* we had only 5 escort boats, two cancelled the night before.  It was rough on the escorts -- burning lots of extra fuel and getting walloped
* at our skipper's meeting the evening before we discussed the forecast for difficult conditions, we didn't get close to cancelling but we thought about the possibility
* appended below is Tom Dexel's description of the quad's experience -- DNF.  Chris Dadd was stroke, filling in for a fireman off to fight   
* appended below THAT is a note from Eileen (who will also write a blog post)
* here's a link to MY blog post: http://openwaterrowing.blogspot.com/
* my GPS said 26.6 miles.  Patrice's said 26.8 miles.  But I think we did not reset at the same time.
* i have attached the record times from history
* i have attached a graphic from Patrice's GPS
* the starting line is the pier at Aldo's restaurant on the west side of the harbor (approximately the fuel dock)
* all boats started between 6 and 7 AM.  It got light at about 6:25 or so because of the overcast.
* most of the race it was a high overcast with a few sun showers popping through
* Monterey was mostly hidden by low overcast
* the finish is an imaginary line between the Coast Guard Jetty and the end of Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey (in theory this is 25.5 miles if one rows in a perfectly straight line)
* finishers received T-shirts, engraved beer glasses, and medals
* except for the quad, everyone finished including the several first timers, let's call them 'pollywogs'
* after about 8 miles completed, i was completely soaked by the waves.  We were rowing inside of whitecaps -- not just a few but many.
* i don't think we could come to an agreement on the waves.  I would say 8 foot swells and 12 foot sets underlying 3 -5 foot chop.  But it's next to impossible to separate the patterns in the chaos.  Some of the experienced escorts said more and some said less.  Some said the swell period was 10 seconds or less but i think it was more like 12 seconds.  In any case they were very steep.
* the SERC double came upon a feeding frenzy of dolphins they said "at least fifty".  Their escort said "over a hundred"!
* i think everyone saw whales
     Please feel free to forward this to others such as Maas Boat Company, etc.

 Best regards,
Tim

Tim Huebner, Santa Cruz, CA
never_late@...510-207-3395510-207-3395