Southland Sailing : 12 Boats Try for Line Honors in the Race to Cabo San Lucas

Twelve candidates for first to finish are listed among the 40 entries in Los Angeles Yacht Club’s Cabo San Lucas race, which will get under way off the Los Angeles breakwater Saturday.

They’re calling it LAYC’s 14th biennial race to Mexico, but this will be the first with Cabo San Lucas as the target. The distance is 860 miles. The others have ended at Mazatlan, 1,100 miles away.

The Mazatlan race was abandoned because of the distance and the light winds near the finish. It was also declining because it was limited to International Offshore Rule (IOR) ratings that have been on the decline in recent years. The acceptance of Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) yachts in the race dramatically swelled the entry list from 16 to 40.

This will be the third race from Southern California to Cabo San Lucas on the offshore racing calendar. Long Beach Yacht Club runs a Cabo race in the fall of odd-numbered years, and Newport Harbor Yacht Club sponsors a race to the popular resort in the spring of odd-numbered years.

Cabo San Lucas has become popular with offshore racers because they can usually rely on good winds from start to finish, and skippers and crews get an opportunity to cruise the Sea of Cortez before returning to home ports.

LAYC’s Cabo race will differ from the others in that it requires the fleet to keep Guadalupe Island to port, providing some reaching as well as running.

The battle for first to finish is expected to be among a dozen ultra-light displacement boats, with ratings of 70 or greater.

Seeking the new Kenneth Watts Perpetual Trophy for the first IOR yacht on corrected time will a pair of Nelson-Marek 68s, Swiftsure III under charter to John Reynolds of the host club, and Prima, under charter to Roy Disney, also representing LAYC. Both are also capable of line honors (first to finish).