Many tired faces around the center of the West Coast racing world as we go into the new week, and the place would be Puerto Vallarta, and the tired faces would be the late finishers of the race from San Diego who rolled into Banderas Bay on Saturday after a slow go on the ocean. And then they had to quickly re-sort themselves for Governor's Cup racing on Sunday with a few hours sleep and at least a tiny celebration of arrival. Hoo, boy.
Rob Moore—you remember him from his days as the racing reporter for Latitude 38-arrived, looking a pit peaked, in the wee hours Saturday aboard Jim Gregory's Morpheus. They had spent far more time on the course than would have been the case, had there been more wind. And, doggies, this was the year (the first year) that the Governor's Cup race was included as counting for points as a MEXORC opener, so everybody had to race even if they were still drying spinnakers on the way out.
Monday is the kickoff for the Banderas Bay Regatta, a cruisers-for-fun series of races where it's okay to tow the dinghy. So you see, host Vallarta Yacht Club really is the center of the left coast world this week. How should it be? Well, we're still making it up.
Footnote to the San Diego-Vallarta Race: It's interesting to note that the Tim Kernan-designed Peligroso won whether you score it ORR or IRC. Which doesn't mean the results are identical, and doesn't mean that they are not. It just means that Peligroso won.
Peligroso - conceived by co-owners Mike Campbell and Dale Williams as an update of the wildly-successful 70-foot sleds that once ruled the West Coast - arrived with an elapsed time of 101.76 hours.
Under ORR, second place went to the first finisher, Magnitude 80, well ahead with an elapsed time of 87.79 hours. The corrected time difference was .16 hour, or a percentage difference of .002.
(Gosh, I hope I'm getting that right. I promised myself I wasn't doing arithmetic after I left college.)
Under IRC, second place went to Stark Raving Mad, Jim Madden's cant-keel Reichel-Pugh 66 out of San Diego that arrived with an elapsed time of 101.81. This single-number system produced a corrected time difference of 16.06 hours, or a percentage difference of .106.
As in a statistically-insignificant difference in outcomes of .1004 percent.
Note: Magnitude 80 was not included in the IRC calculations. Only a few boats carried IRC certificates, but ratings guru Dan Nowlan from US Sailing was on the scene; maybe he can find something of substance in this. And if not, count it not a moral failing. I'll consult The Dan.
I'll also catch up on Vallarta Race Week developments as the week goes along. For now, let me share the fact that it is good to be in Mexico . . .
This is a place where someone knows how to turn out the TV cameras for a pre-regatta ceremony . . .
It is also a place where families let it flow. This young lady was the firebrand of the dancing, following the awards ceremony for the Vallarta Race. All her prancing pics (that I took) missed the point, but get this closing gesture . . .
And this opener to the next number . . .
So the young man perhaps was a bit shy . . .
A few minutes later he was over it . . .
The Governor's Cup racing that followed on Sunday was a cross-cultural exchange of the sort that doesn't happen at every regatta in every port in the world. Because, you see, you can't kick off Vallarta Race Week without a parade. This is Mexico. So before the race of the day, there was a parade. Here is the parade . . .
No, you didn't miss much if you missed the parade, unless you missed the parade on our boat. Vallarta YC commodore John Moore thought it was quite a hoot that Puerto Vallarta Choppers/Route 200 Bar & Grill wanted to sponsor his boat in the parade. (His boat is a rather nice fish killer named Therapy.) Eduardo Cortes Delgado is the man at PV Choppers, and he brought along decorations (!) and a delegation . . .
Real nice folks, with their own strange sports addiction, kinda like mine but different. Here's Eduardo, design master, constructing a more fashionable top for his lady friend . . .
And celebrating the result . . .
Banderas Bay was as-advertised. Warm and lovely, with dolphins at play and a breeze a'building for the race of the day. The rest is gratuitous . . .
Shantih shantih shantih—Kimball
