"Laser sailing/racing in Banderas Bay is heaven: warm water, warmer air temps, 6- to 10-knot breeze in the early afternoon building to 12-15 by mid-afternoon meaning lighter weight sailors have a shot in the first race and heavier sailors can come on in the second race." So said Walt Spevak of Mill Valley, who competed there for the Laser Radial Masters Worlds in April. Spevak said he would be happy to have the Worlds in Banderas Bay every year. "The Vallarta Yacht Club rolled out the green, white and red carpet, making launching and hauling out a breeze. They have put on four — count ’em four — Laser World Championships in a two-month period. Hosting one world championship is an endeavor. Four is above and beyond."

The four regattas are/were:

• Laser Radial Women’s World Championship, April 12-20
• Radial Masters’ World Championships, April 22-30
• Laser Standard Men’s World Championship, May 10-18
• Standard Masters World Championships, May 20-28

Four sailors from Northern California’s Laser District 24 competed in the Radial Masters Worlds. Jon Andron of Lafayette sailed in the Great Grand Masters division. "The conditions are a warmer version of Alamitos Bay outside the breakwater," said Andron. "The facilities were excellent with sheltered boat parking and ramp launching with assistance from the juniors. There is a gradient wind which can fight with the thermal, so often the wind direction at the weather mark was different than at the starting line. With excellent coaching for our American group from Vonn Harrison, I was able to improve my scores later in the series and finish with a third and two bullets in the 50-boat fleet for a fourth overall."

Walt Spevak was ninth in the 49-boat Grand Masters group. Kurt Wessels of San Francisco and Toshi Takayanagi sailed in the Masters group. "Toshi, competing in his first Worlds, ended the regatta with an impressive fifth on the last day," reports Spevak, "and could be heard at the boat park afterwards in his best Japanese Terminator impression ‘I’ll be back’."

"I agree 100% that the Masters Worlds at Nuevo Vallarta was really fantastic and unforgettable," said Takayanagi. "I spent seven months preparing for the event. And the training and practices did not betray me. I was able to perform my personal best in the championship. When I finished the last race (the 12th race in the six-days-long regatta), I got an overwhelming feeling that I literally did my best, and I cried."

Among the District 24 Laser sailors currently competing at the Standard Masters Worlds are Emilio Castelli of Sebastopol and Simon Bell of El Dorado Hills. Castelli agrees that "It’s a gorgeous place for sailing!" Bell concurs: "Conditions are amazing — warm water, warm air and a steady thermal — and very strong competition."

Eric Faust from ILCA reports that yesterday, "A light haze over the ocean kept the thermal wind from fully developing, but sailors were treated to a moderate 8- to 11-knot breeze that provided very tactical and tight racing." About today, he says, "Of course when you’re sailing in paradise, the forecast is once again for perfect sailing conditions."

The Laser Worlds wrap up the larger FMV Cup, which started way back in February with the PV Race, which we featured in the April issue of Latitude 38.

While the West Coast sailing scene celebrates Memorial Day with the running of a revamped Spinnaker Cup race from San Francisco to Monterey and an all-new multi-stage California Offshore Race Week, East Coast sailors are focused on the New York-Vendée solo transatlantic race beginning on Sunday and the Atlantic Cup doublehanded coastal race beginning on Saturday. Both feature world-class talent and take place in modern, high-tech boats designed for shorthanded offshore racing.

After the finish of the solo transatlantic Transat Bakerly and the America’s Cup World Series, Sunday’s New York-Vendée is just the latest in a string of major, high-profile international yacht races to take place in the Big Apple in May. The last major singlehanded race that the IMOCA Ocean Masters will campaign before their quadrennial crown jewel — this November’s Vendée Globe — the New York-Vendée will likely have more than a few surprises. With 14 IMOCA 60 monohulls on the line, including six of the new-generation semi-foiling designs, New York-Vendée features all of the big players who’ll compete in the upcoming Vendée Globe, which has the potential to be the fastest and most competitive edition ever. Racing across the Atlantic from west to east in the summer is when 24-hour distance records oftentimes get broken, and with half a dozen revolutionary new boats on the line, we’ll be watching this one with bated breath.

The pre-race favorite for the 3,100-mile New York-Vendée would have to be Banque Populaire skipper Armel le Cléac’h, who comes into the race riding a groundswell of momentum after winning this month’s Transat Bakerly and placing second on his maiden run with the new boat in last fall’s carnage-filled Transat Jacques Vabre, in which four of the five new-generation boats dropped out due to damage. Many thought the new Hugo Boss to be a total loss last November when it was floating low in the water with no mast while its two crew were airlifted to safety by the Spanish Coast Guard. No stranger to overcoming adversity, British skipper Alex Thomson and his distinctive new boat will — incredibly — be on the startling line Sunday in what will be his only true test run of the boat before the solo, nonstop, round-the-world Vendée Globe in November.

On Saturday, nine Class 40s will depart from Charleston, SC, to race 648 miles doublehanded up to New York. Once there, the fleet will regroup to race 360 miles up to Portland, Maine, beginning June 4. The third and final leg of the Atlantic Cup will be a series of inshore races in Maine, where each boat will sail with a crew of six.

Follow the action of boat events via their tracker sites: Click here for the New York-Vendée tracker and click here for the Atlantic Cup tracker. Then stay tuned to ‘Lectronic for updates on these two early summertime thrillers.