2023 Ft. Lauderdale to Key West Race

The third event of the 2022-23 SORC Islands in the Stream had 21 boats for the 2023 Ft. Lauderdale to Key West Race which took the fleet on the 160 nm course from Fort Lauderdale to Key West along southern Florida.

A typical weather pattern greeted competitors on January 4 with a southerly breeze in the teens at the start giving the fleet a lumpy and raucous ride to the first mark of the course, the Miami Sea Buoy.

The usual pattern is for the breeze to moderate and ease astern as the boats proceed around the bend of the keys on their way to the finish off of Mallory Square. While the opening miles of the race often bring painful lessons, the rest of the race usually follows up with glorious sailing along the Florida Keys.

While this pattern played out for the most part, it deprived Jason Carroll’s MOD 70 Argo from taking a chunk out of Stars and Stripes’ 2007 multihull record of just over 8.5 hours. Argo finished before midnight (about 12.75 hours elapsed) and completed the delivery back to Ft. Lauderdale before most of the fleet reached Key West. Next across the line was Kent Haeger’s Gunboat 62 Mach Schnell, at about 1:45 am, correcting out for the Multihull Class win.

John Evans and Trey Sheehan’s TP 52 Hooligan followed across the line to be the first monohull to finish, at about 3:30 am (Jan. 5) to set the pace for the ORC 1 class and to hold the overall lead with the first finishers from the other classes already in the barn but many boats still on the water.

All of the J Boats in ORC 2 kept things very interesting with Matthew Schaedler’s Blitzkreig topping that division by 5 minutes corrected.

In ORC 3, the 32-foot Figaro 2 sailed by the NEKA Sailing team was alone in their fleet but took second overall honors.

All but one boat made the trip in under 24 hours with champagne conditions under a full moon.

Series information – Race details – Results – Facebook

2022-23 schedule:
• November 3, 2022 – Nassau Cup Ocean Race
• December 2, 2022 – Wirth M. Munroe Invitational Miami to Palm Beach Race
• January 4, 2023 – Ft. Lauderdale to Key West Race
• February 9, 2023 – Port Canaveral Race

Details: http://www.sorcsailing.org/