Florida Everglades Challenge

Just stumbled across a video of people on Hobie AI/TI's and a variety of other sailing vessels, kayaks, and even a guy on a SUP that took on a yearly race that takes place in Florida every year where they cover over 300 miles over several days pushing themselves to their limits camping and racing down the coast of Florida.  It's like seeing a bunch of NWM and Mr. X's all in one place doing a challenge together. 

Quick video of 2023:



Official Website: https://www.watertribe.com/events/evergladeschallenge/

The Everglades Challenge is an unsupported, expedition style adventure race for kayaks, canoes, and small boats. The distance is roughly 300 nautical miles depending on your course selection. There is a time limit of 8 days or less. Your safety and well being are completely up to you.

Unsupported means that there are no safety boats or support crews to help you during the race. You are not allowed to have a support crew follow you or meet you during the race. It is OK to have family or friends meet you at the official checkpoints, but they cannot provide anything other than emotional support. See the official WaterTribe rules for more details.

Expedition style means that you must carry the same type of equipment and supplies that you would carry on a major expedition lasting 4 weeks or more. Camping equipment, food, water, safety, communication, etc. is required. See the Rules and Warning link at the top of this page for the official required equipment list for more details.

Although this is a race, many participants are more interesting in cruising and adventure. Whether you are a cruiser or racer is up to you. Just getting to the starting line is a major accomplishment and only about 40% of starters are able to finish. You should be an expert kayaker and/or sailor before you consider this challenge.

This is the video I watched, it's quite long but I actually really enjoyed it.  Lot of good stories and lessons of triumph over adversity of weather and equipment failures and cover an incredible distance camping and kayaking the coast of Florida.

I've seen this come up on the Hobie forum--a lot of people soup up their AI/TI just for this event.

It looks like it would be great fun, but way, way too easy for Mr. X...

Btw, there's some great video of an AI that's practically in submarine mode starting at about 18:02 in that second video that Al posted...

dang, sounds fun

Here's another video related the the Everglades Challenge.

At about 1:40, a mast receiver bolt snaps in light winds. That's something is worth checking at least once/year on your AI/TI.

At 32:20 or so, he walks along the beach showing some of the cool boats in the race. My favorite is a Tandem Tandem Island (2 TIs attached together), which is at about 33:50...

Heard about the Challenge while checking out the Scamp sailboat by Gig Harbor Boat Works (and lots of homemade ones). Pretty cool sailing challenge, with lots of Hobies in the mix.