San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race

Corley · Mar 17, 2014

The MOD70 Orion and the ORMA60 Mighty Merloe/former Groupama2 have had a good battle in the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta race. It looks like Orion will take line honours after a close race for the bulk of the distance. Heading offshore seemed to pay for the Orion Team and Mighty Merloe had to play catch up from then onwards:

There is an article on the race so far here:

http://sdyc.org/pv/

and the tracker is here:

http://yb.tl/SDPV2014

Corley · Mar 18, 2014

An easy win to the MOD70 in the end but I'm not sure whether the tracker is an accurate reflection of the boats positions. I'll be interested to see the actual finish times.

Corley · Mar 18, 2014

The MOD70 Orion has bettered the previous record by over five hours with a time of 2 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes the reference time was set by Steve Fossett on Lakota at 2d, 14h, 20m, 17s

http://sdyc.org/pv/?p=1254

A short video of Orion prior to the start:

http://youtu.be/HgBxdkw10O0

Blackburn · Mar 19, 2014

Something post-race from Mighty Merloe, looks like Cam Lewis penned it.

Stupid Nuclear Fast

Posted on 03/18/14

The Mighty Merloe crew arrived at the Westin Puerto Vallarta in tired but great spirits Tuesday afternoon. The race for the Orma 60 exceeded their expectations, despite breaking their port foil just north of Cabo San Lucas. For the first 500 miles of the race (that’s just over one day in Trimaran time), they sailed neck and neck with Orion, even preforming a ‘flyby’ past a few of their monohull competitors. Mighty Merloe saw speeds as high as 32 knots on Day 1. Somewhere into their second day, their port foil broke which dramatically changed the crews race strategy. The boat has a deep draft centerboard (16′) but the curved foils in each outboard hull provide much of the form stability for the 60′ wide tri. On port, the boat was in the game with the starboard foil providing lift to the leeward hull and keeping offsetting the tendency for the hulls to dig into the waves, resulting in a nasty ‘pitching’ motion. On starboard, with the broken port foil not there, the crew had to slow the boat down to keep the hulls from digging too far into the waves. Too far in with too much power will result in a pitch pole, which ends the game.

Still, navigator Artie Means described the boat as “stupid nuclear fast”, the highest of compliments. Even though the boat has spartan accommodations with a single, specialized burner just for boiling water, freeze dried meals, and just four bunks for a crew of eight, they were only out for two nights and three days. 1000 miles. A lot of miles at 30 kts. Fast is fun, but faster is funner!

Meanwhile, there are 19 boats fighting as hard as they can to make the finish. And Deception (SC50) has emailed race committee and is withdrawing from the race. They will be motoring to Cabo for fuel and will then be powering down to Puerto Vallarta to attend the renowned MEXORC regatta that begins on Sunday.

Stay tuned. Sailing Office out.
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San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race

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