By Chuck Skewes, Velos Skipper for the 2022 PV Race and MEXORC
PUERTO VALLARTA RACE 2022
In December of 2021 I called Kjeld Hestehave and asked if he wanted to do the PV2022 Race. Kjeld and I have a long history of racing together on Velos and his Etchells. I knew he wanted to sell the boat and that there may not be many more opportunities for us to offshore racing together, and his love of doing them is unmatched.
Kjeld was excited at the opportunity to sail with me and a few guys that I have had a lot of sailing time together with. The planning started and we set up a budget and logistics. Since the boat was planning on doing ocean racing in 2020 and those events were cancelled, it was already set up and most things ready to go.
A few weeks before the start, Kjeld called me and Ian Storer in a group call, he said he was not going to be able to go for a few personal reasons. He also said he wanted the boat to go and that he would try and make it down for the MEXORC regatta.
This was a disappointment to Ian and I as we really wanted to do this for Kjeld and all the things he has done for us. We had a great team together with lots of experience so we decided that we would do the best we could do and bring him some hardware home.
We had a good start date being able to use the code 0 all of the way out the bay and then into a spinnaker within the hour. The wind held the entire race and we were able to stay in the most wind on the course, hitting the largest shifts and eventually winning class.
The first communication from the boat was a text to Kjeld. We all gave a cheers to him on the motor from the finish line to the marina and flew the Danish flag for him.
Kjeld will be back out this year racing the Velos and many of the same crew will be joining him. Thank you Kjeld for a great ride!
MEXORC 2022
When you have a large boat in your control, going to a windy venue, your ORR Certificate states 2000kg in crew weight, you fill the gaps.
When we entered Velos the Tanton 73 into the MEXORC 2022 Regatta in Puerto Vallarta Mexico I knew we had the right machine for the fight.
The ORR Certificate rates us with crew weight of 2000kg or 4409.25 pounds. Since the waterline is narrow and the deck is wide, it was important to sail the boat at near the maximum crew weight, especially in the winter winds of Banderas Bay.
Simple math will tell you that 4409 divided by an average weight of 185 pounds gets you a crew of 24 people. The second task is to find 24 people that can sail, want to sail, and can get to Puerto Vallarta for a week. Luckily I am originally from the Pacific Northwest and have many sailing friends there. It was not hard to get sailors to leave the cool rain of March to come to the 85 degree, sunny, and great winds of Puerto Vallarta. Combine this with great sailors I have sailed with from Southern California and Mexico, we came up with the 24 sailors to handle the boat.
Velos straight off of a class win in the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race was well prepared for the task of racing around the buoys once we took all the offshore gear off. Kjeld Hestehave the owner of Velos had a family emergency and could not make it down for the regatta so he left it in charge of me and the crew to sail the event.
We started off strong the first two days with a 2,1,1,1 showing great upwind speed and the ability to hit the shifts in Banderas Bay. The third day was a long distance race to the Marietta Islands, with great wind for the first half, we had a sizable lead, but with diminishing breeze we were a mere 300 yards from the finish line at the expiration of the time limit. The 4th day was back to buoy racing, the crew was up to the task with Velos taking a 2,1 and a commanding lead in the regatta.
The final race of MEXORC is a pursuit start and sailing approximately 22 miles finishing just off the harbor. We had a good beat, hit the big geographical shift to the left on the run, passing the last boat just before the last mark with Fast Exit 2 gaining fast. Fast Exit 2 was caught low and could not carry their spinnaker to the last mark and this gave us just the time we needed to win the last race overall and secure our victory in class and 2nd overall for MEXORC 2022.
