Racing into PV

HL Enloe’s ORMA 60 trimaran Mighty Merloe crossed the finish line of San Diego Yacht Club’s Puerto Vallarta Race at 8:30 Tuesday morning, for an elapsed time of 2 days, 19 hours, and 49 minutes. Their first 24 hours put them 480 miles down the course with an average VMG of 23 knots. After an epic 36-hour run from San Diego to Cabo, the second half of their journey was an exercise in getting through the lee of Cabo and building speed down the course, then beating at night to the finish in the light north and east winds wafting out of Banderas Bay. Mighty Merloe is the former Groupama II that finished off the once great ORMA 60 trimaran class by being so much lighter and faster than the rest, giving rise to the MOD70 one-design class.

Unlike Mighty Merloe’s uphill crawl, Rio100 had a much more direct line in daylight hours to finish at 7 p.m., avoiding Tuesday night’s light air. Manouch Moshayedi and his crew of 19 aboard the Bakewell-White 100 set the monohull course record by completing the race in 77.7 hours. Navigator Chris Branning checked prior to the race to make sure they knew what the target was, to set their strategy and make decisions to take on the record, which had been set in 2010 by Bill Turpin’s R/P 77 Akela at 80.87 hours.

The battle of four Santa Cruz 50s and two 52s came to a head this morning, with John Shulze’s SC50 Horizon beating the others to the finish. We’ll have much more in the April issue of Latitude 38. In the meantime, see www.pvrace.com.