Wild Weather Greets Races on Day Two of the Charlotte Harbor Regatta
A second day (Feb. 7, 2010) of unusually strong winter winds tested racers and tossed up the standings on Day Two of the inaugural Charlotte Harbor Regatta on Charlotte Harbor, Florida.
Day One Results from the Inaugural Charlotte Harbor Regatta - Feb 5
Sailors competing in the Inaugural Charlotte Harbor Regatta battled blustery conditions ahead of a strong thunderstorm including 20-plus knot winds. Following are results from the Feb. 5 races.
Tybee 500 Registration Open
TheBeachcats.com is happy to announce the launch of www.Tybee500.com a new website for the 2010 Tybee 500 long distance catamaran race. Teams wishing to enter this years race from Islamorada, FL up the East Coast of Florida to Tybee Island, GA can begin the registration process by filling out the simple online registration form. There are over 3,000 photos from past years races, so be sure and take a look and see if you spot anyone you know. Each team that is accepted to participate in this epic adventure will be provided with a team profile page on the Tybee500.com site. News items and updates posted on the site will be automatically tweeted, so be sure to add Tybee500 to your twitter account.


dagger board is important is that these small are used mostly for racing, and you want the maximum performance you can get. If you are just going out for a sail in a small sailboat, leave the centerboard fully down except when you come back to the beach, or of course if you run aground.

Small are a lo to fun to sail, cost little, are robust, and as they are kept out of the water require very little maintenance. The Lasers, Streakers and Europa are among those that have 'cat' rigs – just one sail, like a mainsail on a normal Bermudian rig. They can still sail very fast, and can be sailed easily single-handed. They are used for single-handed racing.

Most other small have a Bermudian rig, usually with a small jib and fairly large mainsail. The exception is the Mirror Dinghy which has a gunter rig – the mainsail is hoisted up the mast and a spar that goes almost vertically from the top of the mast. The shape of the sails is almost the same as the Bermudian, but this rig was chosen because the mast is shorter making the boat easier to store at home and transport to the water.



Small come is all sizes, shapes and weights. Some are built with a gaff rig, some with the gunter rig, some with cat rigs, and most with Bermudian rigs – there are even some with two masts, each with a cat rig.

The great thing about small sailboat is that you can take it from the boat store or from your home to the shore easily and launch it single handed. This hardly takes any time – and then you are sailing. Mostly, small are used for racing, or for short cruises of a couple of hours, but some people have cruised across oceans in modified small like the Waverley and Drascombe.

So i f you want to get a sailboat and have limited funds – or no experience – I recommend you buy a small sailboat.

John Hartley has been sailing for over 20 years, and has owned three sailboats – one small one and two cruising yachts, and gives helpful information about sailboats and yachts at http://www.sailboatsyachts.com. He is the joint author of “The Leisurely Route to the Med”, and has written over a dozen other books.