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| The Dream Team |
Everything went as planned aboard the Santa Cruz 50 Horizon in this years Trans Pac race to Hawaii. We won our class of 10 Santa Cruz 50’s, finishing seven hours before the second place boat on corrected time. The next seven boats finished within an hour of each other for the battle of a podium finish.
Of the eight Trans Pacs I have completed, this was the first time that I have finished in the day. This made for some outstanding photo opportunities. The Facebook live video, helicopter and drone videos can be found on my blog site at lenboseyachts.blogspot.com .
There is an important rule while sailing on an offshore race and that is “what happens on the boat stays on the boat.” As always I did learn a number of lessons that I will try to remember in the future. One of the many lessons I learned was to keep a closer eye on all the race preparation expenses. When I send a piece of equipment out for inspection or repair I have to obtain quotes on the work. Then let the owner review these quotes for the final decision. Nothing worse than having to make a phone call and explaining why or how I was so far over budget.
As a race boat manager, I will also need to spend more time to detail regarding the terms of the contracts with the professional sailors on the boat. We had two paid hands on the boat, one was our navigator, the other our maintenance person. In the future, I will have an amount of satellite data that can be downloaded in the navigators agreement. Satellite data is weather information that is allowed per the racing rules. This way the navigator and owner will not have to have a discussion on what is to much, or to little, during the race. This always seems to happen towards the end of the race when it is nice and warm down below and dinner is in the oven.
We also learned you cannot have enough fans in the boat, two of the fans stopped working during the race and the looks I was getting from crew was concerning. The quote of the race was “There is a lot of defecation in the water.” We were very fortunate not to have hit any of the large crates we noticed floating by. We did catch a large piece of plastic dock line on our rudder and after some effort we were able to push it off with our boat hook.
So that’s a wrap on this years race and the accolades from around town have been overwhelming thank you again for all your acknowledgments.
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So what’s new around the harbor during all this time I have been writing about myself? As you know the city have just completed it’s first month of harbor operations, managing the moorings and city codes in our harbor. All the employees have been making the extra effort as in any new relationship. Although there is one person, who is a city employee that transferred from Public Works to assist on getting this project off the ground and that is Raymond Reyes.
Reyes is a beast at multi tasking and comprehension on all subjects from reciting, in one months time, all of Title 17 Harbor Codes and working through the software program that manages the Marina Park Marina and the Mooring fields. He is now the go to person for your mooring permit transfers or questions regarding Title 17. Reyes amazes me everyday I work with him, his patience, cordiality over the phone and to employees is some of the best I have ever worked with. Reyes is not the only one with super natural ability’s that is now working for Harbor Operations. In fact it is rather humbling for me to see how many people want to join this new team. For what it’s worth, things are looking better than I would have imagined coming off the starting line. It’s a long race and only time will tell but the harbor is looking good at this time.
Speaking of looking good, go check out this new Harbor Operations web site at www.newportharbor.org . There is almost everything you wanted to know about our harbor.
What I found most interesting is the Guest Slips, Moorings & Anchorage link on the top of the page. Now scroll down to Mooring Transfers, almost to the bottom of the page, then click on the Mooring Transfer Log. This Log will give you a comparable sales log of what moorings have been selling for. Good stuff right?
Remember you do not have to keep a vessel on your mooring to keep your permit in good stature. Will be back next week to update you on who has been crushing it on the race course this summer.
Sea ya
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Len Bose is a yachting enthusiast, yacht broker and harbor columnist for StuNewsNewport.
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