Long Beach to Cabo San Lucas preview

by Rich Roberts on 2 Nov 2010 The wolf is on the prowl again, about to lead a compact and aggressive pack of hungry sailors in Long Beach Yacht Club's biennial race to Cabo San Lucas.

Likely, Akela will be hungry for victory or a record or anything, perhaps, after three days of freeze-dried food.

The race starts Saturday at noon from Belmont Pier in the Long Beach outer harbor and measures 804 nautical miles to the tip of the Baja California peninsula. Admission to the pier is free for spectators to wave adios from the pier and wish Akela skipper Doug Baker good luck in his quest to fill a missing link in his offshore racing resume.

The list picks up from Magnitude 80, the Andrews 80 turbo sled Baker formerly sailed, and includes elapsed time records for the Newport to Ensenada race, Marina del Rey to Puerto Vallarta, Los Angeles to Tahiti, both alternating Coastal Cup records from San Francisco to Santa Barbara and Santa Catalina Island—and he almost had this one two years ago.

But early on Day 2 Mag 80 went from a runaway lead to nada in the instant it takes a mast to crash. That left the door to the record open to Peter Tong's Santa Cruz 70, OEX, in 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes 9 seconds.

Baker last year donated Mag 80 to the Orange Coast College School of Sailing and Seamanship and now races Akela, a supercharged Reichel/Pugh 78 formerly called Scout Spirit that he charters from Bill Turpin and David Janes. Akela is not quite as fast as Magnitude 80, but last February it claimed the record from San Diego to Vallarta.

Baker figures that Mag 80 was 'about three-tenths to half a knot faster' than Akela, which may not sound like much.

'But in an offshore race even a couple tenths is quite a bit,' he said. 'The boat's still plenty fast. It's just not that high-tech a boat. It doesn't have a canting keel or some of the features but it's still a good, fast boat. Oh, yeah, with the right conditions we can get the record. It just depends on how everything unfolds.'

That depends largely on his navigator, Ernie Richau, who plotted all of the previous record romps, and a veteran crew where 'everybody does everything,' Baker said.

Richau has been spending the last couple of weeks studying projections on the weather, which seem to be generally encouraging.

Richau said, 'This year we've had a lot of fast-moving fronts going through Southern California. This week we're having that warmer weather with the little offshore breeze, and there's another front approaching the race course right about Saturday, the day we start. Then it's a matter of how far south the front actually comes. If it's farther north we'll have more of a northwesterly breeze.'

The boats' speed ratings are tight enough to give all five some hope to finish first, given the usual potential of gear-busting squalls, tricky winds, faulty 'naviguessing' and, of course, masts falling down.

In 2008 the first five finishers arrived in about three days within a span of about 4 1/2 hours. This year their PHRF Off-Wind ratings show a conservative spread from Akela's minus-120 seconds per mile to minus-87 seconds for Brack Duker's SC 70, Holua, and Per Peterson's Andrews 68, Alchemy, projecting a real-time span of about 7 1/2 hours for the fleet.

Bob Lane's Andrews 63, Medicine Man, rates in the middle at minus-99---but also broke the old record less than two hours behind OEX in 2008.

Then there is Vincitore, Ricardo Brockmann's Reichel/Pugh 52 from Acapulco, as something of a wild card---not to be confused with a Transpac 52, several of which it defeated in winning the top class in San Francisco's Big Boat Series the last two years. It is by far the smallest boat but is rated the second fastest at minus-102. Brockmann bought the boat from Jim Mitchell after racing on it in San Francisco this summer.

Vincitore's crew will include his two sons, Ricardo Jr., 24, and Erik, 21, and the veteran Robbie Haines. It could be the boat for the wolf to watch.

Besides Baker and Richau, Akela's crew is Matt Reynolds, Keith Kilpatrick, Chad Hough, Steve Dodd, Chris Hamel, Erik Mayol, Chris Carson, Eric Fisher, Mike Van Dyke and Mike Elias.

'Everybody drives, trims, grinds,' Baker said. 'I go back East and all you do is grind, trim, and you have certain guys who do the driving. I try to do it like a team where everybody participates in everything. I'll do some trimming and grinding … a little bit. One guy [Hamel] does the cooking, such as it is.

'Dinner is freeze-dried with a salad. We'll have some kind of sandwich for lunch and fruit and rolls for breakfast, so it's not a very hard job … just boiling water.

'There's a lot of laughing and scratching … there isn't any yelling. You keep your focus on but you try to interact with the other people and try to enjoy yourself. That's what you're out there for.'

Everybody will be able to track the boats' positions continuously by iBoat with a two-hour delay to protect tactical security. Also, by 8 a.m. PDT each day each boat must report its 7 a.m. PDT position to the race communications officer, who will forward the positions and standings to all boats.

A sendoff party is scheduled Thursday, 6 p.m., at Long Beach YC, featuring the introduction of 2010 Long Beach-to-Cabo race apparel. Reservations may be made at 562.598.9401.

Entries

(with PHRF Off-Wind handicap times in seconds per mile)

Akela (Reichel/Pugh 78/minus-120), Doug Baker, Long Beach, Calif. Alchemy (Andrews 68/minus-87), Per Peterson, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Holua (Santa Cruz 70/minus-87), Brack Duker, Marina del Rey, Calif.
Medicine Man (Andrews 63/minus-99), Bob Lane, Long Beach, Calif.
Vincitore (Reichel/Pugh 52/minus-102), Ricardo Brockmann, Acapulco, Mexico


2008 results

Elapsed time
1. OEX, Peter Tong, Long Beach YC, 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes 9 seconds (course record).
2. Medicine Man, Bob Lane, LBYC, 3:00:48:15.
3. Grand Illusion, Ed McDowell, King Harbor YC, 3:00:53:30.
4. Holua, Brack Duker, California YC, 3:01:14:42.
5. Alchemy, Per Peterson, Oceanside YC, 3:04:20:07.
6. Cheetah, Chris Slagerman, South Bay Yacht Racing Club, 3:19:56:54.
7. Magnitude 80, Doug Baker, LBYC, retired.

PHRF
Overall on corrected handicap time
1. Grand Illusion, 2:21:58:33.
2. OE X, 2:22:07:39.
3. Holua, 2:22:49:40.
4. Medicine Man, 3:01:10:05. 5. Alchemy, 3:01:48:58.
6. Cheetah, 03:13:36:14.

ORR
Overall on corrected handicap time
1. Grand Illusion, 2:07:42:38.
2. Holua, 2:09:04:10.
3. OEX, 2:09:10:03.
4. Medicine Man, 2:15:27:30.
5. Cheetah, 2:21:58:51(Alchemy chose not to be scored under ORR)

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