Summer 2016
Paul, one our JWorld Instructors, owned a Beneteau First 40. He moved this boat to our Marina for the 2016 summer. Paul also coached us on our J80 s/v InTenths a few times for races, and saw that we had become proficient in handling our boat. He asked if we would like to watch over his boat s/v Vanishing Girl and use her freely while he led a team in that year's Transpact Race to Hawaii. We jumped at the offer and enjoyed many day and sunset sails and even braved a couple of trips over to Catalina for long weekends. The first time we took that trip, we received a little help from our good friend, Stacy, who helped us get to Cat Harbor on the backside.
We made it safely to Cat Harbor, Catalina after a 6 hour sail from Marina del Rey
Our time on Vanishing Girl helped to round out our experience and led to Steve joining Paul and a small crew on Vanishing Girl for the Ba Ha-Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally to Mexico. They left from San Diego in October with stops at Turtle Bay, Santa Maria and finished in Cabo San Lucas a little more than a week later.
This rally is perfect for families who want to go offshore with a group, and packs a lot of fun parties and activities before, during and after the race/rally. I stayed behind this time to handle things at home, but got some good pics from the JWorld chase boat at the start of the race—which is really more of a boat parade. Steve counts this as another excellent experience preparing us for our own offshore cruising.
Vanishing Girl at the start of the Ba Ha-Ha-Ha race to Cabo