By the way, there are photo albums for several of the past Round the Islands at
http://thebeachcats.com/pictures/?g2_itemId=46686
There is nothing from last year 2011 so if anyone has pics to share, please create your album inside the 2011 album.
If anyone has pics from older years where there isn't already an album, please create one for the year.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN
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Round the Island, Fort Walton Beach, FL June 23rd, 2012
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Posted: Jun 12, 2012 - 05:16 PM
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Posted: Jun 15, 2012 - 07:04 PM
Any one looking to crew for round the island? Im looking for a crew on a nacra 20. If so hit me up Gregg 850-612-4626 -
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Posted: Jun 16, 2012 - 05:55 PM
Got a crew for RTI thanks guys. -
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Posted: Jun 17, 2012 - 09:33 AM
Damon, you out?
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Greenville SC
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Posted: Jun 17, 2012 - 06:26 PM
I'm in. Trying to figure out crew, need someone small and tough or I'll go solo.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN
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Posted: Jun 18, 2012 - 11:28 AM
Anyone else up for the challenge? They have a "who's coming" page at
http://www.fwyc.org/Regat…2012%20RTI%20Entries.htm
I'm hoping it's manually updated because I pre-registered online last week and don't appear.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN
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Posted: Jun 22, 2012 - 01:00 PM
Looks like this one isn't gonna be a drifter. Winds east at 19 for the start and building to 25 by evening.
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Greenville SC
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Posted: Jun 22, 2012 - 09:08 PM
I live in Navarre, the 1/2 way point of the island. Right now 2'-4' rollers, tomorrow 4'-6' waves on the gulf side. I'd go out on my 35' Cigarette, but no way on an 18'!!!!
Edited by panic_button on Jun 22, 2012 - 09:09 PM.
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16' Prindle
Emerald Coast of Florida
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Posted: Jun 23, 2012 - 08:01 AM
Is the Damon jinx continuing? Did you bring Debby thinking she was your crew? Good luck out there!
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David
Memphis, TN
'84 Hobie 18
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Posted: Jun 24, 2012 - 06:45 PM
Anybody here? I've been offline most of the long weekend.
Yes, I entered Round the Island solo on my Hobie 18. When I left Memphis Thursday morning the weather was still predicted as 5-10 from the East in the AM building to 10 from the South, perfect conditions for a solo attempt and meaning very few tacks/jibes.
Well all day Thursday the the predictions continued to increase. By the time I got to the Fort Walton Yacht Club Friday morning all the weather heads were talking about was this weather system in the South Gulf that "IF" it became a named storm would be called Debby. I rigged the boat up and reminded everybody that these things often just devolve as fast as they appear (whistling past the graveyard).
Wind predictions continued to rise and now they were talking big waves in the Gulf especially along Pensacola. Also the tide stage Saturday morning at the Destin Pass was going to produce an incoming tide stream making it doubly hard to sail under the narrow bridge.
By Friday evening at the Skippers Meeting Debby was a full blown tropical storm and none of the computer models or weather reports agreed on where it would go or how it would affect the weather on the Round the Island race course.
The Race start was at 7am which is awful early for yours truly, also most of the time at 7am there isn't any wind. Not the case on June 23, 2012 though. Winds were strong already, mid-teens from the East which meant it was an upwind beat to the Destin Pass, but meant that we would get into the Gulf earlier than usual.
I had a nice line ( I thought ) to get under the bridge, but I didn't account for the wind shadow of the bridge or the strong current running towards me. I slid through and 2/3 of the boat made it past the pilings but then the current got me and pushed me sideways up against the concrete base of the bridge. After a little grinding a local fisherman, who announced "I'm a sailor too", pulled my bows into the wind and got me back on track.
Heading out into the open Gulf we had to honor a big channel buoy a ways out, following the channel out had the normal big chop caused by the deep channel, there was also a bunch of powerboat traffic going out, including several day-trip excursion fishing boats. After I dodged all that and rounded the buoy it was time to head down the coast to Pensacola. I passed under the bridge at 8:00am, which is actually pretty quick due to the strong winds.
Now the next 50+ miles to the Pensacola Pass was directly downwind with continually building sea state. Also I soon found that there was a bad case of weeds in the gulf this day. Sometimes it was like sailing in the Sargasso Sea, I lost count of the number of times my rudders either automatically kicked up from hitting clumps of weed or I manually kicked them up to clear. Doing that single handed while doing a sleigh-ride downhill run in 4-6 foot seas was... uhm, "exciting".
My boat speed during the run down the coast ranged from 10-18 mph according to quick glances at my GPS, I haven't had a chance to analyse the data closely.
I got to the Pensacola Pass at 2:00pm and when I turned to enter the pass it was now a straight reach across the wind and I'm sure that was the fastest speeds I made, no chance to do anything but pucker down and steer during the wild ride!
But once I made the turn to head down the Intercoastal I was faced with headwinds in the 20+ range and for one of the only times in my sailing career I wished I had more weight on the boat. It was all I could do the hold the boat down and make progress. It was a frustrating feeling to have that much wind and be making such slow progress, the wind was just howling in my ears.
I hadn't eaten or drunk anything for about 6 hours at this point because I couldn't get to my coolers (I had three small soft cooler) to retrieve food or water.
After two hours I covered the 10 miles to the Pensacola Bridge, getting under that bridge took some lining up since the wind was howling straight through the opening in my direction, luckily the opening is much bigger than the Destin bridge and I squeaked through.
Weirdly, when I come out the other side the water was a complete whitecap situation and the wind seemed much stronger. I continued on for about a mile, gritting my teeth and doing everything that can be done to the boat to de-power. At this time I started calculating how long it might take to finish the next 40 miles with continually building headwinds and decided to bail out at Key Sailing where I knew I could find help landing the boat and a place to tie it down.
So I completed about 60 miles of a 100 mile race and felt just fine about my decision to abandon.
All told there were 14 boats entered and 7 finished, I am so impressed with everyone who finished in these conditions. Special props to Bill Stovall on his stock Hobie 18 Magnum for finishing at 6:41am Sunday morning after 23 hours and 41 minutes on the water, I've got to hear his story!
Also I was particularly impressed with Kirk Newkirk on his amazing boat, the Nacra F20 Carbon for finishing and correcting to first place in only 9 hours and 43 minutes.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN
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Posted: Jun 24, 2012 - 08:14 PM
Holy smokes!!! I really did not think you would even put the main up.. that's a big set of nads tongomout in that much oncoming weather by yourself. I am glad you ended up safe.
Please be sure to post Bill's story as well. He never left the water after 23 hours!!??. Daaayuuum.....
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David
Memphis, TN
'84 Hobie 18
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Posted: Jun 25, 2012 - 09:26 AM
I was also watching the weather closely as much as I could before going to the race and as far as I could tell it was going to be a normal year. It was not until the day before the race after the boat was already rigged and ready to go did I discover what we were gonna be in for. I had very little experience in the ocean and my fiance had none at all. We talked about several different options including seeing if anyone who was gonna go solo wanted to team up with me. In the end I decided that hopefully we would be out of the ocean by noon before the conditions got worse.
The weather was great at the start. Although we really lost a lot of time in poor planning on our route to the pass plus a blown tack or 2 to start the day off. By the time we made it to the ocean, the rest of the spin fleet was all but out of sight except for the F16. I initially had lots of trouble with the ocean keeping a good VMG and figuring out just how far deep to drive. After I got a chance to look at the GPS we decided to work a little farther offshore than most of the boats and seemed to be able to skip many of the weeds. Eventually we were able to keep a broad reach nearly pointing straight at the first buoy in the Pensacola pass. The swells were pretty fun to blast over as they were tall but really far apart, we did most of this 8-10 miles off the beach. With the P-cola pier in sight we worked our way in closer to the beach and that is when we started running into problems.
At some point my spin sheet came untied and we had to stop and fix it on the water which was easier said than done. I was able to correct this but after getting back into the foot straps on the back I noticed the main had come uncleated. In a mis-communication Jordonna reached to cleat it again but I failed to take over steering and we dumped it. We were much closer to the beach now and righting it proved difficult as the waves were big and much closer together. Exhausted after righting we were on our way again when in a flash we were pointy side down again after less than a half mile. We were able to get the boat righted again but the spin was caught under the boat. We could not back up and get the spin out and any forward movement it acted as an anchor and bent the pole like a banana. I ended up having to cut the tack and halyard and pull it aboard, of course it was nice and light being full of water. I should also mention that I do get sea sick and while normally I can fend it off actively doing something such as driving, it had caught up to me in a flash trying to untie the sheets off the spin.
We were now 5.5 mile from the pass and started making our way to it sans spin. The Nacra 6.0 had caught up to us at this time and after a thumbs up they continued to fly through the surf, there is no doubt about it. I was impressed by the speed they managed. At this time I also saw the other spin boats on the other side of the island roughly 10-12 miles ahead. Even without a spin heading dead down wind we were able to keep more than 10knots boat speed and soon made it to the pass thinking the major obstacle was behind us.
Once we got into the pass we realized the fun had just begun. The wind was ever increasing and now just on our nose, and the chop felt like we were slamming into each wave as we slowly progressed upwind. About this time our jib halyard failed and our jib dropped and just about flogged itself to death before I was able to make it to a beach to fix it. At this time the first 2 trimarans had passed us and I figured we were now dead last having not seen either of the Hobie 18's start. We got back on the water after fixing the jib and stuffing the spin back into the snuffer and stowing all of the loose spin controls. Eventually we made it to the first bridge about 2 hours after pulling into the pass. Knowing that we were hours behind the fleet at this point we decided to quickly pull into Key Sailing for a bathroom break and some water.
I had never been to Key Sailing before and nosed up to the end of the dock and parked the boat. Seeing that the beach was full and their was no where to beach I decided that we would continue on, I was going to let the boat go and back up and pull out into the bay. There were piers in the water behind us so we had little room for this maneuver. Upon letting the boat go the rudders were useless as the boat quickly turned the wrong way at the crowded beach, I looked up to realize that the jib was on the wrong side and had pushed us over to that direction, but there was no time to do a thing but aim for a small open spot on the beach with 30 kids and swimmers on either side. We hit the beach full speed in only 3-4 seconds with daggers mostly down. Thankfully we had managed to run over no one by an act of God. Our race was over at that point, I was not at all willing to try and pull back off of that beach amidst the swimmers and piers. 45 minutes or so later I did what I could to help Damon pull safely on the beach and started the process of breaking the boat apart.
Jordonna and I both learned a lot on this race, It was her first time driving as my weight was better used on the wire. We learned just how much more abuse the boat will take in a race such as this and definitely have a few better ideas on a layout for the boat. Next year we will be a little better prepared and give it a shot again.
Major props to Bill Stovall for finishing!
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Greenville SC
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Posted: Jun 25, 2012 - 09:09 PM
Hey Bacho, thanks for writing up your RTI experience for us, great job. Thanks for the help getting me landed in the chaos at Key Sailing!
When we were on the beach I didn't put together that you were Bacho from here, kind of focused on getting my boat put away and calling to get picked up.
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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN
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Posted: Jul 05, 2012 - 09:44 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0TAVvMS8g
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Tyler holmes
Panama city, FL
Boat whore
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