# Post Florida Skiff Challenge Chittum Team



## George Sawley (Nov 7, 2015)

Im back and Im sure you guys missed me by what I was reading, poor JRH is still hating, I must have out fished him offshore one too many times. I have been busy with some custom builds, one being a near 80 mph Performance Edition and another full carbon fiber Laguna Madre Edition. Along with testing and tuning our FSC boat and our usual 6 or 7 regular builds in-between. 
All fun aside it was a great experience the FSC even though Im a half inch shorter and almost killed poor Hal. I know everyone wants to hear why I picked the path I took that put me way behind on the first day. 

We planned on running it offshore as much as possible since we were told not to break any rules of the road. I figured staying on the outside you could keep better pace and not a bunch of stop and go in the zones. I was not sure what direction the other boats were going to take but I figured since the closest inlet was 8 miles in the wrong direction we would run east to the first one then go out. As we all lined up pointing at the first bridge I told Hal I would keep to the back of the pack to see if they were actually going to slow as they went under as we did not want to blow threw and get disqualified. But they al threw down full throttle so I did too. 

I don't know if you guys could see what was really going on, not sure if the spot tracker really gave a accurate account. In some photos posted here it shows that when I went out the inlet HB was already ahead. But that was not the case, I pulled away from them all by well over a mile or two if not more by the time I was there. Once I was threw the bridge ready to pull it back to conserve fuel a Coast Guard type boat stopped me to inform that we had to stay inside of 4 miles because of a Air Force live fire bombing exercise. To make matter worse the wave prediction of a light beam sea was a stiff head sea. Not a problem just uncomfortable as hell as you could imagine we were still making 30mph though. But at this point Hal had his kidney stone jared and some pain started. Noticing that Hal was not taking it well I decided to get to the first inlet and run inside to give him a break. He was feeling better so we pressed on.

I already knew we were faster then the other skiffs so I now had to play catch up. We slowly did that and we were not far behind when we left Sanibel and figured we would get them buy Key West. Unfortunately the pounding was to much for Hal so I change angle/heading on the waves to get a better ride. At this point I was more worried about getting Hal to land and to the hospital if need be. Once to KW I was told the HB and YF teams just left. As I was on the phone talking to the FSC Crew to inform them we had a medical emergency the Panga Team came around the corner. 

I asked if I could change Hal out for one of our truck guys and they did not know if that was possible. So after what seemed like an eternity they said we could. But my truck guys were in Key Largo waiting to fuel me up there at the media stop. Fortunately as they watched us on the tracker they knew something must be wrong so they were making way to us. Now with my replacement guy we were back in it but figured we were out of the running. I ran the back side of the Keys and decided to go to Crandon Park for fuel barley making it. While using the head my now single truck support guy called and said that Panga went outside and lost a lot of time so it was back to full throttle again to see if we could catch them.


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## George Sawley (Nov 7, 2015)

I have to go to my chiropractor appointment so I will finish my story later if you guys want to hear about it. I also want your opinion on how you saw the media coverage as I was running the boat 95% of the time so could not check it. Seem it might have been lacking...


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## LowHydrogen (Dec 31, 2015)

Congrats on a safe finish, good call on putting safety first! IMO the spot tracker would be better if we could see the whole track throughout the race, not just the last hour or two. Speed info would also be cool to see.


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## makin moves (Mar 20, 2010)

The coverage of the race is terrible. Hope they can improve it for future races.


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## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

Glad your team is ok. Blasting through the nowake zones is not cool. Might as well be 4 teams of Chadbros on jet skis racing around FL.


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## Fishshoot (Oct 26, 2017)

I will say here what I’ve said before. I think it is great all four teams finished safely and I’m sure Hal will recover from his kidney stone. It seems hells bay had the best strategy and that helped them win. Although I am a Chittum fan I think all builders in this challenge make great boats! My hat is off to all the participants for completing the challenge. I don’t know anything from first hand observation, just what I have read here but I think it is kinda lame if teams were violating no wake zones in a “race” that is supposed to highlight conservation. I hope next yr to see some better tracking, maybe even a dedicated website that can show the full track with speeds and stops. It would be great to see other Florida builders in the challenge like east cape, beavertail, Cayo etc.


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## Rick hambric (Jun 24, 2017)

Kidney stones suck!!! I just hope one day I’ll be able to afford a carbon chittum!!!


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## SomaliPirate (Feb 5, 2016)

This thread has about 1/100th the drama I expected when I clicked on it and I'm very disappointed in all of you right now.


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## eightwt (May 11, 2017)

SomaliPirate said:


> This thread has about 1/100th the drama I expected when I clicked on it and I'm very disappointed in all of you right now.


You should hear what THEY are saying in the dark web...


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## Rick hambric (Jun 24, 2017)

eightwt said:


> You should hear what THEY are saying in the dark web...


I took a Q-beam there one time, they kicked me out!​


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