52 Can't Do

Good friend Billy Bob Boyes just completed the alarmingly quick San Diego to Manzanillo race aboard the Andrews canting keel (by Matt Brown) 52' Victoria 5. Here, he gives us the perspective of a bitter loser. Kidding. Enjoy.

After 10 years of hiatus this year's version of the San Diego to Manzanillo race was EPIC for a west coast long distance race. Having sailed in over 30 long distance Mexican races since 1969 we thought this one was a stand out for the consistent good pressure gradient wind we encountered all the way to Cabo. Unfortunately for us at least, that is where the party ended. It eventually turned into a light air soaking contest that had an ending that was all about the luck of our finish time and not a reflection of our dedication and extremely hard work. This is the way for all of the Mexican races and most of us know that before the race even begins. The luck part comes in when one boat finishes in the daylight when the transition from gradient to thermal wind is usually small leaving consistent pressure to the finish and another boat is left to slap its way in all night in a dying thermal breeze. For us this time we suffered the latter. After leading the entire race and building up a substantial lead we frustratingly watched as the clock ticked by mercilessly, leaving our overall chances flying from our grasp. We ended up for us a disappointing second in class and third overall after sailing a hard fought affair and in close contact with the much bigger 61' Medicine Man, which won our class.

For me, I have been fortunate to be involved with a couple of professionally run TP52 programs over the last several years and I am currently sailing aboard Victoria 5 with owner and good friend Mike Campbell and some of the most talented sailors I have ever had the privilege of sailing with. For those that don't know the V5 it was originally designed By Allan Andrews and built by Dencho; was one of the first 52's to hit the water. Now in the aftermath of what was going to be one of the hottest west coast classes since the Sled era, V5 has been converted to one of a new breed of canting keel (we like to call it a canning keel) dagger board boat. Although the boat has been rocket fast since its inception it was left behind in the TP52 box rule wars by boats which instead of sailing only in predominantly offshore downwind races have moved more towards inshore or close distance racing. This has changed design aspects of these boats and put more emphasis on upwind performance. Now that most of the new 52's are going the way of most west coast big boat sailing fads, to the central US and east coat, it's now time for us Westy's to change our game!

Sailing on a boat like V5 is a different world than the average club racer knows. Days and weeks are filled before big races (which are year round) doing what is known as crossover testing and crew practice. These aren't necessarily weekend affairs but are weeklong affairs day after day, week after week, bringing the boat to a dialed in condition so the boat can be sailed at the upper limits of its performance at any given regatta. Most if not all of the professionally run programs do this and that keeps many of us employed in an area that until a short time ago was reserved for America's Cup sailors only.

As for the rest of the story on the Manzanillo Race there were some interesting new boats in the race. One was the Compton's Alchemy, a new Andrews 77 that is becoming increasingly more dialed in. They shattered the old record by over a day. Very impressive! Then there was also a new Andrews 80 named Magnitude 80, owned by Doug Baker, and even though they did manage to make it to the start after being launched only a week before the start they had some gear carnage from the higher than normal winds. This boat is going to be an impressive and exciting boat to watch in up coming events.

All the exciting boats to sail this year had some sort of equipment failure to overcome to make it to the end of this years running of the 04 Manzanillo Race including us. The running lights on our boat are mounted on the bow pulpit but when we get to fire hosin (that's when a vertical wall of water is shooting straight up about 10ft in the air off the plumb bow) and water hits the lights it shorts the bulbs like a baby goes through diapers. This became only disconcerting to us when we were in the fairways of two freighter lanes. Luckily we only had a couple of close calls. We were running our back ups that were, as you can imagine, just a little weak. Then on the last day sailing our alternator gave up charging our batteries, and as our hydraulics for our canning keel are run by batteries by pushing a button at the steering station we were forced to pump the keel into position by a hand pump down below every time we tacked, jibed or had a fluctuation in wind conditions. Total pain in the ass as we were so used to that push button control. Lessons learned no matter how many stones you turn over there are always a few more stones lurking to be turned over. I would like to tell you all my stories from this race but this little report of the flave will have to do for now.

Cheers, Billy Bob