Offshore season begins with Islands Race

Twenty-eight teams started the 2024 Islands Race in Southern California which features a 142 nm course from San Pedro, around Catalina and San Clemente Islands, into San Diego for the finish. The overall winner was Tom Holthus’ Botin 56 BadPak while a new monohull course record was set by Rio100, Manouch Moshayedi’s Bakewell White 100 with an elapsed time of 10:18:45.

Event information – Race details – Results

Starting on February 9, the Islands Race was held earlier than usual due to its status as a feeder for the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race, which was also moved up the calendar to a late February start to take advantage of the full moon and in collaboration with the renowned Mexican Ocean Racing Circuit (MEXORC).

Twelve teams racing in the Islands Race will gear back up in two weeks to race to PV, along with 11 others.

Following record rainfall in the region, the race benefited from a classic, albeit colder than most would have preferred, west-ish breeze driving competitors around the course.

The first of 6 warning signals was scheduled for 1225 and the conditions quickly went into a transition in hope of a prevailing westerly. The wind dropped to 1-2 kts from the south and a flooding tide which would dictate starting line push on the fleet.

The smaller of the six divisions started first but faced a transitional breeze that improved later for the bigger boats.

Always in the hunt for a course record, Rio100 was targeting a finish time before 00:09:52 on day two to overtake the previous monohull course record set by Roy P. Disney’s Volvo 70 Pyewacket 70 in 2021 (10:49:52 elapsed time). After making the turn around the southern waypoint mark to head east towards the finish, Rio100 was on pace to do just that.

The wind held up with Rio100 finishing at 23:38:45 to set the new record by 31 minutes at 10 hours, 18 minutes and 45 seconds.

Another personal record [for this race] was laying Catalina without tacking, first time for me.,” noting Rio100 Navigator Jay Davis. “And for a while on the finish approach, I thought we might finish without any tacks, but then we found the land breeze and had two tacks.”

The race tracker showed Rio100 did sail the shortest distance of all competitors (147nm) to complete the 142nm course.

“The first race of the year is always very special, this year’s Islands race was double as much for me since the last time I raced on the boat was the Cabo Race of 2023,” said Moshayedi. “We were very lucky with the weather which cleared up to a nice sunny day after a few weeks of constant rain and clouds.

“We had a good crossing from the start to the west end of Catalina which we were the first boat to round, and then a beautiful and fast reach to the bottom of San Clemente Island, followed by a great VMG sailing to the finish. Only right at the end, the wind shifted and we had to put our jib back up to go across the line.”

While Rio100 chased down the record, BadPak and Roy P. Disney’s Andrews 68 Pyewacket were locked up in a tight corrected time battle for the best corrected time of this year’s race. With about 50 miles to go BadPak and Pyewacket were within one projected corrected minute of each other, with BadPak holding a 6-mile distance lead. While BadPak took a more southern rounding of the waypoint turning mark, Pyewacket chose the shorter distance.

But it would not be a two-boat race… BadPak saw their distance from the fleet shrink with light winds in their final 3 miles, and they would have to wait and see if their finish time would stand.

Both Grand Illusion and Argo 4 made up time on the last third of the race to jump to the top of the projected standings. As the early morning minutes ticked away, the lighter breeze zone expanded to 10+ miles where many of the early leaders started to bunch up on the slower approach to the finish.

In the end, BadPak’s time held strong and they were able to win the 2024 Islands Race on corrected time by 18 minutes ahead of Pyewacket, and 28 minutes ahead of Grand Illusion.

“It was a decent breeze all the way until the finish where it was light and shifty,” noted Holthus. “Behind the islands was magical. We were triple-headed on a reach in 18 knots, where the miles went by fast. The air was cold, but the stars were bright. It was a team effort from start to finish.”

Pyewacket Navigator Peter Isler added, “BadPak was in another universe – they flew past us before sunset on the outside of the islands with a triple head rig looking amazing. They continued off over the horizon so fast and sailed a great track on the way home.

“We had a great competitive race in the sled class. It felt like we were back in the good old days of Southern California offshore racing with five well sailed – very similar boats tussling for any advantage. We had a hard-fought lead as we turned the mark and began the 70-mile leg to San Diego – but then things got interesting when the fleet split on opposite gybes.

“It’s impossible to cover two sides of the race course – so after about an hour sailing towards home, we stepped down to get in touch with Grand Illusion and the fleet to the south. What ensued in the next few hours was a good old fashioned sled race as we pushed in the lighter winds and ultimately a 180-degree wind shift into a beautiful easterly night wind coming off the shore.

“That put GI and the others dead downwind of us – and we were able to accordion back out to a much bigger lead at the finish than it had looked like at midnight.”

The boats further out from the finish in the 0300 time frame experienced longer stretches of light breeze and couldn’t make up the time to catch the ORR A and B leaders.

The competition between Argo 4 and Lucky Duck in Class C was tight across the race course. Lucky Duck led by 4 miles at the turning mark, and was able to put an extra 2 miles of distance on Argo 4 to win Class C by 24 minutes. Both boats sailed 159 miles to complete the course.

Having the highest rated boat in Class D paid off in this year’s conditions for Dave Moore’s Santa Cruz 52 Westerly. They were expected to be fastest across the course in Class D, and were able to avoid the early morning slowdown that kept the rest of the class hours behind. Westerly won Class D and finished 5th overall.

Paul Stemler’s J/44 Patriot was the lone retirement.

Source: SDYC