Vicarious winter distance racing—Sailing news from the U.S. and beyond

by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 24 Feb 2016 Depending on one’s lat/long, this time of winter can be a bit difficult. Sure, days are getting noticeably longer, but also noticeable is the frost that still regularly graces car windshields and the occupational hazard known as black ice on the road, not to mention the piles of snow that still plague many front lawns, dinghy parks and yacht-club docks. We all know that the end of winter’s run is (thankfully) nigh, but these last few weeks before spring’s arrival can be a bit brutish. Fortunately, there are warm-water destination regattas for the lucky, and-for the rest of us-this is a particularly good time to live vicariously.

There are currently two classic distance races unfurling, one in the Caribbean, the other on the West Coast. The Caribbean 600 may be a relatively new race, but it regularly attracts some of the biggest and fastest boats afloat, as well as some of the world’s best sailors, to its racecourse, which wends through 600 miles of Caribbean waters. The Vallarta Race, by contrast, is enjoying its 32nd running as the fleet negotiates 1,000 miles of coastal and near-coastal sailing that stretches from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

This year’s Caribbean 600 kicked off this past Monday (February 22) off of Antigua and has been delivering the promised goods: a new course record was established for the multihull fleet, and the globetrotting Comanche, owned by Jim and Kristy Clark and skippered by Ken Read, took monohull line honors and came within some 33 minutes of bettering the course record, which was set in 2011 by owner/skipper George David’s Rambler 100.

Lloyd Thornburg and his crew aboard Thornburg’s MOD70 trimaran, Phaedo3, have been enjoying a rout of record-breaking runs in the past few years, and this year’s Caribbean 600 was no exception, as the star-studded tri managed to stave-off some seriously competitive attacks (some separated by mere boatlengths) from Tony Lawson’s MOD70 trimaran, Concise 10, to break their own course record (established in 2015), while also beating the Concise 10 crew by a margin of 9 minutes and 52 seconds.

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Phaedo3’s blisteringly fast new race record for this 600-mile course is just 31 hours, 59 minutes and 4 seconds.

Not surprisingly, the 100-foot, VPLP/Verdier-designed Comanche commanded the monohull divisions, taking the bullet and posting a total elapsed time of 40 hours, 53 minutes and 2 seconds.

While overall results were not available at the time of this writing, the battle for this IRC handicap honors appears to be one between Steve Benjamin’s Spookie (a TP52) and Piet Vroon's Ker 51, Tonnerre 4 (a Ker 51). Stay tuned to the website for more Caribbean 600 results, as they become known.

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Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the Vallarta Race started off on February 19 with classic sled-ride conditions, but the breeze eventually frittered out for some boats come Tuesday night, generating some “re-start” situations as boats approached Banderas Bay.

According to the race’s tracker, most of the turbo-charged hardware had crossed the finishing line, with Manouch Moshayedi’s Rio 100 capturing line honors with a record-setting time of just 77 hours and 42 minutes. This represents an improvement on the standing monohull record by more than three hours.

Meanwhile, amongst the multihulls, HL Enloe’s ORMA 60 Mighty Merloe was the first to reach the dock, posting an impressive total elapsed time of just 67 hours, 49 minutes and 29 seconds. While this wasn’t fast enough to break Tom Siebel’s 2014 course-record time of just 56 hours and 33 minutes, it was enough to place Mighty Merloe in fine standing come the prize-giving ceremony.

As with the Caribbean 600, final results were not yet available at the time of this writing, so be sure to stay current with the website over the next couple of days.

Also inside this issue, don’t miss our coverage of the 470 World Championships, where Americans Anne Haeger and Briana Provancha are in contention for the overall win, as well as the latest news from the Clipper Round the World Race and the wrap-up coverage of the JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championships.

May the four winds blow you safely home,