Cruising World - June 2018

june/july 2018

cruisingworld.com

58

I 

t was still quite dark when I heard one outboard and then

another start. Meriwether had been adrift on calm seas for the

past couple of hours, and I’d slept soundly after coming off my

2300-to-0100 watch. Tempted as I was to stay wrapped in my

sleeping bag, I knew as soon as I heard the engines clunk into

gear it was going to get noisy fast. Besides, it was showtime. We

were about to make our first landfall along Mexico’s Baja coast,

and I didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

On deck, Steve Price, Meriwether’s owner, was at the wheel of the

Seawind 1190 Sport catamaran, and he was itching to get going. Up

ahead, a handful of boats were motoring, kill-

ing time and waiting for dawn before tackling

the entrance to Bahia Tortuga, or Turtle Bay as

we Yanks would say. To the north, a half-dozen

more steaming lights were coming our way.

Though we’d seen few other boats in the past

24 hours, after nearly three days of sailing

and 360 nautical miles, it looked as though

we were destined to be part of a Baja Ha-Ha

parade into the anchorage.

Soon, crewmates Randy Brown and Kurt

Jerman were on deck. Though overcast, the

sky brightened as we closed on land. Inside

the bay, we found scores of sailboats already

anchored — so much for being in the

vanguard of this gypsy troupe. We dropped

the hook near shore in front of a run-

down-looking factory just in time to check

in on the morning radio net and grill up a

breakfast of Spam and eggs — fine dining,

indeed, after our high-seas wake-up meals of

biscotti, yogurt, cereal and java.

T 

his little West Coast adventure actually

began a year earlier on the docks of the

U. S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland,

where I’d run into Kurt, a California

Seawind dealer. A customer who wanted

a sporty cat to keep at his vacation home

in Loreto, Mexico, on the Sea of Cortez,

was going to take delivery of an 1190 in San

Diego and then, in the fall, join the annual

exodus of Pacific sailors headed south. Did

I want to join them?

You bet I did. To get to see every brown,

bush-covered sandy mile of Baja, from

San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, was just too

tempting to pass up.

Last fall’s rally was the 24 th Baja Ha-Ha.

By the time the skippers meeting convened

in the parking lot of the West Marine

store in San Diego, the fleet numbered 131

boats, carrying a total of 466 crew, led, as al-

ways, by Grand Pooh-bah Richard Spindler

and chosen friends aboard his long-legged

catamaran Profligate. Richard, now retired as publisher of the

popular West Coast sailing magazine Latitude 3 8 , founded

the rally while still at the publication.

It was Sunday, October 29, and the store was a beehive of

last-minute shoppers, many decked out in their Halloween

finery for the afternoon’s costume party and barbecue. Outside,

Richard called out each boat’s name and introduced the captain.

Then, formalities completed, most of the crowd milled around

waiting for the party to begin.

Team Meriwether, however, had a few things left on the to-do

list, such as installing new rudders, firing up the electronics and

taking the cat out for a short shakedown sail.

Steve was a retired HVAC mechanic who hailed from Lake

Sakakawea, North Dakota, where he’d been an avid Corsair tri-

maran sailor. He’d only owned Meriwether a short while, and his

time aboard had consisted primarily of a saltwater sailing lesson/

cruise to Catalina Island with Randy a few weeks earlier. During

the trip, both rudders had developed problems, and a new pair

had been delivered. Replacing them was simple since they slid in-

to cassettes on each transom, but once in place, it was apparent

why they’d failed initially: There was just a bit too much wiggle

room that caused wear. It was nothing,

though, that a little padding couldn’t fix in

a jiffy.

As its name implies, the 1190 Sport was

intended to be a lively sailer. Meriwether had

upgraded sails, including a flat-top main and

cruising spinnaker. Rather than heavy in-

board engines and saildrives to drag through

the water, it was outfitted with a pair of

electric-tilt outboards. The plan was to leave

them raised most of the time and let a steady

northwest wind blow us on our merry way.

Mother Nature, though, had other ideas.

M 

onday dawned gray and drizzly.

We joined the Ha-Ha parade and

motorsailed by numerous tourist boats and

San Diego fireboats throwing up plumes

of spray on our way to Point Loma and the

start. What a sight to behold. At opposite

ends of the spectrum, the fleet included Tiny

Dancer, a Dana 27, and Emma, a Deerfoot 62.

There were 13 multihulls sailing south, in-

cluding the 63-foot Profligate, of course, and

Seabird, a diminutive F-27 Corsair, captained

by 74-year-old Richard Holden. As we ap-

proached the point, as if on cue, an aircraft

carrier steamed into the harbor, right in the

thick of things.

And then, precisely at 1100, we were off.

Next stop, Turtle Bay, 360 miles down the

line. Like most of the rest of the fleet, we

reached west to clear Islas Los Coronados,

just across the Mexico border. From there,

our course kept us within eyesight of the

coast but hopefully far enough at sea to find

a steady breeze.

With nothing much else to do, it was time

to fish. The effort of setting up a line and

tending it was rewarded late in the afternoon

when Kurt hauled in a bonito and ensured us

there’d be fish tacos for dinner.

Midafternoon, we settled into a two-hour-

on watch schedule. Randy had been on the

wheel for a spell, so he handed things off to

me at 1500. Kurt drew 1700 to 1900, Steve 1900 to 2100, then

Randy started it all over again. I like sailing at night, so having

the 2300 to 0100 slot suited me just fine.

It wasn’t long before the breeze puttered out, and over the

radio the Grand Pooh-bah declared we were all cleared to motor.

The Ha-Ha is not a race, but with a prize ceremony at its end,

participants were encouraged to keep track of the start and finish

time for each of the rally’s three legs, and to record how much mo-

toring and sailing was done. Steve fired up one outboard; we’d run

it for a couple of hours, and then switch to the other if need be.

Who knew then that this would be a remarkably windless year? It