2001 Worrell 1000 - Leg 3 Finish

Lonely Finish at Cocoa Beach, Penalty for Leg 3 DNS Yet To Be Determined

Pyacht Men riding the boat to shore in the safer "mast to the surf" mode. Note the broken rudders Photo ©: Walter Cooper

Cocoa Beach, FL, 5:15 PM - After a disastrous start in treacherous surf that decimated most of the fleet, just 5 boats completed the course to the finish today. In the18 years that this race has been held, never has a leg been so destructive. Hatteras has claimed parts of the fleet, but no shore break has ever been as destructive as Jensen Beach this morning. 15 boats were pummeled back to the beach by angry surf, causing race officials to halt the launching and find an equitable way to reward the 5 boats that sailed the course, while allowing the others to continue their quest. Masts were broken, sails shredded by broken battens and rudders snapped off like wishbones. Yet the sailors still continued to try to cross the ugly surf-line. Shore teams hustled to fit replacement rigs, and replaced battens and rudder castings hoping not to lose too much time to the leaders when race officials put a halt to the destruction. Katie Pettibone and Eleanor Hay eyed the surf preparing for a second attempt when beach master Lee Queensbury informed them that the launching was to halt. Pettibone repeatedly asked for permission to make another attempt, but officials refused.

At the finish race leaders Brian Lambert and Jamie Livingston recorded their third straight leg victory in one of the bumpiest legs in Worrell 1000 history.

"About 22 miles out Brian lost his footing on the wire and we went over, then again 5 miles later we went over again, then we just sailed it in nice and easy," explained Jamie Livingston.

Lambert wondered what perennial champion Randy Smyth would have done, "We were only single trapezing with the skipper hiking out a lot of the time, Randy would have been double trapping the whole time, pushing it." Lambert explained the secret to their success at the start, "We've got experience getting through surf, you have to wait for the right set, kind of the opposite of surfing, we want the little ones."

The Canadian team of Reigh North and Scott Macdonald took a similar approach. "We tried not to go up a big one," said North, "We were patient and waited for an opening with smaller surf." North and Macdonald sailed a great leg, arriving at the finish, third. But they approached the beach at the wrong angle and were cleaned out by a huge wave. The surf at the finish in Cocoa was possibly bigger than the nasty stuff at the start. Waves were overhead and breaking 6 rows deep off the wide, gradually sloped beach. North tried to run along a trough like a surfer, almost parallel to the waves as he continued upwind towards the finish line. But a big wave broke over him and he couldn't accelerate out of the whitewater and was flipped hard. His mast snapped immediately and the boat floated, boards pointing up, into the beach. He could only watch as Team Outer Banks sailed across the line for a third place finish in the leg. North and Macdonald dragged the boat down the beach with the help of their shore crew and pushed it across the line to finish fourth.

This was McLaughlin's highest finish on a leg in 5 tries at the Worrell 1000. "We sail on Hatteras Island," said McLaughlin, "we practice in big surf."

Team Fully Involved, sailed by Les Baumen and Craig Callahan of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, crossed the line in second with a surprisingly smooth run. Baumen and Callahan have only been sailing together for 6 months in preparation for this race and they have very little open-ocean sailing experience. "At the start we saw a giant wave crash on the beach and said, 'Ok, let's go'", said Bauman, "Craig was yelling UP, DOWN, guiding me through the waves." Bauman and Callahan were one of the only teams to sail most of the leg double trapped, but they did admit to doing the "rag doll" several times.

The rag doll is a high skill maneuver that requires the skipper to be swept off the side of the boat by a huge wave and dropped into the water between the two rudders and behind the rear beam, while still hooked to trapeze. The skipper is then bounced around like a nervous Englishman's teabag until the crew (if they are fortunate enough to have eased the main and kept the boat upright) stops the boat by slowly heading up, thus allowing the skipper to swim around the stern and climb aboard. Any attempt by the skipper to climb over the rear beam and onto the tramp can break the tiller bar connecting the two rudders together and is to be avoided at all costs. Bauman and Callahan were not alone in performing the rag doll today.

"It was really lumpy today," recalled McLaughlin, " I went off the back at least 3 times but we didn't capsize!"

The hard-luck and he-man award for the day must go to Team Guidant, sailed by Rod Waterhouse and David Wallace. Just 5 miles into the race they broke a rudder, but they soldiered on for another 50 miles when their second rudder broke. They phoned their shore crew and arranged to come ashore and receive replacements. The catch was that they would have to land with no rudders in 6 foot or larger surf then repeat their beach launch to continue the race.

Waterhouse and Wallace dropped the mainsail to improve their chances. "I told David to hold onto the boat no matter what," laughed Waterhouse, "but he jumped off in the big break, I can't blame him." "I just held on and rode the boat in to the beach capsized, David was way out there floating". The landing, according to Waterhouse, was the easy part. "It was harder getting off the beach the second time than it was at the start, the waves were steeper and bigger," recalled Waterhouse.

Race Officials have announced a 7 PM meeting for team managers, at which point the DNS scoring penalty will be announced. Most of the broken teams have secured spare masts and rudder fittings so the fleet should be back at full strength for tomorrow's 69-mile leg to Daytona Beach. The surf will still be rough, but it's hard to imagine anything worse than today. We'll have a report with the new scoring in the morning.

More Information:

• YachtsandYachting.com Worrell 1000 Page
• www.worrell1000.com