Hi Everyone -

The skipper's meeting this morning brought no surprises, but one disappointment - we drew the 18th starting position.  One of the disadvantages to being so far back in the alphabet!  For the rest of the event, we'll start in the overall position we finish for each leg - in the meantime, the boys had quite a fight getting off the beach and into clear air at today's start.

The surf was fairly chopped up in the late afternoon - the RC had postponed the start of the race until 4 PM to avoid running the fleet into the middle of the Air and Sea show in Fort Lauderdale.  Dan Timonere gave the team a pretty good start, but the fleet below the team seemed to get a little sideways in the surf, and there were a couple of breathless moments as boats passed very near each other.  Soon, though, our guys had footed out of traffic, gotten out on the wire, and started beating to weather on the 22-mile trip to the next checkpoint.

The first beach landing for the fleet was both exciting and tragic - the wind was gusting to 26, and the RC gave the fleet a fairly narrow line.  Sandra Tartaglino, sailing for Team Guidant, broke a leg on the beach approach  - she was taken to the hospital and has required surgery.  It was horrible to watch.  A couple of other teams experienced minor injuries in the landing including a broken ankle. 

Our boys made a dramatic finish, hitting the beach in 8th at full-speed through the finish line, running up a good 15 yards onto the beach.  The Tommy Bahama Sailing Team passed 10 boats on the way north - this gives us a much better starting position for tomorrow.

The boat held up beautifully - no equipment failures or breakage.  Cross you fingers for another good day tomorrow!