PDRacers - 200 mile event up the Texas Coast - Texas200 2009

[Boatmik]

This year's event starts on Monday - Texas time!

It is a 200 mile event with a fleet of boats making their own time up the coast to meet for the Magnolia Beach Messabout. They meet together at a camp each night.

It is predominantly a downwind sail - PREDOMINANTLY! The fleet numbers looked like being around the 50 mark with 5 PDRacers in the list.



This is Andrew Linn's Salem Electron, derived from the OZ Mk2 PDRacer. It is yellow now.



Gordo Barcomb from Texas



Jason Nabors - with another of his extraordinary cabin PDRacers - TENACIOUS TURTLE



Jon Kowitz and "Ranger"



Kevin Allison "Duck 'n Out"



I will post here as the event continues.

MIK

[Boatmik]

The Dawn of start day last year.



Realise that 200 miles is 40 miles a day. At a maximum average speed around 4knots that means 10 hours of sailing a day.

This is a difficult event for the PDRacers.

This is Andrew's account from last year.
http://andrewlinn.com/080609texas200/index.htm

This is my compilation of info about the range of boats
https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...ighlight=texas

MIK

[Boatmik]

Like I said, there are about 50 participants.

They are not only wooden boats but a whole bunch of production boats too. From Hobie Mirage outriggers through to larger trailer sailors.

Here is Chuck and Sandra's Caprice



a 12ft Mixer



An Open 18



A Bolger Pirate racer "Jagular"

[Daddles]

Is the capsize required under the rules or is it optional?

In either case, the bod looks happy enough.

Richard

[Boatmik]

9 AM Update:
We are inside of 24 hours to launch. Today, boats will be put into the water and rigged, and the trailers will be relocated to the end point, 200 miles up the Texas coastline.

Twitter updates from Andrea Lea and Phil Lea: --- "Phil and I checked in with Texas200 organizer, our boat is loaded and tied up at Port Mansfield.
I am driving van/trailor to end point."
--- "just drove thru a boder patrol check site. officers were everwhere, some with dogs.
only question they asked me-are you a US citizen?"

The briefing .. and not a bad looking podium!



I will collect info and put it here as the streams start working. This one is from http://wikiproa.pbworks.com/2009-Texas-200-blog

MIK

[dkirtley]

It is truly awful. The Texas 200 starts down here in my sailing area.

My boat is not finished.

I have to work.

Last year I had to work.

Oh well, at least I can live vicariously.

[BobWes]

Get your boat done, and plan for next year's T200! (Request the time off early!)

Bob

[dkirtley]

Yes, I just had an uncontrollable moment of whining.

Actually, if I had finished, I still would need a bit of time with my boat before I would set off on a trip that long. Was tempted to drive over and see them off but the school where I work just started summer school session today.

Well, at least I did get a chance to work on my tiller.

[Boatmik]

We like vicarious! What choice does a designer have?!!!



So ... there was a bit of video of the wind in the morning ... it looked like it was blowing the crabs out of the sand



From David Graybeal relaying

I just spoke with Andyrew. They have made it to the campsite for the first
night. 40 miles in 9 hours. They said they plan on turning in early.



Averaging maybe 4.5 mph, with high speed of over 7 mph. Winds are maybe 12-15 mph. Andy said his Salem Electron is performing beautifully with the smaller (60 sq. ft.?) sail. Everyone reefed all day. No Mer-Men in sight.



Cheers,
David G

[BobWes]

PDR, Goat, Beth, Raid41? What are you building?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Bob

[Boatmik]

Just for those who want to know how the event happens, This is from the website

www.texas200.com

Point Series Race

Skippers meeting at 1 pm on Monday June 8 just inside the Land Cut, at or near:
26.811014, -97.469695


The meeting will start at 1 pm. We'll confirm the rules and answer any questions, confirm the RC and pick a timekeeper and will have a Le Mans start by 2 pm. We will race to Camp 1. To finish you must be on the beach north of:
27.099727, -97.441746


Camp 2: To finish you must be east of the north-south line passing through:
27.600595, -97.249823


which is to say you have to sail up the channel past the clubhouse. You have to come in under your own power, sail or paddle, no tows.



Camp 3: To finish you must be on the beach on the north (lee) side of the spit east of:
28.053710, -96.946986


Camp 4: To finish you must be south of the west-east line passing through:
28.333051, -96.463968


which is to say south of a line roughly extending from the first pier.
Magnolia Beach: To finish you must be on the beach and west of:
28.557830, -96.529806


Everything on the honor system, report your own time at the end of each day to the timekeeper.


The RC will consist of:
Laurent Coquilleau
Pete Brigaitis
Laura Griffith
If they're involved in a dispute they'll recuse themselves and we'll pick someone else.


Scoring:
This is a points series race. You get one point for a first, two for a second, ect. There are nine individual races in the week:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Total time sailing
Friday night race (round the buoys race)
Saturday morning race #1 (round the buoys race)
Saturday morning race #2 (round the buoys race)


Throw out your two lowest scores, add the other seven. Lowest score wins. In case of a tie, the total sailing time is the tiebreaker, even if it was one of your throwouts.
Your sailing time for each day's race is defined as (your finish time) minus (your start time or 9 am, whichever is earlier),

minus:

1. Weather Timeout, which you can call if for example there are thunderstorms about, it's dangerous to sail, and you have to stop for a bit. This does not cover just stopping to reef or normal racing mishaps like capsizing or boat parts breaking.
2. Emergency Timeout, which you can call if you stop to help another boat that's in trouble.

For Day 1-Day 5 sailing, normal rules of the road apply, but paddling, walking your boat through shallows, poling, pedal drive, and any way to move the boat except a motor are explicitly approved.



We'll be in shallow water with boats of differing draft and no proper course, so let's not be jerks to each other, ok? Don't luff someone up into water that's too shallow for them, for example.


For the Friday night and Saturday races the usual sailing Rules of Racing apply, no paddling, no poling, etc, but we don't want to turn into a bunch of rules lawyers either. We're likely to have at least one proa sailing, possibly as many as three, and lots of different kinds of tacking boats all of which can tack or shunt or do something to come about in some manner but very likely not as fast as a Laser, so just trying to stay out of each others way might be a good idea. Leeward boat has right of way, starboard tack has right of way, and give people room to round the marks.



Since we have proas sailing with tacking boats, in the event that a proa incurs a penalty that would require her to do a 360 degree turn, the proa can do instead two complete shunts, with a ten second leg between them. (interesting ... MIK)



Any group of three or more boats who want to form a class should get together and agree, notify Chuck, and we'll keep track of you in your own category. If you form a class you should also get together to come up with some kind of award to give the winner on Saturday.



We add it all up and hand out the awards on Saturday at noon.

[dkirtley]

Right now I am building a somewhat modified PDR #292 (All the good changes I will point to MIK, The failures are mine.) Pics are on the Yahoo group.

Basic OZ plan PDR with a deck across the center dividing the boat into a fore and aft cockpit. Lug Rig.

Spent the last weekend building the tiller - rudderbox. Particularly pleased with that (unless it breaks ) Have to say that it was the most complicated part of the build. Of course if I had followed the plans a bit more closely and not worked with hardware I already had.....



Only lacking foredeck, sail, and finishing spars. those and paint should just about do it.

PDR, Goat, Beth, Raid41? What are you building?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Bob

[b.o.a.t.]

I think I like Andrew's dark sense of humour with his "Salem Electron".
Took me a few minutes to 'get it', & would not have done so had I not been following
Tony Bigras' "Travels With Miss Cindy" http://ideaintegrator.com/boats/tmc/18.html

[BobWes]

... but he'd only stub a toe or sprain an ankle...

Bob

[Boatmik]

Sounds like it is getting tough

From Stuart Benbow:

Wow, sounds like the race is starting to take its toll on some of the boats. I haven't heard anything about the pd racer contingent, and neither Kevin or Jason are marked as reaching the destination yet on their respective gps pages, but several boats are making repairs tonight.

Masts, mast steps, rudders, etc., and there's a report that John Wright got t-boned and had his hull holed on the port side panel about two feet abaft the bow.

Hopefully he can get some plywood and epoxy together and patch her to keep going.

Anyone have any news of our ducks?

To my knowledge, we've got five boats representing the pdr design. Three seem
more or less custom expedition versions for this event. I'm not sure about
Gordy's boat, but it looks like Kevin's is more or less a stock pdr with
floatation chambers fore and aft, and no side decks.

I can't wait for the post-event evaluations, photos, and stories.

Stuart

And on the other side .. from Shorty

From Susie [Skip Johnsons] wife... He called earlier...."He's doing fine today after a few problems yesterday. There are some broken boats but no injuries. Lost or forgotten parts and personal belongings seem to be a problem. " He's given or loaned out some extra of both. Having a good time, about to go eat sea food.

Andrea in a small fibreglass production boat

we made it thru day two! mast holder broke midday yesterday-phillip macGyver rigged it and is now doing a better repair-3 days left

From Josh

TEXAS 200: DAY TWO

Boats have started arriving at the camp as of a little after 2 PM.


This just in from Marty Williams and Kim Apel
"Left at 8am arrived @ 3 broke a rudder and fixed it. Broke a mast step, made the last 10 miles under mizzen alone. We will soldier on to Corpus and try to make proper repiars. All is well we will sleep well tonight. Keep us and all our sailing buddies in your prayers"





I just heard from Peter about Laurent Coquilleau's situation. Apparently, after his mast broke, Laurent made it to a deserted shore by himself, and was able to make enough of a repair to the mast that he could raise the jib sail. To everyone's surprise, Laurent came limping in under jib power around 2 AM! He sailed again today and Peter reports he was within view. It seems unclear if he will be able to continue on without his main sail, but kudos to him for this herculean effort!

Dan is doing a rudder repair, but we don't know anything more specific at this time. See picture below.

Notes that came in with Andrea Lea's photos:
- "John Wright's platypus got t-boned at the dock" (see image below)
- "End of day 2, several repairs being made, great group all helping each other!"