How about this? ........ Team Tommy Bahama finished third in today's leg of the race, less than 1 1/2 minutes behind Alexander's on the Bay and 1 1/2 minutes ahead of Tybee Island.  Way to go Team!  Hoping to have some pictures for y'all by tomorrow.

BTW Tommy, I still have not been successful in hacking into the Worrell site to eliminate the 2 hour delay penalty.  It does appear however, even if I am unsucessful at that, I should be able to add the 2 hours to the Alexander's boat's overall time.

............Mr.Ernie

Hi Everyone - Thanks to a great effort by the entire Tommy Bahama Team, the yellow boat is sporting a new  mast, boom, trampoline, spinnaker pole, main blocks, shrouds, dolphin striker... almost a new boat.  The guys are taped back together and ready to go and the new sails are ready to be hoisted.

...............John
 

After spending approximately 35 man-hours on rebuilding our wreck, Tommy lives again!  It's nearly a whole new boat - only the boards, hulls and beams survived the Jensen Beach Massacre.  Nigel and Alex faced the Cocoa Beach surf with a great deal of trepidation.  Man-high waves were still breaking out on the bar and on the beach, and everyone in the fleet was still emotionally shaken after seeing so many boats damaged.  The skipper's meeting was tense, and Mike emphasized that the safety of the fleet was foremost on his mind.

With the two hour penalty, we had been bumped back to 11th for the start, which was very fortunate for us - we were in the highest position on the beach for the second tier of starters.  If we'd stayed in 10th, we would have been moved to the southernmost position, and would have had bad air to deal with from BOTH starts.  Dan and Alex carefully timed the breakers and chose a line through the surf that seemed to be best.

At the gun for the first start, we watched Brian and Jamie closely to see how their line through the surf looked - it appeared that they had read the breakthe same way we had, and showed us that it would work.  Dan gave us a terrific push, and we were off the beach and through the first break quickly.  Nigel and Alex seemed to only hesitate a moment before punching through the second breakers cleanly.  It was a good start for us, our best yet, and we picked up four positions immediately, tacking over to starboard in 7th place.

The Team on the ground quickly packed up and headed north to meet the guys in Daytona Beach - a familiar beach to all of us.  When we arrived, we'd barely established our TB Camp before the reporters and cameras showed up, angling for an interview with the Team using the "local" angle.  Channel 6, a CBS affiliate, had sent a crew to talk to Alex and Nigel.  As the boats hove into view, we could clearly see the big red "RELAX" logo on our jib, and the Tommy-yellow hulls winking at the crest of each wave.  The boys were clearly in the top four with only about three miles left on the leg.

Finally the surf brought our guys in - Dan ran out through the surf to pull them across the finish line, gaining us precious seconds, and giving us a solid THIRD PLACE FINISH for the leg.  The beach erupted in cheers - Alex and Nigel have many sailing friends who live in the Daytona area - and the cameras were rolling as we wheeled Tommy into a prime spot on the beach.  Nigel and Alex were stopped by the crowd and reporters, and spent the next 30 minutes or so talking into cameras while the newspaper reporters scribbled quickly to keep up.  It was really cool to watch - they wound up sitting the guys on the boat with the sails still up to discuss the repairs we'd needed to make and the injuries that the fleet has sustained to date.

All in all, a very exciting day for the Tommy Bahama Sailing Team - spirits are high again, and Nigel and Alex feel much better.  Now that the replacement parts for the replacement parts are on the way, we're all more relaxed.

More later -

.................John

As many of you know, Little John is wearing several hats during this campaign.  Two of those hats being the on-site reporter and digital cameraman supplying the data to me for this web site.  On days like yesterday, Tommy's entire team puts getting the boat back into new condition as top priority.  It is not our attempt to document everything that is happening on the race course.  There are others doing that.  We want to give a little insight into what Tommy's Team is doing, both on and off the water during this race.

............Mr.Ernie