Good Morning Everyone - Team Tommy Bahama just arrived at Myrtle Beach, SC in second place only 9 minutes, 11 seconds behind Guidant.  Although their closest competitors have not hit the beach as yet, my calculations show that we have moved into third place overall. 

That makes 2 thirds, 1 fourth, and now a second all in a row.  With this type of consistency and the night legs behind them, I believe if I were skippering Alexander's or Guidant, I sure wouldn't let them between me and the finish line.

More Later-

............A very excited Mr.Ernie

.............From the beach.

Hi folks -

The team was able to get a little extra sleep this morning in Isle of Palms before the second night leg of the race.  The guys got in a lot earlier than some of the teams that finished after the wind laid down and shifted to an off-shore breeze.  We were able to make a lot of time on some of the teams that we were closely racing, AND made up time on our two-hour penalty from Jensen Beach.

Sunday morning, we had a leisurely breakfast at the motorhome as we planned navigation, talked about boat tuning, and watched a couple of videos from the 1988 Hogsbreath 1000 and last year's Worrell.  There was clearly a underlying current of tension - the first night leg had challenged both our sailors, as well as the ground crew.  We on the ground sat in the dark, watching the finish flags broadcast the shifts, springing to our feet at the first sight of each sail.  Nigel and Alex had promised to turn on a strobe as they came to the beach, but all the other teams had apparently discussed the same idea - as it happened, Nigel came into the beach yelling, "DanDanDanDan!!!"

At this evening's start, Nigel and Alex were calm and collected - we dressed our knights for battle as two local TV stations fed live shots to the evening news.  Mike Worrell had postponed the start to 6:19 PM for the benefit of the viewing public.  Mike again gave us a two-tiered start, and we were fortunate to be in the first tier.  The wind was oblique to the shoreline, and we planned a port tack off the beach, perpendicular to the beach and the breaking waves.  The surf had dropped to a seemingly tiny two feet after days of head-high breakers - Dan gave them a terrific push and they were off.

We made the dash north to Myrtle Beach and found chaos when we arrived - not only was the parking lot from last year occupied by high-rise construction, we were surrounded by motorcycles visiting for Bike Week.  Parking became a tremendous hassle, but we finally chiseled out enough space for the motorhome and trailers.  We then set up camp on the beach for the long wait for morning - the wind had dropped significantly, and our team was ghosting along in as little as four knots of gentle breeze.  This regatta, as usual, has a little of every sailing condition.

As the sky lightened, we received a report that our team was nearing the finish - slowly, out of the pre-dawn gloom, two sails emerged.  In first was Rod Waterhouse of Guidant, but Tommy Bahama was right behind him and moving well, even though the breeze had again shifted.  We crossed the line in second by only a few moments, and well ahead of the next finisher, Sail for Sight.  Alexander's arrived fourth, and Key Sailing arrived fifth.  The night was dominated by Florida sailors - Alex, Brian and Kirk in the top five.

Everyone is tired but happy - the night legs are behind us, we've moved into third place overall, we have a great starting position for tomorrow, and tonight to celebrate and spend some time with friends.

More after tomorrow's start -

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