2024 Puerto Vallarta Race at San Diego Yacht Club - Day 5
by San Diego Yacht Club 27 Feb 2024 09:36 NZDT
February 22 - March 1, 2024
2024 Puerto Vallarta Race day 5 © San Diego Yacht Club
Most boats on the course are about 24 hours behind last year's record-setting pace.
Compared with their 2022 position at this same elapsed time, Rio 100 and BadPak are roughly 200 miles short. Such Fast, a Thursday starter, is about 140 miles short of last year's Monday morning location.
Boats are bunched closer to shore this year, 5-20 miles from Cedros Island, with Brigadoon and City Lights passing by within 4 miles of the island Sunday afternoon.
At sunset on Sunday evening, the leader of the pack continued to be Blackwing, 35 miles ahead of fellow Thursday starter Such Fast. 12 hours later, Such Fast found themselves caught by the front of the Friday starting pack, while Blackwing doubled their pace overnight and extended their lead to 65 miles.
The closest competition to watch so far has been the 6-boat Class 4, as Westerly, It's OK, Groundhog Day, Lucky Duck and Trouble sailed within 1-5 miles of each other over the last 24 hours. And based on corrected time estimates are all very close with the class lead up for grabs.
At 0930 Race Committee received notice that Santa Cruz 52 City Lights was retiring (all crew safe) and are returning to San Diego.
Reporting from the course, Zero Gravity on Monday AM says: "Decent sailing through the night, the wind dropped to 3kn this morning, so we get to practice our light air sailing skills again! The steak dinner was delicious, unfortunately we did not bring the wine refrigerator with us."
Amazing Grace: "After a slow, light air night, wind filled in this morning and we felt like we were going fast again. Then Rio 100 passed us like we were going backwards. Still having a blast."
Check the photo gallery for new pics from the race course. With many boats using Starlink for internet connectivity 24/7, teams are able to share photos and drone video, and possibly more free time due to the light conditions this year.