Sunday, June 19, 2016

Top 10 List for Day 1 of the 2016 Great Texas

Day 1 of the 2016 Great Texas


Back by popular demand, here is Steve Piche’s (Great Texas founder and skipper of Team Great Texas 300) top 10 list for day 1 of the Great Texas:

  1. Wind:  Wind, wind and more wind:  Once again, the first day of the Great Texas proved to be a windy affair.  It started out in a stiff 15 knot breeze and built to a steady 20 knot breeze.  At times it got lumpy and bumpy but it was fun!  Congrats to Team Automotive Solutions with Lee Wicklund and David Cerdes who took line honors.
  2. Broken Mast:  Not such a great day for Team Sailboat Shop who broke their mast 20 miles from the finish.  Juke and I were chasing Team Sailboat Shop and saw their mast break in two while sailing.  After the mast broke, the whole rig went in the water.  We dropped our chute and render aid for the next one and a half hours.  We made sure that they were taken care of before we went back to racing.  Somewhere out in there is a broken mast and sail floating as they had to jettison the rig.  Mike and Chris are such great competitors and it is such a shame to see this happen.
  3. Drone:  Thanks to Duane Darling, we had a drone chase the fleet off the start and got some amazing videos and pictures including the photo shown here.
  4. Jack Flash:  Team Jack Flash also ran into troubles today.  Their boat became disabled and unfortunately they are still working to get ashore.  Race committee has been in touch with them.
  5. Slow Results:  Sorry for the slow results on the race.  With the two disabled vessels and redress, it may take some time for the results to be posted this evening.
  6. Flips:  It got tough out there today.  I think Team Fire, Water, Burn managed to flip over 4 times today.  All other teams went swimming except for my team and Buoy 44.  We went into survival mode for a while focusing on keeping the pointy end up because anybody that avoided flips probably would do well.
  7. BBQ:  Big thanks to Andrew Tatton for the BBQ at the finish line.  It was excellent.
  8. Dolphins:  Off-shore Texas is a beautiful place.  Today, we saw two dolphins jump high out of the water.  Juke and I thought they were checking us out.
  9. Matagorda:  Another 100 mile ride to Matagorda tomorrow.  It should be a bit more reachy tomorrow after a huge downwind run today.
  10. Top 10:  Sorry to be brief on my top 10 today, but it has been a long, long day of going 100% all day so hopefully we finish earlier tomorrow and I can throw in more details.

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