A TASTE OF CUBA Article and photos by JOHN SCHELLENBACH
his winter CYC member Phil Boardman and I joined a group of sailors from Chicago for the Conch Republic Cup. Our crew consisted of members from Chicago Yacht Club, Jackson Park Yacht Club, Columbia Yacht Club and Corinthian Yacht Club. The allure of visiting an island which has been inaccessible for 50 years was very attractive. The schedule of the CRC was half racing and half party. To me, it looked like a tri-state race on steroids.
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KEY WEST TO VARADERO The first race was scheduled to start at 5 p.m. on Thursday, January 28. Due to winds from the south at 20 – 30 knots, it was postponed 24 hours until 5 p.m. on Friday. We left the dock Friday afternoon, excited to see how the Bella Maggio, our chartered Salina 48, would perform. We had seen the America’s Cup catamarans racing in San Francisco, and were hopeful that our high performance catamaran would deliver an equally exhilarating ride. Well, it turned out that our catamaran wasn't very high performance. There were no foils, no spinnaker and nothing was made of carbon fiber. Instead, we had air conditioning, a freezer and a 26
Blinker | Spring 2016
washer/dryer. We moved along at about the same speed as my T10 Mutiny would have sailed in similar conditions. We had a perfectly timed start, and were the first multihull off the line. Unfortunately, our lead didn’t last long. The privately owned boats behind us hoisted their spinnakers and rolled past us. We ran a barber hauler for our genoa and made the best of the equipment on board. The seas were fairly smooth and we sailed along, a little east of the rhumb line, where the wind was forecasted to be stronger. Like on Mutiny, we cooked dinner on the grill. After a couple watch rotations, the sun came up and we could see Cuba in the distance. We were now in Cuban waters! VARADERO The Varadero peninsula is full of resorts. Marina Gaviota, which was recently constructed and has very nice amenities, was a fun area where all the sailors could hang out together. Because of our delayed start, we lost a day planned for Varadero. There were buoy races on Sunday, but we decided to skip them to do some exploring. Some of the crew went to the beach,
