La Cruz to Puntarenas Cruise Summary

Virago participated in the first Rally to El Salvador in the spring of 2010. The rally had no official starting point or date, only an end point at Bahia del Sol, El Salvador and a “no later than” end date of May 10th. Virago was in La Cruz, Mexico at the time, so that became our starting point. Due to insurance considerations and our long term plan to sail to Maine, we decided to extend the trip to Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Following is a map of the planned trip and the pro forma planned schedule based upon 120 mile days and stops for provisioning and crew changes.

 

 

I had found on the previous leg from Alameda, California to La Cruz, Mexico that one of the hardest things for a cruising crew to do was to continue sailing when boat speed slackened below say three knots. This made it all too easy to turn Virago into a de facto sloop-rigged trawler with just a push of the “Start” button. In an effort to avoid this fate I had warned my crew before they signed up that we would be making a concerted effort to sail as much as practical. I must admit to taking some pleasure in the success that we had “dialing in” Virago both on and off the wind. I never sailed her so well thanks in large part to the presence on the crew of two experienced Catalina 34 Association Fleet One racing skippers: Bill Eddy and Larry Baskin. The following table shows our results.

Port to Port	Miles	Hours	Speed	Sailing	% Sailed
La Cruz to Chemala	104	20	5.2	20	100%
Chemala to Bara de Nav.	38	7	5.4	4	57%
Bara to Manzanillo	24	4	6.0	0	0%
Manz. To Ixtapa	181	29	6.2	21	72%
Ixtapa to Acapulco	108	19	5.7	17	89%
Acapulco to Huatalco	231	43	5.4	43	100%
Huatalco to Bahia del Sol	487	83	5.9	22	27%
BdS to Puntarenas	358	70	5.1	50	71%
Totals	1531	275	5.6	177	64%

 

Of course, none of this would have been possible without my outstanding volunteer crew. Here are the crew members for the various legs of the trip:

Crew Complement:

La Cruz to Manzanillo Paul Goss, Bill Eddy, Jim Labbe, Bruce McDiarmid

Manzanillo to Ixtapa Paul Goss, Bill Eddy, Jim Labbe, Larry & Miriam Baskin

Ixtapa to Acapulco Paul Goss, Bill Eddy, Jim Labbe, Larry & Miriam Baskin

Acapulco to Huatalco Paul Goss, Bill Eddy, Jim Labbe, Harry Reppert

Huatalco to Bahia del Sol Paul Goss, Bill Eddy, Jim Labbe, Harry Reppert

Bahia del Sol to Puntarenas Paul Goss, Bill Eddy, Harry Reppert

Thanks to all the crew who made this trip possible and to Marj Goss the Managing Owner of Virago who only sailed vicariously on this trip, but supported it all the way.