Local crews make their marks in Newport to Ensenada race

The 71st Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race took place last weekend, with a handful of locals making their mark along the 125-mile course.

Many crews from Newport Beach brought home awards.

Due to a handful of variables, including the weight and speed of the boats, a handicapping system was used to determine the winner of each race based off corrected time.

Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club’s Horizon took the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet-B division with a corrected time of 16 hours 52 minutes and 3 seconds. Len Bose served as Horizon’s skipper.

It was a race dominated by local boats, as John Raymont helped lead Balboa Yacht Club’s Fast Exit to a second-place finish (16:56:33).

Rylacade and its skipper, Stuart Leigh, finished the course in a corrected time of 21:55:02 to win the Cruz-Gen class. The boat also calls Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club home.

Apart from its race division wins, Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club also took home the award for best double-handed performance, or, the best showing by a two-man crew. That honor went to Dan Rossen and Richard Whitley, who raced Problem Child into third (17:59:58) in the PHRF-D class.

It was the fourth consecutive double-handed victory for Problem Child.

Varuna skipper Chris Hemans of Balboa Yacht Club received the Jack Bailee Award for best corrected time clocked in by a member of a Newport Beach club (16:42:50, PHRF-A).

From the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, Jim Bailey impressed in commanding Destroyer to a second-place finish in the Maxi division. Destroyer came in at 16:46:36. David Clark brought Mirage over the finish line in ninth at 18:08:57.

In the same race, Balboa Yacht Club’s Tom Purcell led It’s OK to seventh place in 17:16:10.

The American Legion Yacht Club produced a pair of top-three showings.

Chris Killian’s DéRIVE came across as the runner-up in the ORCA-B division with a corrected time of 23:44:36.

Moxie, which had Dugan O’Keene as its skipper, took third place in the PHRF-F class. Its corrected time was 21:54:47.

Elapsed time was the number to watch in the highly-anticipated ORCA-Maxi race. The 60-foot trimaran Mighty Merloe (6:31:49) defeated the 70-foot trimaran Orion (6:34:19), from the San Francisco Bay Area, but the latter’s course record stands at an astonishing 5:17:26.

In addition to the Newport to Ensenada course, the event hosted two more races. A Border Run Sprint ended in Dana Point, while competitors in the Border Run Race sailed for San Diego.

andrew.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner