(Newport Beach, CA)- On the "real sailor-man's" offshore calendar on the
Pacific Coast is not just the eponymous PV Race (just a 1,000 miler or
so), or Transpac Race (just 2,225nm or so), but the Cabo Race-- only
800nm or so. It can be a mad dash or a maddeningly slow race, the
experience depends on spring weather frontal movements and to a large
degree on whether or not it's an "el nino" or "el nina" year-- got it?
Perhaps not. Nevertheless, the differences of a "guy" year or "girl"
year on global weather are HUGE-- it has to do with that little
upwelling of cold deep-sea water pushing up against the western South
American continental shelf near Chile/Peru. The Balboa YC hosts the renown "Cabo Race"- that basic offshore dash down the California and Mexico coastline from Newport Beach, California to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico down off the tip of the Baja Peninsula. The destination is an attraction in and of itself. Gorgeous. Cool. Tres chic. Sublime. Relaxing.
The
race for it's part is notorious for throwing all kinds of weather
conditions at you. Light air inshore and offshore. Heavy air blowing
offshore. And, everything in between. In the perfect year, the fleet
gets off the SoCal coastline in reasonable shape and dials into the
steady NW to NE "trade wind-like" conditions that blow down the coast
(sometimes). Emphasis on "sometimes". No matter how good the weather
forecast from the routing guru's, it all seems to somehow go "inside
out" or just "sideways". Sailing in this year's Cabo Race are two sets of pretty fast 40 footers from the stable of offshore racing J/Boats. One's a faster version and the other a cruiser version. In the former are two J/125s, REINRAG and DERIVATIVE. In the latter are two J/120s, ADIOS and POLE DANCER.
On
Day 1, it wasn't the fastest day of racing ever for classes C & D.
In fact, after a gloomy morning the sun is finally shining on the
fleet, albeit somewhat late. However, by Sunday night for all, it was
pretty rough. Some boats broke and retired. Most persevered.
Depending on where you were as the massive Low from the northern Pacific
swept its "tail-feathers" across the fleet, gusts were up to 30-35
knots! In the end, the J/125s proved again they're tough "hombres" to beat in the offshore world. Fast upwind (witness the Rolex Big Boat Series results) as well as off-the-wind (any offshore event will give you that data), this year's two teams continued the tradition of J/125 domination offshore in all kinds of crazy weather conditions. This year it was the boys on REINRAG that were 1st PHRF C and 2nd ORR C. Their "compadres" in the form of DERIVATIVE managed to pull off 3rd in both PHRF C and ORR C. More news about their J/120 "brothers" later and how it all pans out overall. For Yellowbrick race tracking For more Cabo San Lucas sailing information
