ALL HANDS ON DECK

IT BEGAN AS A BAR BET between brothers. In 1974, lifeguards-turned-proprietors Michael and Chris Worrell were in their popular Virginia Beach night spot and eatery, Worrell Brothers Restaurant and Raw Bar, when the discussion of sailing a 16-foot catamaran from Virginia to Florida arose. Chris declared it impossible. Not only is a 16-foot catamaran a small craft with not much separating sailor from sea, but this was also a particularly treacherous stretch of coastline (the Coastal Carolinas, after all, are known as the graveyard of the Atlantic). Still, Michael bet his brother he could do it.

Michael, along with his crewman, Steve McGarrett, set sail for Florida on his 16-foot Hobie Cat. They sailed for 20 days and through two hurricanes.

“Eventually,” says Tybee Islander Chuck Bargeron, a race official and director of research and development for the Worrell 1000, “they got all the way down to Fort Lauderdale, where the boat just literally fell apart. They’d been holding it together with everything they could.”

When Michael returned home, Chris told him the phone had been ringing off the hook with reporters. The entrepreneurial brothers realized they were onto something.

Almost 50 years later, the Worrell 1000, named for the roughly 1,000 miles of coastline, is considered the Mount Everest of sailing. It’s America’s most grueling sailing race, and one that draws teams from across the globe. Today, because the prevailing winds blow south to north, the race begins in Hollywood, Florida, and ends at Virginia Beach, Virginia — for those who make it that far.

“When you see these teams, they’re not dressed for a sail,” Bargeron says. “They’re dressed for survival.” Over the years, there have been broken limbs, broken ribs and many broken boats, “but no lives lost, thankfully,” he says reverently.

On May 15, anyone who was lucky enough to be on Tybee Beach near 14th Street got to witness the fleet of catamarans as they embarked upon the sixth leg of the race: Tybee Island to Folly Beach, South Carolina. There were 13 Formula 18 class sport catamarans (called F18s) in all, ranging from Team Outer Banks to Team Netherlands to the eventual winner, Team Australia. (There has been a Team Tybee Island in the past, but not this year.)