Story By Steve Hanf with James Eaton / Photo Courtesy of Worrell 1000 Race, Inc.

When Hardy Peters asked James Eaton if he wanted to compete with him in the Worrell 1000, there was plenty that could have gone through Eaton’s mind.

Like a slow-motion horror film of boat after boat being battered by the surf in launches and landings. Or remembering the stories of one heartbroken competitor after another succumbing to injury or exhaustion. Or feeling overwhelmed at the mere thought of the logistics of planning for such a wild adventure in an 18-foot-long catamaran.

What DID go through his mind, in a split second, was his response: “Yes!”

Pictured: 2022 Team Outer Banks, including racers James Eaton & Hardy Peters as well as ground crew members Robert Peters & Ben Wilson. Photo Courtesy of Worrell 1000 Race, Inc.

So it was that Team Outer Banks was resurrected for a fifth time in the famed sailing race that tackles the treacherous Atlantic Ocean from Florida to Virginia Beach. In 2022, Peters and Eaton finished in eighth place, and they’re excited to be back for more in 2024 when the Worrell celebrates its 50th anniversary.

“Back when I raced in college, I knew of it and I’d always talked about doing it one day with college buddies, but then it kind of went away,” Eaton says. “And then Hardy Peters, who is a friend of mine and owns East Coast Sailboats, he just came up to me one day and said, ‘Hey, you want to do the Worrell 1000?’

“It’s definitely a daunting task, but it’s one of those opportunities you’re just not going to pass up,” Eaton continues. “If you’ve been in the sailing circle for long enough — I’ve been sailing since I was a little kid and I raced in college and I raced a lot after college — it’s kind of a no-brainer even though you know it’s gonna be crazy.”

This race began in the 1970s, with brothers Michael and Chris Worrell hatching the idea as a bar bet with friends in their Virginia Beach restaurant. It continued until 1990, died, came back in 1997, died again and finally returned in 2019. So while the 1,000-mile jaunt spanning 14 days from Hollywood, Florida, to Virginia Beach is celebrating its 50th anniversary, there haven’t exactly been 50 races.

Worrell 1000 teams, ready to launch after a good night’s rest at South Carolina’s Tides Folly Beach Hotel in 2022. Photo by Amy Stevens Photography

That hasn’t dampened anyone’s enthusiasm for the event, which begins next May and is scheduled for overnight stops on the 11th night in Hatteras and the 12th night in Kill Devil Hills. A full allotment of 15 teams is signed up, including several world-renowned competitors. Team Australia will be looking for its third straight Worrell 1000 crown.

Team Outer Banks, meanwhile, will be looking to go an impressive 6-for-6 in simply completing the race, which is no small feat. In 1999, John McLaughlin of Baltimore teamed with local P-Nut Johnson for a seventh-place finish that included Johnson suffering a hand injury and being replaced by ground crew member Charles Thuman for the last half of the race. McLaughlin and Johnson finished 11th in 2000, and in 2001 it was McLaughlin and Thuman placing eighth in a year that saw only five boats — including Team OBX — escape the surfline at Jensen Beach, Florida, and successfully sail that leg.

McLaughlin and Rick Parsley completed the event in 2002 and then it was Peters and Eaton, both of Southern Shores, placing eighth in 2022. Team Australia won the race in 87 hours, 40 minutes, 44 seconds; the Outer Banks crew did it in 104:23:31. The shortest leg was nearly five hours, while the longest stretched more than 14.

In addition to the different members of the two-man sailing crew, ground crew help from OBX locals over the years has come from Billy Mosley, Brian Blackford, Matthew Byrne, Michael O’Brien, Mark Widener, Robert Peters, Michael Peters, April Peters and Ben Wilson. It’s truly a team effort, including making sure spare parts are ready at each stop. After all, these catamarans are little more than a pair of pontoons connected by a trampoline.

But with the support of the Outer Banks Sailing Association, the local sailing community and title sponsor Pirate’s Cove Realty, they’re excited to do it again, not only racing to win, but also to showcase the sport to young sailors and would-be sailors across the OBX, Eaton says. Between now and May, Team Outer Banks will be devoted to training and collecting all the gear needed for this Herculean task.

A Worrell 1000 sailor revealing chafe injuries to his hands. In major sailing races, it’s common for participants to suffer cracked, cut and blistered hands due to heavy loads on the lines and salt water. Photo Courtesy of Worrell 1000 Race, Inc.

“You need so many repair parts, and big parts: You need to bring a spare mast. Some teams bring a spare boat, and I think we’re actually going to bring a spare boat this year,” Eaton says. “So it’s making sure all the gear is in the right shape, getting the sponsorships, all that kind of logistics stuff, and then the other 50 percent is training, getting on the water, just doing as many of these beach launches as you can do and maybe going down to Hatteras and rounding the cape a couple times. All the capes are like a make-or-break situation. If you hit that right, you’re still in the running, and if you do it wrong, you’re out.”

The 2022 race featured some hellacious sailing days. Eaton recalls that the same nor’easter that took out several houses on Hatteras Island provided “the same business” for two or three days of sailing, including one day when Peters’ harness broke and dumped him into the ocean in eight-foot waves with the wind blowing 25 to 35 mph.

“I felt the boat heel drastically, and began frantically dumping the main sheet (letting wind out of the mainsail) and I looked back to Hardy, only to see he wasn’t there anymore,” Eaton recalls. “The boat capsized almost immediately. In the water myself, I swam to the stern to try and see Hardy. He was there, swimming his butt off to get back to the boat. The strength of the wind against the up-turned trampoline started taking the boat away faster than any man could swim and the distance between us was growing fast.

“I was beginning to assess my chances of righting the boat myself and sailing upwind to get him in these conditions when to my great relief, Team Fast Forward Composites out of Rhode Island, who had apparently seen us capsize, swooped in and scooped him up. They graciously returned him to the boat; we righted it and began to get back on our way. This exemplifies the camaraderie and willing-to-help spirit this race breeds amongst the teams.”

After assessing the damage to their cat, they decided to sail to the beach 40 miles short of the day’s objective and call their ground crew for help. Eventually, they decided to retire for the day, take the time penalty, and start fresh in the morning. As they later learned, only four of the 13 boats that started that day actually finished. That’s the Worrell in a nutshell: Easy sailing and gorgeous views or death-defying feats of super-human sailing.

Team Outer Banks beached and, on its side, after limping across the Worrell 1000 finish line at Virginia Beach. James Eaton & Hardy Peters were forced to purposefully capsize their vessel at the conclusion of the race, after discovering equipment damage had occurred on the final leg.

“Some days are 80 miles of exhilarating spinnaker reaches, peering through the waves at sea turtles and sharks while schools of flying fish and dolphin jump from the waves when your boat approaches at speeds anywhere from 15 to 20 knots,” Eaton says. “Other days have you pounding upwind, turning the 80-mile leg into 115 miles of tacking torture. You’re wet, salty and cold. You’re hungry, thirsty and you have to go to the bathroom. But you can’t get to the food or water or take a pee break because you’ve been on the wire for the last three hours and you expect to be there for another three or more.

“I’ve been asked several times how one sails a small boat in such conditions for so long, and to be honest, I don’t have a good answer,” he continues. “But now that I’ve thought about it, I’ll say this: You simply sail in the small patch of water you find yourself in, making the rudder corrections, boat attitude adjustments and sail trim changes needed to get the boat through the next 30 to 60 seconds of wind and waves. Then you just keep doing it until your patch of water contains the finish line. That’s it.”

Of course, there’s also the thrill of each landing when crowds of sailing enthusiasts and curious onlookers line the beach to welcome each team at the checkpoints. For Team Outer Banks, the landings in Hatteras and especially Kill Devil Hills are surreal experiences, with their black, skull-and-crossbones “Sail OBX” spinnaker flying proudly.

“There’s always some kind of carnage coming in: The guys have been racing hard for 60 or 80 miles and they’re exhausted, trying to land this boat in the shorebreak, and it doesn’t always go smooth. There’s always something to watch, for sure,” Eaton says. “We were surprised at all the people on the beach when we got into Kill Devil Hills. We only see such a small part of it as just one of the boats that came in, but it seems like everybody was there, kind of partying. We could hear them outside the shorebreak, so that was cool. The reception we got on landing in KDH was truly humbling and heartwarming.”

Author: Steve Hanf

Steve Hanf is a former professional sportswriter who teaches the journalism classes at First Flight High School. The dormant Nike Running Club app on his phone offers a reminder of the seven half-marathons and one full marathon he completed … several years ago.