Pyewacket Sails to a Win in the Puerto Vallarta Race

Roy Pat Disney’s San Diego-based Andrews 68 Pyewacket is on a roll. The sled won San Diego Yacht Club’s Islands Race (Point Fermin to San Diego) overall on February 9-10. Now they’ve won the Puerto Vallarta International Yacht Race overall too.

Race starts began on Thursday, February 22, and the early-starting boats enjoyed a fresh westerly. The fastest boats, starting on Saturday the 24th, drew the short (windless) straw. “We knew no records would be broken,” reports Scott Easom, headsail trimmer and rigger aboard Pyewacket. “We spent a lot of time with the drifter up.” He told us that the weather pattern was “really strange,” making for a very tactical race.

Pyewacket recorded an average wind speed of 9+ knots, very light even for Mexico. “It wasn’t exhilarating, but it was great for sleeping,” commented Scott.

In the slow going, Scott worried about a personal deadline. He needed to be back in the San Francisco Bay Area in time to skipper his Sabre Spirit 36 Serenade to an overall trophy win in Golden Gate Yacht Club’s Seaweed Soup midwinter series on Saturday, March 2. He stayed in touch with his crew via Starlink, making contingency plans. Thanks to a good breeze later on in the race, Pyewacket finished on Thursday. Scott flew home on Friday, and Serenade won the Seaweed Soup trophy on Saturday.

Pyewacket dueled with Vitesse, Thomas Furlong’s San Francisco YC-based RP 52. Pyewacket won the duel by cutting inside at Cabo, a maneuver that shaved 20 miles off the course.

Pyewacket’s 10-man crew had more than 150 Mexico races among them, and included Olympic medalists, America’s Cup winners and Volvo Race winners. Joining Roy Disney and Scott Easom were Brazil’s legendary Torben Grael, whom Scott called a great driver; navigator and meteorologist Peter Isler; Tony Mutter, Kiwi sailing master of the Rolex Sydney Hobart line honors-winning Juan K 100 LawConnect; Brad Jackson, who also sailed aboard LawConnect; Robbie Kane; Ben Mitchell; Daryl Wislang; and Gary Weisman. Scott called them “an amazing group of offshore sailors.”

We asked Scott about Disney’s other Pyewacket, the Volvo 70. That boat is on her way from Gibraltar to Florida. After some repair work, she’ll prep for the Bermuda Race.

With his singlehanded win in January’s Three Bridge Fiasco on his J/100 Eight Ball, the Islands Race win and PV Race win on Pyewacket, and GGYC’s overall trophy, Scott Easom has been on a roll in 2024!

We’ll have more on SDYC’s PV Race and GGYC’s Seaweed Soup series in the April issue of Latitude 38.