The Skinny from Poison Girl at the 2011 GT300
Michael Niggli
No overblown reports… no dramatizations. I’m just tellin’ it like it was for Poison Girl at the 2011 GT300. Originally, thinking I would do this race one time to say that I did it, but I ended up doing it three times. Needless to say, it’s addicting. The camaraderie, the sailing, the freedom – it’s pretty much what cat sailing is all about. But after my third trip up the Texas coast (in 2010) I had informally retired from the GT300. Then my dad sent me an email saying he wanted to do the race with me that he had heard so much about. Time to make the hotel reservations. My dad and I raced in Hobie Fleet 4 in San Diego when I was a youngster. He bought a Hobie 16 and I was his crew; we raced when I was somewhere between 11 to 14 years of age. This is circa 1982 when Hobie fleets in California were poppin’ off. There was a Hobie 16 A, B, C, and Novice fleet with no fewer than 20 boats per fleet. A lot of time has passed since then. He is now 61 and I’m 42. He’s now on a Beneteau 36 and I’m on a Nacra Inter-20. But I must say that, in his defense, he had just completed a half marathon and was working out his arms. Fast forward… June 15, 2011. Wind reports said it was blowing somewhere around 18 at 10 in the morning in South Padre Island at the start of the GT300. Aside from the fact that we drew the last position on the beach for the Le Mans start, I couldn’t find the clew strap for the main sail. As it turns out, I had stashed it on the boat the night before so it would be easy to find the next morning. So much for that strategy. Shelley, our fabulous road crew, found it in the tramp bag as I was befuddled about its location. I could place blame on none other than myself for the mishap. The other boats zoomed off the beach and we were already 15 minutes behind them by the time we shoved off. It truly hurt to see everyone gain such an advantage on us at the onset of the race, but I knew that with these winds anything could and would happen… We shot out of the surf quickly thanks to Tim, our beach pusher and road crew’s better half (:}). After the somewhat disoriented start, I took a brief reach out of the surf and squared up to the wind to make sure my dad was ready with his lines; after all, we weren’t in the heart of battle with everyone already miles ahead of us. On top of that, this was only his second sail on an Inter-20 (with all due respect, this ain’t no Hobie 16) and I noticed right away that the waves outside the surf line were actually quite larger than what was happening within the surf line. It was going to be a wild ride. Dad said he was good to go, so I turned it down wind and he popped the chute. Along the way we saw one of the new Nacra Carbon-20’s heading in the other direction. We would later learn that they had hit something that split one of their curved daggerboards and they were taking on water. We stuffed hard one time and dad took a shot to his right-side torso with the windward daggerboard. I think most of my 240 pounds upon his other side didn’t mitigate the situation. Other than that everything was looking good as we crested wave after wave and – according to the GPS – covered 40 miles in two hours. We could see a few masts on the horizon and were gaining on the fleet. Then the inevitable happened. A puff no smaller than 30 hit us and, with the chute up, I felt forced to turn it a tad down wind to help the spin lift the bow. This is certainly a debatable strategy because my dad was trying to not blow the spin unless totally necessary, but just at that same moment a sizable wave lifted the aft, briefly pirouetting the boat upon the most forward point of her leeward bow. It was poetry in motion and I was wondering if the Sailing Anarchy helicopter was catching all the action. Dad was slammed straight down into the main close to the mast, tearing it out of the track while I was acting the part of a cliffhanger who could only do his best to scale down the back side of a 900 mountainside. When I came up I found dad was pinned against the twisted rudder system by a strong current. I was able to get on the downed hull and pull in the spin while he slowly worked his way back to the daggerboard. By the time we had righted and boarded the boat he expressed his fatigue. It was certainly a rough flip, and he had a hard time fighting the current from his position to get back on the boat – but we still had a long way to go. The main sail was out of the track no less than a third of the way up the mast and I was concerned that, as the winds were building to 20+, the whole thing was going to tear out and we would be without a main. Up to this point we hadn’t tacked once. We were running the rhumb line to Mustang Island and were quite a ways off shore. I made the call that we would sail without the spinnaker for now and take it easy because “taking it easy” meant, according to the GPS, we were still moving on an average of 14 mph. The waves were getting bigger. It was hard to tell just how big they were, but dad seemed a little fatigued at this point so I was trying to work the waves and wind so as to create a smooth yet quick ride. But every few minutes I would look up and be sorely reminded that the main sail was inching out of the track. Time to cool it down… yet the conditions were heating up. I looked down at my Foretrex 401 that was attached to my left wrist and noticed the compass direction was totally out of whack. I guess it happened in the flip. I tried repeatedly to right it, but with the waves and all I couldn’t get it straight. Not much longer after that did my dad’s hand held GPS fail him, too, and we were without electronic direction. Later at the beach I would learn that several sailors had difficulties with their equipment. Perhaps the weather was contributing to it, but I’m not sure… Without GPS and far enough offshore to where we couldn’t see land, we sailed by shadow and sunlight. It was at this time that privately I thought to myself that I was happy I had experience in this race because I felt relatively sure of where we were despite the lack of GPS. This is only because I followed the shadows of the sails and looked at the clock on my GPS, which was still working. About two hours later my dad’s GPS was regaining flickering connections. It was also at this time that I felt we needed to jibe inland. If I may make an understatement, I would like to say that at this time in the leg the waves were huge. I would later learn that they were averaging 7-8 feet and peaking at 10 feet. When I found a “flat” spot in the waves, we jibed and took off like a rocket on a port tack. I felt like we were on the right course for Mustang Island – and my dad’s GPS was starting to get better reception. In fact, his GPS was indicating that we were east of the rhumb line. We had at least 30 miles to go on this tack. The waves were now absolutely crashing down upon us from behind and the wind was relentless. Dad was trying to run the main while I steered and worked the main traveler, but it was futile. Our point of sail was so hot that the main was completely out, the traveler was hanging in my pinky (just to make me feel better), and the GPS said we were pushing 20 mph. Heading downwind with the big winds and the giant waves, it was dangerous to bring in the main to try and depower; an accidental jibe was a high and rather gruesome possibility. We caught up to what was easily an eight foot wave, came over the top of it, and raced down its front side. It happened again, and dad now had his legs half buried under the tramp straps and I kept my left hand wrapped tightly around a tramp strap and my right on the tiller. Ocean rodeo? You bet. It’s the closest to being a bull rider that I’ll ever experience. We dove down another eight foot face and stuffed it hard. I mean hard. I’ll put money on it that it was a 10-foot face. The boat went vertical. Dad flew forward and I lost sight of him. My legs slid forward with my torso not far behind, but I was able to grab onto the rear crossbeam with my right hand and find the tiller with my left. My feet lost touch with the trampoline; they were now dangling. I pushed the tiller away from me, turning the boat up just enough to where it pulled out of the stuff. As I lay horizontal on the tramp and facing backwards I tried to turn it downwind again with my left hand so we wouldn’t flip. I was still barely hanging on to the rear crossbeam with my right. Another wave picked us up from behind and crashed down upon us. We were totally out of control. I scrambled to the back of the boat and dad did the same. I’m not sure what happened to him in that incident – and he doesn’t quite recall, either – but we were once again upright and that’s all that mattered at that point. He buckled under the tramp straps again and, with main sail and traveler released and completely out, we raced downwind with speeds between 17 and 21 mph. At this point I was thinking that it was a shame we got so far off course because of GPS failure. With speeds like this we could’ve been right in the middle of the pack. It was for this last 30 miles of the leg that I became a better sailor. When the winds would push us to the top of the wave in front of us and then over the top, I would gently turn the boat up and we would surf down the face of the wave at a 300 angle and get tubed like a surfer. Then I’d straighten her out and we would do it all again. It was this repeated motion of riding up the backside of the wave in front of us, popping over the top of it, then surfing down its face at an angle that we did for another 25 miles. I’m not saying it ever got easier – and some of those waves were downright freaky – but it was damn fun, too. I recognized some oil rigs on the horizon and knew we were almost there. Then we saw a greenish spinnaker and figured that, whoever it was, they probably knew where they were going. It turned out to be Bo Kersey and Luke. We’d later learn that Luke had separated his shoulder a few miles back. Their main was down and it looked like they were sailing under spinnaker alone. I didn’t have time to see if their jib was up because we were having our own issues. We tacked and followed them. We eventually made it to the beach, but we overshot the finish line by about a hundred yards. I didn’t want to risk jibing in the big surf and wind after such a run. Part of our road crew, Tim, rushed over to help me pull the boat up into the wind and across the finish line. I was calling out to my dad, who was down the beach behind us, to help. It was then that I realized just how beat up he was… All night dad experienced leg cramps and was unable to race leg two. We packed up the boat and drove to the next destination. With brutal cuts and slashes on his ankles and shins, I was concerned about my dad’s ability to continue. Additionally, he seemed a little dazed after day one. But he said he was ready to give it a shot on day three, so we prepared for a launch off of Matagorda. Day two saw, from what I recall, only four boats finish the leg. The weather hadn’t settled down. We pushed off from Matagorda on day three and dad was briefly separated from the boat, but he caught up to it and jumped on. He found his way to his proper position at the front crossbeam as we took on two big waves, but they killed our momentum just enough to end our GT300. As I worked the main and tiller to try and steer the boat into some power, I looked up and saw a wave come up over the spinnaker pole and lift the bows. The wave promptly lifted the boat, turned it port, and dropped it on its side with the mast in the mud. I was catapulted into the main close to the mast, once again tearing it out of the track. Dad was literally hung up on something (I have some rather interesting pictures that show his stunt) at the base of the mast before he broke free. The mast took a hard stuff into the mud but somehow survived. We only suffered a few broken battens and some minor bodily injury. During this same leg another boat snapped a mast while others washed up on the beach for various reasons. I guess I felt at this point that maybe Poison Girl should take her minimal wounds and get out of this thing before anything too major happens. You might see my dad on one of the interviews that are on the GT300 website. It was the “injured guys interview” at Collin Casey’s beach in Surfside. If you zoom in on his legs you’ll see how tore up they are. Red up and down, with huge gouges in his ankles from the tramp straps. His hands were blistered up. He is mostly recovered from these injuries, but he also suffered a perforated ear drum somewhere along the way (maybe from leg one; maybe from the flip in the surf) and the doctor is saying he has moderate to severe hearing loss in that ear. Only time will tell if it heals. In the meantime, well, sailing must go on. There have been times in the past when the Great Texas was a lollipop ride, but this year was a monster. The 2008 GT300 saw boats break masts in the surf and one team get stranded on an island with wild boar, and the 2010 GT300 even saw two teams require coast guard rescues. Yet 2011 was all that and some… They say winds reached 25 with gusts into the 30's. They say waves sometimes reached 10 feet. Yet it can be done on a beach catamaran. See ya on the water. Michael Niggli, Team Poison Girl |
Mike Beuerlein
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Great Texas" group.
To post to this group, send email to great...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to great-texas...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/great-texas?hl=en.
Mike Rohrer
--
Mike Rohrer
Lee Wicklund
Bo Kersey
Those straps can really take the skin off of your legs in the waves. I remember blistering my ankles a couple of years ago.
I'm still amazed that we didn't lose any boats...
From: "Michael Niggli" <mnig...@yahoo.com>
To: great...@googlegroups.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Great Texas" group.
To post to this group, send email to great...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to great-texas...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/great-texas?hl=en.
--
Bo Kersey
VirCIO - managed network solutions
4314 Avenue C
Austin, TX 78751
phone: (512)374-0500
Mike Rohrer
david krantz
Bo Kersey
Actually, it must have been difficult for David... I mean he had to take care of Lee the whole time!
Cheers!
Bo
Mike Rohrer
great story...hope your Dad has recovered.....every once in a while at age 71, I get the urge to join my son(Mike krantz) in one of these races but your story has put those urges to rest, probably permanently...p.s. I'm pretty sure that was Mike and David in the nacra 20 limping back in the first day....
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Great Texas" group.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/great-texas/-/ONTKxZEjuScJ.
Marcia Rohrer
So hear you, sorry never have the urge to join my son, Mike Rohrer, can only say the more I read the more respect I have for what he goes through.
I was honored to be on the shore to greet him. Tough year, tough race, I remember last ride on the boat at South Padre and I said never again, watching is my speed now. Just have so much respect for all those that push themselves to the limit. Thankful no lives or boats lost. I am happy to live vicariously though you all.
Marcia Rohrer
--
Kimberly Deckard
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Great Texas" group.