6 days to the Everglades Challenge

Only 6 days to the start of the Everglades Challenge.


I spent today reviewing my gear and trying to get comfortable with the dry suit. I will have to spend the next few days actually sailing with the dry suit on to see how well it will keep me warm. Based on the past few months we can count on some rather cool temps as we traverse the west coast of Florida. The subtropical jet stream is delivering a cold front just about every 3 days which is good for providing good windsurfing conditions, but it keeps the water and air temps too low for this southern boy's thin blood. I remember back in March of 1993 when we were in a El Nino weather pattern we had a huge front move through that produced winds over 100mph and was called the storm of the century. I would not be surprised to see some great winds for the Everglades Challenge this year, though not that good.

I spoke with Steve at Aerotech sails about the alterations we are having made and the sail is done and I should have it by Monday. We put in two zipper panels in the upper panels to allow me to reduce sail size while still on the water. I also have rigged up a adjustable down haul and out haul that will also allow me to reduce sail size as well. I will put some photos up as soon as I can.

Chris, Ian and John thanks for your suggestions and support. Wish you guys were coming along on this trip; it would be cool to have some other windsurfers to team up with.

Trey

Only 7 days left to train- dry suit came today

Only 7 days until the start of the Everglades Challenge, an expedition style small boat race down the west coast of Florida. The race starts at Ft. Desoto near the mouth of Tampa Bay and ends about 300 miles south at Key Largo. I will be the only one to enter the race on a windsurfer, the Expedition Windsurfer®. You can follow the action in real time by logging onto the www.watertribe.com web site, and clicking the link "map" that corresponds to the Everglades Challenge. My tribal name is WindWalker. Post a message to help keep me motivated, my shore team will relay the message to me as I check in.


The dry suit came in the mail today. One of requirements of the EC is that if you have a boat that is open you must wear a dry suit. I have never worn a dry suit in my life, like most windsurfers I have always used a wetsuit. So this will be a whole new experience for me.

I shopped around trying to find a reasonably priced suit but the costs were way out of my price range so I found a company that rents Kokatat brand dry suits, Kayak Academy out in Issaquah Washington, USA. I let them know what I was doing and they worked with me to get the right suit for my needs. One of the sales reps, Barb, went out of her way to answer all my novice type questions and was very patient even when I asked the same questions numerous times. I got the suit today in plenty of time to get used to it and make any adjustments if needed. If you are thinking of purchasing a dry suit I strongly recommend you talk to the guys at Kayak Academy before you make your purchase. They sell and rent new and used dry suits and if you rent before you buy, they allow you to apply up to $150.00 towards your purchase. Check the out here; http://www.kayakacademy.com/pages/store/dsoptions.html

Only 7 days to the start of the EC. I am getting nervous.

Training sail at Bishop Harbor-Just 10 days to the Everglades Challenge

Only 10 days until the start of the Everglades Challenge, an expedition style small boat race down the west coast of Florida. The race starts at Ft. Desoto near the mouth of Tampa Bay and ends about 300 miles south at Key Largo. I will be the only one to enter the race on a windsurfer, the Expedition Windsurfer®. You can follow the action in real time by logging onto the www.watertribe.com web site, and clicking the link "map" that corresponds to the Everglades Challenge. My tribal name is WindWalker. Post a message to help keep me motivated, my shore team will relay the message to me as I check in.

I was short on time so I decided to sail at Bishop Harbor on the east side of Tampa Bay rather than going all the way to Ft. Desoto. The winds were light out of the west northwest and as the day went on the sea fog began to move in from the Gulf. In one of the photos you can just barely see the Sunshine Skyway Bridge with a large freighter passing under it. Notice how clear the water is.

I sailed for about 3 hours and traveled just over 7.5 miles. It was a nice day on the water.

Fully packed paddle- just 11 days to the EC

Only 11 days until the start of the Everglades Challenge, an expedition style small boat race down the west coast of Florida. The race starts at Ft. Desoto near the mouth of Tampa Bay and ends about 300 miles south at Key Largo. I will the only one to enter the race on a windsurfer, the Expedition Windsurfer®. You can follow the action in real time by logging onto the www.watertribe.com web site, and clicking the link "map" that corresponds to the Everglades Challenge. My tribal name is WindWalker. Post a message to help keep me motivated, my shore team will relay the message to me as I check in.

Here are a couple of photos of the Expedition Windsurfer® packed with all the gear I will need for 6-8 days of camping…and then some. I have some adjustments to make before I am comfortable with the set up. I need to reduce weight (as usual I am over packed) and organize the windsurfing gear on the deck to improve paddling performance and comfort, all minor things at this point.

Tomorrow, no make that today, (I cant believe it is this late already) I will be at Ft Desoto to do some sailing and see how the board sails when it is fully packed. I will also par down some of the un-needed gear to lighten the load.

I heard from Gary in Dunedin who also built a board similar to the Expedition Windsurfer® back a few years ago. This is totally cool because when I started this project I thought I would be the only one who found the expedition style exciting and fun, but now I see I am not the only one. I hope to see a few more of us at the start of the Everglades Challenge next year. Or better yet we could just have some fun doing multi-day camping trips around Florida. Who knows!

Gear- to much or not enough? Only 12 days to the start

Only 12 days until the start of the Everglades Challenge, an expedition style small boat race down the west coast of Florida. The race starts at Ft. Desoto near the mouth of Tampa Bay and ends about 300 miles south at Key Largo. I will the only one to enter the race on a windsurfer, the Expedition Windsurfer®. You can follow the action in real time by logging onto the www.watertribe.com web site, and clicking the link "map" that corresponds to the Everglades Challenge. My tribal name is WindWalker. Post a message to help keep me motivated, my shore team will relay the message to me as I check in.




It's time to pull all the gear together and toss out what I don’t really need. Trying to keep the weight down and still get all the required safety gear, food and water is going to be tough. I can refill my water along the way and at the check points along the race rout. The only unknown in regards to the amount of water I will need to store on the board will be from Everglades City, checkpoint two, down to Flamingo. There are no stores along that part of the trip to restock if needed so I will need to be sure I have enough before leaving Everglades City.

The photo is of my gear that I would carry on a normal trip of a few days. I will need to go through it and eliminate some of the extra items to reduce weight and to improve the organization. When I am tired and have been on the water for a few days I don’t want to have to try to remember where I packed my tooth brush or which dry bag the tent is in. Sleep deprivation can make the simplest tasks seem like rocket science.

Hi Peggy thanks for the question about water- yes I have to carry water, but I will not be using a purification process on this trip.

Everglades Challenge- 13 days to start

With just 13 days to the start of the Everglades Challenge, a 300 mile expedition style small boat race down the west coast of Florida the days seem too short to get everything done. I will be the first contestant to attempt the race on a windsurfer, the Expedition Windsurfer®. Trying to get all the details put together and get in some training before time runs out is a challenge in itself. Everything seems to be coming together; I have all my gear and most of the food figured out and the board is good to go. All I need now is to get the sail back from the sail maker and get more on the water training done. I am getting very excited. This race has been one of those personal goals I set for myself six years ago and it looks like I will at least be at the starting line on March 6th.


One of the really cool things about this race is that you can follow all the action in real time by logging onto the web site at www.watertribe.com and clicking on the "map" link on the home page next to Everglades Challenge. My tribal name, the name I use for all the WaterTribe events is WindWalker. Follow the action and post a message, it will keep me motivated.

Trey,

aka: WindWalker

Night Paddle on the Peace

In trying to get in some training for the Everglades Challenge, I did a night paddle today.  I loaded the boat with my gear and headed up river for two hours. The temps are still too low for me, but I did manage to work up a sweat.  When I stopped for dinner I started getting pretty cold, so I started a nice little campfire.  I brewed up some coffee, ate some chili my wife made and started paddling again.  The river was beautiful.  Even without the moonlight I was able to paddle without the use of a light by following the reflection of the night sky on the water.  The shadows of the trees along the bank provide a dark contrast on the water enabling me to stay in the middle of the river just by observing the subtle changes in color between the two.  At times the Barred Owls would launch into a chorus of squawks and barks and yowls as if they were having a party.  The stars were out bright and the air was fresh and crisp.  It was truly much better than anything on the TV.

Training in the waves-sorry no photos:(

Saturday was a training day and test day. I sailed the Expedition Windsurfer® out Bunses Pass near Ft Desoto into the Gulf. At 12:30pm winds were out of the NW at 24kts gusting to 29kts. I sailed until a little after 4:00pm with my maximum boat speed of 17.4kts with an average boat speed of 6.6kts. I may have been able to get more speed out of the board if I had focused on that, but my main goal for the day was to see how the board would handle the waves.


As I sailed out into the Gulf, the seas were a mess. There was a SW swell from the day before and the strong NW winds were kicking up a new swell causing the mouth of the pass to be in a state of confusion. On the south side of the pass is a shallow sand bar that seemed to be the least chaotic. The sandbar blocked most of the new swell coming in from the northwest. I headed out on a WSW heading pushing through the small waves on the inside. The waves at this shallow point were tame and easily managed, as I sailed further out into the Gulf the swell became rather large and a bit foreboding. I sailed out to where the large southerly swell was breaking on the outside and decided that I did not want to push things too much since I was sailing alone. I jibed and came back into the pass on a beam reach, racing with the 2' waves and having a blast. The Expedition Windsurfer® handled the waves with ease. It would not be the board of choice for wave riding but I was able to demonstrate that it is possible to get in and out of a shore break of moderate size. More wave testing to come though.

I am pleased with the new dagger board gasket I installed. I used 5200 and it is holding better than the "super glue" I used the first time. The new material seems to be working as well; I did not get as much water blowing up into fin well as before. And it was considerably cheaper.

I had hoped to get some video but my camera stopped working on me. I hope to get some video this weekend.

I am sending the sail off for some alterations. I am having two zipper panels installed to meet the sail reduction rules for the Everglades Challenge.

Great Adventures,

Trey

Bottom of the EXPW2010

Here are a couple of images of the bottom of the Expedition Windsurfer®. It looks rough from use and I am replacing the fin well gasket. I'm trying to use a different gasket material and different glue. We will see if it works. I hope the photos aren’t too clear so you see all my flaws.

Although it is impossible to build a boat that will do everything and does it well, I think we have come pretty close.

Our goal was to design a board that we could use for long multi-day camping trips, similar to what you would find on a real expedition. To do this we wanted the board to paddle well in all conditions. We accomplished this by designing the bow with a V, similar to a kayak. We also gave it enough rocker to make it easier to turn. We also recognized that length would be important to paddling efficiency so we kept it in the 15'-16'range. An added feature that improves this boats performance over other sit-on-top kayaks is the dagger board. In a cross wind or when paddling the dagger board helps in tracking. To make it a good windsurfer we designed the tail section to be flat and giving the outline a proper shape was also important for shedding water. From the first prototype we discovered we needed more freeboard to keep the rider dryer and also enable the board to be packed with gear easier. We also found from using the first prototype that we needed a retractable fin to get the loaded board through the shallows and up onto the beach without getting into the water to remove the fin. So far I have been very pleased with the results.



I will be out on Tierra-Verde Saturday to hopefully get some video and some action in the waves.



Here is the National Weather Service forecast:



SATURDAY

NORTHWEST WINDS 15 TO 20 KNOTS. BAY AND INLAND WATERS

CHOPPY.



SATURDAY NIGHT

NORTH WINDS AROUND 15 KNOTS. BAY AND INLAND

WATERS CHOPPY.



SUNDAY

NORTH WINDS 10 TO 15 KNOTS. BAY AND INLAND WATERS A

MODERATE CHOP.



Great Adventures-Trey

I've been trying to get in as much training in as possible before the Everglades Challenge in March. The Everglades Challenge is a 300 mile expedition style race down the west coast of Florida. It will require both sailing and paddling. I will be the first person to enter on a windsurfer. Of course no one has ever entered any race on the Expedition Windsurfer®, this will be a first- I like firsts. Time and work responsibilities are keeping me from getting in as much training as I would like, so I do what I can. On Thursday I was able to get in a 6 mile paddle on the Peace River.

The water level is higher than normal for this time of year. With the El Nino weather pattern we are in, we are getting rain and wind with each front that passes by almost twice a week keeping the river up. If this pattern keeps up the Everglades Challenge will be a real test of endurance and fortitude.

Here are some nice photos of the Peace River in the middle of February, yea I know it's nice!