EC2014: Day 1 After Dark

I got a call from Harry (JibeTurkey) at 4:58pm concurrent with an OK message from his SPOT transmitter. He'd stopped to lower his mast to go under a bridge near Venice. While he was getting his paddle out they raised the drawbridge.

He stopped earlier to reef his sail and deal with the loss of his stern light and his friend Bryan (AhMaChamee) got far ahead of him. As for the loss of the stern light and the strobe light on his PFD, Harry has a light on the top of his mast and a hand held flashlight and his head lamp. He's just going to turn the head lamp around backwards and let that be his stern light. He thinks he'll have enough ambient light to see what he's doing. Those of us with blue eyes are pretty good at seeing in low light, so he's got that going for him.

I haven't been able to see any tracking on the WaterTribe Challenge Tracker Map since early this morning. It got overloaded with traffic and nobody could see anything. According to the forums some people can get it to show results of individual classes, but I get no joy.

At 8pm 17 people have already arrived at the first check point, even kayakers. (I can get the results page to work) Shows that slow and steady wins the race over sailors who stop to rig up strings from their rudder to their feet so they can steer and paddle at the same time, which Harry did earlier today. I bet the paddlers are more tired though. (There is not enough Advil for me.) Harry is Class 3, Sailing Kayaks and Canoes. There are eight in that group, five single males, one single female, and two double mixed. Three of them reached check point one before 15 hours into the challenge, Sawhorse, WindwardMark and Leeward Lauren, and Yakmandu. The other six are still on their way, including Jibe Turkey.

I don't even see JibeTurkey on the list though. I think the automatic reporting is just imprecise though as the full list of challengers is missing the people that got there first. According to the forums SewSew (Randy Smyth) was reported in at 2:25 pm, Class 5 Single male. (21' solo trimaran, home built for the comfort of getting to Key Largo quickly) Mosquito got there an hour and twenty minutes later at 3:45pm, Class 5 double male. I think they mean SOS (Alan Stewart) and Pop Tarp (John Kohl) in their 22' Mosquito Trimaran. Tortured plywood construction. Wet, cold, fast. (from the Roster)

Here's JibeTurkey's tracker map as of 8:00pm. I am not sure where the first check point is since I can't get the map to work. I think it may be near Stump Pass at the bottom of this map.

The weather at Venice is reported as clear skies. Tonight's low will be around 55°F (13°C) at 6 am. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Humidity is low so there will likely not be any dewfall. Sunrise is 6:52 am. 

Sunday is forecast to be sunny with a high of 77°F (17°C). The wind will shift around to a shore breeze from the East in the morning then swing around to a sea breeze from the West in the afternoon.

EC 2014: First Look

I got some pictures in email from Harry's phone.

It looks early.

Yes, very early.

This beautiful red backlit sail reminds me that Harry can't see the color red. I ran this photo through the Vischeck simulator to illustrate how it looks to somebody with protanopia like Harry. In his eyes his jacket is not that different from the red sail. The sail is just darker. Bryan's yellow boat and the red boat on the other side are very similar, not a stark contrast as it is for color-sighted people.

But that blue bag on the deck of his boat is the same. So if you want to make something stand out for Harry's field of view, make it blue, not red or yellow.

Cruising along

EC2014: Just drifting along with the kayakers

I just got a phone call from Harry (JibeTurkey). He said Bryan (AhMaChamee) wasn't really stuck in a time loop in the parking lot, he might have forgotten to turn on his SPOT tracker. There was such a favorable wind across Tampa Bay Harry got a lot farther ahead of him. When he called me he was drifting along in about 14" of clear water. The wind dropped off in the lee of Anna Maria Island, but he was keeping up with the kayakers that he passed in the bay with a slack sail waiting for Bryan to catch up. He said he'd tell him to turn on his SPOT tracker.

Harry reports, predictably, that he's not really packed up right even though he stayed up until 1:00 am trying to get organized. He got up again at 4:30 to start getting ready but he said he still didn't get off the beach until long after the start time. He says his boat isn't any slower loaded down with stuff, though. In fact he thinks it handles even better. Hurray for ballast.

He is wearing his SPOT transmitter on one shoulder strap of his personal flotation device and Personal Locator Beacon on the other shoulder strap with a little strobe light on the back. He said when he leaned back there was a thing that really pushed against the back of the seat. As he headed across the bay he heard a snap and a *PLOP* over his shoulder into the water.

"Oh shit!" he thought. "Something popped off my PFD and fell into the bay! My SPOT beacon is disappearing behind me! What will I do! I can't keep going without a SPOT! Where will I get another one?" 

But it was just that little $11 strobe light on the back. And now the seat is more comfortable. He has a spare light if he needs it. 

He says that in light wind his boat is a lot faster than the Hobie Adventure Islands because he has a big sail for the size and efficient sail set. The AI doesn't have a boom at all, plus it has high surface area and paddles stick down underneath. When Bryan catches up he will have to stay in the channel. I asked how far the paddles stick under Bryan's boat. Harry guesses about 16" down and the hull probably draws 5 or 6 inches. I gather there is hardly any freeboard.

Bryan's boat weighs 115 lbs fully outfitted. (According to the Hobie website.) Harry doesn't know how much his weighs, but a lot less than that. In rough water and high wind the Adventure Island is stable where Harry's boat would tip over. That's why he was cautious and didn't head out into the Gulf.

If the wind really drops off and he has to paddle he will rig up some string from the rudder to his feet so he can steer while he paddles with a double ended paddle.

Position 15 9:58 am 1 March 2014

EC2014: Ready for start Saturday morning

Here's the Sunshine Skyway bridge over Tampa Bay as Harry drives with his boat on the roof of his car. He says his car doesn't drive any different with the boat up there. I used to believe mine improved the aerodynamics of my station wagon and made me get better gas mileage. At the very least it made a much more interesting shadow on the side of the road when the sun was low. 

Here's Harry (JibeTurkey) and Bryan Tindell (AhMaChamee) on the beach with their boats. If Bryan and Harry are at the portage at the same time they are allowed to help each other carry their boats, but nobody outside the WaterTribe is allowed to help them.

Here are their two boats. Harry's bufflehead with the red sail, and Bryan's Hobie Adventure Island. 

At 7:00 am tomorrow morning they will launch their boats by themselves, get in and sail away! If it's windy anyway. If it isn't they will paddle. Bryan's boat has pedals for paddling. Harry will just paddle like a canoe I suppose.

Everglades Challenge 2014 from the comfort of my home

Harry is almost as tall as a Leatherback turtle.
I wonder if a Leatherback could swim from St. Petersburg
to Key Largo faster than Harry can sail there in his bufflehead?

A few weeks after Harry called me to make up a nickname for the Everglades Challenge he sent me an email intimating that he might like me to be his shore contact. I went to the WaterTribe website and read up on the duties of the shore contact. It looked like they get automated emails from a GPS tracking device and not much else. Yes, I'd be great for that. I maintain zero inbox at all times. No email gets by me! I also noticed that the event was just a week away.

The WaterTribe website refers to SPOT and PLB a lot but never says what they are. I found this video on YouTube that explained it more than thoroughly. It's very long, but if you are curious it's interesting. I will sum up. Harry will be carrying a SPOT device, which I gather is just a brand name, that uses GPS satellites to see where he is all the time, but the way the device transmits the location back to the computer relies on orbiting satellites that may not be in range at the time. Messages could take a while. The other device is a Personal Locator Beacon that works off geosynchronous satellites that are always there, but much much higher up. But the message is immediate and I assume goes straight to the Coast Guard. This video is from Canada so it doesn't really apply, but I'm guessing the one Harry is carrying has a similar system in place. It explains the relevant technical details.



To see where Harry is at any time you can look at his SPOT tracker page. When he camps for the night he pushes the OK button and it emails me and says he's stopping. If he pushes the HELP button it means he's giving up and quit the race. I will call some people down there that might be able to help him get his boat up on dry land and get back to his car. But otherwise I don't do much. If he's really in trouble he contacts the Coast Guard directly with his VHF radio or the emergency beacon. The point of the experience is that you are on your own and nobody is there to help you. You gotta handle your shit.

The fun way to look for Harry on a map is to use the map with everybody on there. You can see where he is relative to the other participants. I'm not calling them competitors since some of them are just trying to finish, not really racing. That's Harry's plan. He's just on an expedition.

You can't see him on this map because there's somebody else's icon smack dab on top of his. The trick with this is it uses the photo from the Rogues Gallery for the icon and there's nothing I can do about it. It turns out being the shore contact means I'm also the IT person for Harry on this website, and the person with the pictures to use. This is the photo I used for Harry in the Rogues Gallery, although I cropped it to vertical. The result is it puts a big red corner in the icon on the map. Use that to pick out JibeTurkey.

Here's Harry and the cedar strip plank bufflehead he built. Its name is N8R. Together they are JibeTurkey.

Here's an example of what it looks like when you find his icon and click on it. This is from when he set up the SPOT transmitter to be sure it would email me.

The icons are tiny and hard to recognize. JibeTurkey has a red top left corner.

All the competitors had to check in with their SPOT transmitters about a week ago. That means you can look at the map and see where everybody lives. All over the place! I assume there are so many in Florida for obvious logistical reasons.

Harry called me from the car this morning on the drive over to check in. He had to work late yesterday because his client was non-plussed to find out Harry was planning to wait until after the race to gather up all their files on the finished job. They wanted them before he left so they could look over everything while he was gone. It sounded like a hectic but typical day at a civil engineering office, one I remember well and don't miss. For those of us who enjoy being paperless where every document is backed up in multiple places and on a database everybody can access it is frustrating to have to print out reams of paper for old-fashioned people. They need to handle their shit.

But that is behind him for the next 9 days. He gets to focus on just this one thing, minimizing misery and achieving a goal. I was glad to hear he has a dry suit. That's going to make it kind of nice I think. I hope he gets through the unpleasantness of Sarasota Bay and the environs polluted with power boats without giving up. It sounds like getting to the wilderness of the Everglades is the good part. He said he would send me pictures from his phone if he can, so I will continue to update my blog as I get news.

Also be sure to ask questions in the comments. If he's already told me the answer I'll pass it on or I can ask him if he calls me. I'm not expecting to hear from him every day. In fact I'm expecting damp salt air to destroy his phone within a few days. I have studied this. Corrosion runs up under the solder mask and the traces corrode into open circuits. I tested a power supply board with large traces. I should think the fine pitch stuff in a cell phone would be even more vulnerable. I suggested he keep his phone in a bag with some Closet Dry desiccant, but I doubt he had time to go buy some. But I'm a pessimist that way.  Maybe Samsung conformal coats their printed circuit boards and I just don't know about it. The Garmin GPS he is using for navigation is waterproof and floats. That's the important thing.