When we ducked into Key West for a few days to wait out some wind, we had NO idea the World Sailfish Championships were here at the same time! These guys are much like Y Flyers -- one design sailboat racers for those unfamiliar with my terminology. They get together, compete hard and party with the "friendly" competition. The biggest difference is they can win hundreds of thousands of dollars!
All our info is "hearsay" from the competitors, but they go fishing for three days, Thurs, Fri and Sunday -- Saturday is a "lay day" in case they can't fish another day, weather related. The competition is decided on how many sailfish caught -- each boat videos each sailfish caught ... and released daily. They must submit their video's to the "committee boat" by 5 PM daily. They also fly sailfish flags to boast to their fellow competitors how many they caught that day.
It's a BIG deal with award winnings topping a million dollars, although there are many classes, last year's top competitor took home around $350,000 ... but supposedly they don't compete for the money, they compete for the honor ... and hope to win enough for fuel money to get back home! Only 34 boats in this year's competition, invitation only.
The fly-by during their Welcome Aboard party was pretty cool, altho' I wasn't quick enough with the camera. Hey NILE? Think we could do a fly-by for Y Flyer Nationals this year? :)
The fly-by during their Welcome Aboard party was pretty cool, altho' I wasn't quick enough with the camera. Hey NILE? Think we could do a fly-by for Y Flyer Nationals this year? :)
Before the competition, the bait was sorted and placed into huge bins in the water behind each boat. They literally counted each bait fish and separated the types.
Some boats just showed up to watch & enjoy the dock festivities -- although the major competition festivities aren't held on the dock, there's still a festive atmosphere. And some of them have really cool blue lights lighting up the clear waters so we can see the tarpon swimming beneath the docks.
The sailfish flags are flown upside down to indicate they successfully released a caught sailfish.
And at the head of our dock, was this small competitor who caught 4 sailfish today, which was good enough for 2nd place in their division. CONGRATS to these guys!
The most flags we saw flying were NINE! 9 flags for 9 sailfish caught and released today. I missed the photo of that boat. But we heard these guys being interviewed on camera, and congratulated for being in 2nd place. WooHoo! Tomorrow is another fishing day! :)
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