Racing began with a bang today for us on the big boat course. Luckily we’ve been practicing in some big breeze the last few days because Key West served up some more smoke in the second race, when we enjoyed great racing in 22-knot winds that had built from about 18 knots in the first race.

The conditions in Key West could not have been better for racing—18-22 knots of breeze, big waves, blue skies, and warm water. Onboard Warpath, a mix of bad luck and unforced errors forced us to play catch up more than we would have preferred. 

No question about it,  this regatta has a lot going for it. Scheduled in “mainland” US’s most tropical clime, about a month after things really start getting cold up north it has the “thawing out” attraction going for it. It’s an “everyman’s” regatta that really works to cater to classes and fleets – its got the “you bring ‘em – we’ll fit you in mentality”. And the regatta organizers have a history (count them – all 25 years) of delivering the goods – with excellent – really cutting edge race management and an instant yacht club in the form of the race village. 

© Oracle Racing

Peter Isler

I love this place. I’ve been coming to Key West since I was a kid, and it still has that great “outside of mainstream U.S.” tropical feel in some parts of town. We sailed into town a couple days ago after a pretty brutal race down the coast from Fort Lauderdale on the Rambler. We had 12 of the 21 team members who survived the capsize of the R100 in last summer's Fastnet Race. It was the first time we’d all been together since being “shipwrecked” in Baltimore, Ireland, and you can be assured that the pre-race safety briefing held special meaning for everybody on board.