Love of Sailing Keeps Him Ensenada-Bound

The Newport-to-Ensenada International Yacht Race has a well-deserved reputation for excess during its 53-year history. Sometimes the focus appears less on competition and more on eating, drinking and revelry.

The post-race fiestas on the streets and in the bars of Ensenada are legendary, and for many the party begins on this side of the border.

“A lot of people think of it as a party race,” said Victor Stern, a veteran sailor. “But there are those of us who take it seriously.”

Stern, 77, has been focused on winning the race since 1963, when he first entered the event, which is billed as the world’s largest international yacht race. There are 441 entrants this year.

On Friday in Newport Beach, Stern will be at the tiller of his 43-foot catamaran, Imi Loa, for a race-record 38th consecutive time.

Though he has won in the highly competitive multihull class three times--his most recent victory coming in 1975--it’s unlikely Stern and his five-man crew will win this year. Imi Loa, Hawaiian for “distant wanderer,” is not the fastest craft in the 21-vessel fleet.

Since the Stars & Stripes catamaran, which holds the record of 6 hours 46 minutes on the 125-mile course in 1998, isn’t entered this year, the favorite is Delta Vee, a quick, 31-foot trimaran skippered by Mike Leneman of Marina del Rey.

Imi Loa’s best time was also recorded in 1998, but it was 15 hours 34 minutes.

Stern, however, isn’t giving up because, he said, in particular wind conditions--namely a moderate head wind--Imi Loa actually has an advantage because of its weight.

“What we have to hope for is wind of 10-12 knots on the nose,” Stern said. “Then we can beat them.”

With that hopeful thought, Stern was scrambling this week to ready his 37-year-old boat at its berth in Alamitos Bay Marina in Long Beach. Stern was repairing a portion of the deck that had rotted away. Postponed was another project to spruce up woodwork weathered by more than 70,000 miles at sea.

Imi Loa isn’t flashy. Years of sun and salt spray have turned the cabin from beige to a faded, yellowish tan. At five tons, Imi Loa is at least twice as heavy as most of its competition.

Imi Loa is slowed by that girth, but there was a time when the boat was state of the art. Stern took up sailing in 1963 after reading a magazine article on catamaraning by multihull pioneer Rudy Choy. He commissioned Choy’s company to build Imi Loa.

“When I first got the boat,” Stern said. “I literally didn’t know the bow from the stern.”

He learned quickly, helped by experienced crews and his scientific mind. He was a program manager for Hughes Aircraft with a doctorate in astrophysics.

In 1964, Imi Loa won its class in the Newport-Ensenada race and in a multihull race from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Over the years, Stern became an advocate for multihull racing, which was considered a stepchild by traditional yachtsmen.

Stern, a staff commodore at the Seal Beach Yacht Club, was the first president of the Ocean Racing Catamaran Assn. and has been integral in pushing for multihulls to be invited to compete with monohulls.

“It’s great that Victor has been out doing this thing for so many years,” said Leneman, Delta Vee’s skipper and ORCA’s current president. “We were the black sheep of the sailing world. People would not let us into their races. They didn’t want to hear about us; they didn’t want us joining them.”

The Newport-Ensenada race accepted multihulls earlier than most--in the 1950s--and Stern quickly learned the race can be, at times, thrilling or agonizing--depending on the wind.

“This is not a downhill slide,” Stern said. “The wind can be 20 knots on the nose, 30 knots from the stern to everything in between, including zilch. There has been lots of zilch.”

Last year was such a windless year, and many boats packed it in before the start, turned around, or gave up late in the race and motored across the finish line. Stern and crew persevered and finished in 38 hours.

“It was a terrible year,” Stern said. But not as bad as another when it took so long that their Ensenada hotel rooms were sold out from under them.

When the wind is cranking, however, it can be an exhilarating ride. Like in 1975, when in 30-knot winds, Imi Loa shot across the starting line at 11 knots and was screaming along at 23 knots a few minutes later when the spinnaker shredded in the wind.

The crew quickly replaced the spinnaker with a smaller, stronger sail and zoomed ahead. By the time they reached the Coronado Islands just south of San Diego, Imi Loa was the overall leader.

The wind eventually slowed a bit and a monohull, Ragtime, passed Stern’s boat. Imi Loa settled for second overall and a victory in its class. It remains Stern’s favorite moment.

“Of course, that was 25 years ago,” he said. “We’ve been winless since then and it’s about time we changed that. Hope springs eternal.”