted without a GYA-MC sanctioned PHRF rating. The best I can do is direct you to the GYA-MC to see what you can get worked out. Here is the link to the GYA.org site: http://www.gya.org/?page_id=15. There is a PHRF certificate application there with contact information.

A Portsmouth division is not out of the question for future events, but it will require more advance notice and enough participation to justify it."

Roger that. I have been representing the GYA MHC since its founding, and your alert has shadows of days past. The keelers mean well, but oftentimes we (multihulls) become lost in translation. Kett and I have been sharing mails, and I have contacted the Race Officer as well as the current Chair of the MHC for their review.

Thank You for the spark and hope of seeing this challenge grab traction. Randy hopes to have small DPN tris (Evergaldes Challenge style craft) involved. At least that is what he and Linda shared with me.

Perhaps we can work this out next year, as Kett said. I am still waiting to hear from our Chair.

The OA of Southern Yacht Club for the G to P Race has responded very positively about next year. Our MHC will be working with them in the critical and early stages of planning so there are no future misunderstandings. The case is closed for 2014, but we have planted a seed.

http://kws.kattack.com/GEPlayer/GMPosDisplay.aspx?FeedID=1262 for live tracking...Bob Hodges (Corsair Sprint 750) is currently running around fourth boat for boat behind the Carcreek 40, Decision, which started much earlier. It looks as though they are burning chutes for the first time in a few years, and PYC is gearing up to serve some early morning Bushwackers.

Evidently, the wind has gone aft and become lighter. Even Decision is sailing with more bearing out to sea, around Mobile, which we call, "The Mobile Hole." The tidal flow into and out of Mobile Bay stretches far into the Gulf because of the shoals on the east side of the Pass, across from the Lighthouse. They are assuming a higher angle of attack for speed around Mobile, hoping to gybe back toward rhumb line at the right time. The offshore forecast calls for a backing breeze (westerly) that is to increase for the next few days. The Dark Side, with Bob sailing, and quite possibly, Donnie and Andrew Brennan of VX One fame, is having to sail higher and slower than Decision at this time.

Will we have a beach cat turnout next year? SYC will most likely allow them now that they understand us, and we understand them.

10:30 Report: Decision remains a little lower and a little faster. The leaders have gybed and the Dark Side 's latest report revealed:

DARK SIDE
Last Comm (dd:hh:mm:ss) : 00:00:23:46
Heading: 57
Speed: 7.3 Knots

Decision is bearing 86 deg at 8.6 knts. Hodges and Dark Side are still fighting for third to the finish line, just a few miles behind at a higher angle. I would love to see the wind pipe up so they could start hauling the mail. One of the other boats in that gaggle behind Decision may be the other Corsair 750. Final report in an hour. Decision does appear to have broken away from Mobile and the oil rigs into Florida waters.

Final Report until morning: Fringe Element, the Corsair 750 MK II, skippered by David Saint is about to rocket past Tiare, an annual podium finisher and former PHRF Sloop overall winner. Dark Side is just outside and ahead, sailing a bit higher and faster, according to the tracker. They appear to be third boat to the finish line, pending the situation with Decision. The Corsairs are doing mid sevens, Tiare is chugging in the high fives. Zydeco will be the next boat in second, possibly the first boat to overtake Decision.

There you have it... multihulls are hauling the mail along the Gulf Coast.

Decision has slowed to 1.7 knts, and heading south. What has happened aboard Decision?

The tracker shows that Dark Side is in, and Fringe Element is entering Pensacola Pass after finishing at Pensacola Sea Buoy. Since Decision's transponder is still broadcasting off Mobile, one might guess they "lost" the unit overboard. Yea, Right. When Paul Schreck was racing, he was known to put a cup over his stern light. He even used black chutes in the 60s and seventies. Why would Decision be parked off Mobile? One could guess they have already hit the rack after a few pitchers of Bushwackers.

Tried something new - I pulled a summary away from the performance of the fleet based on tracking. I used the edit feature last evening so as not to overwhelm the number of reply boxes. Below is a take based on what I perceived to be occurring on the race track during the second half of the race. The Kattack tracking is included in my commentary. Hope this gives everyone a bird's eye view of this epic challenge for the GYA offshore crowd. I will put the final results up when Southern/Pensacola YCs puts them on the GYA web site. The commentary focuses on the duel between Hodges on Dark Side and Stan Murray's Decision.

http://kws.kattack.com/GEPlayer/GMPosDisplay.aspx?FeedID=1262 for live tracking...Bob Hodges (Corsair Sprint 750) is currently running around fourth boat for boat behind the Carcreek 40, Decision, which started much earlier. It looks as though they are burning chutes for the first time in a few years, and PYC is gearing up to serve some early morning Bushwackers.

Evidently, the wind has gone aft and become lighter. Even Decision is sailing with more bearing out to sea, around Mobile, which we call, "The Mobile Hole." The tidal flow into and out of Mobile Bay stretches far into the Gulf because of the shoals on the east side of the Pass, across from the Lighthouse. They are assuming a higher angle of attack for speed around Mobile, hoping to gybe back toward rhumb line at the right time. The offshore forecast calls for a backing breeze (westerly) that is to increase for the next few days. The Dark Side, with Bob sailing, and quite possibly, Donnie and Andrew Brennan of VX One fame, is having to sail higher and slower than Decision at this time.

Will we have a beach cat turnout next year? SYC will most likely allow them now that they understand us, and we understand them.

10:30 Report: Decision remains a little lower and a little faster. The leaders have gybed and the Dark Side 's latest report revealed:

DARK SIDE
Last Comm (dd:hh:mm:ss) : 00:00:23:46
Heading: 57
Speed: 7.3 Knots

Decision is bearing 86 deg at 8.6 knts. Hodges and Dark Side are still fighting for third to the finish line, just a few miles behind at a higher angle. I would love to see the wind pipe up so they could start hauling the mail. One of the other boats in that gaggle behind Decision may be the other Corsair 750. Final report in an hour. Decision does appear to have broken away from Mobile and the oil rigs into Florida waters.

Final Report until morning: Fringe Element, the Corsair 750 MK II, skippered by David Saint is about to rocket past Tiare, an annual podium finisher and former PHRF Sloop overall winner. Dark Side is just outside and ahead, sailing a bit higher and faster, according to the tracker. They appear to be third boat to the finish line, pending the situation with Decision. The Corsairs are doing mid sevens, Tiare is chugging in the high fives. Zydeco will be the next boat in second, possibly the first boat to overtake Decision.

There you have it... multihulls are hauling the mail along the Gulf Coast.

Decision has slowed to 1.7 knts, and heading south. What has happened aboard Decision?

The tracker shows that Dark Side is in, and Fringe Element is entering Pensacola Pass after finishing at Pensacola Sea Buoy. Since Decision's transponder is still broadcasting off Mobile, one might guess they "lost" the unit overboard. Yea, Right. When Paul Schreck was racing, he was known to put a cup over his stern light. He even used black chutes in the 60s and seventies. Why would Decision be parked off Mobile? One could guess they have already hit the rack after a few pitchers of Bushwackers.

The Dark Side crossed the line shortly after Decision. The skipper reported his finish time as 3:50 AM, slightly ahead of Johnny Lovell, sailing the J 111, Zydeco. Bob said they were neck and neck for much of the race and that his wife and a friend sailed with him.

Considering the fine sailor was 5th in the A Cat NAs and winner of the G to P within a week, says much for his devotion to sailing.

If a couple Corsairs can Finish before sunrise, then The beach cats should be able to complete the race shortly after midnight in average conditions. Getting past Mobile is the real challenge.

Hoping there is a multihull division next year,
Bert

I'm going to post this reply because while Bert means well, I don't agree with his viewpoints at times and I want to present what accurately transpired for this race.

First, for race organizers of offshore events like this, there needs to be a clear distinction between beach cats and PHRF multihulls and my recommendation to the GYA for this race next year will be that a PHRF rated multihull is one that has a cabin with shelter for the crew and auxiliary power. This is the type of boat the race organizer intended to include for this race in the NOR and they were totally unprepared for the requests to have beach cat participation so the title of this thread was somewhat misleading to begin with.

If there is a group of beach cat sailors that want to participate in this race, my recommendation is that as a group (the best route is probably through the GYA multihull council chairman David Johnson) they should draft a proposal on how beach cats racing on the Portsmouth handicap system can be integrated into this event with their own separate start, safety rules, and awards. The race organizers were not thinking of beach cats when they included a multihull division in the NOR this year. They were thinking of the past participation of Corsair trimarans and the Reynolds 33 in this race. We're trying to get PHRF multihulls back and at one point we thought we had 5 boats committed this year but it dropped back to two. The race organizers were caught off guard and confused when it was (at least it seemed to me) "somewhat rammed down their throats" that they accept beach cats as entries. That was not done well IMO.

Regarding the safety rules that were finalized for our entry, there is a set of GYA multihull safety recommendations that are not mandatory but are a tool for race organizers. The issues I raised were that the OA had taken the recommendations and changed all of them to mandatory for all the items on the list. This list is broad and general and not specific. I will do a followup with the race organizer on what items make sense for PHRF multihulls. At one point we were being required to wear PFD's and tethers at ALL times during the race and for each person on the boat to have their own personal EPIRB or PLB on them at all times. That is where I calculated my expense to comply with this as being nearly $1,400. For the record, we had the same safety gear as the monohulls, we wore our PFD's (that had water activated strobes, whistles, and personal flares) after dusk through dawn, and we had tethers and jacklines on board to be used at my discretion as the owner of the boat. The OA admitted to me that they had not read the recommendations when they drafted the NOR, they simply "checked off all the boxes" without considering the real intent or application of the recommendations.

Since we had only two entries (our Sprint 750 and David Saint's Sprint 750), we were not eligible for a class award but the race organizer did generously provide one at the awards ceremony. Our goal was to have fun and have a good race against the fast (i.e. PHRF A) monohulls. We made a request to start with the PHRF A class and I'm pleased to say that even though the PRO was initially reluctant to do this, the other PHRF A competitors lobbied after the skipper's meeting to get us on the line with them. Even though the overall fleet corrected times for the overall awards would not include us, it made for a fun race to see who finished where both boat for boat and on corrected. While Decision (at a PHRF of -42) was the scratch boat, I was pretty amazed they beat us by less than one hour across the finish line (they needed to beat us by about 125 minutes to correct out, our rating was 33). We had an awesome race with the new J-111 Zydeco being steered by Tornado Olympic medalist Johnny Lovell. On the 12 mile beat out of Mississippi Sound to the Gulfport channel entrance in only 5-7 knots of breeze, we were pretty much boat for boat trading tacks and the only boat ahead of us was Decision. I was really pleased to see us ahead of a Cal 48, J-125, a couple of Beneteau 40.7's, a B-32, a J-35 and others on our 24' Corsair trimaran. We had speed and height with these boats so I don't think they can present an argument that tris can't point. Zydeco got past us right at the top of the beat as we sailed for the wrong channel marker that we had to leave to port to head out to the Gulf. We grind them back down on the next 7 mile reach as the breeze picked up to 8-10 knots and then stayed ahead of them but in sight of each other for the remainder of the race (the breeze pretty much stayed in the 6-10 knot range for us until the finish). At times, I thought we were 15-20 minutes ahead of them but at the finish, we crossed the line 2nd boat overall and 12 seconds shy of the 10 minutes we had to finish ahead of them elapsed to correct out (they rated 39). That's what I call a close race. In the overall corrected times for the entire 32 boat fleet, we were third with Zydeco in 2nd and the very well sailed Cal 48 Tiare in first (this boat has sailed this event over 40 times). The light air and long downwind leg after the Gulfport channel really worked for Tiare as she squared off and sailed dead downwind at times exceeding the course VMG us, Zydeco, Decision, and all the other sprit/A-sail boats were doing. She's a beautiful, extremely well maintained yacht and her win was very well received.

My focus will be to bring a class of 4-5 PHRF multi's next year to this event. I hope they will continue to let us start with the PHRF A boats as there is a barn door trophy and to make it fair for the boats that can compete for that award, they have to all start together. While some of the race organizers still seemed kind of "cool" to our participation and the requests we made, I think our fellow monohull competitors enjoyed having us to race against. At least that was the feedback I got at the awards presentation.

Cheers,

Bob Hodges

Greetings,

Bob has had a great week of sailing, but he is not aware of all the facts. No need to complain or explain, but worthy of noting, is that we have been working with the OA through the MHC, and they have been responsive to our concerns.

Our Safety Recommendations have risen to the surface this year, and that has been a blessing, because just a couple years ago, under safety, in the NoR, there was mention that synthetic trapeze wires could be used.

I am just saying we are closing the gap in an effort to bring distance racing for multihulls to the Gulf Coast, and this race is one pure test of skill.

Bert Rice, Secretary, GYA MHC

Bob Hodges is spot on, and he has my support. Bob did a fine job of salvaging the G to P for multihulls, because after Rice's last-minute completely unfounded interjections, the OA for G to P was likely to oust multihulls altogether, and no wonder. There needs to be one clear focused contact point for the GYA multihull representation to the RC for G to P, and Rice is not that person.

I now have a 'cruising' catamaran, and am in touch with a few others down here and am in hopes to get other large multihulls, somewhat less performance oriented than the trimarans to participate next year. Bob, that would be Elenbaas' Lagoon, Hulse's Leopard, and maybe I can get another Leopard, maybe we might get Pedersen's Piver, who knows? Roger Evans (F28 aluminum stick) has clearly stated that like me, he will absolutely not participate in a race if he hears one iota that Rice is involved in it.

I should think that there is no reason that 20 foot and larger beach-cats can't participate, but that should be ironed out in the Winter GYA Meeting when such things are done, not two weeks before the race and outside the purvey of the GYA Multihull Council Chairman.

PS. If synthetic line is good enough for standing rigging, it's just fine for trapezes. This is another example of how the safety rules aren't being purveyed by people who know something about multihull safety.

For what it's worth, there are relatively few actively racing and experienced racers that campaign 20 foot (or longer) "beachcats". F18 is where most of us went to as the Nacra 20 fleet started to decrease and I think you stand a better chance for a stronger beach cat fleet if you also included F18s. The F18 is as capable as the Nacra 20 and very similar in speed.

Jake:

1.Baby steps. we are damn lucky to get multihulls in at all, especially after the above debacle. It will be an extremely hard sell to get anything smaller than 20' in. Sorry.
2.Maybe in your neck, but down here there are the 'Formula' N20, an N20C, and there's a certain Tornado and a couple Supercat/ARC
3. This isn't an along-the-beach race - the marks are well offshore, to the tune of out of sight of land. I well understand the OA reticence to allow beachcats in.