Great Texas Catamaran Race 2008

After Weeks of prep on the boat, we were finally at the start line of
the GT300. We drew a pretty bad starting position, so we were down at
the south end of the line. The horn blew and we were off. Initially
almost going into irons, Anthony jumped in and pushed the bow around
and got us going again. The surf was big but manageable. The wind was
a little southerly, so we should have no problem. Getting through the
last set, we were mowed down by the biggest wave yet. It launched us
skyward and pulled us back at the same time while busting the leward
rudder casting. We jybed around and headed back to the beach to
replace it while we watched everyone else sail off. I thought we
would be in last place for sure now. 20 min. later we were back and
going with a new casting from Team Dallas and a lot of help from Jose
Cerdes and Dave McDaniel. We ran the beach for a while hoping for the
wind to fill in. After heating it up and running out to the Rhumb
Line, we noted a 10 degree deeper angle with better wind and decided
since we had no one to cover, we were going to stay on it. After a
few hours the wind really picked up and we were running about 16 to
20 knots of boat speed in some pretty big swells. Each time bearing
off to bring the hull down, (yes we were flying the chute) I noticed
some really disturbing cavitation on the leward rudder. I figured it
was the replacement casting. The chute was trimmed pretty far out
since we were pretty deep off the wind. Finally it happened, I
couldn't bear off fast enough with the faulty rudder and we got
waaaay too hot and pitch poled. I was catapulted so hard, when I hit
the water with the side of my face, I broke my eardrum. I've never
broken it before but there was no doubt the instant I felt the pain
and silence followed by nothing but ringing. Then I realized I was
separated from the boat. I've always been a strong swimmer (former
lifeguard) so I made it back to it pretty quick. The spinnaker in the
water helped as a drogue to keep the boat from drifting too fast.
Anthony and I righted it and got back under way with main and jib
only for a while. The need for speed over came the pain of a broken
eardrum and Anthony threw the chute back up and we were off and
running again with almost no control. The wind had built to 20 plus
by now and we were at the mercy of the sea when it came to staying
upright. When we got to within ¼ mile of the coastline again, we
dropped the chute and beamed it up the coast. Boards up mostly,
downhaul hard, rotator back, traveler off a little with crew on the
wire in the footstrap and we were flyin'. To keep the nose up, I had
one ass cheek on the crossbar and steering with the rudder arm. The
spray was so intense, even with goggles it was nearly impossible to
see where we were going. I couldn't see the Tack Tick on the front
cross beam. It was pretty cool seeing the bows of the Nacra 20
recover from some pretty nasty submersions. It was also slowing us
down each time it did it. But at least it was keeping us upright for
the time being. Soon I could make out the hotels on Mustang Island
and knew we were getting close. We had covered a hundred miles now
and some pretty tough pain was setting in. We were watching a boat
ahead of us and saw them flip. We got closer and saw it was Team
Tybok. As they righted, we noticed the broken mast. Bummer. We did a
fly by to make sure they were ok physically. We crossed the finish
line for that day and found out there were still boats behind us. My
biggest concern was our place in the Nacra 20 class. Team Poison Girl
had first place by 42 min. on us and Yost Automotive was in second by
about 30 min. We were third. I'm not sure what the placement of the
F-18 class was at that time but I knew Team Ruff Rider was in first.
My ear was a major concern with everyone including myself but there
was no way I was dropping out of the race. One of our sponsors, Doc's
Seafood and Steaks of Corpus Christy, was there to cheer us on and
they went and got me some medical supplies to help ease the pain and
fight infection. We did notice the rudder that was cavitating so much
was split at the top so we replaced it with a new one.
Day 2 started with the same winds we finished in on day 1. Big surf
and wind out of the east/southeast. We took off beam reaching in some
pretty big chop with about 20 knots of boat speed. All the F18's were
flying their chutes and a few of the N20 did as well. We kept jib
reaching up the coast as all the spinns were getting sucked toward
shore. The F18's were in the lead and had to eventually drop their
chutes and jib reach out. We intersected with the leaders and decided
to keep on doing what we were doing. Yost Auto had a lead on us by a
pretty good stretch. Poison Girl was behind and below with Team
Dallas behind and above. We were running hard with steep chop and I
knew people were going to start getting tired at this pace, it was
just a matter of who would gas out first. It was like a constant shot
in the face with a fire hose. Even with goggles, you could barely see
and we had to turn our heads to the side to breath. We soaked low
along the coast and eventually found ourselves alone and haulin' ass.
Yost went high with the F18's, we just hoped the wind would drop off
for them farther out. We found out later they de-masted. I would much
rather beat someone because I out sailed them instead of equipment
failure. Had they held together, I believe they would have beaten us
that day. We kept the throttle on while driving down in the puffs to
depower due to our angle to the wind. This worked pretty well until
we did it going down a few big waves. The bouyancy of the N20 bows
saved us countless times. After another 100 miles, we crossed the
finish line in some pretty big surf. I was later told it was blowing
up to 28 knots at the finish! When you sail in that stuff for a
while, I guess you just don't notice it. The physical pain was pretty
overwhelming and it made it tough to get off the boat. We then found
out that Team Fast Cat Racing broke down on Matagorda Island
somewhere. That was Tim Beudreaux and Jill Scala. Later we got word
they hiked across the island to find help and got chased by wild
hogs. We all got a good laugh out of that one. They stayed the night
somewhere down there and had their team manager bring them parts to
sail the boat back to Port Aransas.
Leg 3 weather called for the same as the day before. This was getting
some teams concerned. Team Gazell had broken some of their rudder
gudgeon the day before and had to go to Houston for parts. I thought
this was a little odd for Hobie gudgeons but it goes to show that no
boat is above destruction in these races. The start was through
pretty big surf and we saw Team TCDYC to our Port get slaughtered by
a gnarly wave that knocked 'em over backwards and snapped their mast.
I was looking for two heads above the water and was glad to see both
Chris Green and Jesse Fulmer were ok. We kept going. This day seemed
just as brutal as the first two and we even came into a pretty good
squall that was atleast 30 knots plus. Team Sailboat Shop was off our
starboard stearn most of the day. I figured our boat speed was in the
20's but I never looked at my GPS all day. Chris Holt later told me
they were running around 25 plus knots and couldn't over take us.
Tomko and Billings of Team Ruff Rider were ahead of us by a good
margin but broke a pintle on the rudder assembly and we were able to
over take them. As we rounded the jetties into Surfside, we thought
we were going to get our goal of a first to finish. That didn't last
long as we did a pretty stout pitch pole and snapped our spinnaker
pole. We were able to recover and not go over but the broken pole was
dragging in the water and we lost control of the self-tacking jib.
Anthony went to work cleaning up the mess and stowing pieces on the
boat. He was on the bow cutting lines while I was still trying to
keep us in the race. In hind sight, I should have cut him a bit more
slack put the boat into irons till he was finished. He was getting
hosed up front while trying to balance on the bows and cut lines
loose and retrieve the spinnaker that was now dragging under the
boat. I didn't slow down much and when he was done he went to
vomiting on the trampoline. He swallowed way too much salt water. I
felt kinda bad, but we still managed to hold off Team Poison Girl. We
finished in big surf again and found out we covered the 70 mile run
in 3 hours! Team Gazell followed shortly after. We actually beat a
lot of the ground crews to the finish that day. We were happy to see
the teams that got into trouble on leg two had shown up to re-rig and
finish the last day. We went about putting on the spare spinn pole
so we didn't have to worry about it tomorrow. We had to use our end-
pole system which, in my opinion, isn't really a handicap, since it
was all we had left. TCDYC brought some really great food for the
Surfside party. This stop is always my favorite.
The last leg was really fun since it was the first running of the
Surfside to Galveston Dash. It's only about 45 miles and is open to
non-spinn boats to give people a small taste of what the race is
like. Luckily the weather mellowed out a lot. The Dash teams start an
hour ahead of the rest of the racers doing the whole GT300. We gave
Rick and Kathy a push off on their Nacra 6.0 and went back to getting
our boat ready for the last leg. Our start was pretty uneventful
until we set the chute and heard a snap! The end pole hoop split the
pole but was holding together although in a very odd position. It put
the spinn in a weird shape and made it hard to trim properly but
Anthony dealt with it. It severely affected our speed but we somehow
managed to stay within a minute or two of Team Poison Girl and hold
onto First Place in the Nacra 20 class and Fourth Place overall
corrected. The end was bittersweet due to the pain we were in. It's
always a bummer for it to be over but I was a little glad it was. See
ya'll at the starting line for 2009.

Lee Wicklund/Team Chums.