Picture: The C1500 Tracker, Comocean is the bigger gray boat to the left
Author: Seth (not on board)

I just spoke to my dad with what might be the last of his cellular coverage for 9 or 10 days. He's excited as hell to be underway and is in high spirits. Although they unfortunately lost Ed due to the multiple delays they were lucky enough to pick up John this morning and just departed an hour or so behind the fleet! John is another old friend from Birmingham Michigan when we were just learning how to sail as a family.

Back then we were total amateurs learning by our mistakes on our first family boat, a Catalina 34 on Lake St. Clair. I'll never forget how we ran that boat aground on our first day as owners (renters actually), and now we consider ourselves good enough to sail in one of the more difficult off-shore sailing races in the world, the Caribbean 1500. We've come a long way in 24 years!

Conditions at the start are pretty rough. Although Hurricane Sean is now heading away from the US, it's producing strong Northwesterly winds that are forecast to be in the range of 30-35 knots. I know from experience that is a lot of wind and you never want to be out in those types of conditions, but it helps that the wind is at their backs as the "apparent wind" will seem 7-8 knots lighter as a result. Comocean is now sailing with a double reef in the Main Sail and a full Genoa and cruising at 7 knots toward the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay with wind gusts up to 27 knots. And as rough as it is likely to get, man do I wish I was aboard.

So it's a rough start to the Caribbean 1500 but it should only be a day before things settle and Comocean starts to pass a few of the slower boats. Be sure to click here to see their progress as compared to the fleet and I will try to keep updates up as I hear from them via Sat Phone Email.

Good luck Toby, Norm, Tom and John!
Seth