Winds Wreak Havoc on Cabo Racers

Two boats blew out their mainsails and a sailor fell overboard as strong winds whipped the fleet toward the tip of Baja California in the biennial race from Long Beach early Tuesday.

The unidentified sailor was recovered safely after falling off Mike Turi’s Fastrack from Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club. Battling winds reported to be 28 to 30 knots northwest of Magdalena Bay, Fastrack dropped its sails and motored back to pick him up, then resumed the race.

The winds abated Tuesday, but for two boats the damage had been done.

The mainsail on Peter Tong’s Santa Cruz 70 Blondie from the host Long Beach Yacht Club ripped apart so badly that even watch captain Dave Ullman, who owns sail lofts around the world, couldn’t fix it.

Blondie, continuing to sail under spinnaker and storm jib alone, soon fell behind the other ULDB 70s, but was still making 9.4 knots and covered 251 miles in the 24-hour period.

Carl Eichenlaub’s Cadenza from San Diego Yacht Club lost time when its mainsail was torn twice. But it was repaired both times and remained in front of the IOR-B and PHRF-B classes, although trailing on corrected handicap time.

Several boats averaged about 12 knots in 24 hours, but the only non-sled to do so was Dick and Camille Daniels’ MacGregor 65 Joss from LBYC. Joss equaled the day’s longest run of 288 miles by Silver Bullet.

On the pace, Antonio Elias’ older Ole, seldom competitive in the ULDB 70 sled fleet, moved up to challenge Mike Campbell’s new Andrews 70 Victoria, about 10 miles ahead of the nextboats.

They were reported to be neck and neck nearing the finish.