We made a clip show from all the video Carl shot while on the Baja Ha-Ha this year. Hilarious!
We made a clip show from all the video Carl shot while on the Baja Ha-Ha this year. Hilarious!
This year’s post-Ha-Ha trip back up the Baja coast was, like last time, a re-play of the Ha-Ha in reverse.
We stocked the boat with food, water, and fuel in Cabo, and set out on November 8 just after the Ha-Ha awards ceremony, bound for Bahia Santa Maria. When we arrived, there was one other boat in the bay: the steel-hulled Muktuk sailed by Austrian Karl Mayer and family. They are one of the saltiest cruising families out there, home-schooling their kids, eating homemade kelp pickles, and making some extraordinary passages like New Zealand to Alaska and Alaska to Cape Horn. We waited a day for the next weather window, then made our way north to Turtle Bay.
The weather this year was dominated by a norther in the Sea of Cortez. The Pacific side of Baja is mostly insulated from weather in the Sea of Cortez (and vice versa), but there are places where the wind pours through the mountains, making it like sailing up the SoCal coast when the Santa Anas are blowing.
It makes the wind angles better (NE instead of NW), but it can pile some serious chop on top of the normal NW swell.
We arrived in San Diego just ahead of a winter storm and just in time to meet our friends Sam and Anthony from the Farr 55 Whistle Wind, who started the Bash a day behind us.
People always ask, “The Bash is all upwind, right? Do you have to motor the whole way?” It’s never so bleak as pointing the boat into the wind and seas while the motor labors and the mainsail flogs. The Bash is definitely motor-assisted sailing, but we’re always sailing strategically, looking for the best wind angles and using the motor to get a few more knots and point a few degrees higher than with sails alone. This year we even had some reaching and running during the last leg from Turtle Bay to San Diego.
Woo-hoo! Charter guests Sean and Carl (in the squid hat) rock the spirit of the Ha-Ha and land themselves and Vanishing Girl on the cover of Latitude 38.
This year’s Ha-Ha was Vanishing Girl’s first, and it was a great one. The weather was about as good as you could hope for: sunny, with a steady 10-25 knots from behind. Fisherman Sean caught a couple of right-sized fish along the way:
And Carl, who Ha-Ha’ed with us in 2013, rocked the Bahia Santa Maria beach party with the band:
After the beach party in Bahia Santa Maria, we had one of the fastest final legs in Ha-Ha history, thanks to a solid 20-something knot wind that followed us all the way to Cabo.
We enjoyed a few days of R&R in Cabo, then Robert and Danna flew in for the trip back up the Baja Coast.
Fearless (and first-time) Weta sailors Tony Oropallo and his nephew Brian sail one of our Weta trimarans 22 miles across the Santa Barbara channel to Santa Cruz island. We sail Vanishing Girl with the Neagley family as the support boat.
Tons of fun! We’re going to do this again next year.
No, our roof deck is not getting fumigated. This is Vanishing Girl’s new-to-her half-ounce Pineapple runner! It’s far from crispy new, but it is light and big. It will likely see some action in just a few weeks as we have some downwind miles to log… Newport Beach & Ensenada here we come!
Bill Roberts is a regular charter customer of our Corsair 31 Drei in Mexico. He, his wife, and son Brock took the boat on a whale watching trip out of Puerto Escondido a couple of weeks ago and got more than they bargained for:
Bill writes:
On Saturday, the wind was intermittent, mostly light. That is when we had the near collision with a big Blue. Fortunately, he was a gentle beast and dove deeply to avoid a collision with DREI. Later in the day another big Blue swam under the boat and created a whirl pool that pulled DREI into it and changed her course by at least 30 degrees.
Holy shit!
We had both boats out for Sunday’s Weta Play Day at Treasure Island’s Clipper Cove. What a great way to spend a balmy (for January in San Francisco) day on the Bay.
Jennifer Kroon captures the moment:
The last week of December 2014 was very busy with the purchase, commissioning and first charter of our new-to-us Beneteau First 40. We purchased this fabulous performance cruiser from the Sunsail/Moorings company. They had decided to not attempt establishing a charter base in San Francisco after the America’s Cup. Their fleet of 8 identical First 40’s sailed for a few months around the time of the Cup events and were then mothballed at Svendsen’s in Alameda.
By New Year’s Eve we were ready to relocate Vanishing Girl to her new home in Ventura. Mother Nature also approved of this 350 mile trip by providing clear conditions (albeit cold!) and moderate wind from the north and east. Perfect smooth water cruising with Captain Jared Brockway and Lt. Colonel Mark Sanders.
We stopped just once – for maybe 30 minutes – to take on fuel in Morro Bay. As the photos show, it was a lovely evening on the central coast. We even let the ‘Girl sail herself while we sat down for a warm dinner. Speaking of warm, one of the unique capabilities on this yacht is the forced air heating in the main salon and cabins. It works almost too well, even when its 40 degrees on deck!
We arrived in Ventura at 2pm on Saturday Jan 3. Total passage time of 50 hours. Not too shabby for a dead of winter coastal delivery on a new boat. Here’s to many more. Welcome to Ventura, Vanishing Girl… And to a long life of making customers smile while sailing the beautiful waters of the Channel Islands with us.
They’re baaa-aack! Our two Wetas, Ginger and Mary Ann, are back in San Francisco for the winter. They will be staying at Treasure Island where the wind is good, the seas are flat, and any destination on the Bay is near. We also have a demo Weta from West Coast Sailing available there–three’s company!
Come check them out! We have pricing posted for day and weekend rental rates.
Venturian Bob Shirley brings his Weta out to play in Pierpont Bay
They said it would be “the coldest day of the year” but instead it was a great day on the water. We had three Wetas playing in the harbor and on Pierpont Bay when Bob Shirley, another Weta sailor from Ventura, came out to join Paul and charter guest Dean. There is really no off-season in Southern California—any time of the year is a great time to sail.