2010 Border Run

On Saturday, April 24th we set off to do the Border Run with a crew of David Harper, Jim Merk, Jack and Carolin Lusby, Liz Roberts and my co-captain Risa Scott. David and Jim were watch captains and in addition, Jim filmed and posted several videos via the Border Run race organization about our adventure.

The start of the race was off the Balboa Pier in Newport Beach so we left the dock in Rainbow Harbor at 0710 hours to motor-sail down to the start. Possibly as a harbinger of conditions ahead of us, the sea was flat and glassy with no wind. Great conditions for a nice power boat ride, no so good for a sailing race.

The scene at the start was pure chaos as it always is for a race like this as you have in excess of 100 boats milling around trying to stay out of each others’ way and trying to figure out what the wind (or lack thereof) was going to do to the starting tactics. For the Mille crew our toughest starting tactic was getting to the line in the extremely light conditions. We didn’t have a great start as we were about 7 minutes late to the line but in a race projected to last 18+ hours, seven minutes did not seem like an insurmountable challenge.

We had hoped that the wind would be out of the west enough to allow us to fly the spinnaker for most of the day but what wind we had was coming a bit too much out of the south to allow us to use the chute. About an hour after the start the wind moved a little more westerly so we decided to try the spinnaker which forced us to run inside the rhumb line to Coronado del Norte. We had a great hoist and a good hour deep reach with the spinnaker, but the wind was still not moving far enough west and so we opted to drop the chute in favor of the brand new light #1 genoa.
With the genoa up we can head more offshore and get back to the rhumb line. We continue out to the rhumb line and then along it for the rest of the evening and into the night. The wind had been in the 8-10 knot range most of the afternoon but started to drop off around sunset.

The winds lightened all night long but we continue to make some progress albeit at a much slower pace than the targeted 5 knot average we had hoped for. David Harper and Jim Merk as the watch captains and I discussed several options for different sail combinations but stayed with the light #1 as the wind had dropped to the point where keeping the chute full would be a continuing challenge.

After a long night of extremely light winds, Sunday, April 25th dawned with almost no wind. As we were nearing the point where we would cross into Mexican waters, we had a crew meeting to discuss our options. We were about 30 miles from the finish in San Diego and were looking at a time limit of 1600 hours to officially finish. In addition, if we were able to finish, we then would have to clear Customs (a new requirement this year) and of course we then had the 90 mile run back to Long Beach to get Mille back to her slip in Rainbow Harbor. After some discussion, around 0730 hours the crew made the decision to withdraw from the race and head home.

The long trip back to Long Beach was relatively uneventful except for a hitchhiking bird and running out of fuel. Sunday afternoon, we were about 10-12 miles offshore when a little bird (possibly a finch but not being an ornithologist, I am not sure) settled on David Harper’s shoulder for a ride and then hopped on Risa’s finger. Risa was able to take it below for some water, lunch (yes, it ate like a bird) and a rest. After all of that it then hopped up and took off never to be seen again.

Late afternoon while we were off Newport Beach Mille ran out of fuel due to a higher consumption rate than projected as we were running the diesel a lot harder to get home as early as possible. Thanks to Vessel Assist for coming to our rescue!

We finally arrived back in Rainbow Harbor around midnight on Sunday night, with a DNF (Did Not Finish) but a crew that got along and worked together so well that they all said they were ready to try the next adventure.


Next race is the Start Your Heart Out hosted by Shoreline Yacht Club on Saturday, June 5th.