SAILORS RUN and CREW want to Thank all of the Amigo’s that stepped up and donated for school supplies here in Barra De Navidad. Your donations and some extremely generous help make this years Cruise in Week the greatest success ever.
Just a little bit about what happened down here. This was to be the fourth year of this event where donations for the schools were a way for the cruising community to try and help out a struggling education system. Normally, what the cruisers do is take local people out on their boats for rides around the bay and receive donations from many sources for doing this.
Just a brief history of the event two years ago was the most successful event raising the most money. Last year the event could not happen because everything was shut down because of the Covid by the government. This year looked to have the same problems then someone come up with the idea of a sailboat regatta where people sponsored different boats in the race. The Port Captain said he would allow this as long as it was done with only necessary crew members on board the boats, meaning they had to be regular crew or family members. We cruisers got around this with “sisters and brothers of another mother.” Also many cruisers donated time and labor painting parts of the school, class rooms etc.
It was obvious to me that the Sailors Run needed extra crew for the race and since I have many friends here in Barra I figured that not to be a problem and signed up to race. I soon discovered that my potential crew members had all been scarfed up by my friend Armen as he was part owner in a boat he wanted to race and we would sort out this crew thing at the Super Bowl Game.
I arrived early and had a few beers before Armen arrived and had contrived this diabolical plan for my crew. Upon Armen’s arrival I explained since he had scarfed up all the good sailing talent in the area he left me with but little choice to take his and his crews wives and we would “Kick Their Ass” out on the race course, and the women cheered and the challenge excepted.
The outcome there was Sailors Run first across the finish line in very light air 7-10 knots,”Yea for my crew”. Armen and crew on Confete actually thought he should have been winner as he had gained on us from where he was when the starting gun went off, but I explained that is not how they determine the winner and you need a good start for that to work. The other thing to know here the first start was for cruising boats as they are heavily laden with cruising equipment and the Confeti is a striped down Islander 30 footer with no cruising gear.
The race was fun and we gave Armen and crew on the Confete a good broad side with about 30-biodegradable water balloons. My crew ended up being four women and one other guy. We were second around the turning mark in the race of 11-boats. The course being short just an out and back race. We didn’t fly a spinnaker due to the lack of crew’s experience. Our over all finish was probably third as one of the boats that just got by us at the end had a spinnaker. The Sailors Run used our 115% Genoa, Main and Mizzen and the latter two sails have over 40,000 miles on them.
Over all I was totally pleased with our performance and we were even able to hold off another Baba 40 cutter rig until after rounding the turning mark. I screwed up by trying to sail over the top of another boat having to pinch up and the other Baba dropped off on a beam reach and got under us while I was screwing around with this other guy with a spinnaker. Oh Well! it was all fun.
Thanks again to all of you out their as you made Sailors Run the top boat for donations, and a tearful, Heart Felt Love goes out to all mine and Debbie’s Amigos
EL Jefe’