2022 Puerto Vallarta Race at San Diego Yacht Club
As the sun comes up Tuesday for the 2022 Puerto Vallarta Race, the YB tracker reveals great stuff. If you believe the windy.com weather overlay, you might notice a little river of green with white lines flowing south out of the Sea of Cortez. THAT IS MONEY!
First, the more ‘northerly’ direction the wind, the better for sailors reaching to the east on a port gybe. Second, the green-ish tint indicates wind strength of 10ish knots. The wind strength key is across the bottom of the screen. While it is not a vibrant green (high teens), it is not covered in the dreaded blue bayou that indicates wind of 5 knots or less. The Tuesday 0800 roll calls are reporting a few lulls in the green winds, but Race Committee expects that as the daily thermals mature, the winds will develop and help the fleet stay compressed and on a fast track to the finish.
The second great thing the YB tracker is revealing is the fleet. The majority of the fleet is compressed within 100 miles of one another moving at 5 to 10 knots straight towards the finish line, and passing 40 to 90 miles south of Cabo, at 0800 race time. This generates a lot of competitive energy and optimism on the race course. They have the next 18-24 hrs in that “green means go” wind to cover the final 150-250 miles to the finish. If this model holds up, it will likely be a very busy night and morning at the marina for hospitality and Customs processing.
It is great to see the Thursday starting Class 6 boats White Cloud, Envolee and Such Fast still mixed in with the Friday starting Classes (5, 4, and 3) for predicted finish times. They are no doubt trimming, plotting and working hard for class and even overall podium finishes.
Class 5 Akaw! and Class 2 Good Call are going to demonstrate the high risk/low miles “inside” pass within 10 miles from the Cabo beach. Their 0800 speed and direction look good, so fingers crossed for them. And committed outside strategist Class 2 Pied Piper is going for the payoff of a 130-mile south of Cabo transit. If the dreaded blue bayou materializes inshore, and swallows all the happiness and optimism of that group, Pied Piper will revel in the payoff and be tactical heroes!
To close today, a few words about time as the fleet races to stop-the-clock. Race time is Pacific Standard Time, which was in effect at the start last week. The racers are still operating on that time frame. Puerto Vallarta is on Mountain Standard Time (they don’t do Daylight Savings here in Mexico). So, Race Committee started the race on Pacific Standard time, ignored the switch to Daylight Savings Time on Sunday, changed to Mountain Time when they relocated to the destination harbor, but ignored Daylight Savings Time switch again, and don’t acknowledge that the finish line is actually in Central Standard Time zone. Or…as you read the finish times on the race tracker, you could also think of race time as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) minus 8 hours.
Follow the race tracker showing boat positions at 1-hour intervals with a 4-hour competitive delay at yb.tl/sdpv2022.
