MEXORC!!!!

Seriously.  I don’t get it.  For the life of me, I can’t fathom why this isn’t the most popular regatta in the world.  I absolutely love MEXORC!

Today was Day 1 of the 2012 MEXORC regatta in Banderas Bay.  The fine city of Puerto Vallarta is nestled into the southeastern corner of this glorious bay, but we were sailing our of Marina Riviera Nayarit in the fantastic town of La Cruz, which is just north of our J World Base in Nuevo Vallarta.

For this event, we have a half dozen J World coaches and seven clients from the US and Canada aboard.  Our team is comprised of sailors who regularly sail boats ranging from 14 to 40 feet.  Almost all of them are J World alumni, and we are thrilled to have them all aboard.

Ok, back to the event.  Perfectly warm weather.  Not a long sleeve in sight (unless it’s for sun protection).  Great breeze.  Spectacular scenery.  A phenomenal fleet.   We hit the water toady for the Governor’s Cup race, and after a brief warm up were informed that the President of Mexico had arrived on the Race Committee boat and was going to address the fleet (as he did at the 2010 event).  Yes, that’s right the PRESIDENT of MEXICO!  Now that’s what I call supporting the sport of sailing!

Well, if El Presidente put all his political clout to bear, he couldn’t have ordered up better sailing.  We had a reverse start, with the slower classes starting first, for a long tour of the Bay.  On board Hula Girl,  we got a glean start, charged the weather mark, had a great first reach, negotiated the light air at the close-to-the-beach second mark, took off on a great long reach across the bay, performed an excellent peel form the 2A to the 3A (the very first for many of our team!), and got to the line nice and smoothly.  While we are almost the slowest boat in our Class B, we thought we kept close enough to the leaders to have a respectable finish.

Then it was back to the dock, and off to the party tent.  Dinner and drinks are served with style to all the racers, and daily awards were give out.  While we were a bit disappointed with our 5^thplace corrected finish, the great atmosphere of the regatta eased the pain.  And the knowledge that we have 5 more glorious days of sailing here certainly gave us a lot to look forward to!

That’s what I got…  for today.  Tomorrow is W/L racing, and will be a huge test for our ‘young’ team.   But win, lose, or draw, I have little doubt that we will have a blast!

That’s all I’ve got for today.  More tomorrow…

All the best,

Wayne Zittel and the J World Hula Girl Team