Good Gracious, Already.

Photo credit: Jahn "Coach" Tihansky.

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. 

via GIPHY

And even though we would ALL like for Mr. Linton to have a couple more weeks to practice (though he says the boat "handles like a dream"), as of Wednesday afternoon, Plan A is in play: he will be racing Zygote single-handed.

This is Jeff's logo. His buddies DSea and Moresailesaid are sailing Spawn this year.

​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!