Records Shattered in Manzanillo Sail Race

The first 10 sailboats in the San Diego-to-Manzanillo race broke the record in what some observers were calling the fastest Mexican race ever--and certainly one of the tightest finishes.

Hal Ward’s 67-foot Cheval was first to finish at 8:54 Thursday night, followed only 4 minutes 6 seconds later by Ed McDowell’s 68-foot Grand Illusion, a Bill Lee design that nudged Cheval for first place on corrected time.

The next four boats--Holua, Taxi Dancer, Silver Bullet and Evolution--finished 26 to 30 minutes behind.

Cheval, a Nelson/Marek design, averaged nearly nine knots over the 1,137-nautical mile course.

Cheval’s overall time was 5 days 7 hours 54 minutes 20.12 seconds, or not quite 128 hours. The previous record was 144 hours, and even the 10th-place Swiftsure III beat that by nearly eight hours.