Guest post by Ellen Wylde

I wasn’t sure I was going to do this race, having suffered an ignominious result, as in DNF, in the last long-distance event I did the Gorge Junior Blow-Out last July. I went along on the Blow-Out with the delusional idea that I would be the chaperone to my 12 year old daughter, Fiona, who was doing the race for the first time.  I ran out of wind and crawled out of the river while Fiona went on to finish admirably.

The thought of all of us, my husband MacRae (two time overall winner of the Classic), daughter Fiona, and 50-something me sailing together 12 miles across La Ventana Bay was enticing, plus I wanted to go on the panga boat ride delivering the 100 odd competitors to Cerralvo Island for the start. So I signed up at the last minute with just a bit of foreboding because the wind forecast was light. Very Light.

Race morning was cloudy, a bit chilly and very flat water in La Ventana. It is primarily a kiteboard race that allows windsurfers in.  There were approximately 80 kiters and 18 windsurfers, and only 3 windsurfing women. We were allowed to bring one board, and two masts, two booms and two sails over to the island. So at 7:30 in the morning you had to guess what the wind would be doing around mid-day when they hoped to get the start off. I really did enjoy the 25-minute panga ride over, and spent most of that time facing backward in the boat to get my landmarks for the race sorted out. It seemed like a long way, especially if the wind was light. I wanted to finish this race and not be carted home in a support boat if I ran out of wind. I should also mention that my 90 lb Fiona has a bigger board than I do, and if the wind was light she would do a lot better than I would.

Cerralvo Island had a spectacular beach to wait around for the race to begin, and the race organizers provided food and entertainment in the form of a treasure hunt to keep the pre-race jitters at bay.  Meanwhile we rigged our gear (or I should really say MacRae rigged our gear), opting for the bigger sails we brought.  We’re all on Sailworks sails - MacRae the 7.1 NX, Fiona the 5.0 Ripper and me, 5.6 Hucker. We sailed out testing all our gear and equipment to make sure everything was ship-shape for our voyage. MacRae is extremely diligent about tuning our gear, and had replaced all outhauls, downhauls and we were all on new sails, masts, booms, bases and Fiona’s Futura Starboard was only a few months old.

So, now we waited. And waited. Finally the word came about 2:00pm the wind had filled in on the La Ventana side enough to go ahead with the race. It was only 13-18 knots but that was enough for a go.  There was a bit of a scramble as we -all 110 competitors - piled all the extra kite and windsurf gear into piles and volunteers loaded it back into the pangas for the return ride. 

The first start was competitive class, which we were all part of and a sportsman class starting 10 minutes after us.  MacRae and Fiona take off to get ready for the start sequence and I was fiddling around getting the sand out of my booties when I hear Fiona screaming, “Mom, Mom!!” and she’s making a beeline back to the beach yelling her forward footstrap screw had backed out. She’s sobbing, “I can’t believe this is happening!”   Panic set in as I looked around and realized all the gear was loaded in the pangas and I didn’t have a screwdriver. One of the Sportsman guys came running over with a bone he picked up and said, “Try to use this as a screwdriver.” I cut my finger on the bone trying to screw down the footstrap, and even though it wasn’t really working, I kept at it, thinking if I wished hard enough I could fix this mess. As I yelled to Fiona to flag down a boat and get a screwdriver, MacRae came roaring back to the beach to see what the matter was. I yelled at him to just go do his race - he puts his all into windsurfing and racing and I didn’t want us to interfere with his focus. Does he listen to me? NO. He sails around looking for a screwdriver to no avail when the race sequence is about to start.  Meanwhile Fiona swam out to a Panga, saw our board bag, climbed aboard and realized our tool bag was in a different boat. The boat didn’t have a screwdriver but another boat came along that did. She swam it back to the beach and with the help of the Sportsman kiter tightened all her footstraps up and got her back into the water around the 6-minute mark to the start of the race. I swam the toolkit back out to the boat, made it back to the beach and grabbed my gear and took off. What a way to start a 12-mile race! 

The start was a rabbit start.  When the green flag goes down you have to sail between the buoy and the stern of the committee boat that is speeding away.  As I sailed towards the start I saw mass confusion, because the boat speeding away stalled and stopped dead in the water.  I saw MacRae hesitate and then he was off. Fiona and I were way upwind of where we wanted to be, but the gun had gone off and we were racing. I had decided that I was going to sail with Fiona, but she couldn’t seem to sail off the wind and I quickly pulled out ahead of her. I kept trying to sail upwind to get her to fall off more, but we were already separated not in yelling distance of each other.  Things were going along well though-we had wind and we were generally aiming for the mainland, though the afternoon light on the water was blinding as we sailed into the sun, so you couldn’t really tell where you were going. About halfway through the race I ran out of wind and fell in. By the time I was up sailing again, Fiona had disappeared. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I lost my kid. I could only hope one of the support boats was keeping tabs on her. I was so nervous hoping she was ok, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I aimed for the general vicinity of the finish line. There were only two buoys you had to go around in this race and I finally zeroed in on the buoy at Palapas Ventana.  Gybed around it ok, still couldn’t see the finish line, but I headed downwind as deep as I could knowing I’d see the last buoy soon. There it is - one more gybe and I’m home!  Biff! Blew the last gybe, got myself up and headed for the finish line. I was a basket case worried about Fiona, but I thought it wouldn’t do to have a look of panic on my face as I crossed the line. So I plastered a smile on my face and finished the race. As I stepped off my board I glance to my right and THERE WAS FIONA! ON THE BEACH! I was so happy to see her and that she wasn’t lost at sea, I was beside myself. Then it slowly dawned on me - she beat me!  And not only me, she beat Chris Rogers, the other women windsurfer by seconds!  It turned out that all three women windsurfers came in within 45 seconds of each other in a race that took us 49 minutes.

MacRae came running over with Fiona and we all had a huge hug on the beach.   We were all so relieved we all made it, especially after the footstrap crisis at the beginning that threatened to derail us all.   I realized in all the excitement that I hadn’t even asked MacRae how he did.  “How did you do?“ I yelled over all the well wishers coming up to congratulate Fiona. ”I got the windsurf win, but didn’t beat the kites this year.”  Still pretty darn good, (considering he was sailing around looking for a screwdriver during the start sequence). So, MacRae won, Fiona won, and I came in a respectable third (out of three). It was quite a day the Wyldes will remember for quite a long time. 

As for the next race? I’m done worrying about Fiona - she’s on her own. And I just might go shopping for a bigger board.

Guest post written by Ellen Wylde