Plywood Boat Beats the Big Boys in California Offshore Race Week
Sailed by Seattle-based Alex Simanis and crew, Pell Mell has won California Offshore Race Week overall. “This is a remarkable accomplishment, but even more amazing is the fact that they achieved it racing on a renovated 27-ft plywood boat built 35 years ago,” writes Dennis Palmer, a friend of Alex. “Pell Mell is a Point Bonita 27, built in 1987 by Dave Sutter, flying the burgee of the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club. Their competitors raced in boats as long as 70 feet, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The smallest boat that sailed the entire course of California Offshore Race Week won the first leg, the Spinnaker Cup overall, the SoCal 300 overall, and CORW overall. At the opposite extreme of the fleet size range, the Santa Cruz 70 Pied Piper won the Coastal Cup overall.
CORW started in San Francisco with the Spinnaker Cup to Monterey on Saturday, May 28; continued with the Coastal Cup from Monterey to Santa Barbara starting on May 30; and finished with the SoCal 300 from Santa Barbara to San Diego starting on June 2.
Conditions ranged from typical breezy conditions in San Francisco Bay at the start, to very light air down the coast past Half Moon Bay, to gale warnings on Memorial Day (a few boats opted to start the voyage to Santa Barbara on Tuesday instead of Monday due to the dire forecast), to more light air on the SoCal leg.
We’ll have much more in the July issue of Latitude 38. In the meantime, check out the results at https://offshoreraceweek.com.
Our thanks to the folks who welcomed us in Monterey.
Great to see and congratulations. I beleive it is possible to still build wooden/plywood racing yachts to be light weight and very competitive yachts. I have designed both wood and carbon fiber, and find the wood far more enjoyable to sail and build.