Tybee 500 Coverage from Gale's Shore Crew

Latest Tybee 500 News - Saturday, May 10, 2003 - Day 1

Preparation

Gale was the first of Team Antieau Art to step foot on Florida's hot sands. She arrived by plane on Friday, managing to finagle a rare day to decompress and catch up after a sleep-deprived week. She'd crammed a few weeks of her "other life" into the past few days, and still reeling from last weekend's Delaware State Hobie Cat Championships, spent Thursday night finishing reports and paying bills. Friday's lull was welcome knowing that she'd soon "be full-out" again.

Carl was next to find the Keys late Friday night after a long and lonely drive from Michigan, the Inter 20 his only companion. The following morning, Antieau Art's shore crew (Bill, David, and I) met up with Gale at the Miami Airport where she returned her rental car. On the two-hour drive down to the Keys, we got the highlights of her rites of passage this spring: racing catamarans, hiking out, and getting used to her Jav 2, which she won't be racing this week after all. She said she "did a lot of righting." Naturally, the writer inside me thought she said "writing" until I realized… oohhh, that "righting." Right. Gotcha.

Once our foursome arrived at the Islander on Islamorada, there was Carl, all smiles in the hot breeze. The I-20 on its trailer was backed up against bottle green waters, sandwiched between Key Sailing and Team Chesapeake. David and Bill didn't waste a single minute after greetings and immediately began swarming over the boat like flies on honey.

It's funny. I don't recall anything being said about what needed to get done, but one task after another did: mast up and rigged to race in no time, all pins checked and taped, all lines threaded, knotted, "melted", taped. Race logos appeared like magic on the team's two vehicles, replacing those no-go Worrell stickers, and Chuck Bargeron arrived at our temporary staging site at The Islander to efficiently splash the I-20's naked hulls with colorful race logos. David made a shopping list of all of Carl's and Gale's nourishment preferences for each leg, both for underway and after coming ashore. Then while David repaired the beach wheels with layers of fiberglass in a rare shady spot beneath some palms, with Jimmy Buffett urging him on from speakers in the background next to the race organizers van, we added official race badges to our now-sweaty garb.

By late afternoon, it felt good to retreat to the spacious coolness of our two rooms at La Siesta Resort. Spacious enough to spread the sails on the floor and leisurely arrange and apply sponsor logos. And still with plenty of time to attend the kick-off dinner for all the teams tonite. Whew. The team is in high gear and life is good. Tomorrow: sailing and fine-tuning the rig…

--Diana Prentice

Next