Our longtime friend Jim Yabsley has been ripping it up in Santa Barbara of late with his new Melges 32. There is no doubt how quick the 32's are, and Jim is an excellent sailor with a a good program. Here he does a great job here detailing how they constructed a mighty ass kicking in the Ensenada race. Enjoy.

California's annual 125nm run down the coast to Ensenada, Mexico always promises to be filled with great parties, lots of boats, and a challenging race. This year there were over 450 boats ranging in size from Pyewacket and Windquest down to the smallest thing that most racers would be afraid to leave the shelter of a harbor. Most of the "racing" fleets are stacked with some of the country's best boats and sailors, which make a finish in the trophies very satisfying.
After competing in over 25 of these races mostly on Sleds with an early finish ahead of most if not all boats, I was curious how my new Melges 32 "Yabsolutely" would stack up. I knew the boat was well suited for this race, in light air we are very fast with a code zero or the 1A up and in heavier air we would be planning well before others. Just in case we had a long breezy reaching leg, I had Dave Ullman build us a new CZ laminate code 5A. Unfortunately the forecast from Commanders Weather was to leave the boat tied to the dock and drive to Ensenada with the road team if you wanted to get there. Needless to say the 5A remained snug in its bag. But the spirit on "Yabsolutely" was high, as we knew what we could do in light air!

NOSA split the "Sprit" boats into 2 classes: greater than 35' was A and under was B. This was fine as it is usually good to be the fast boat in your fleet as the wind usually shuts down for the slower boats in a "normal wind" race (of course it can work the other way in a light air race). Sprit A had 19 boats and Sprit B had 18 boats, I felt we could probably beat most if not all the A boats, although the new turbo Shock 40 "Black Pearl" was an unknown. Sprit B had a couple of modified Melges 30's, Henderson 30's, Columbia 30's, Cheetah 30's, J-105's in various configurations and a J-80 that we owed a lot of time. This was going to be interesting since many of these boats were well sailed.

We were the second start just after the Maxi A class, With a heavily favored port upwind start in about 6 knot breeze, everyone started on starboard and immediately tacked to port to head to sea to search for the westerly pressure to get us down course. "Yabsolutely" got the port end start and was an early leader with tall rig Melges 30 "Grins" near. When we both tacked to starboard, we were bow out with them slightly outside. It was time to se what the 32 could do against almost an identical boat. Within 2 hours of sailing upwind in 5-7 knots, we moved forward of them about a 1/4nm. We were clearly faster. A Shock 40 with a large headsail in-between us slowly was left behind. The rest of Sprit B and most of Sprit A was far behind and indistinguishable. After 4 hours the wind down off Oceanside lightened even more and most boats headed out further. Since the outer buoy reports had very little wind we elected to put up the code zero, head down to a course slightly below course that would take us inshore along the coast. With the big flat Ullman CZ code zero up we accelerated away from the fleet heading just above Point Loma. Six hours into the race we were all alone, all boats well outside and behind. We were happily reaching along with the 1A up in 6-8 knots of breeze doing 7 +/- knots of speed. The boat is faster than the wind in fewer than 7 knots and sails like large dinghy.

By sunset we could no longer see any boats, even in the binoculars. We knew we were forward and well to leeward setting us up for a powerful position if the wind went light and WSW. The wind was steady in the 5-7 knot range and the boat was powered up sailing down the course close to rhumbline. Just after midnight we were 3nm inside the North Coronado Island cautious of the lee. We sailed right into it with the wind dying to a knot or two. We saw the wind on the water to the left, jibed and sailed into increasing breeze toward Imperial Beach. We opened another 2-1/2 miles to leeward of the inland and jibed back to course with the 5-7 knots of breeze. Still not a boat to be seen anywhere, which is a little scary on a fleet this size. By approximately 3AM we were down past Rosarito Beach in Mexico. The boat was a dream to sail in these conditions, responsive and powerful.

Sunrise in this race is kind of like Christmas for the kids, you finally get to see what all your night fighting did for you. A scan behind showed a Catamaran behind upwind about 3 miles, and a three large boats sailing in towards the us from the outside ranging from 1-2 nm ahead of us. These boats were the R/P 50 "Staghound", Davidson 52 "Pendragon", SCRZ 70 "Grand Illusion" and the very fast Andrews 45 "Locomotion". All of the boats started 10 minutes in front of us! It was time for a diet coke and a power bar as were in great company! With 20nm+ to the finish, we all sailed downwind in 8-11 knots of breeze, jibing away from the lighter air inshore to get to more pressure out into the bay. We drag raced a Reynolds 33 catamaran for the final 15 nm, opening away from them. We crossed the finish at 11:48am, 17 minutes behind the Maxi A winner "Staghound" boat for boat. Take away the 10 minutes they started in front of us and we essentially sailed the course in equal time! We were amazed how such a small boat could finish with the blue ocean thoroughbreds almost boat for boat. Of course we corrected over "Staghound " by over two hours! We were the 10th monohull to finish. Only 5 of 28 multihulls beat us boat for boat.

We had the boat on the trailer, the mast down and were getting her ready for the road trip, while watching many large boats like Taxi Dancer, Ragtime, ID-48's, DK 46, and 50's of all sorts cross the line. We knew we won our class by quite a bit except for a very well sailed J-105 finished about 2 hrs after us, it was close on corrected as we only beat them by 3-1/2 minutes (who says PHRF doesn't work!). As we sat in the hotel, we figured we had a good shot at first overall. Then a good buddy from Santa Barbara, Max Rosenberg who loves to sail on my 32 showed up at the pool. He was sailing his Hobie 33 "Mad Max" that started 30 minutes after us. After some quick calculations over a cold Corona, he beat us for the overall on corrected time! Oh well, he sailed a fine race in somewhat different conditions (as read from his personal account on Sailing Anarchy) due to the later start and finish. We would both head back to Santa Barbara with 1st in class, and 1st and 2nd overall out of 450+ boats! The previous weekend we raced Mad Max on a 75nm feeder race from Channel Islands to Newport and beat them by 7-1/2 minutes on corrected, so the rivalry continues! But as Max agrees the Melges 32 would be hard to beat on a more standard breeze Ensenada race. Nice going Max!

The boat was an absolute pleasure for the whole crew to sail, all on board said it was their favorite race ever, and all of us have been on some great boats before. The speed is incredible, the feel is light and responsive and very powerful, and perhaps the best part is we motor back uphill 275nm at 65mph! Oh, as for the hot turbo Shock 40 Black Pearl, they finished about 2 hours and 40 minutes behind us boat for boat!

Jim Yabsley
Melges 32 "Yabsolutely"
Santa Barbara Yacht Club