But then came the horn and they scarpered off the beach in the twinkling of an eye: Core Sounds and SeaPearls with stately grace, catamarans skittering along like insects, kayaks leaving only a trace in the sand and the water as they went.  

​It’s a mixed bag of competitors: a couple of doughty stand-up paddlers, many kayaks and sailing kayaks, multi-hulls, classic sailing skiffs, a pair of solar-powered electric vessels, and some funky one-ups, like our own Spawn.
 
Among the vessels I watch is the diminutive (and frankly adorable) Elusion 9' sailed by Wizard. This boat looks like a cross between the bow section of a Maxi racer and the costume worn by my nephew for Halloween 20 or so years ago. 

​The first boats arrived at Checkpoint 1 (CP1, Cape Haze, 65 miles from the start) in the early afternoon.

The WaterTribe Facebook page provided a far-too-entertaining selection of spectators’ videos of the fleet making the turn into Stump Pass.   

Spawn was third to CP1.

I send them a text telling them to change the batteries in their personal locater device (SPOT). 

In his inaugural Challenge, our buddy Andyman sailed his SeaPearl to victory in the UltraMarathon, which is essentially a sprint to CP1. He reported in wearily that, "It was a LOT hairier than I expected out there." 

Rumors started blowing with the wind: I got a message that the boys were maybe stopped to effect repairs.

I got a message that the boys had maybe broken a rudder. I got a message about the Coast Guard rescuing someone, not them.

They were taking a nap, someone said. Someone had seen them tied up in the mangroves. 
 
On the tracker, Spawn went from first by a long stretch to second, and then third. I didn’t pinpoint where they had paused for whatever reason, but whenever I checked, they were moving. Their speed looked good.

Meanwhile, on the high seas...

​When the sun set on Saturday, TwoBeers and Moresailesaid doused the chute, per their safety plan. [No trapezes or big sails at night.] The wind was blowing NNW at about 15 knots.

​A contrary wave at a sluggish moment, and Spawn went ass-over-teakettle.

Picture the scene:

​Bright moonlight.

The distant glow of lights on shore 10 or 12 miles distant.

50 or more feet of water underneath the gently bobbing upside-down belly of the boat.

Bio-luminescent plankton sparkling in the disturbed water.
​
​Waves playfully slapping at our heros as they considered their options. 

“That phone ––“ Moresailesaid brooded. “That phone was supposed to be waterproof –– wait, did you text us?”

TwoBeers’ litany of loss continued. “And everything in the bow switched sides. The storm jib was on the port side, and ended up on the starboard side. The Code Zero was on starboard and ended on the port side. It all changed places"

I said, “I wonder where the yellow rollers and the rest of the stuff will washed ashore?”

“Probably Cuba,” TwoBeers' voice took on a speculative air. “–– maybe the Dry Tortugas.”

Into the heavy silence that followed, Moresailesaid offered up this observation: “The worst thing was that my dry suit filled up with water and my legs were like THIS big around.

"And the first thing that happens is that the water burps your shoes right off your feet.” Shaking his head, “I was THIS far from slicing open my booties.”
​
“Did yours do that too?” I asked TwoBeers.

He shrugged.

Sweet mother of–– some things I guess I would rather not know.

“But JT gets the swimming award,” TwoBeers announced cheerfully.​

Glancing up, Moresailesaid hastily added, “It was warm! And I was floating just fine. It was only a problem when I went to get into the boat.”
​
Yup, that’s when it would be.

 “Oh, but the phosphorescence!” TwoBeers interjected.

“There was a TON of phosphorescence in the water,” agreed Moresailesaid.

"When I told him we’d lost our fishing gear, he came up with Crumb Cakes, and little bags of peanuts, and water. So we didn’t go hungry.”
​
Note to self: Crumb Cakes. They’re not just for breakfast any more.

TwoBeers stayed on narrative track. “Somehow the boom-bag got loose, but it tangled itself up with the water hoses. Good thing, too, because it had the VHF and the iPad and the solar charger. Don’t know if the charger works. The bag was full of water, but we used the iPad to navigate Florida Bay.”

Moresailesaid added, “I wiped the solar charger dry. We didn’t try it.”

​He shook his head and repeated, “Everything in the dry-boxes got wet.”

“So after we flipped and got it back,” TwoBeers spoke as a man summarizing. “We went through Caxambas pass and decided to stop and dry off. Every line on the boat was macramed around everything else.”

“I was shivering,” admitted Moresailesaid. “So we anchored in the mangroves for a while.”

“Did you just lie down and sleep?” I asked.

“No,” said TwoBeers. “We stripped down, dried the inside of our dry suits, put on dry clothes –– the Ziplock bags worked.  And so did the garbage bag – the sleeping bag stayed dry through everything! Weird. I don’t know why the dry boxes filled up.”

“We should have had everything in the dry boxes packed in Ziplocks.” Moresailesaid added darkly, “Wish I had the patent on the Ziplock.”

TwoBeers continued, “I don’t know how long it took, but the tide changed while we were anchored. And DeSea sailed past us.”

“Yeah,” I said, “He said that he saw you and checked to make sure you were okay.” I didn’t mention how DeSea expressed his alarm. Or how we’d shared an awful moment of camaraderie on the topic of human frailty and our own TwoBeers..
​
“So we had foul current all the way to CP2. We sailed and rowed. Rowed and sailed. Rowing warmed me up.”

​As it does.

Because a restive boat might find itself all topsy-turvy when things go bad, we put on a sort of water-wing atop the mast. In the unhoped-for event that Spawn tips, the floaty prevents boat from turning turtle.

We put the Eyes of Horus on the job –– a little superstition goes a long way around here. 

So anyway, there are at least two ways to track the team as they sprint (we hope sprint, not claw) down the west coast of Florida.  

​Click on either of the two images below to check on them.

Crossing fingers, knocking wood...

It's that time of year again...Everglades Challenge.

Since we have a scant handful of days to go and a list of chores that require attending, I'm reposting this blog from 2016:
​
http://www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/spawn-testing-and-refining

All things being equal, I hope to post updates here on the blog during the Challenge and link them to the Spawn Facebook page.  

And in case you need the shortcut, here's where the Challenger's Tracking map will appear on the WaterTribe website. (Note: the website will likely slow down during the Challenge. There are a lot of us clicking the "refresh" button.

Gotta run...

It fills 30 or so gallons in five minutes of pumping (that's a sizable chunk of rail-meat that doesn't squawk or drink beer). The tank empties in about 45 seconds.

The weather has not permitted a heavy-air test, but the addition of a few gallons made a big difference in stability, especially when the boat is being rowed.

T-minus two weeks and a couple of days until the hundred+ craft launch from Fort DeSoto Beach.

​ Here's a stirring bagpipes-enlivened video of that moment. Listen for the guy who shouts, "Freedom!" at the 2-minute mark or so. I don't know who it is, but we love his spirit. 
​

I was awake most of Friday night, listening to the gentle snoring of Ninjee and Moresailesed and the freight-train roar of wind through the trees outside the camper.

On Saturday morning, the news came at the six-thirty competitor's meeting: small craft advisory still in effect. Consequently, a 24-hour delay on shore, and disqualification for anyone who ventured out before then. 

As the morning wore on, the prospects changed shape. In the likely event of continued small craft advisoriess, further delays might be possible, unless the boats were starting south of Tampa Bay.

Many of the competitors popped their vessels onto trailers and skipped ahead to Check Point #1 for the restart. Team Spawn considered it briefly, then weighed their original goals –– to top last year's time and to finally (finally!) stick around for the awards ceremony and receive one of those dang (alleged) shark's teeth.

Over a hearty breakfast and by the glow of multiple internet devices, the team gauged weather against time.  And headed for the barn.

​Until the next adventure... 

After a bit of testing, however, Mr. Linton pronounced, "The juice isn't worth the squeeze." Sadly for fans of the coolness, the foils took up a great deal of room in the cockpit, which tended to make the boat much less easy to row. 

For the Everglades Challenge, with its 300 miles of sailing and rowing and camping across oyster beds and what-not, the faster performance of the foil didn't quite outweigh the possible need to operate the sweeps. 

So the slots where the foils were inserted got filled back in and the rowing seat received a bit of an update.

For the first time, Team Spawn seems to be ready with plenty of time to spare. No last-minute deliveries or modifications! No questionable flight arrivals. No drama!  Knock wood.

With the bonus days, Captain TwoBeers turned his attention to organizing. In the famous last words of Joe Hill: "Don't mourn, organize."   

Fact: The quotation was actually from the next-to-the-last letter the labor organizer wrote before being shot by firing squad, and it goes like this: "Don't waste any time mourning. Organize."

In his last letter before execution, Hill asked that same friend, "Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah." Gallows humor is the bravest of them all.    

So there are presently two foils extending from the sides of the boat. They resemble the tipped wings of some airplanes. 

​
To put them in, the fellas first cut a pair of holes in the sides of the boat and then fitted them with daggerboard trunks from an A-Cat. 

Why yes, it does seem ironic to cut holes into the hull of a boat that was a good floater. But progress is not made without some revolutionary thinking.

When the team chooses not to use the foils, they can seal off these slots with a strip of tape. Good old duct tape would do, though they are more likely to use Insignia sail tape.

A few test-runs (thanks to guest test-pilots Bill Wingrove, John Paulson, Ben Givens, and Dave Clement) to adjust the angle of attack, and poof! The bow lifts to reduce wetted surface and make Spawn a more stable creature. 

The team will take to the water this coming weekend for a longish trial. Crossing fingers for good sailing weather. 
​​​

Shoehorning a bit of boat-work into the summer, my favorite skipper continues the construction and refinement of Spawn ​the adventure boat.  

​Despite the onslaught of mosquitoes and biting gnats, and undaunted by what he describes as 1000% humidity, he's made improvements and tweaks in preparation for the next adventure*.

There's some cleverly thought-out modifications to block placement and chafe-plates on the rudder control system. Plus a new metal rowing seat that will be semi-permanently bolted in place. Thanks, Derek Dudinsky at JTR!

Modifying where the oarlocks will be placed and some height adjustments (hello Sir Hacksaw!) to the rowing seat follow after an afternoon of on-the-water testing. 

And then we are off again on more travels. Spawn will be waiting when we get back...


​* Which next adventure race? Well, there's the Black Beard Challenge, possibly.  It's 300 miles that include active gunnery ranges (avoid!), unlit fish traps (avoid!), unavoidable low bridges, black bears and skeeters, all on a challenging loop past Pamlico Sound and Beaufort (Bo-furt!).  

​Shore duty is looking sweet on that one. 

To the sound of cheering crowds (modern-day crowds, that is –– the noise a swellign crescendo of plasticky key clicks) Spawn of Frankenscot arrived safe and sound in Key Largo 1 day, 12 hours, and 46 minutes after starting the 2016 Everglades Challenge. 

They were the first boat to finish and they broke the previous monohull record by 12 hours. Click-click-click hurrah! Social media applauds!

Here's a gorgeous short video of the team –– shot by Ninjee's cousin Simon Lew via helicopter over the Gulf of Mexico.

They were fortunate in the conditions. The wind stayed mostly abeam or aft, so that they were running or reaching about 75% of the course, with only a few chunks of rowing against the tide (like at the Indian River Pass), and short slogs upwind with crew on the wire. 

The Spawnsters barely had time to snack during the trip, though they wouldn't have starved: an unfortunate Spanish mackerel, leaping boisterously from the water somewhere out in the dark blue empty, landed with a surprising thud in the cockpit in the middle of Saturday night. The team trained their headlights onto the piscatorial visitor.  "What is it and where should I grab it?" Moresailesed inquired before flinging it (by the least harmful corner of its tail) back into the sea.

The mighty yacht herself landed with a thud from time to time in that last stretch of what navigators call "skinny water." Florida Bay (Rod Koch describes it as "lunar") is shallow and full of both mucky sand and hard coral.  Said boat designer Ninjee, "I didn't realize how much running aground we would be doing." Discussion of a stainless-steel leading edge on the centerboard followed. 

Spawn disturbed at least one hazard of the course: a 7-foot-long shark had the startle of its weekend when the boat passed over it in about 2 feet of water. "It looked like an explosion of mud behind us," said TwoBeers.

Special thanks to Ensign RumsDown, who IS a driving Ninja and generous friend.

As he announced to the team in a manly bellow from the shore of Chockoloskee (after Mary and I had warbled "I love you" across the starry, echoing darkness)  "I LIKE YOU!"  Really do.