When Cruisers Become Racers

When do cruisers become racers? Whenever two or more of them want to! On Saturday, some habitués of Club Cruceros de La Paz enjoyed a great race after a 15-minute delay for light wind. "Then there was enough wind to fill a spinnaker so the race started," reports Nate Kraft of the Cheoy Lee 41 Astraea. "The Baja ferry came through the middle of the fleet interrupting the wind and downwind courses. As we were coming past the port at Pichilingue the wind quickly picked up. As we entered the channel there was a near pile-up of boats outside the Pemex wharf. The Catalina 42 Dad’s Dreams was on a port tack avoiding the shoal while the Cheoy Lee 41 Astraea came trucking down the channel. While passing Marina Palmira Astraea caught up to the Ron Holland 43 Azure-Te’ and stole their wind, but Azure-Te’ pulled ahead to finish one minute sooner."

"We had 16 boats turn out including one power boat," adds Patsy Verhoeven of the Gulfstar 50 Talion, "so we convinced him to be our start boat. Talion slowly pulled away from the fleet and had a challenging light-air sail, finishing first just seconds in front of the Corsair F-28 trimaran Coyote. But in all fairness, I think he may have gotten out of the channel and run aground for a bit. We had the mayor of Portland, Oregon, Charlie Hale, on board as one of our crew of 10."