Newport to Ensenada - Record for Mag 80, first place for Loe Real

by Rich Roberts on 26 Apr 2009 Doug Baker just wanted the record. H.L. (Loe) Enloe would settle for his newfound respect. This time.

Both---one sailing the 80-foot monohull Magnitude 80 from Long Beach and the other the 60-foot Jenn trimaran Loe Real from San Diego---emerged from the 62nd Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race reasonably satisfied. Baker had a race record for monohulls of 10 hours 37 minutes 50 seconds and Enloe scored a first-place finish in a faster time by nearly two hours of 8 hours 45 minutes 3 seconds, second only among multihulls to the late Steve Fossett's record of 6:46:40 on the Stars & Stripes catamaran in 1998.

Oh, sure, a multihull should beat a monohull of similar size, some monohull sailors may say dismissively, but Baker wasn't as concerned about that as he was chasing the ghost boat adorned with the face of a witch's cat on the hull.

Mag 80's time was only 7 minutes 3 seconds faster than the record of 10:44:54 for the 125.5-nautical mile race set by Roy E. Disney's Pyewacket III in 2003---the year it took the record away from Mag 80.

Overall, the race was so fast that 56 boats had finished before sunrise Saturday---a premature arrival for crews whose lodging reservations were made for Saturday night. All boats had finished by 4 p.m. Saturday.

The overall winner on corrected handicap time was Cleve Hardaker's Sojourn, a Catalina 30 from San Diego in PHRF-K class with a rating of 192 seconds per mile.

Both Mag 80 and Loe Real started of Balboa Pier at the same time---noon Friday---but on opposite sides of the split line, and though both finished well before midnight it was never a boat for boat race.

'We thought we saw the tri early,' said Keith Kilpatrick, a helmsman for Baker's Andrews 80 from Long Beach, 'but they must have scooted away from us.'

Enloe said, 'They don't give us any respect. We don't even get to share the same start line with them.'

He may have meant the race officials, not Mag 80, which had the record more on its mind. The race wasn't wild and windy but the breeze was a steady 9 to 12 knots the whole night through and positioned nicely from southwest, clocking to west, to sweep the fleet of 272 starters directly toward the finish: rhumb line sailing.

'We never saw any whitecaps,' Kilpatrick said, 'but it was a perfect point of sail. We went straight at the [finish].'

Baker was not immediately available to comment, but Kilpatrick told a tale of high anxiety as they approached Todos Santos Bay, where the last 25 miles has destroyed other record dreams.

'We didn't know what kind of wind we'd see there,' Kilpatrick said.

Mag 80 flew two headsails---a large genoa and a genoa staysail---much of that way before hoisting a spinnaker north of the Coronado Islands at the border.

They wouldn't have worried so much if they could have seen the monstrous Mexican flag that flies high over the waterfront plaza in downtown Ensenada. The red, green and white banner was a beautiful sight flowing horizontally all night long, a sure sign that there was breeze in the bay.

Still, would it last?

Mag 80 is so fast that its fastest point of sail is dead downwind in only the strongest blows, and as they jibed down the middle of the bay for maximum speed toward the finish the countdown clock ticked louder by the mile.

'We had no margin for error,' Kilpatrick said. 'I'd been driving and told Bake he should take over, but he said, 'You're doing fine.' He was checking the mileage with GPS.'

What breaking the record in moderate breeze from an ideal direction 'just shows that [in a really windy year] this record can be blown wide-open,' Kilpatrick said.

As it was, Loe Real's numbers were remarkable. A GPS tracking system linked to iPod indicated that in a race measuring a straight-line 125.5 nautical miles---half a mile longer than before because of starting at Balboa Pier---the trimaran sailed only 130 miles. There was little reason to deviate from the rhumb line.

Loe Real's average speed was 14.8 knots, but even Enloe didn't buy the GPS's info that the top speed was 35 knots.

'It might have been 25-something right after the start,' he said. 'We jumped on the layline and stayed there. The wind was very steady from the right direction.'

Enloe noted that one of his crew members, John Gladstone of North Sails, was also on Fossett's catamaran in 1998.

Complete Results (unofficial) - click here