Mar 27, 2012

RACING THE CONDO


Sea Story heading for the starting line after a night at anchor in Caleta Partida, one of the prettiest anchorages in Bahia La paz.  From this start, we raced back to the entrance of the La paz harbor channel (about 20 miles) and finished second in our class.

A couple of years ago, some local cruisers got together and started Veleros de Baja, a loose and very informal organization of racing enthusiasts here in La paz.  Because most of us are racing the boats we live on, the races are pretty low key, and no one gets too excited about a slow start or raggedy tack.  They're mostly fun events and a good excuse for getting out on the Bay for a pleasant afternoon of whale watching and sunbathing.
 Sea Story is fairly fast for a fully loaded cruising boat, so we usually finish in the top two or three of our class.  In this particular race, there was a big lull midway through, so we were one of only five boats out of thirteen to even finish the race within the allotted time.  Best of all, we managed to beat Talion, a very fast fifty footer that usually dominates the competition.  If course, it helped that skipper Patsy was single-handing Talion - but maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that....!
There's a full rundown and more photos of the race at:  www.velerosdebaja.wordpress.com

2 comments:

Summer Wind said...

The last time we went racing was with you in PV. seems like a long time ago

Jerry Rouillard said...

Maybe 2006? Think we finished 2nd in one of those races too...