The Vallarta Yacht Club is the host of the Banderas Bay Regatta, a cruiser , fun sailboat race. Paradise Village Marina provided half price slip rentals for the week of the festivities. I was fortunate to be crew on Iolani, a S&S 48 foot ketch. The owners ,Barry and Sylvia, had raced the boat in the SF Bay area. The above photo is of a dustpan dredge that is continually dredging the channel into the marina. When we returned from the first race is was low tide and we touched bottom on the entrance. Draft was 6.5 feet.
This was one of our competitors, Scout. She was a faster boat so she gave us some rating points that luckily we never needed.
Warm up for the first day of racing.
The happy crew of Iolani checking on the competition. Foreground is Dave of Aussie Rules, the tactician for the crew. Barry ,far right, was the driver and he and Dave made an excellent team. Both very keen racers and experienced. The fact everyone on the boat was a cruiser use to sailboats gave us an advantage, coupled with Barry and Dave we were a formidable team.
Competition under asymmetrical. A Benateau 49 that was quite fast and stripped of all cruising gear. They beat us by 7 seconds on day 2 , but we corrected out as winner.
Winds were light and we unsure if we could finish in time. Note grinder hold boom to keep the main full. We did finish in time as the race committee shorten the last uphill leg.
Scout coming on a little too late. Our competitors only carried asymmetrical chutes. We had both types and were able to sail deeper on the downwind legs and without having to gybe. So we won the Regatta. Going into the last day only one boat could knock us off, Talion, a gulfstar 50. We beat them by 6minutes 45 and if it had of been 7 minutes we would have taken second.
