Bountiful Sailing off Baja

Some folks think there isn’t much good sailing on the way from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. It’s true that it can be light but, as you can see from David Berke’s YouTube video of Cliff Shaw’s Emery Cove-based Crowther 10m Rainbow, there is actually great sailing to be had.

While the wind didn’t fill in for the second leg until about 4 p.m., when it did it was wonderful. We were carrying a full main on Profligate along with a Santa Cruz 70 chute in what we estimated were 17 to 19 knots of true wind, and we were constantly surfing in the low- to high-teens. It was so smooth that if you were inside the salon, you could hardly tell — except for the sound of the water passing the hulls — that the boat was moving. It was some of the best sailing we’ve ever had. Around about 3 a.m., a bit of a cross swell developed, so it wasn’t quite as smooth as before, and thanks to overstanding the layline, we had to go to white sails after gybing. Nonetheless, the Baja coast proved to once again be a cat’s playground.