Jan. 29, 2022-Good Crew Work Wins Vallarta Cup

wingssail images john mangata Crew Work

“Four minutes to the layline”

It was Judy’s voice from the back of the boat. She was getting data from the “brick”, our navigation computer. She was telling us that in four minutes we could tack and sail directly to the windward mark which nobody on the boat had caught a glimpse of yet.

We were sailing off to the right of the course with our arch rivals off to leeward. We were ahead of them and nobody wanted to tack away and let them go to the new wind everyone expected from the right-hand side. But if Judy was correct then we had them; we could tack and if they continued off to the right they would overstand.

But if she was wrong and we tacked away they could get a bit more of the new wind and might catch up.

Where is that bloody mark?

We couldn’t see it yet.

The hell with it, I thought, Judy has been all over her new job as navigator, it’s time to trust her. “OK. Let’s tack” I called.

“Ready”, from the genoa crew.

“Tacking”.

We made our turn and then, as if by magic, the mark appeared right on our bow. I looked behind; our rivals had tacked right on our course. We had them.

That was the way it went for the Vallarta Cup this year: Judy did her job; everybody did their job. We had excellent all-around crew work and the results showed it: four races and three first places and one second place. We won the Vallarta Cup.

Actually, we probably had the best crew we’ve had for years. Foredeck was Terry and Dennis: hot shots on the bow. At the mast and feeding tactical information back to the afterguard was Jim Brainard, magician of the yacht Brainwaves. Rena held down the halyards with Cristine helping. John from Mangata and Russ from Jazz were trimming and Pat tailing made a solid center of the boat. In the back, Richard excellently trimming main and calling tactics, Sherri doing runner and all-around assistant, me steering and Judy navigating. Superstars all!

So the boat was hot, the crew was hot, and the racing was great. In the end when we had two wins under our belt and one second place it all came down to the last race. Our rivals had one win and two seconds. Whomever won that race would win the regatta.

We were right on their tail, meaning we were winning, as we charged towards the finish line of the last race.

Then the wind died. I mean completely died. They drifted across. We had about four minutes to finish to be able to beat them, but we were stopped.

We dropped off the heavy spinnaker guys and manually jibed for the line, barely moving.

I watched the clock and I watched the committee boat. What would come up first, the line or the time limit? There was not a sound on the boat nor a movement. We caught a slight puff and crossed the line. It was 22 seconds to go, just soon enough.

wingssail images fredrick roswold Happy Crew

So it was a happy boat onboard Wings as we sailed back to our berth in La Cruz. The second big race of the year and our second first place. We’re doing well and it felt great.

wingssail images fredrick roswold Trophy

Click here for more photos. Fred & Judy, SV Wings, La Cruz Mexico