Ripping down the course to Mexico

The 2022 San Diego to Vallarta International Yacht Race divided the 30 entrants among three start dates on March 10-12 for the 1050 nm course. Noted navigator Peter Isler provides this onboard report on March 13, 2022:

Roy Disney’s Pyewacket team is back in action sailing the turbo Volvo 70 Pyewacket 70 (ex Black Jack) and for us it’s been a fast pace so far – we’ve averaged 19.9kts over the bottom since the start, but since we’ve been running since last night our point to point average is a “measily” 16.2 kts. Man can this boat fly.

As usual for this long-lived racing team, the crew is top notch and the boat is being sailed really well. We are currently atop the leaderboard in Corrected time standings, but calculating handicap positions in a long race is not an exact science until the boat’s cross the finish line.

More importantly, we have the crown on the race tracker for elapsed time with our fleet of bigger boats. We are currently running down the fleets of smaller boats that started a day and two days before us and unless things get real crazy – we have a good shot at passing everyone before the tip of Cabo San Lucas.

Ah, but the passage of the southern tip of Baja California is one of the trickiest challenges in ocean racing. The race track makes a shallow, 15 degree turn at the point, but sailing in close (to sail the shortest distance) is fraught with peril because of the sometimes huge wind shadow that “weather-vanes” downwind of the point.

The flukey light winds can extend 50 to 100 miles out – so we navigators and tacticians are faced with a very difficult task of picking the right lane. We still have over 24 hours before we hit that part of the race course – but we are already considering all the many factors such as time of day for sea breezes, prevailing gradient wind, and any change in the weather’s big picture in the Gulf of California.

If only I remembered my lucky rabbit’s foot.

Although the race has been fast so far – the weather models predict that the gradient is going to slacken and we’ll be running into lighter breezes all the way home…to say nothing of that aforementioned giant sailboat racing “sand trap” passing Cabo.

We have our work cut out for us – with Mother Nature and the fleet of boats that will surely compress on us as we lead the way into the lighter winds. Luckily the Pyewacket crew has a lot of experience doing these offshore races from So. Cal to Mexico so we’ve had some good conversations already in the Nav station – which is a lot drier than on deck where dry tops and boots have been the attire du jour up til this afternoon.

As the wind wind lightens things will get a bit drier on deck – and we are looking forward to at least one more great sunset. With high pressure over the eastern North Pacific, we’ve seen nary a cloud and the skies have been beautiful.

Event information – Race details – Entry list – Tracking – March 13 roll call – Photos

Note: The tracking has a 4-hour delay.

Start schedule for 30 entrants:
March 10 – Division 6
March 11 – Division 3, 4, 5
March 12 – Division 1, 2