The 25-mile Naples/Ft. Myers Pier-to-Pier Race: The Third Place Winner is the Second Loser

Posted Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
By Stacey Fonas

It's been a weird windy season for Florida. Although October started out with great wind, November and December were really bad, and anyone with a full-time job who couldn't just take off during the week and go kiting any time the wind came up (like me), went through two full months of severe kiter depression. It's been especially frustrating for Rick Gianello, organizer of the Naples Race, and Neil Hutchinson, organizer of the Jupiter Race, who set their race windows, and then kept watching the wind not happen. The 25 mile Naples/Ft. Myers Pier-to-Pier Race on the west coast was set to go off the first windy weekend in November, and the 56-mile Jupiter to Ft. Lauderdale Race on the east coast was set to go off the first windy weekend in December. But no wind came through, for either coast, and both races went into a holding pattern through January.

Finally, things started getting desperate, with races and contests backing up into each other. With the Jupiter Invasion scheduled for the following weekend (Jan 29th) and the Tampa Race window starting in February, both Naples and Jupiter had to go off SOON. As luck would have it, the "next windy day" for both races happened to be shaping up for the same weekend ... the weekend of the 19th, 20th, and 21st. Saturday, the 19th, was looking good for Naples, and Sunday ... maybe Monday ... was looking good for the Jupiter Race. The direction for Sunday had too much north it in, but Neil needed to wait until the last minute to postpone the race until Monday (in case the necessary shot of east wind came through sooner). So those of us who decided to do both races wouldn't know until after the Naples Race whether we'd have to rush back to the east coast that night and do the back-to-back Jupiter race on Sunday morning, or if we'd get Sunday as a day of rest and then do the Jupiter Race on Monday.

Best team rider Joe Ruscito (who'd never done such a long downwind race before and who thought it was going to be fun and easy, in his typical Pollyanna fashion) and I drove over on Friday night, so we wouldn't have to get up at 5 AM, rush around, and have to drive across the state to get to the rider's meeting at 8 AM. We still got up at 5:30 anyway, and were the first to arrive on site at 6:40 AM in the dark, waiting.

I had a picture of us sitting around in the dark, but I accidentally deleted it, so just close your eyes and that's how it looked. Black, and foggy, with no wind.

Rick Gianello, the race organizer, pulled up in his van at 7 AM. The light started coming up, and everyone started rolling in, and we just sat around and waited for the wind. I wasn't very hopeful that there was going to be any wind at all, but I had my 16 Bularoo and my 13 Bularoo and my directional, and I was prepared for light wind.

Kelly Gianello, Mrs. Race Coordinator, and Joe Ruscito, Team Rider Extraordinaire, checking out the no-wind situation

Hanging out waiting for wind. The guy in the orange is the jetski driver. "Won't be needed him," I thought, "but nice for the others, just in case." Pride goeth before a fall, anyone?

Ft. Lauderdale local rider Will Caldwell soon showed with a travelling team of two girls. Joe and I were suitably impressed. "I need to start travelling with a team of girls," Joe said. "How'd he pull that one off?" I ask. We'd heard on the grapevine that Will, 16, and technically still a "Youth," had registered in the Youth Division, despite the fact that he'd done a couple of these races before and had always finished near the Top 10. Winning the Youth prize money would have been like taking candy from a baby, so we told him if he wanted to race with the Youths, he'd have to wear a helmet and a lifevest, just like the rest of the Youths. Although Will inexplicably likes to wear a spiderman-blue wetsuit WITHOUT BOARDSHORTS, he apparently did not want his "team" to see him wearing a helmet and a lifevest. "Screw that," said Will, "I'm racing with the men!" Good boy!

Finally, around 10 o'clock, there did seem to be some wind, about 500 yards offshore. I looped my 13m out to the wind line, and going by the "How to Chose a Kite Size for a Direct Downwind Race Rule" ... which is to pick a kite one size bigger than you'd normally be comfortable on ... the 13 was going to be perfect. Joe put up his 17m Yarga, and came in after 2 tacks, saying there was something wrong with his kite. Sure enough, the right T3 strut was dead, and we were down to about 30 minutes until the start of the race. No matter how much time you give yourself, no matter how prepared you are, something always seems to happen at the last minute. We decided he'd take my 13m Bularoo, and I'd hurry up and pump up a 12m Nemesis.

Winners of the Matching Couple of the Day Award. If they'd been facing front, you'd see the "Glamour Don't" black box stretched across their eyes to protect their identity.

With little chop and no shorebreak, the start of the race (a waterstart) was pretty easy, and when the green flag went up, we all took off, and I was pretty happy to be up towards the front. It was a direct downwind race, requiring you get downwind by tacking in one direction, then the other direction. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it actually takes some amount of skill. I'm not so good at it, so I just loop my kite a few times in one direction, then a few times back in the other direction. I could track Joe's pink Bularoo all the way down the shoreline ... he was well out in front with the the top Cabrinha guys, and I was very impressed by how well he was keeping up.

Usually during these races, there aren't a lot of girls, so I don't have a lot of competition ... but this time I did: Melissa Gil, who's a better kiter than I am and has beaten me in almost every competition we've ever done together ... the only reason I'd won all my downwind races prior to this one is because she'd never done any of them with me before. So this race was not one where I could take my time and let off the gas, knowing all I had to do to be the first girl was to finish This time, I had to charge the entire time. She'd be ahead of me, then I'd catch up to her. Then she'd pass me, then I'd pass her. It was annoying, and I was not having any fun. I wanted to relax, not have to worry about anyone breathing down my neck, but I couldn't. (I feel sorry for the guys, who can NEVER let up. There are so many of them, and they're all so good, that they have to go full-on 100% the entire time.) It was not fun, it was hard, and it sucked.

Then, just as I could see the Ft. Myers Pier, Melissa started heading out to the left, away from the coastline. She was farther off the coast than I was, but ahead of me. I was closer to shore, but a little behind her. It was going to be a fight for the finish. I could make a straight tack to the end, while she'd have to do a little more work on the opposite tack to get in. Just as I'm thinking, "Ok, don't do anything stupid, don't drop your kite, don't lose your board," the wingtip of my kite catches on a wave as it's coming around through a loop, and the kite goes down. I see Melissa getting farther away from me, but I'm able to relaunch. It was looking less hopeful, but never give up ... you never know WHAT could happen. "Ok," I tell myself, "just don't do that again," and immediately, I do that again. This time, the wave catches it again, tumbles it, and it ends up with the wingtips pinched together, with the left bridle wrapped around the back of the kite. There goes first place. Melissa crosses the finish line.

I try for about 20 minutes to flip the kite around and straighten out the bridles, but nothing happens. I watch a couple of youths (with helmets) pass in front of me close to shore. Crap. I'd been doing so well. I'm so far away from shore, however, that a self-rescue would take hours, so I try to fix the problems out there. I carefully pull my way up the center line, get to the kite, fix the left bridle, and let the kite back out, being careful not to get tangled in the lines. Everything on the left looks fine, but somehow the right bridle is now caught over the right middle strut. I pull myself to the kite once again, which is tricky due to all the slack lines, but this time, I'm not so successful: when I let the kite out, the right bridle is still caught on the strut, and the back right line somehow gets crossed with the center lines. There is no way the kite is going to relaunch.

I've now been floating around in the ocean for about an hour or so, I'm glad I'm not the type to worry about sharks, and I'm not seeing the JetSki guy ANYWHERE. WTF?!! Things have gone so epically bad for me that my priorities have now changed. I've gone from "winning" to simply "finishing," and even if I have to swim my kite across the finish line, and it takes me until dark, I will do so. Shannon had taken bets that I wasn't going to finish the Jupiter Race, and I'd be damned if I didn't finish this race.

Right about then, a fishing/recreational boat of 4 older people comes by and asks me if I need help. I indicate that I do. In a judgemental tone, they ask me why I'm not wearing a life jacket. This does not bode well for our happy and productive relationship. "Because this was not supposed to happen," I explain. "I'm in a race, and I was doing VERY well!" They don’t seem to care and are not very sympathetic. I try to get them to let me hook my kite to the boat with my leash, so that I can swim out to the kite, fix the bridle and lines, and then relaunch, but they weren't having anything to do with THAT plan. They wanted to SAVE me, those heartless bastards! "Get into the boat," they say, "And let go of the kite!"

No way I'm letting go of the kite. I am going to finish this race if it kills me. They toss me a life cushion attached to a rope and somehow I'm able convince them to motor backward to try to force the kite into the relaunch position, as there seems to be no wind right where we are, and the kite is just sitting in a little ball. But, it doesn't work ... they're being very timid with their speed. In my frustration, I accidentally let go of the life cushion, which makes them very unhappy. "SHE LET GO!" I hear them scream about me in third person, as if I weren't there just a few feet ahead of them, listening to all their backtalk.

I guess I wasn't the most cooperative victim they ever saved, that's for sure. But I soon realized that my only hope was to let myself be saved as quickly as possible, get to shore, rerun my lines, relaunch, and then limp across the finish line. Despite what they said, I refused to let go of my kite, and begain winding in the lines around the bar. When I got to the kite, I grabbed the leading edge, and held it off the side of the boat, deciding it was best not to tell them that kites were deflatable. They motor slowly towards the sandbar, as close to the shore as they can get in the boat, which is about 1/4 mile from land. As we're driving towards shore, I see Cindy pass by on her green, red and yellow Flexi, and I swear out loud. There goes second place. "Does this boat go any faster?" I ask, not that it matters anyway at this point. I just lost the fricking race, so whether the boat captain drives 2 miles an hour, or 20 miles an hour, it's not like it's going to make much of a difference. He cut his eyes at me, and I backstep. "I mean, is the kite hanging off the back creating drag? Maybe I can hold it a different way if it is?" He speeds up a little, but not by much.

When we get to the sandbar, I thank them, although not as profusely as I should've (I probably go down in their history as the most Unwilling, Uncooperative, and Ungrateful Rescue Victim Ever) jump into the water, and start swimming to shore. It's slow going, and I accidentally let go of the kite. It takes off and goes tumbling to shore, which seems like a bad thing when it happens, but which actually works out better for me in the end. I jump onto my directional and paddle in, quicker than I could if I was swimming in an inflated kite. Some nice person runs into the water and grabs my kite as it gets to shore, and I quickly take it from him, rerun my lines, teach an innocent bystander how to hold my kite, give him the thumbs up, launch my kite, run to the water, jump on my board, and wave my thanks to all the people on the beach who helped me. I got along much better with the beach people than I did with the boat people.

It literally takes me one minute to kite to the finish line. ONE MINUTE.

As I get there, Kelly cheers and I say, "NO!!! Don't cheer for that! That was pathetic! I was a HALF MILE from the finish line! PATHETIC!" Everyone's there practically, and it's humiliating beyond belief. Damien LeRoy says, "What happened? Melissa says you were neck and neck the whole time." WE WERE! Kent Marinkovic says, "That was the first time I ever saw you have a complete meltdown.” A meltdown? A meltdown implies something like a nervous breakdown, an inability to function and move on. I do not melt down. "BUT I FINISHED!" I say. "I FINISHED!"

But still. I've never lost a downwind race in my life. I can't even begin to say how humiliating that was. It was not like the SF Races, where I didn't have a chance on my stupid little twin tip. This time, I was actually competitive. It was embarrassing and I didn't want to hang out with all the winners at the after-party ... I wanted to go home and try to pull myself together. The last thing I wanted was to go celebrate at the after-party at Wahoos. But Joe had done well, and Will had done well, and they were all happy. Having never experienced failure like this for themselves, they were unable to empathize with how crappy I felt. "You finished," they said. Yeah, but still. I let them drag me along to Wahoos for the prize-giving, where Rick and Kelly had organized a wonderful dinner and party, and I tried to at least be social. Jupiter wasn't going off until Monday, we learned, so there was no need to rush back to the east coast.

Joe Ruscito presiding at the Grom Table

Mike Gephardt and Safety Rick Iossi

And the award for "The Most Hideous Wall Art in a Bar Ever" goes to ... THIS picture!

Daniel Gianello, striking a pose, while his sister Andrea prepares to be the next Best Girl

Unidentified Coke-drinker, Lucas Gianello, and Joe Ruscito

Johanna and Kelly, Mistresses of the Ceremony

Rick Gianello, acknowledging the cheers from the crowd for a well-planned and flawlessly-executed event

Damien LeRoy accepting his trophy for first place

The Winners (except for the embarrassed one in the back)

That night, and the next day, and the following night, was torture. You're only as good as your last result, and what if I'm on on downward spiral and this is it for me? Anything could happen in Jupiter. Lines breaking, kites going down, riding a directional the entire 56 miles on one reach? Plus, I had the weight of Shannon's crappy little bet to mentally overcome. As I'm berating myself and halfheartedly watching "Batman Begins" on TV, one of Batman's mentors tells him that "The reason we fall is so that we can learn to pick ourselves up again," which I think maybe I can use, but I'm afraid if I do, I'll be getting ahead of myself. You just never know, and I don't like to instill myself with false hope. I'd rather set my goals low (I just want to finish Jupiter) and succeed with that, than say, "My goal is to win," and then lose. I'd really like to win Jupiter ... but I'm afraid to be too hopeful and too positive, because what if I jinx myself. Competition is so mental. Yuck. I wish I could retire.