St Pete NOOD 08

Hobie33 Race Recap by Christian Schaumloffel

This Feb. when most people had Valentines Day on their mind; 2 identical CCV boats arrived at St Pete / Fla. with identical trailers. Have I ever mentioned that on an 850 mi. drive with a 33 feet boat a lot can go wrong. This time it didn't and MIRAGE and Treaty of Ghent made it to the starting line; although MIRAGE barely made it because in confusion we headed for the wrong race area and motored to our circle with 10 sec. to spare. Then we were over the line early! Agrrh
But we (MIRAGE) still won this first race. Talk about dumb luck. The next start on this light wind day didn't happen for nearly 3 hours. The Race Committee was waiting for more than 5kts of wind and after that, waiting for the wind direction to settle. The R/C was nice enough to update the status of their thoughts EVERY 5 MINUTES ! In case someone didn't know how the postponement flag looks like; it was described as the Kentucky Fried Chicken Flag near the bow of the committee boat. Pewh, we couldn't turn off our radio because we needed the crucial information about the start to follow.
Eventually when the 2nd (last) race of the day was done, MIRAGE (barely) held on to the first place position. We refreshed ourselves at the St Pete YC with lots of free Mt Gay Rum drinks.
I can only remember that we showed up the next day at the race course. Light wind again but they managed 3 races on this hot day. The start before us (Flying Tiger10) managed twice to drag the pin buoy on to a scenic tour which caused delay to our starts.
After the 2nd day 3 boats tied for 1st place and the others weren't far behind. Talk about close racing !
The last day was good wind and in the back of everybody's mind was the obvious - not to mess up -. But many people had planes to catch or get ready for a long drive into the northern winter wonderland. This is why the R/C decided to have 3 looooooong races to add a little to everybodys logistical challenge ?!?
After a total of 8 races and some very close calls on the race course MIRAGE won by 1 point. Oops, we did it again (and keep the Hobie33 trophy for one more year)! Treaty of Ghent had not the best of luck until the last race when they were shining.
Tired and happy we "saddled the horses and rode off into the sunset". The ride back to Hampton turned out to be more water sport than we bargained for. Horrific rainfall turned I-95 into hydroplane alley and that was not fun at all. Dave Taylor and I were elated when we arrived home, dog-tired.

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