Talk of Great Winds Turns Into a Whisper

The promise of wind for the 50th Newport-to-Ensenada International Yacht Race was slow to materialize Friday when most of the 554 entries struggled just to cross the starting line.

After strong winds the four days preceding the race, sailors found only a light southerly breeze at mid-morning, and by the time the first starting gun was fired at noon, even that had faded to a two-knot zephyr that left a sea of limp sails. Only adventurer Steve Fossett on his record setting Trimaran Lakota seemed to be moving well.

Fred Preiss’ new 100-foot Christine from Pacific Mariners Yacht Club towered over all of the other boats but did no better, wallowing virtually dead in the water for several minutes until gaining headway.

Conditions improved at the boarder late in the day when the leaders sailed into whitecaps generated by a following breeze of about 20 knots. But their early lack of progress may have ruined their chance for any record.

Fossett was supposed to sail the Stars & Stripes catamaran that he bought from Dennis Conner last year but, ironically, couldn’t bring it north from San Diego because of fierce headwinds and heavy seas Thursday.

So he switched to Lakota, on which he set a record for crossing the Pacific from Yokohama to San Francisco and a course record of 7 hours and 35 minutes from Newport to Ensenada, although not in the race.