2006 Key West Rendezvous

Or

What Sailors Will Do For A Party


The Galleon Marina, Key West

The first Key West Rendezvous was held twenty-one years ago with a race from St Petersburg to Key West. It has now become a tradition. Over the years three more starting points have been added and now there are now four locations to start the race to Key West. The original from St Pete, Sarasota (this year was their first), Boca Grande, and Naples. Each race starting point is a separate and distinct race. They are staged so that in theory all the boats would arrive in Key West at approximately the same time. Thus the term Rendezvous.

Even my simple mind can figure out the secret to this race’s twenty-one year success; it’s Key West. Key West has bars, weird people, bars, sunsets, bars, restaurants, bars, fun things to do. Oh, yeah, did I mention they had bars? How could it fail?

Seven boats started from Boca Grande, and five were members of PGSC; Bahama Hunter, Tom Bragaw; Fancy Free, Jerry Poquette; Sea Fever 2, Ed Zysko, Ironic Breeze, Chuck Taylor; and JourneyOn. There was only one start so all three fleets all started together.

Wednesday at noon we were at the starting line along with northwest winds of 15+ kts. As the wind began to build and the waves did the same, and you know what kind of ride you get with sizable waves off the stern quarter! Up/Down/Side-to-Side. But we were flying! What a sail! From 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. we averaged 7.5 kts. by the GPS. For our boat, that’s incredible! At 9:30 p.m. with the wind howling behind us we were doing a steady 8 kts. - until the whisker pole folded in half and then we were back to mere hull speed.

We found out later that our fellow PGSC sailors had their fair share of whisker pole problems, too. Fancy Free bent theirs early but quick work with a hack saw and some all purpose duct tape allowed them to continue to use their pole. Ironic Breeze lost their pole overboard but luckily they had another on board – which they bent. (Note to self: do not use whisker pole after dark.)

As dawn was breaking a mere 19-20 hours after the start, we were looking at the lights of Key West. For those of you who have not sailed into Key West at night use this as a warning there are more channel marker lights and shore line lights than we could believe. Another thing we didn’t believe was that we were about 3 miles east of where we should have been. We finally believed it as we were waiting for TowBoat US to pull us off the sand bar. My new chart from Waterproof Chart had a mistake in the coordinates for the Northwest Channel Marker #1, and for the last 20 hours we’d been aiming for the wrong channel. Oh, we found a channel but it was only suitable for kayaks, canoes and other small water craft.

We scored a DNF for the race, but hey, we were in Key West! It was time to party! We had a great time at the bars, and watching the weird people, and we went to bars, and we did fun things, and we ate and drank, and watched sunsets at Mallory Square. You know, all the fun things you’re supposed to do in Key West! We also got to see our fellow PGSC sailors receive their trophies.

After a weekend of parties, on Monday we turned around and headed back to Punta Gorda with the wind on the nose under the "iron genny".

Now that we know the lay of the land – ah, er, I mean lay of the water, we are definitely going to sail the Key West Rendezvous again next year!! It’s not just a sailboat race; it’s an adventure.

Bob and Mary Anderson

Webmaster's note - Just to get the right perspective of this race ... from the Boca Grande start,
                                       it's a 132 nautical mile race to the finish line.

This page created June 1, 2006  by The PGSC WebMaster