50th San Diego to Ensenada Race

One of the last places you ever want to find yourself is behind bars in Mexico. But that’s what happened to Katherine Plenert, owner and skipper of the San Diego-based Catalina 36 Debauchery following last week’s 50th Annual San Diego to Ensenada Race put on by the Southwestern YC. Her crime? Owning the last boat to finish the 65-mile race.

All right, we’re kidding. The playful photo of Nurse Plenert behind tiny bars was taken at Cantina Hussong’s during the height of frivolity following the race. We can’t remember having so much post race fun in years. It wasn’t the brawling, bottle-breaking, table overturning Hussong’s action of decades ago, but rather enjoying cocktails and having a fun time with new and old friends. What really seemed to get the good times rolling was the house band covering a Metallica tune on a 12-string guitar. It was about the only American song they knew.

To Plenert and her crew’s credit, at least they finished the race. Seven of the 50 entries — including our 63-ft cat Profligate — dropped out. To say it was a light-air race would be an understatement. After the first hour, we never hit much over three knots while close-reaching with our biggest asymmetrical. It was sunny, warm and relaxing, but it wasn’t San Francisco Bay or Caribbean conditions. So a little after dark, and a little more than halfway to Ensenada, we invoked Rule 65, and motored down to a berth at Coral Hotel & Marina.

San Diego sailors are accustomed to light air, so every other boat was still on the course, although six others would later join the DNF club. First-to-finish and first in PHRF was Tom Holthus’ San Diego YC-based R/P STP65 Bad Pak, which was barely able to average six knots. Around 3 a.m. the wind finally came up — and big time: twenty-five to 35-knot dry Santana winds from the desert. It brought the last of the boats. Plenert’s Debauchery, crossed the finish line just before dawn. Well done!

After a day of R&R in Ensenada, there was the follow-up race, the 14-mile Todo Santos Regatta, organized by Club Nautico Baja. This is usually a great one, with a beat out to the island and spinnaker reach back home. But this year there was even less wind than during the race to Ensenada, so fighting the current to try to get around the island became an exercise in futility. We dropped out, set the chute, and were soon doing 11 knots back to the marina, by far our best speed of the weekend. So it goes.

We’ve done the ‘Little Ensenada Race’ two years in a row, and want to recommend it to any race-inclined folks coming down for next year’s Baja Ha-Ha. It’s a great shakedown just three weeks before the start of the Ha-Ha, and for some folks it would make sense to just stay in Ensenada and start the Ha-Ha from there. While Ensenada could certainly use some work on infrastructure — it has more cracked sidewalks than anywhere we’ve ever been — it’s authentic Mexico, so the people are wonderful and the prices are low. The seafood? Out of this world.