Ragtime Leads a Sweep for Class A Yachts in Race to Cabo San Lucas

Led by Pat Farrah’s 62-foot Ragtime from the Long Beach Yacht Club, Class A boats took the first five handicap places on corrected time in the Newport Harbor Yacht Club’s ninth yacht race to Cabo San Lucas.

Ragtime, sporting a new keel, missed a clean sweep--first to finish, first overall and first in Class A--by 51 minutes as she finished that far behind Bob McNulty’s Santa Cruz-70 Blondie from Los Angeles Yacht Club.

Blondie took line honors in a record elapsed time of 2 days 22 hours and 2 minutes for the 790-mile race. The old record was 3 days 13 hours and 54 minutes set by the the 68-foot yacht Swiftsure III in 1985. In fact, all 12 of the Class A boats finished ahead of the old record.

It was a case of the Class A boats bringing the strong winds with them. The northwest wind, clocked up to 30 knots in the early stages of the race, had the Class C boats saving their handicap time until it died after most of the Class A and B boats had finished.

McNulty said he was sailing in 30-knot winds one day and logging speeds up to 23 knots. Others in the top five reported similar conditions. The first five finishers crossed the finish line within two hours of each other about noon Tuesday.

The Cabo race, consisting entirely of International Offshore Rule (IOR) ratings, may be a preview of a record-setting year in July’s 2,225-mile Transpac race from Los Angeles to Honolulu, since all of the Class A boats are entered in that event.