If you're one of many vaunted Farr 40 teams in attendance here at Key West Race, this Sunday morning's decision whether or not to practice in 30 knots was a foregone conclusion. "You guys should go for it," quipped Dean Barker as he and his mates put Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory to bed for the afternoon. "It's a lot of fun out there."
Morning Glory was one of a small entourage of boats that trickled out of the harbor throughout the late morning, taking advantage of a solid 25- to 30-knot northeaster to put up a sail or two and get the kinks worked out.
The debate among the crew of Stephen Tedeschi's J/109 Tastes Like Chicken (with whom I'm sailing with for the week) was whether a short practice would cause more harm than good. Plus, as the morning wore on, our window narrowed: if we were going to do it, it had to be short, quick, and wrapped up in time for the afternoon's NFL games. Tedeschi took a poll, and the nays won out. Too bad, really, because the weather forecast is for just as much breeze tomorrow, so it would have been good to get a few ups and downs under the belt sooner than later.
Regardless, the plan is for a 7:30 boat call and some early morning practice, so the Duval crawl is definitely not in the cards for tonight. Besides, there was enough of that last night to cover me for the week.
Not everyone was idle on shore today, though. The hard-charging race committee went out to practice its routines. According to SW contributor Jennifer Langille, who is the official blogger for Acura Key West Race Week, the race committee checked in reporting gusts past 30. Those coming back in confirmed it was hairy, including SW Senior Editor Stuart Streuli, who's on the Swan 42 Amelia. They ventured out, he tells me, put up the kite, it filled and before you could say Turtle Crawl, they were enjoying the chaos of their first full beat-down, flog-it-all round up. A bit of upwind work, one more set, and they were done for the day. I'd sure bet it was time well spent come the first race tomorrow.
On the agenda for Tastes Like Chicken, sailing in PHRF 2 with three other 109s, a pair of Beneteau 40.7s, a J/120, a Sydney 36, and a C&C 115 is the PHRF National title. I have yet to figure out whether the title is official or not, but I'd argue with anyone here that it is, hands-down, the most difficult trophy to win at Key West. In fact, the collective PHRF fleet totals to 51, making the largest fleet in the regatta. There are six PHRF divisions spread cross two circles, and with so many mystery boats on the scratch sheet, not to mention an overall formula that makes your head spin, it's impossible to figure out who could possibly walk away with this thing. All we know is we have to sail our fleet, sail them fast and hard, and hope it's good enough. A bit of practice would have helped this cause, but maybe the preservation was a good idea. Maybe.
