J/29 RUSH STREET & J/145 BAD PAK Class Winners
(Newport Beach, CA- April 15-17)- This year's 64th Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race provided a slightly less than perfect mix of fun and adventure as racers had to decide whether to head off-shore for stronger winds or to sail the 125 nm rhumb line towards the finish. For the 175 boats gathered on the starting line off Newport Beach, CA, the probabilities that it was going to be a slow race, like real slow race, were nearly 100%! The weather forecast for Friday was for a west-northwesterly wind up to nine knots---virtually the rhumb (direct) line to Todos Santos Bay all along the entire Southern California and Baja California coasts. Stronger breeze was expected offshore, but a lighter patch of wind of three to six knots will separate the sea breeze near the coast from the gradient wind farther offshore. Then winds diminishing on Saturday with very little "gradient effect" to keep the fleet moving.
Scot Tempesta's Sailing Anarchy report regarding the sailing conditions for this year's N2E race- "…as for wind, there was a good bit of breeze in the evening on Friday - we saw 20 true at one point. We, too, tried to stay outside given the weather forecasts, but a huge right shift couldn't be ignored so we came into the Coronado Islands on port gybe. But, it was getting lighter, so we bit the bullet and took a long, long unfavored starboard gybe out into more pressure - maybe 10 miles or so outside the Coronado's. We then just tried to keep our outside lane, jibe on the shifts and come in a bit later rather than earlier." He did OK, winning his class, as did a few other J's following a similar strategy.
The
strong contingent of J sailors were not able to dial-in their
accustomed form of reaching away at surfing speeds all night and all day
long with the giant asymmetric spinnakers flying over ballooning
staysails and walking off with all the booty at the awards. Instead, it
was all light air VMG'ing down the track, a race so tricky and full of
holes that even Dennis Conner's Farr 60 STARS & STRIPES managed to
beat very well sailed 70-80 footers! Despite the light and challenging conditions, the J's swept Sprit A class! Tom Holthus' TransPac winning J/145 BAD PAK from San Diego YC won both line honors and handicap honors. Second both over the line and in handicap was Mark Surber's J/125 DERIVATIVE from CORYC. Third was the other J/145, the Santa Barbara YC's team of Poppe/ Parks sailing with some happy sailors aboard SEQUOYAH. Paul Marais's gorgeous J/160 INDIGO from SYC-LB was fourth in class. And, fifth was the J/130 BEBE sailed by another fun crew from Santa Barbara YC, Chuck Browning and gang.
Leading the charge in Sprit B class was Scot's ANARCHY, while the J/120 BARAKA sailed by Janet Mostafa from Balboa YC came in a very respectable second and the J/105 LUCKY STAR sailed by Mark Wyland from ALYC finished third. Due to the lack of wind, the rest of the class all dropped out…smaller boats were having a tough go of it.
Seth Hall and Steve Ronk on the J/124 MARISOL from CYA finished 3rd in their PHRF Cruz GA class.
Finally, yet another member of the Santa Barbara sailing mafia won PHRF E! Larry Leveille's J/29 RUSH STREET (last year's Kings Harbor Race Winner) from Santa Barbara YC won their class quite handily, proving yet again the venerable J/29 masthead/outboard version is a really tough offshore boat to beat in most races- light, heavy, surfing, or simply pounding your teeth-fillings out in an uphill gut-buster. For more Ensenda Race sailing information.