1st in class – 6th in fleet! Congrats Horizon!!

Horizon finished at 3:59 am on Wednesday 2/24/2010. Congrats to the crew of Horizon on a great race!!! We are currently waiting for the official results – stay tuned!

We are now 36 hours into our race and this mornings roll call was just what we hoped.  As it turned out our  strategy of being the inside boat on the race course paid off and we are now 1st in class and 1st in fleet.  We still have close to 400 miles to go but obviously we were elated.

Yesterday I mentioned that we should see more wind and we were right.  Starting last night and through today we have been sailing in winds ranging in the low to mid twenties and our boat speeds have consistently been in the mid teens.  In matter of fact little Hippie just set the new race speed record of 17.8 knots.  Just beat out big Hippie and there still jabbing each other about it.  The winds are predicted to freshen even more so I don’t expect little Hippie’s record to stand up very long.  We’ll see and hopefully tomorrow one of us can report a new record in the 20s.

Once again Horizon is performing like a champion and everyone is working as hard as we can to put as much distance as we can between us and the rest of the fleet.  Hopefully we can hold on to our 1st in class position.  The 1st in fleet will be very tough to keep.  Just take a look at the web site and check the standings.  The classes that started behind us are very fast and it will be very close on corrected time.

Last night we had Eileen’s Ziti and it was up to her normal standards.  A big hit.  Tonight we are having John’s Chile Verde.  Once again it should be super.

The weather brochure was finally right and the weather is sunny and warm.  We’re in Tees and shorts and loving it.  The rain is a distant memory!

WE’ll that about it for today.  A great 24 hours and hopefully tomorrows report will be more good news.

Go Horizon!

See Horizon’s progress at IBoatTrack.com (When the page opens click on 2010 Vallarta Race).

We have just completed our 1st 24+ hours and all is well on Horizon.  At today’s roll call the race committee still had us in 5th and actually loosing a little ground.  As usual we have a game plan and we feel that if the wind is consistent across the race course then we will be in pretty good position.  We are positioning ourselves on the inside and hopefully we’ll gain some leverage on our competition.  Unfortunately these decisions are locked in once they are made because at this point we are dealing with a relatively short race course.  Right now our strategy looks good and the next 24 – 36 hours will really tell the tale.  Hopefully we played this right or we’ll be hosed!

Once again crew work has been flawless and everyone is having a great time.  The travel brochure finally had it right today because for the most part its been sunny, much warmer than yesterday with a few showers.  Not the torrential rainfall we had on Friday night.  Each day will get warmer and soon we’ll be in shorts and T shirts!

The wind has been in the low to mid teens with very few times where it actually was below 10 knots.  Our boat speeds have been has high as the low teens.  We would like more wind and according to our weather grib files more wind is coming.  Not sure if we’ll break the Horizon speed record of 24.7 knots but we’ll certainly give it a shot.

Last nights pork chops, rice and salad was a real winner.  Thank you Kathy Adamson.  This evening we’ll be having Eileen’s Ziti.  This is one of our favorites and I’m sure we’ll have glowing reports tomorrow.

We have been on Stardboard all day flying our money maker the 2A Spinnaker.  This is our largest and fastest sail.  At this point we haven’t really surfed very much because the seas are relatively calm.  The wave heights are only  three feet.  Once the wind picks hopefully the seas’s will build and we’ll be in surf city.

I’m getting ready to go on watch.  Looking forward to a great night.  Wind, stars and lots of laughs with our crew.

What more could you ask for!

Until then Go Horizon!

See Horizon’s progress at IBoatTrack.com (When the page opens click on 2010 Vallarta Race).

Hello from Horizon!

Welcome to our Website and our first up date on our progress on the San Diego to PV Race.  This year we have some familiar faces racing with me i.e. Jon aka Hippie, Eric his son aka Little Hippie, Big Tom Okeefe and my very best friend Geno.  We also have a few newbees as well i.e. Robert Plant, John Berry and another very good friend Tom Adamson. This is the 1st leg in our journey.  Once we get to PV we will be spending another week racing a Mexican Regatta called Mexorc.  More on that event as we getter closer to the finish. This race is 1,000 nm miles and as of this mornings roll call we were in 5th.  Everyone is in a few miles of each other and our major competitor Allure another Santa Cruz 50 is in 1st.  This is only after 18 hours of racing and its very early in the race!!  We’ll run her down!!! We have just completed our 1st twenty four hours and everything on board is running extremely well  All Horizon’s systems and modifications are working perfectly! We have a very talented crew and we’ll all getting along together extremely well.

We started our race yesterday with a beautiful start.  We where 1st at the start and had position on the rest of the class.  Hopefully there are a few pictures on the site. We tacked out of the harbor and bore off to Mexico.  Horizons strongest points of sail is off the wind and for the 1st 16 hours we have been hard on the wind racing with our heavy jib.  Wind speeds have been in the teens and our boat speeds were 8-10 knots.  This morning the wind backed to the right and we were able to crack off and put up our code 0.  This sail has been up all day and we have been averaging 10-11+ knots.  We would love to crack off more and put up our spinnakers but the weather Gods have not given us a break.  We might be carrying the code 0 until very early Sunday morning!  We’ll see!

The weather yesterday was cloudy and cold during the day and then the rain came last night.  The highest wind gusts was 20 knots and that has in a squall with torrential downpours.  Most of us we soaked and we have spent the day warming up and drying out.  It rained so hard last night that it was very difficult to read the instruments.  I felt like I should have been wearing a mask and snorkel because my contacts almost blew out.

You might be wondering how we felt.  Well its part of the game and like everything else in life you grit your teeth get through it and we were actually laughing about it because we were thinking about all the snow and ice the rest of the country was experiencing.

Last night we had Geno’s famous beef stew with biscuits.  It was hot and tasty and by dinner everyone was ready!

I just got up from my off watch.  My watches are 6-9pm, 12-3am 6-12 noon.  I’m rested and ready to go.  It looks like the bulk of the rain is behind us(hopefully).  Its been sunny and chilly all day but most of our clothes have dried out so tonight should be a little dryer and warmer.  I’ll let you know tomorrow.

That’s about it for now.  Got to go sailing

See Horizon’s progress at IBoatTrack.com (When the page opens click on 2010 Vallarta Race).

Hosted by San Diego Yacht Club, the 29th biennial race will conclude at the picturesque destination port of Nuevo Vallarta, just minutes north of Puerto Vallarta. This race will begin February 18. Please check back then for live race tracking via iBoattrack.