Race participants

Pictures from the start by Ultimate Yachtshots

Steve is a veteran of the race on a bullet proof Islander 36

 Ken Roper has done the event 11 times!

Lightspeed is using Elise's old solar panel

The smallest boat in the fleet.

Kevin bought the boat for this race - slowest boat in the fleet, but I love the guy. Down to earth, fixit kind of guy and obviously enjoying sailing

The floating house!

Peter is one of the most experienced sailors in the fleet - a professional captain.

David is a fantastic sailor - fast

the 'other' French boat in the fleet

Al is also a veteran and great sailor

Also teeny boats in the fleet

I will meet Elizabeth Ann at sea mid race

This year's fleet is extremely varied - with huge variance in handicaps (all the boats have different characteristics and handicaps are designed to level things out). This makes the overall ranking tough, how fair are these rankings? How fair is a race raced in super different conditions just becaue one boat is slower no matter what and will never get to race in similar conditions as the others, regardless of their tactical decisions?

So a very tough race to score as one entity - possible and a lot easier by divisions that contain boats with more similar characteristics.

They also illustrate what I like about this race - this is not a race about big money and big sponsors. This is a race about sailors who have a dream and who sail the boat they have.