Sitzmark’s ‘Pebble Stars’ Set to Sail : Sailing: Hinckley’s boat is short on size, but the crew is long on know-how for the 1,100-mile race to Manzanillo, Mexico.

Some of the bigger yachts leaving Point Loma today for the 1,100-mile pilgrimage to Manzanillo, Mexico, will be run by professional yachtsmen--sometimes called “rock stars” or Dennis Conners. Many of these boats will use computers, sea-temperature instruments and extravagant weather devices.

But some of the smaller boats, such as the 41-foot Sitzmark, will be run with more simple methods.

“All of that stuff is pretty theoretical,” said Ward Hinckley, Sitzmark’s skipper. “Most of what you do is by the seat of your pants. A lot of this race is being where the wind is. Which is why the navigator is so important.”

The navigator for Sitzmark is Mike Benedict, a veteran of six San Diego-to-Manzanillo races. Hinckley affectionately calls his crew “pebble stars.”

“We don’t have any professional racers, people whose whole life is built around their racing boat,” said Hinckley, a member of the Coronado Cays Yacht Club. “Mike Benedict is about as close as we come to having a rock star.”

Benedict, 46, navigated 41-foot Encore, which won this race in 1986, but admits there is a little bit of luck involved.

“A lot of it is being in the right place at the right time,” Benedict said. “But since I’ve done this so many times, I am aware of certain places to be at certain times of the day. You have to put yourself in that right place in order to have a chance.”

Hinckley said he likes his chances.

“With our crew, I don’t think we’ll make too many fundamental mistakes, so we should have a pretty good chance of winning,” he said.

“We’re all going to make mistakes. We’re going to make wrong tactical decisions. Nobody has ever sailed the perfect race. But nobody is going to get excited about it.”

When the pebble stars do err, they can later discuss it over cocktails. The eight-member Sitzmark crew will have a happy hour and a music appreciation hour every night at five. During that time, they will discuss future tactics and past blunders with either one beer or one glass of wine--their daily ration.

Hinckley said his crew, which has never sailed together before this race, was more than willing to ration alcohol for less weight and a better opportunity to win.

“We have a very congenial crew,” Hinckley said. “You’re together for a week or more in confining conditions, you better be reasonably compatible, or it’s not going to be a pleasant trip for anybody.”

Dorothy Hinckley, Ward’s wife, said she has heard about crews where conflicting personalities have limited effectiveness.

“We have seen in some boats where there gets to be a real bitterness, and people get to yelling at each other,” she said. “People like to sail with us, generally because we have a very quiet boat.”

The Sitzmark, only 1 1/2 years old, has entered the race in two classes--IOR-B (International Offshore Racing Assn.) and IMS (International Measuring System). Both classes are based on the boat’s dimensions. A boat is given a rating or an elapsed-time handicap for its dimensions.

Benedict and Hinckley agree their odds of winning are considerably better in IMS, where they will be matched against six similar boats.

Yachts entered in the IMS class, which will be contested for the first time in the Manzanillo race, will have dining tables in the front and back cabins.

“This class was designed for people who want to go to Catalina (Island) but still race occasionally,” Hinckley said.

But Ward and Dorothy Hinckley are more than the occasional racers.

In the past year, they have competed 42 times--taking first place in the PHRF (Performance Handicapped Racing Federation) Class A Cabrillo race and tying for first in the overall standings.

But the Cabrillo race and most of the other regattas the Hinckleys enter are about 50 miles long, a far cry from 1,100.

So why, at the age of 63, has Hinckley decided to sail all the way to Manzanillo?

For Hinckley, a major attraction is Las Hadas, a resort in the town, which lies about 400 miles south of Cabo San Lucas.

“If (the regatta) was going anywhere else than Las Hadas, I don’t think we’d go,” Hinckley said. “It’s just a beautiful place.”

Said Dorothy Hinckley, “There’s nothing like it on the Mexican coast. You feel like you’re in another world.”

Hinckley said his age is another reason he entered the race, held every two years. “When you get to be my age, you better do it quickly, or it’s going to pass you by,” he said.

John Gladstone, who is a friend of Hinckley but will sail for the Kathmandu crew, said Manzanillo is different from most regattas because of the scenery and the course’s unpredictable weather.

“You will see a lot of humpback and killer whales, and the dolphins will swim right in front of the bow and play with you,” said Gladstone, a veteran of two Manzanillo races. “Every point of land is a potential parking lot (dead wind area). “Once, we spent half-a-day trying to get out from the Cabo San Lucas because there were no winds.”

Hinckley said the conditions are usually calm on the way to Cabo.

“In normal conditions, from here to Cabo, I’d be surprised if we had to change sails five or six times,” Hinckley said. “The last quarter of the way is where we’ll have to make adjustments.”

Before Cabo San Lucas, Benedict said many of the boats will be tacking out to sea in search of kinder winds, which means most of the 26 boats entered will travel farther than 1,100 miles.

“The bigger boats will be able to take the longer tacks out to sea,” Benedict said.

“A smaller boat like us might not be able to make up the distance and the time if we get too far out. So even though this is a long race, you could wind up doing something really stupid, and no matter what you did, you could never make it up.”