|
Jan. 11,
2007
Magnitude 80 sets
sights on Joss's durable record
MARINA DEL REY,
Calif.---Doug Baker's Magnitude 80 will be the biggest and fastest boat in
Del Rey Yacht Club's 19th biennial race to Puerto Vallarta next month, but
its toughest rival may be a ghost boat from the past.
The Alan Andrews
design from Long Beach is inherently bigger and faster than the boat that
holds the record, but the same could b e said for a lot of others over two
decades since the late Dick Daniels and his wife Camille sailed their
MacGregor 65, Joss, 1,125 nautical miles to the Mexican mainland resort in
4 days 23 hours and 4 seconds in 1985.
"Sooner or later somebody's
going to get the record, as long as Del Rey continues to have the race,"
Baker said.
But whoever it is will have to
catch some fair winds as well as a handful of luck.
Roy E. Disney's third
Pyewacket, a Reichel-Pugh 75 that had swept away all of the other major
West Coast ocean racing records, came close in 2003, less than five hours
over Joss's time. Then in 2005 his bigger, faster maxZ86
Pyewacket dropped out with a broken topmast as Magnitude 80 went on to
miss the record by only three hours.
The downfalls have been light
winds in the last 290-nautical mile run across the Gulf of
California followed by tricky conditions
in Banderas Bay.
Over the 36
years of the race participants have always commented on the difficulties
inherent in the last portion. Race officials long ago decided that the
challenge at the finish was one of the factors that made the race
special. Boats that have done well in past years have always felt a
sense of pride in being able to overcome the obstacles that lay
in the last 300 miles.
DRYC's Tom
Redler, one of the skippers of the SC 70 , Citius, that scored a "clean sweep" in the
1987 race, said, "If you pay constant attention to the wind shifts, play
the prevailing wind percentages, stay clear of the shoal areas and work
your butt off, you can do well. If you get careless at the end, or let
down even for a few minutes, the course will eat you up!"
Baker said, "For the last few
races its been slow across the gulf, and then you have to get all the way
through that bay because you have to finish at the beach."
Camille Daniels recalled that
even on the record run in 1985 "it took us six hours to go the last 20
miles. We blast-reached across the gulf with the boom in the water, but as
soon as we passed Punta Mita [at the entrance to
Banderas Bay] it was like we hit the
brakes."
Earlier in the
'85 race, as Joss approached Cabo San Lucas at the tip of
Baja
California, it was
trailing two faster-rated boats, Fred Preiss's Christine and Nolan
Bushnell's Charley, which had finished first in the Transpacific Yacht
Race two years earlier.
Mike Elias, who
sailed on Joss and now sails on Magnitude 80, said, "Christine and Charley got
quite a distance in front of us. [From position reports] we saw them match
racing and going kind of deep [south], so we realized we could probably
get around the cape early in the morning and just cut the corner. At roll
call we had caught and passed them and were 28 miles in front."
Magnitude 80 was fourth fastest behind three larger
boats in the 2005 Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii. This time its
closest competition will be Scout Spirit, a slightly smaller R/P 77 that won on
corrected handicap time in 2005 despite finishing more than a half-day
behind Magnitude 80.
"Scout Spirit isn't as fast,"
Baker said, "but anything can happen. You dont disregard them."
A change in the course this
year could provide Magnitude 80 a boost toward the record. No longer will
boats be required to leave Santa Catalina
Island to starboard. They can now
sail past the west end directly out to open sea and full sea breeze---as
Joss did in '85.
"That could be huge," Baker
said. "It's hard to say, depending on where the wind's coming from. The
better track normally is to go outside Catalina because you dont get that
lee. In the record-breaking course Catalina was not a mark."
Baker and Daniels are both
members of the Long
Beach Yacht club and longtime
friends.
"I've known her for 25 or 30
years," Baker said. "She said if somebody has to break the record she'd
just as soon it would be me."
"It would be cool for the
record to stay in our club," Daniels said.
The entry deadline is Jan. 20. Starting days are Feb.
16, 21 and 23.
The event features a Racing
division that will make a 1,125-nautical mile non-stop run from Marina del
Rey to Puerto
Vallarta and a Salsa division that
will have three layovers along the way. Each division offers its own
assortment of trophies and other prizes.
FIS Tracking Services
will provide satellite tracking of all boats for automatic scoring and the
opportunity for non-participants to follow the race on the Internet (see
New for PV07).
That feature will
serve the new format for the race that will incorporate the scope of
several other popular races to Mexico. The approximate finishing
points of those races at Ensenada, Cabo San Lucas and Punta Mita at the
entrance to Banderas Bay will be marked with navigational crossing lines
where the boat's satellite transponders will transmit each vessel's date
and exact time of crossing. Winners of each segment will be recognized at
the awards dinner in Puerto
Vallarta, where the traditional
trophies and Corum watches will be awarded as usual to the top overall
finishers.
Corum, the lead sponsor, will
present the Admiral's Cup Trophy 41 watch to the winner of each class
within each division. The timepiece with a 41mm stainless steel case and
nautical pennants instead of numerals to indicate the hours was introduced
by Corum before the 2005 race.
Corum is an independent,
family owned company producing high-quality and prestigious Swiss watches
since 1955. The Admiral watch, along with the complete Corum line, may be
seen at www.corum.ch
More information
at www.pv07.com
GENERAL INFORMATION
Del
Rey Yacht Club
(310) 823-4664
www.dryc.org
RACE CHAIRMAN
David Ross
(310) 980-7829
pv07@dryc.org
PRESS OFFICER
Rich
Roberts
(310) 835-2526
richsail@earthlink.net
|
