Pyewacket Destroys Newport-Cabo Record

Newport Harbor Yacht Club has hosted the biennial Newport to Cabo San Lucas Race since 1971. This year’s 21st edition was perhaps not what the founders had in mind when they set out to create an 800-mile yacht race ideal for sailors “of all levels.” Friends and families were encouraged to participate in this “tune-up” for the longer Transpac Race to Hawaii later in the season. A tune-up this edition was not. Conditions favored long waterlines, well-honed teams and top-quality foulies. Offshore Racing Rule (ORR) Division A may have been down in numbers this year, but some well-known names still came out to play: Ray Paul’s Botin 65 Artemis, the Andrews 77 Compadres, Doug Baker’s Dencho/Kernan 75 Peligroso, Roy Disney’s modified Volvo 70 Pyewacket, and Manouch Moshayedi’s Bakewell-White 100 Rio100.

It’s not often that these big sleds meet on the starting line, so all eyes were on the lookout to see who would outperform whom well before the start signal even went off. To the delight of all, there was good pressure at the start, and indications were that it would hold deep into Baja California on the way to Cabo.

At 1 p.m. on March 20, the division’s race began. An hour later, the three leaders had clearly picked different paths — Artemis was taking the inside track, Rio was rhumblining it, and Pyewacket had chosen to go outside. About three hours later, pressure was building and Pyewacket was pressing along at almost 2 knots faster, at 19.7 knots, and pointing higher than Rio. By 9:30 that evening, Rio had sustained rudder linkage failure and was forced to turn back, and Peligroso had collided with an unidentified floating object and returned to Newport Harbor. Pyewacket was flying along at almost 23 knots, her remaining competitors left behind. She finished in 1 day, 21 hours, 22 minutes and 52 seconds. That’s a whopping 16 hours and change over the previous monohull record set in 2005 by Doug Baker’s Magnitude 80.

“We didn’t know how we’d line up with Rio,” explains Roy Disney. “We figured it was going to be a drag race. We figured it was going to be tactical. We thought we had a better crew and a better navigator with Peter Isler. But it turned out we were a good 2-3 knots faster. They’re a 100-footer and we’re a 70-footer. And we know they’re going to be fast in those conditions; we just didn’t know how fast because none of us have been side by side, so it was an interesting moment. They went deep and low, and we went higher and faster to get to the wind quicker.”

Please go to Latitude38.com to continue reading.