WINGSSAIL

BANDERAS BAY REGATTA

The wind was up and the line was crowded but we weren’t afraid. Yes, the big boats were out in force: five boats in the start ahead of us, five in our start, and nine in the start behind. All together nine out of 19 were bigger than us, and supposedly faster. So what? Third week in March was the Banderas Bay Regatta, out of the Vallarta Yacht Club, and we sent it. Why not? The crew, a great crew, was ready, the boat was ready and we were excited.

swanFun images

And the racing was good. Three races and the wind never stopped. We won the first two. Our biggest competition was Swan Fun and they were tough but we got them. But they got us, both Swan Fun and the wind on the third day when we tried to carry the kite on a tight 20kt reach. We were over powered and kept rounding up. (What? No pictures? Who’s taking photos when you’re trying to survive). Swan Fun made the perfect call: At the jibe they dropped the kite and finished with a small jib. By the time we got our kite down they were long gone. I wish I know who made that call, it was brilliant. Was it Joe?

Crew Celebrates

But we won the regatta, and being first on the podium felt really good.

GOING CRUISING TO SEA OF CORTEZ

But immediately after the BBR Sandy and I got back to work getting ready to cruise to the Sear of Cortez. It was hard work and we didn’t have much time. It’s been like that since November: we work like hell to get ready for a race, then we race as hard as we can, then work like hell to get ready to go cruising. Rinse and repeat. That was the racing season. We had 23 races and two multi-day offshore deliveries jammed into four months. Sandy In the Dingy

Then we headed off for a three month cruise and that wasn’t any vacation. In fact the cruise was another 12 weeks or frenetic work: sailing every day, changing crew every few weeks, new problems every day that needed to be fixed and finally sailing back to La Cruz with an injured crew.

Crossing to Baja was mostly motoring but it wasn’t trouble free. We broke a fan belt and discovered a broken bolt on the alternator bracket, which we drilled out while sailing (fun). And the AIS was found not to be transmitting (it received, we could see the ships, they couldn’t see us) and a handful of other issues. But we got to La Paz. Yay!

The big issues were still to come.

The two problems which really hit us early in April hard were a complete failure of the dingy and complete failure of the refrigerator.

The dingy went first. A big woosh and air tubes split open. The dingy went suddenly flat. We tried to repair them but it didn’t work. It would hold air, briefly. We took a pump everywhere. The dingy could be used but not trusted. Crew were coming for further cruising but how could we continue cruising without a reliable dingy?

But then another problem cropped up: the refrigerator stopped working. Completely.

THE SAGA OF THE $5000 REFRIGERATOR REPAIR

On a boat, most boats anyway, the refrigerator is taken for granted. It keeps beverages cold, and veggies fresh, but most of all, it keeps meat frozen. Some salty sailors living it rough go without refrigeration but the guests I had coming were not expecting to live that rough. I never told anyone when they signed up that we wouldn’t have a refrigerator. Without refrigeration it made the possibility of enjoying a cruise for three more months pretty much unthinkable. At least that’s the way I looked at it. So I went shopping, online.

Refrigerator Compressor

The Forbidden Package

Compressor units for my fridge were hard to find. But after a lot or Internet research, I finally found one, only one. Not in Mexico. It was in California. West Marine had one. But it would take two to three weeks to ship it to Mexico. No Bueno. I had guests arriving and anyhow, I couldn’t stay in the marina for that long. But Mike and Judy from Honu lived nearby the West Marine store and could go and pick it up. Then they were flying to La Cruz in four days; that might work. I called them. Done! It was small and they could bring it in their luggage.

But wait, Wings was in Puerto Escondido, 500 miles from La Cruz.

No problem, Sandy and I would just fly to La Cruz and bring the refer back. So we booked tickets, round trip. It took five separate flights but we could do it. And while we were there we could attend the annual Yelapa trip for Mike Danielson’s memory.

John agreed to take us to Yelapa on Edwina.

This would be a holiday.

We thought.

Off to la Cruz we went by air. Checked into Hotel Edwina. Sailed to Yelapa and back, had a good time. Got ready to take the refer back to Wings, which was still in Baja.

But wait! We missed our flights and our connections!

At the ticket counter the lady said, “No Sir, you missed your flight. No more flights until tomorrow.”

How does that happen? I got the date wrong. Oh Shit!

So that was three flights, for two people, that we trashed. And a couple of unplanned hotel stays. Money!

Well we bought new tickets and boarded the plane the next day. We got to Tijuana, where we were supposed to make a connecting flight to Loretto. (By the way, I want to point out that Sandy had an International flight to catch from Loretto to Charlott South Carolina the next day and Dulce Marie, my next crew, was flying in. Things were getting tight.)

“I’m sorry sir, you cannot take that compressor on our aircraft, No way.”

We couldn’t fly. Another two tickets trashed. More Money!

Well Damn! What do we do now? We’re in Tiajuana Mexico with a refrigerator compressor and need to be in Loretto the next day and can’t fly.

Sandy said, “We should rent a car.”

So, we got a car for a one way car rental to Lorretto, extra fee, $1500 USD. Even more Money!!

The drive from Tiajuana Mexico to Loretto in Baja is 14 hours. It was hell. We left Tiajuana at 3:30 PM and drove all night. It was really hell. Two lane road not well marked. Big danger of northbound trucks roaring out of the darkness with lights blazing. God, I don’t know how we made, it. We should have died but we didn’t.

Sandy

Sandy made her flight to South Carolina, I met Dulce Marie who came into Loretto at the same time, and I got the refer compressor to Wings. The new compressor worked! It all worked, but it cost me, all up, $5000. Dang!

FIRE IN THE HOLE

The New Dingy

Bye Dulce

Happy Hour for Kelsey

Another crew change in La Paz. Dulce helped my find a new dingy then she flew out and Kelsey came in. The month with Kelsey was good. Lots of sailing and few boat problems. Then she left and Rene joined.

Oh yeah, Rene and I continued to find a few little boat problems, but not until the middle of June did things go really wrong again. On Monday the 15th of June, while we were anchored in La Paz charging batteries with the engine the alternator shorted out and caught fire. We caught it right away and shut down the electrical system, but the damage was done. The alternator was ruined and quite lot of wiring nearby was burned or melted. It could have been worse. We replaced the alternator with a spare and put in new wires and were good to go. Wow, was that close!

LEAVING TOPOLOBAMPO

Parked in Topolobampo

From Baja Rene and I crossed to Topolobampo on the mainland side and sailed up the long shipping channel into that neat little town. I’d been there before and pointed out all the familiar landmarks and anchorages and we navigated that tricky last little channel to the marina without any issues. Yay!

Topolobampo was fun. We walked everywhere. We even took an uber to Los Mochis that week for shopping, bought some fan belts for the engine and had a great lunch, very Mexican. But sailing out after four days later was challenging. The onshore breeze filled and got stronger as we tacked out of the channel and we had slow progress going from buoy to buoy as the wind, waves and current against us made it a slog. We reefed the main. We watched the depths whenever we approached the side of the channel. We had to stay high, and the windvane couldn’t do it. I took off the windvane and steered.

Finally we reached the outer marker on port tack and felt we had enough sea room to tack onto starboard and head south. But the Sea of Cortez wasn’t done with us.

I called out, “Ready to tack?”

“Ready” answered Rene on the jib sheets.

“Tacking”, and I put the helm down.

Wings swung its head through the wind and then stopped for a second. We had flown off a wave then hit the next one head on and it jolted us. Rene was just turning to tail the new jib sheet and she was thrown forward towards the open hatch and landed on her back against the corner of the hatch opening. I heard a shriek and looked to see her lying next to the winch. The jib was flapping.

I said, not knowing she was hurt, “Pull in the jib”.

But Rene couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe.

“I think my rib is broken”, she said when got her breath back.

Oh fuck!

Now what? Turn and go back to Topolobampo? It was 15 miles in rough conditions and not easy to do singlehanded. And what then? There didn’t seem be any medical facilities in Topolobampo. We’d have to take a long taxi or uber ride to Los Mochis. For what?

Keep on course to Mazatlan? That was 205 miles to the south, but it was easy sailing, open water and no hazards. Rene thought we should go to Mazatlan. I sent her below to rest and began single handing south.

Rene felt she would survive and that she could do a little to help sail the boa, at least stand watch when I had to sleep. We sailed onward.

This episode brought back to reality something I’ve known forever but never really faced before: When you go to sea in a small boat you are playing for keeps. Rene broke a rib. She could have been killed. Or I could have been killed or thrown off the boat. There is no doctor out there, no rescue services, not even a Coast Guard to call.

But none of those things happened. They haven’t happened to me in 50 years of sailing. We get complacent. But the danger is out there, just waiting.

THE FINAL LEG BACK TO LA CRUZ

Sailing was easy from then on. We spent long days making great time broad reaching towards Mazatlán and nights motoring. It was good for Rene who needed to rest and let her rib stop hurting a bit.

By the time we anchored in Mazatlán’s old harbor we could breath a little. We were close to home.

On July 1 the cruise was over.

Fred is happy