Rhiannon Wins Leg 4

The results are in and Rhiannon has won her class in Leg 4 of the 2009 Puerto Vallarta Race!

We feel especially good about this win because this was the only leg of the event with good wind for sailing, and we were closer than ever to our competition.

Because the PV09 race is a handicapped event, we were able to finish about 3 hours behind the much faster boats and still pull out a victory based on our slower hull speed.

But don´t think for a moment that we were lollygagging - we gave this race everything we had.

Coming out of San Jose Del Cabo, we found seas to 10 feet and about 25 knots of sustained wind for the first afternoon and night. To borrow a phrase, the tiny ship was tossed! No one slept much that night, and all hands were occupied keeping sails trimmed for maximum speed. We saw over 8 knots just on our Genoa and main sail.

The wind abated somewhat on the second day of the race, but kept up enough that we didn´t need to run our engine until 11 PM last night. We motored into Banderas Bay with almost no wind, and the race rules require every boat to sail the last mile of each leg unassisted.

Luckily for us, we found a perfect breeze and crossed the finish line at a respectable 4.5 knots.

Puerto Vallarta is a sizable city, and we´ll head out and explore a bit tomorrow (after doing some much-needed laundry) and the next day. I´ll get some photos up of Leg 4 and San Jose Del Cabo tomorrow as well.

But right now, the beer is flowing and we´re just beginning to realize that we´ve sailed 1200 miles in a 44 foot sailboat and made it here in fine form - with enough left in the boat and crew to take a win in the last, toughest leg of the event.