Show Time
Miami, Florida, March 4, 2006

If the Matheson Hammock Distance Race was a movie, it would have received a big two thumbs up rating. It would have been up for an Oscar. It had it all; thrills, chills, and excitement. We were flying around Biscayne Bay like you wouldn’t believe. The conditions were perfect. There was fifteen knots of wind out of the north and the temperature was in the high 70’s. A weak cold front had come through Miami on Friday night which set up the ideal conditions. This race had been postponed from a week earlier when the winds were way too much for the average beach cat sailor (me). It was unfortunate we had to postponed, because there would have been a very good turnout on the original date, based on the boats that showed up and those who planned on doing the race. As it was, we only had five boats show up for this day with the optimum conditions. Go figure.

The five boats that showed up were two Tornados, two Hobie 20s, and a Nacra 5.0 sailed by Ron Roth. John Esquivel was out with his newly acquired Tornado. He was sailing with Brigitte Vlaswinkel. John had only sailed the boat three times and this was his first race on the Tornado. Brigitte had never been on a Tornado before. She was in for the ride of her life. John had a funny looking contraption on the bill of his hat. I asked him what it was, and he said it was the holder for his video camera lens. He carried the camera in a back pack setup and videoed the whole race. Maybe he will share the footage he took. Ivan Loya was sailing with Umberto Breve on his Tornado. Allen Plasencia was sailing with his friend, Daniel, on his newly acquired and refurbished Hobie 20. Allen has given the boat two coats of paint, built two new wooden rudders, and installed a new trampoline. The boat is looking fine. This was trial by fire for Allen on his new boat. The winds quite were demanding. His previous experience was on a Hobie 16. I was sailing my Hobie 20 with Mike Phillips. This was a real treat for me to sail with Mike. We have been sailing against each other since the early 80’s. We each had H-16s, H-18s, and H-20s on which we have raced each other, for 20 some odd years. Yet, we had never been on a boat together until this race. Mike now sails a Marstrom 20 but has been unable to sail it much because he is lacking a tilt trailer for the 10 foot wide boat. Mike is an excellent cat sailor. We enjoyed the day together.

The race course was laid out as a large triangle in the bay. We used the Matheson Hammock channel marker for the first rounding and marker 21, near Stiltsville, as the second mark. The total course distance was 15 miles as the crow flies. With the strong north wind, this made for one downwind leg and two upwind legs. The start line was set up just off the beach. At the start, all the boats started off on a starboard downwind run. I felt that we were getting bad air from the wind coming over, under, and around the tall Powell Bridge. So, we jibed onto port to head into clearer air in the middle of the bay. I also wanted to position us in the Bear Cut air funnel. Bear Cut is the channel between Key Biscayne and Virginia Key. When the winds are out of the north or northeast the wind is forced to accelerate through this natural gap. The pressure always builds in this area because of the restriction of the two islands. It is a venturi effect, one of those Bernoulli laws of fluid dynamics, I think. I could see the white caps in the funnel area ahead, and when we got there we were flying. We sailed all the way across the wind fan and then jibed back onto starboard to continue riding the high pressure all the way back across the bay to the west. What a cool ride! We would get slammed with a big puff, and the boat would leap forward like it was trying to dump us back over the rear crossbar. We were hugging the aft starboard corner of the boat and enjoying the blustery blast down the bay. Waves would hit the front crossbar and spray would go everywhere. We were enjoying the ride. We made numerous jibes as we sailed down the bay looking for Matheson Hammock. We knew we were getting close when we could see all the kite surfers who launch at Matheson Beach.

Mike and I took an early lead with the two Tornados hot on our heels. We wanted to at least hang with them on the downwind, because I knew we could stay close on the upwind legs and correct out ahead of the speedy Tornados. As it turned out we had a great downwind run and kept the lead all the way to Matheson. At Matheson, the Tornados had to drop their chutes for the upwind legs. This second leg was a double trap beat to weather. We were squeezing the downhaul, flying a hull, and playing with the mast rotations to eek out as much power as we could control. We zipped the four miles east across the bay in nothing flat. The Tornados were holding their own, but we had too big a lead for them to catch us. We did not have to tack going across the bay, and we only came up 50 yards short of the lay line at marker 21. We made a quick tack around the fishing boats anchored there and were headed for home. The third leg of the triangle was also a double trap beat back to the Rickenbacker Causeway. I turned the main sheet duties over to Mike so he could play the main in the bigger puffs. We went scooting back up the bay at a nice clip. We could just about lay the finish line, but had to throw in a couple of short tacks to finally make it. We took line honors and first on corrected. Our elapsed time was only 1 hour and 35 minutes for the whole course. John Esquivel took second place and Ivan got third. The other Hobie 20 and the Nacra 5.0 dropped out because of equipment or weather related issues. It turned out to be a stellar day for a race. See you next time at the movies.

Cat Fight Buoy Races
The next CABB event will be the Cat Fight Buoy Races to be held on Sunday, March 19, 2006. The crew meeting will be at 10:30 AM. Please have your boat set up and ready to sail then. This event will be a series of buoy races held just off the Rickenbacker Causeway beach. We will use a windward leeward course, with the start finish line also used as a gate. Bring a watch with a stopwatch function to record your elapsed times. We usually get in at least four races. Mark your calendar for another day of fun sailing on the bay. Remember to get to the launch beach on the Rickenbacker Causeway; you have to enter the parking area at the first right hand turn after you cross the Powell Bridge. The frontage road is still closed from Hurricane Wilma damage. See you there.

Beach Clean Up
Before the race last Saturday, there was a group of college students cleaning up the Rickenbacker Beach. There were about 20 of them wearing that orange and yellow striped slipover vest you see highway workers wearing. They were scouring the beach picking up all the foreign debris. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I asked who they were, and what they were doing. They said they were the University of Miami Triathlon Club, and they have taken it upon themselves to adopt that beach for clean up once a month. Hooray, hooray! Now, if we could just get those who trash the beach to quit doing that, it would be nice. I know it is not the CABB sailors. Christophe Ribot told me that the county has a big plan to refurbish that beach with more sand and some improvements. Hopefully they will repair the restrooms that were damaged by Hurricane Wilma.

John McKnight