MKL Race Results April 21 2018

[Bill Roberts]

The race starts just south Rickenbacker Causeway in Miami and runs for 40 miles+ south to the mouth of Jew Fish Creek The course is generally south, 195 degrees, except for a 10 mile stretch where it bears SW at about 225 degrees for roughly 10 miles. and then the course comes back to 190 degrees for the last 5 miles to the finish line. The race is sponsored by the Miami Yacht Club.
The start is 8:00 AM Saturday morning, April 21. At the YC where many boats were rigging up, there was much talk about the two foil boats in the race. One was a foiling NACRA 20 carbon with foils and the other was an Exploder foiling A class catamaran. The wind forecast for the race was from the east at 7 to 9 mph. The A Cat sailor said "no problem", he can foil in 6 mph breeze.
Team Roberts on the RC 30 sailed with a standard main sail and jib and small Genoa, mid spin pole to main beam. At the gun they headed south right down the race course at full speed. Full speed was 13 to 14 mph with occasional spurts to 15 mph with three persons sitting on the windward hull. Within a couple of minutes after the start RC 30 out front and pulling away. With speeds like these, the race was going to take about 3 hours to complete for the RC 30.
Observing the race from the Card Sound Bridge, 35 miles into the race, the RC 30 was first boat through the bridge. Looking back up the Bay as far as one could see, at least 7 miles, there was not another boat in sight, no boats, not a power boat, nothing. The RC 30 sailed on to Jew Fish Creek at the finish 5 miles away and returned 5 miles to the Card Sound Bridge where they met the second boat in the race, the foiling Nacra 20 carbon and it was foiling. Team RC 30 sailed back up the race course and returned to the Miami Yacht Club where trailer and van and road crew were waiting.
As Team Roberts was sailing back to the MYC, they met the lead monohulls and the 'Exploder' A Cat at about mid race length, 20 miles into the race.
As it turned out the foiling boats were sailing, foiling, back and forth across the course, sort of southeast and southwest to stay up on the foils so they said, but they were not making much distance down the course.
The ETs for the race are kept by the MYC and not revealed until the trophy party in two weeks. The RC30's ET was just under three hours, something like 2 hours and 50 minutes.
A little more: Things didn't go perfect for the RC30. About 10 miles from the finish the crew noticed the Genoa was splitting a seam at the luff about 3 ft up from the tack. Immediately the halyard was eased to reduce the vertical load in the sail. The old seam did not split any further but the luff sure did sag off to leeward and the speedo dropped 1 to 2 mph. The sail was a 10 year old Kevlar sail and had exceeded its useful life.