 North Atlantic Ocean, FLORIDA? Really? While my favorite skipper, TwoBeers, is on his single-handed adventure race down the west coast of Florida, I have some time to reflect and, more importantly, observe. That's actually the essence of shore crew: we watch. And get ready to deploy whatever needs deploying.  Saturday, Day 1: The Everglades Challenge started this morning (well, it started years ago, but this year's race began today at Fort DeSoto Beach), which means that — what day is it? Saturday? STILL? — I have a few chores to squeeze in between checking on my racing friends. For instance, our building contractor (addition to the house. Long story. No, I don't know when it will be done.) told me I needed to visit a certain restaurant and, let me quote: "Check out the tiles in the men's room. I think they are exactly what you want." I have been known to invade these boyish strongholds, sometimes as a lark, more often by mistake, a few times out of expedience. The taboo is strong, but it's not unbreakable. So alrighty then.  I betook myself to the busy restaurant, ordered some soup to go, and after casing the establishment and gauging lines-of-sight, I told the counter staff about my quest. They laughed and said, it's the same tile in the women's. Saved from sketchy lurkage, I visited the tile and crossed one thing off my list. Later, hunched over my bowl of açaí sorbet (you don't know what you are missing), I wrote a blog about the start, and then idly hit refresh on the tracking sites for a while before embarking on the second round of packing: This Time It's Overland. Clothes for me, clothes for Jeff—not forgetting shoes for himself, because THAT's a rookie move—the food I'd rather not rebuy for the next few days, beverages, blah blah. The usual accoutrements of a family vacation, plus the supportive gear for the boat trailer (a recent Facebook marketplace deal, which means also a bit of a wildcard in terms of roadworthiness) and our matronly creeper van.  On the race tracker, the gang of boats went from one big blob of overlapped names to a slightly more stretched out list: as one might expect, a couple of catamarans worked to the lead early, with Spawn (Go Moresailesaid! Go DSea!) right there in the mix. Not too far behind, Zygote was hanging tough, and as the breeze faded, on came the paddlers. The race is unique in many ways, though the idea of racing a 20-foot-long beach catamaran against a racing kayak against a roto-molded trimaran against a...well, it boggles the mind. No, there is no handicapping. It's a mad dash. Anyone can win the event overall, though each boat is also scored in its division. At ten at night, with the first couple of boats tagging Check Point 1, I got a text from Jeff. His tracker placed him near Stump Pass. "A f#@$ the pedal drive broke." Another unique aspect of this event is that you can double up your propulsion: sailing and rowing, for example. Plus, you can pump and ooch and scull, all of which is frowned upon in traditional sailing competitions. Zygote was built for solo sailing, and since rowing presents a real navigational conundrum (where are we heading?), Jeff worked rather hard on installing a pedal drive. It's a nifty contraption, with a belt (not chain), and a flexible driveshaft, and a two-blade propeller. He pedals while sitting on an inflatable seat, giving himself a magisterial view of the horizon ahead, as well as extra boat speed that helps when needed. It worked great, until, evidently it did not.  Still he looked pretty cheerful as he checked into Check Point 1. Sunday, Day 2: Oooh! bonus! Daylight Savings Time. Suddenly it's dark at 7 in the morning. Sarcastic enthusiasm! It's a drive to Key Largo, and the traffic is only going to get worse. Mid coffee-brew, I get a text from my good neighbors with a photo. Somebody is dumpster-diving at the construction site, they thought I should know.
Wrestling with the boat-trailer, I consider the long history of scrappers: rag and bone men, mudlarks, people who recycle cooking oil for car fuel. It's a respectable if not very respected job that does good in the world. Before driving his overladen truck to the next spot, the scrapper introduces himself as Keith and we part company maybe both reassured by our shared humanity.  Messages start dinging on my phone before I reach to the highway. I do the thing where you look at your phone at a red light and decide whether anyone needs a real answer or if they can wait until I stop to check the hubs of the trailer. They can wait till I can check the hubs. It's an uneventful drive, mercifully. Almost no maniacal driving incidents (I did avoid Miami, which helps my odds), and the forest fires from last week were extinguished, perhaps by the rain from last night. Navigating by intuition: even though I really enjoy the southern old Route 41 trip across the Everglades, randomly (is it? is it ever random? Is it the Burnt Toast Theory?) found myself tootling along 75 Alligator Alley. A gorgeous day, and the hubs of the trailer stayed out of the hot zone. Yay! It's such a relief to get to the aqua road dividers of the Overseas Highway. I've gawked at 4-foot-long iguanas basking along this stretch into the Keys, but thanks to the recent cold snap, and perhaps to my better driving impulses, I don't spot a single one. Jeff calls as I'm passing Gilbertson's Resort asking me about the timing of the tides at Caxambas Pass and Indian Key Pass. Another unique feature of the event: outside communication is permitted, even welcomed. We can't meet them and resupply the racers, but we can talk to them about the weather et cetera.  I send him the tide info from the safety of a parking lot and then joyfully make my way to Jim and Cheryl's house, where I stow the Marketplace trailer, bless its twenty-ton heart. Anchored for the night at the quirky little resort, I find some supper with race mom Paula Paddledancer, and sleep the naps of the righteous. Each time I wake, I fumble for reading glasses and my screen to check on my favorite skipper and the host of other ducklings out on the water. Monday, Day 3: Overnight, Jeff has had a good sleep in the boat outside Indian Key pass, waiting for the right tide to help him into Chocko. After he STILL had not pressed his okay button when I woke at 230, I just called him. What a pleasant surprise to have him pick up on the first ring with his usual greeting. Clearly sleepy, but cheerful and moving about, my sweet TwoBeers is ready to chat. Normally (based on a dozen previous Challenges), Jeff is judicious in how much of the adventure he shares with me. Considerate of my worries, he might only later dribble out the alarming tale of how this bad thing happened, or how he managed to snatch safety from certain danger. So when he says, yeah, I tacked once with the ballast tank half full. I suppress my natural expression of alarm. The boat did great, he announces, it heeled to a point — and there I am on the high side! — but then it stopped. Good design. I don't even ask how he un-buggered that situation. Then he mentions how much water he pumped out of the hull. He pumped until he got tired and there was still water in there. The boat was feeling sluggish, he tells me, and going downwind, he caught the first water over the bow. I hold my tongue. We know there's a leak. It wasn't much of a leak, according to his pre-race discussion. I'd held back from nagging him yesterday about checking on it. To set the scene, when TwoBeers says he stopped bailing before the boat was empty because he was tired, that's — a thing. There's not a lot of quit in the man. I take a deep, calming breath: I'll be sure to remind you to pump it out, I say. Yeah, he says, good idea. Then he narrates through what he calls a "twirlybird death spin," when Zygote doesn't have enough way on to steer, but the tide causes the boat to pirouette slowly — a 360 degree spin — before another bit of wind comes along. He uses such phrases as, "whee!" and "here we go." Does my laughter have a slightly hysterical edge? Pshaw! How was supper, I ask. Oh, he says, I had a beer and I drank a breakfast shake and just fell asleep. I might turn and burn at Chocko he tells me. Or I might anchor out and get some more shut-eye. This is heartening news. Shows his judgement is good despite having (she counts on her fingers) less than 6 hours of sleep in the past 31 hours. We say goodnight, and I snuggle back under my air-conditioned covers. Day 3: Monday after sunrise A beautiful day in the Florida Keys. There is nothing quite so tropical as a sunrise down here, where the boisterous morning wind is soft with moisture and the white coral dust is as dry as chalk on my flip-flopped feet.  More anon...
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A boat building project like Zygote seems to move so slowly—months passing with only the mold finished, seasons of laying carbon fiber, months of sanding and gluing, and endless weeks of sanding and painting, long long days of bolting on hardware—and then, capering about like a squirrel on crack, the project is—must be!—done enough because the day is here. The Everglades Challenge, an unsupported adventure race that starts at Fort DeSoto in St. Pete, FL and finishes 300 or so miles later in Key Largo, FL begins at 8:30 on this coming Saturday, March 8. It's the event at which my favorite skipper (known in this race as TwoBeers) has been aiming all of his time and energy in building this new single-handed OH Rodgers-designed carbon-fiber sailboat. Video and commentary courtesy Jahn "Moresailesaid" Tihansky. For all the dangers I perceive in the venture of taking a small boat out onto big water for 300 miles—THIS TIME SOLO!—I'm happy to report that my favorite skipper is not a fool. I'm grateful that TwoBeers had a Plan A (sail Zygote!) for the 2026 Everglades Challenge, plus a Plan B (sail a borrowed Hobie TI!), a Plan C (hop into Spawn and make it three men in a boat!), and a Plan D (bring a friend!).  And now that the pesky water-tank troubles are patched up, she said with a grimace... Water tanks on Zygote, for those who want to hear my explanation, appear on either side of the barky as well as below the deck. Each tank can be filled and emptied separately, and serve in place of a moving, breathing, complaining crew member. So instead of requesting that his crew hike harder, TwoBeers flips a switch and the windward tank fills up with around 400 lbs of righting moment. When things get a bit nautically frisky, 400 lbs of water in the lower middle tank will encourage the lively Zygote to simmer down. In an ideal world, and onboard the battle-tested Spawn, the water tank system performs as designed: it holds water, vents air, and can be emptied in a twinkling. On Zygote, up until a couple of days ago, the tank dribbled like a Great Dane at a bowl of water on a clean kitchen floor. According to Jeff, the tank filled in 4 minutes, but emptied itself in around 6. That math don't quite math.  Jeff is sitting on top of the starboard tank. The small square at the back of the tank is the release flap. Photo courtesy of Jahn "JT" Tihansky. Zygote's dribbling was caused, Great Danewise, by loose flaps. The rapid-release trap doors at the back of the top tanks did not seat firmly enough to hold water. I have it on good authority that it has been remedied. We live in hope and cross our fingers.
So here are our variously reliable links to track the progress of the racers. The WaterTribe website gets overloaded with spectators, but it's got the logos we've come to rely on, and can be widened to show all competitors in all classes (kayaks and paddle boards, catamarans and monohulls, etc.) or narrowed down to one class or an individual competitor. https://watertribe.com/Events/ChallengeGMapper.aspx The Garmin InReach site only shows a single boat's position. In this case, TwoBeers. https://share.garmin.com/N9OY8TwoBeers The RaceOwl site is quicker to load than WaterTribeand shows the boats minus their logos. It might be a bit slow on the uptake but it's a good choice to track the gang. https://www.raceowl.com/EC2026 Click on one of the photos below or an html address above to get to the tracker of your choice.
Thanks all y'all for coming along on this adventure!
Over here at Boatbuild Central, things are hectic. We are six short weeks away from the starting horn for the 2026 Everglades Challenge. (It starts at sunrise give or take on March 7 at Fort DeSoto Park in St. Pete, FL). The new all-carbon single-handed OH Rodgers-designed adventure racing sloop, Zygote, is—ahem!—coming to fruition. So much progress! We found a trailer, and fitted it to the barky. Zygote is now primed (it will be mostly white, despite my request for a safety-orange bottom paint).  The mast has been up. It's a carbon fiber A-Cat mast shortened from 30 to around 27 feet. Muchas gracias to Ben Hall for that!  Sails are on order. Thanks to Doug Fisher of https://dougfishersailing.com/  The rudder gudgeons are bolted and glued in place.  Am I reaching for zygotish metaphors? Maybe, but the boat's identity is ripening. Wha? To differentiate the new boat from the old, the old team versus the new, and who's on first, here's the lineup: In this year's Everglades Challenge, my favorite skipper, TwoBeers, will be racing on Zygote, while his erstwhile partner Jahn "Moresailesed" Tihansky and Dave "DSea" Clement will be racing aboard Spawn of Frankenscot. While checking the WaterTribe tracking map, understand that familiar cheerful green Frankie face will be attached to DSea and Moresailesed, while Jeff's Zygote program will be marked by an aqua square o beer. It looks like this tiny on the map:  If you like, you can click on the photo to link to the WaterTribe map site.
More details will follow as they develop. Okay, okay, I know. What world are we talking? It might be a wide world of sports, but that's still a tiny globe compared to everything else. And sailing is a minuscule sporting world, compared to other sports. Never mind how each specific class of boat makes it a smaller world yet. But still. A world champion. It's actually his fourth world title, but I am here to tell you the thrill does not fade. When you're on the podium and the national anthem pipes up? Waterworks, baby. So my favorite skipper has been racing the 2.4Meter class for a few years. The boat looks like a classic America's Cup yacht that got hit with a shrink-ray.  Jeff is in the water, wiping algae and what-not from his boat, as well as giving his neighbor Alain Dubuc's boat a scrub as well. When at the wheel of the 2.4Meter, (figure of nautical speech: the boats are rigged to have either a joy-stick style tiller or foot pedals for steering), the sailor is like an iceberg, with the majority of his or her person beneath the surface. Water rushes by at just about eye-level. This little yacht has a heavy keel for stability. It runs about 14 feet long. Which makes it roughly the length of a classic VW bug. Or, if you prefer, twice the distance between dartboard and tosser. I mean thrower. Or is it shooter? The point is that the 2.4M is not big. And, fabulously, the vessel permits people with physical challenges to compete on a level playing field with able-bodied folks. Which expands the wide world of sailing in the best of ways.  A tight bond has firmed up the North American contingent: sailors compete and train in the winter in Port Charlotte for the Can-Am series, as well as continuing the practice over the summer in Toronto. The Canadian-American gang clubbed together to send nine boats to Lake Garda, Italy this year for the Inclusive World Championships. Lake Garda. This is a jewel of a lake, set among the dramatic Italian Alps.  View of the racecourse from the clubhouse at Fraglia Vela Malcesine. Honest to Pete, this place is almost sarcastically gorgeous.   And we have the great good fortune of having generous friends in cool places. Annukka and Mike lived above Lake Garda for years, and having known Jeff from Etchells sailing, they gave us keys and excellent driving directions.  A person could get used to this morning coffee view. Naturally, Jeff did his sailing homework: not just lots of practice, but also making sure that the practice might parallel the conditions expected on Lake Garda: namely, breezy, chilly freshwater sailing at altitude. According to all predictions, the wind runs down into the valley in the morning and then sweeps up into the hills in the afternoon. It's a pattern that makes the place Mecca for hang-gliders, foiling Moths, windsurfers—all the high-octane wind-driven boats. Which brings us to the universal truth of all world championships: "It's never like this here."  Coming back to the dock after a long day's racing. Sailing under sunny skies, Jeff came out of the gate strong, with a wire-to-wire lead in the first race over the nearly 60 boats on the line. Lake Garda never offered howling windy days, but a dry suit (as Jeff learned on the practice day) is recommended. For those keeping track at home, the series had 11 races scheduled (ten sailed, thanks to strong-willed race management) with two throw-outs. Making the match (and the math) even more exciting. ("One plus four, drop the 57, carry the..."  While waiting for the afternoon winds to fill in, oh, look! Another capresi salad and the local white wine. After a day or two, one of the other competitors approached Jeff on the dock and spoke with Germanic frankness, "I Googled you." I take that as highest praise from a competitor in 2025. Being Googleworthy.  Jeff, Tony, and Julio making repairs at dawn. Mr. Linton claims that fate holds the cards at events like these. You prepare as best you can, but winning is equally a matter of everything just lining up. And so it seemed: despite the various bumps in the road (our Thursday flight cancelled so we arrived on Sunday, the container of boats showing up only in the nick of time on Monday, that broken headstay on Day 2, the U-flag starts that caught Jeff once for a 57th place finish, etc.) things worked out. We and our luggage (sorry Julio, about your stuff vacationing solo in Dublin!) arrived alive, the boats turned up undamaged, the broken headstay happened in light air on race 3 of the day, and Jeff is good at calculating the math of finishes.  Did it hurt that we earned the grudging approval of this sister? Never underestimate the power of kindness and shared snacks on public transport. I learned that from fairy tales. It was all over too soon. The gang packed all their toys back into the container they bought (a purchase that should mean I can paint a mural on it!), enjoyed the pomp and circumstance of closing ceremonies, and made plans for the next one. And then some of us betook ourselves to Venice. About that, anon...  |
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