Worrell 1000 catamaran near completion … but not without a twist
With this year’s Worrell 1000 catamaran sailboat event from Florida to Virginia Beach is basically over, Team Rudee’s is proving you can still teach and old dog a new trick. As of 10:30 Wednesday, Team Australia 1 had won every leg and had a lead of right around four hours over our Team Rudee’s. But
With this year’s Worrell 1000 catamaran sailboat event from Florida to Virginia Beach is basically over, Team Rudee’s is proving you can still teach and old dog a new trick.
As of 10:30 Wednesday, Team Australia 1 had won every leg and had a lead of right around four hours over our Team Rudee’s.
But that doesn’t mean one of the masters of dual-hull sailing at the helm of the local boat isn’t going to do something unique.
Race officials told Team Rudee’s manager Mike Eason that a trip up the Intracoastal Waterway had never been done during the competition.
But it was legal.
So in mild breezes for today’s early start at Atlantic Beach, N.C., Capt. Randy Smyth and mate Dalton Tebo took a hard left and went into the flatter surface waters behind North Carolina’s coastal islands and headed north to Ocracoke.
They’ll have to cut back into the Atlantic to legally finish the leg on the Ocracoke sands, they will have done something no other team apparently has ever done.
The event – billed as the 50th anniversary celebrating “The Spark that Lit the Flame” despite only being held about half as many times – concludes Saturday on its home beach.
In the committee’s favor, 2024 is 50 years departed from the 1974 founding by Worrell Brothers owners Chris and Michael Worrell.
Eason didn’t know what to think when Smyth told him he was going “inside.”
“I don’t think it’s ever been done,” Eason said. “Randy said this way was six miles shorter.
“You don’t tell a world champion what to do.”
One of the two Australian teams – Eason wasn’t sure as he waited to depart a North Carolina ferry at Ocracoke.
“Pretty sure its Australia 1,” Eason said. “We’ve got absolutely nothing to loose.”
Rudee’s finished second to Team Australia in the last Worrell two years ago.
The team currently sits in fourth place, an hour and 18 seconds behind Team Australia 2 and an hour and 44 minutes behind second-place Cirrus/MM Sailing.
Smyth already is one of the top catamaran sailors in the world with a resume pages long, but he’s looking to add a new item today on a quick run up the coast.
In the Intracoastal Waterway.
