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AMY SMITH LINTON

Spawn of Frankenscot: A Really Big Year on the Horizon

10/1/2021

6 Comments

 
It's getting to be that time of year -- when we return to the ongoing adventures of Captain TwoBeers and Moresailesaid, on board their strange and mighty steed, Spawn. 
Picture
As many of you readers know, each March brings the Everglades Challenge, which is an unsupported, human-powered adventure race of some 300+ miles along the left coast of Florida. Vessels of astonishing diversity push off the beach at Fort DeSoto at dawn on the first Saturday in March and make their various ways south and across the Everglades to Key Largo, Florida.
Picture
My favorite skipper built his own boat, a 21-foot-long light-weight, shallow-drawing sloop for this event, with help and a design from the cool OH Rodgers, plus the assistance of a village of friends. Over the past few years, sailing Spawn, TwoBeers and Jahn Tihansky (Moresailesaid) set a course record, spent time upside down in the Gulf, rowed for days, and punted on the last leg.  

After half a dozen of these challenges, our Spawnsters aren't bored, but they are ready to expand their challenge.  

​So in March 2022, the guys will attempt the Ultimate Florida Challenge.
Picture
What is the Ultimate Challenge? Just a lot more sleep-deprived, salt-encrusted, navigationally puzzling ooey-gooey goodness!

Spawn will (knock wood) depart as usual from the beach, but instead of ending in Key Largo, their race will continue for another 900 miles, up the right side of the state, across the top of Florida, and then back to the beach where it started.

1200 miles in a small boat. 

Wheeee!
Picture
The big twist? Once they approach the Georgia border, they'll switch out of Spawn and into a canoe. (I know! Jeesh!). There's a long paddle through narrow and skinny water (possibly less skinny, but still narrow, depending on the preceding weeks' rainfall. There's even some Class III whitewater.), which prohibits both Spawn's mast and her generous width. 

The event's rules permit sailors to transform into paddlers mid-race, as it were, and, naturally, requests they change back when the course permits...which will happen AFTER the 40-mile portage.

Forty miles! Pushing their canoe! On a country highway!

​Wheeeee!
Picture
Training started this past summer. 
Tandem paddle
On Grass Lake, Photo courtesy Sarah Ellen Smith.
This will be a world of difference from the two-day sprint of past Challenges. 

The team's goal is to get it done.  In under three weeks.

Kayak spinnaker
A spinnaker for the kayak. According to himself, it is not nearly big enough. But we saw 3 knots without paddling. Photo courtesy of Sarah Ellen Smith
Myself, I'll keep fingers crossed and hope for a good weather window.
6 Comments
Carlos
10/1/2021 11:59:01 pm

Holy Shit!

Reply
Amy
10/3/2021 01:16:07 pm

Yup!

Reply
StumblingThunder
10/3/2021 09:33:26 am

That last shot of you two reminds me of another Halloween appropriate eye:

https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/movies/2017/06/09/The-Mummy-Tom-Cruise-Russell-Crowe/stories/201706090055

Good luck on the preparations. I will be following the adventure after it passes me on the EC course!

Reply
Amy
10/3/2021 01:17:45 pm

Wink! Wink! said the unwittingly Halloweeny eye.
Hope everyone gets to Key Largo safe and sound this spring!

Reply
Deadeye
10/5/2021 03:43:29 pm

Paddle faster when you hear banjos!

Reply
SOS link
10/8/2021 07:45:26 pm

Oh man you guys will have so much fun!! DO IT!

Reply



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