by Bruce Cooper
Welcome to the inaugural Copa Club de Yates Corum at Acapulco, Mexico. This year’s ocean regatta is new with 4 days of racing and many social events planned, this is a great format to have local racing on opposite years from the famous MEXORC held in Banderas Bay every other year.
Saturday’s first race is from Papanoa to Acapulco, which is a testing 71 miles if the winds are light, but if there is good afternoon wind that s during the evening hours, the fleet should be in before the crack of dawn. We’ll just wait and see what the wind gods have in store for us.
The race format for the Papanoa race is weighted for the finish positions counting as double weight. The skippers will want to score up in the front of the fleet and keep the low scores to build momentum for the next 3 days of racing. Also modified for this race is the semi-pursuit start sequence. The slowest boats will start ahead of the fastest boats by only half their corrected time allowance for the entire 71 mile race. Theoretically, all boats should be even at the midrace point 35.5 miles toward Acapulco! Great idea to keep the majority of the boats sailing in similar wind conditions and seeing each other close the midpoint of the race.
Early favorites are the big boats in Class A with Vincitore and Kayue 52 leading the way, but the pesky Farr 40’s will be lurking a little further back. In Class B the fast downwind Veloce II will be a force to be reckoned with while being chased by the Piet Hein and Iemanja and the other hot boats from that class.
Stay tuned for more report and photos from Acapulco.
