Regatta Looks Like Border Dash

Good news for more than 400 skippers planning to start the 51st Newport-to-Ensenada international sailing race today: The weather looks lousy.

That was the gloomy forecast that brought smiles to the faces of racers and organizers, because it meant strong winds that would sweep the fleet the 125 nautical miles down to Baja California in potentially record times--or at least fast enough to allow more party time than usual.

“It looks very promising,” race chairman Jerry Shandera said. “A lot of skippers are very excited.”

The largest boats will start at noon from a split starting line off the Balboa pier on the Newport Beach peninsula, followed by smaller classes every 10 minutes until 1:40 p.m.

The race record for monohulls is overdue to fall. It is 12 hours 9 minutes 55 seconds by Fred Preiss’ 84-foot Christine in 1983 and has withstood the onslaught of higher-tech boats, such as the ULDB 70s, or “sleds,” and their successors, the turbosleds.

Last year, Preiss brought his new 100-foot Christine but, despite using a circus tent of sail, was left wallowing at the starting line because the wind failed to blow. He has higher hopes today.

The multihull record is 8 hours 27 minutes by Dennis Conner in 1994 on the 60-foot catamaran Stars & Stripes, which this year will be sailed by adventurer Steve Fossett, who bought it from Conner last year. It’s the soft-sail version of the hard-wing boat Conner used to defend the America’s Cup in 1988 and, with a persistently strong breeze, Fossett could be in Ensenada by sundown.

One forecast issued Thursday for the coastal stretch from Orange County to San Diego called for “mostly cloudy with a slight chance for showers”--no problem--and, more important, “southwest to west winds [of] 15 to 25 mph during the afternoon.”

Almost perfect. With the boats heading down the coast between south and southeast, they would be sailing on a reach, the fastest point of sail, with the wind coming from one side rather than ahead or behind.

And if the wind is slightly behind from the west, they could even fly spinnakers at the start, creating an even more chaotic scene than usual.

Mike Campbell’s turbosled Victoria, the first monohull to finish in four of the last five years, is not racing. Campbell donated the boat to the Orange Coast College sailing program. The strongest threats to the monohull record are Roy Disney’s Pyewacket, which set the Transpac record last year; Doug Baker’s Andrews 70 Magnitude; and the new Christine, the monster of the fleet.