View from the Shore - Cadillac Van Isle 360 - Leg 9

Kairos finished at about 1:50pm and had a slow drag race with Kenetic III to the finish line.

The winds never arrived and one by one the boats in the fleet began dropping out as the chances of finishing before the 6:00pm deadline became less and less. Under the race rules, 50 per cent of the starting boats have to finish by the deadline for the race to count. By around 3:00pm more than 50 per cent of the boats had retired and were under power and the Cadillac Race Committee cancelled the leg (around 7 or 8 boats had finished by this time, including Kairos). The leg will not be scored, which is too bad for those boats that did finish and were we'll placed, Kairos included.

Victoria is home port for Kairos and the crew are all at home resting and most likely sleeping. The final leg in the race starts tomorrow at 3:00pm off Ogden Point, and boats will race overnight to Nanaimo (hopefully, it is only one overnight) completing the 580 nautical mile race. The winds typically die overnight on this leg, so it tends to be one of the longest and due to the islands, tides and currents, a lot of strategy is involved. There are several routes than can be taken - Dodd Narrows, False Narrows, Porlier Pass, Active Pass or Boundary Pass - to get out of the islands and into the Strait of Georgia.

More tomorrow after the start...