2002 RACE RESULTS

Round The Island - Big Mouth Regatta - MUG Race - Miami-Key Largo Race

2002 Round the Island Race

The 2002 Round Island Race was held on Saturday September 28th. 2002, less then 48 hours after Tropical Storm Isidore blew through the Gulf coast. The race is a 110 mile sprint around Santa Rosa Island on the Florida Gulf Coast. With a total of 50 catamarans starting at Ft. Walton Beach Florida, just over 3/4 of the fleet finished the race.
The starting format used for this years start was the same as last year with a "reversed handicap" or "delayed start" for the faster boats.  This year there was four separate starts based on boat class.  The first fleet started at 7:00 am with all non-Spinnaker boats who's handicap was .670 and above.  The second fleet started at 7:30 am with the remaining non-spinnaker boats. At 8:00 am all spinnaker boats under 20' started followed by all spinnaker boats over 20' starting at 8:30 am. 

After starting, the competitors head south through the channel at Destin and into the Gulf of Mexico. Upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico and rounding the Whistle Buoy the fleet headed west for Ft. Pickens, 55 miles down the Florida coast. Around 10:00 am the wind slowly clocked around to the southwest, never completely dying, but hardly building to anything more then 5-8 MPH..
At Ft. Pickens, the half way point in the race, the lead boats included ARC-22's , RC-27's and a RC-30. After passing Ft. Pickens the remainder of the race is a 50 mile run up the Intercoastal Waterway, a challenge of narrow channels, shallow water and three bridges. Although because of the storm surge on the previous days, shallow water did not play the role it had in previous years. The first competitors finished around 10:30pm, making it look much like the 2001 race. The top 5 places in the 2002 race were dominated by three boats, the ARC-22 , RC-27 and RC-30.

Congratulations are in order for the team of Tierney and Brew on their RC-27 for placing in the top 5 during their first major race on the RC-27.  We would also like to recognize Craig Jennings and Gary Knowles for finishing in 17:02:08 on their ARC-22 without a Spinnaker! 

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2002 Big Mouth Regatta

More Details on this Regatta to come soon.

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2002 MUG Race

The MUG is a 38 mile distance race from Palatka to Jacksonville Florida on the St. John's River hosted by the Rudder Club of Jacksonville. The 2002 MUG Race was held on Saturday May 4th. with a fleet of over 50 multihulls.  For the 3rd year in a row, this years MUG Race utilized a reverse handicap start and awarded the coveted MUG Cup to the first boat to cross the finish line.  Along with setting the lowest elapsed time during the 2002 MUG race on their RC-30  Bill Roberts and his son Eric were the first boat across the finish line and recaptured the coveted MUG Cup for the 14th time. Following in a close second, Robert Lyman sailed his RC-27  across the finish line on the heels of Roberts.

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2002 Miami-Key Largo Race

The Miami-Key Largo is a 42 Mile distance race hosted annually by the Miami Yacht Club. The 2002 race was host to 63 beach cats. Although wind conditions were ideal, no one was able to challenge the 13 year old record of 1 hour 45 minutes set by Bill Roberts on his RC-27 in 1989.

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