MEXORC

MEXORC is a week long regatta in Bahia de Banderas. The participating boats ranged in length from the J 80s (26 feet) to 80 footers! Many of the big boats had recently competed in the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta race, sponsored by the San Diego Yacht Club. J World combined MEXORC with an advanced racing clinic. Eugenie, Roy, and I switched roles from sail instructors to race coaches. We had three teams from “all over the world”. Yes, I know it’s a bit dramatic to say "all over the world" but it was true: Team New York, Team Canada and Team Tasmania! How many of you can find Tasmania on a map?

Each day started with lectures discussing strategies and tactics. The “race coaches” switched boats each day to insure equality and discourage bragging rights among the instructors. The regatta consisted of five race days with a total of seven races. Tuesday’s race course was to the Tres Marietas islands and back, but since the J 80s were the smallest boats in the fleet and likely to take a long time to finish the 35 mile race, we had the day “off”. I don’t think the race committee wanted to wait all day for us to finish, and as a former race committee chair person I can’t blame them a bit. Instead, J World put on a mini regatta. Our “off” day consisted of about 10 short races. Wayne (el jefe) served as the committee and photo boat.

In tribute to my competitive nature, I’m only posting the pictures with my team in the lead.

I can’t recreate any of the races since my memory is a blurr of numerous spinnaker sets and douses, frequent place changes, wind shifts, salt-coated sunglasses, soggy sandwiches, a couple instances of bumper boats, and several post race cervezas. But a good time was had by all. Although the student’s claimed their objective was to have “fun and increase their racing skills,” Team New York was all smiles when they picked up the first place trophy. . Team Canada signed their names on the second place trophy and donated it to J World. Missing second by only one point was Team Tasmania: who I’m sure had a long flight home. You know I couldn’t resist that last comment.