Offshore Cape Mendocino Heading to Mexico

BoatMexico.Com will be your favorite Mexico Boating website very soon. On our membership website, you will find critical and up-to-date information that will not only to make your Mexico voyaging more efficient and safe, but also warm your sailing-south soul.

Here are some of our features:

• TRIP TRACKER ALERTS the entire network if you are not heard from by your expected arrival date at your next Internet check-in point. If anybody has critical information or you have not updated your plan within the time you specify, your ALERT is escalated to an EMERGENCY, and an EMERGENCY NOTICE is put on every page of our website. Members are requested to notify authorities and gather information.
• SWAP, SHOP, SELL LOFT allows free classified ads. You may buy, or sell items legal to be sold by you in Mexico, or you may trade items that are not allowed to be sold, but than can be legally traded.
• CREW LOFT is where you can advertise for crew or positions aboard boats voyaging within, to, or from Mexico.
• MESSAGE LOFT allows you to send messages on a forum subject (your choice) or personally to captains, crew, or boats by knowing no more than a boat’s name, home port, or captain. Your general messages can be sent to the entire BoatMexico membership, or more narrowly targeted to a Mexican port or to one of the geographic areas from Alaska to Central America, or from Mexico’s East Coast to the Marquesas Islands or Hawaii.
• MEDICAL LOFT brings you Dr. Luis Suarez Lopez, M.D. who is not only one of the most highly respected internal medicine doctors in Puerto Vallarta, but also a specialist in Traveler’s Medicine. Dr. Suarez is a regular contributor of medical articles of special interest to boaters. His articles cover topics ranging from immunizations to tropical medicine and urgent care in Mexico. Medical treatment in Mexico can be excellent and most of us boaters from North America have our spinnaker minds blown out by how caring, inexpensive, and efficient the health care is here — given the right resources. Dr. Suarez and his Healthy Living in Mexico program are here at BoatMexico.Com for you.
• RADIO LOFT keeps you abreast of the changes in radio nets and other radio resources.
• CUSTOMS & IMMIGRATION LOFT gives you the latest information, updated constantly by BoatMexico.Com members and its staff. This will help you deal with the international issues of checking in and out of Mexico and its various harbors. We will help you make the maintenance of your boat easier and less expensive.
• FOTOS & FUN LOFT let’s you share your fiestas and explorations with other boaters or your family.
• FISHING LOFT shares the latest news about what is biting and where as well as just the fun stuff of casual fishing.
• LANDLUBBERS LOFT gives your family and friends the ability to check in to BoatMexico.com and be a part of your Mexican boating adventure. It is a great way to get a message to or from you even if someone doesn’t know your email address!
• MAINTENANCE LOFT will provide you with critical tips to keep you and your vessel having fun in the tropics. Some of the tropical demands are unanticipated and can cripple an otherwise great adventure. Our recognized marine surveyor will help you prevent some huge disappointments as well as to help prepare you to repair, sell, or buy your boat. He’s no lightweight. He works and delivers America’s Cup boats and has extensive experience in Mexico!
• WEATHER LOFT will keep you abreast of this important aspect a mariner’s life.

Your suggestions are always welcome and we promise to strive to make BoatMexico.com everything YOU want for YOUR website, whether you are sailing, motor-cruising, or fishing our beautiful Mexican waters. Boat Mexico with BoatMexico.Com!

Tropical Storm Kiko is not expected to attain hurricane status, nor are her winds expected to significantly affect Baja or mainland Mexico. We are almost out of this hurricane season and looking forward to another great year of boating in Mexico.

Pat Henry was the first American woman to sail solo around the world. She was also the oldest woman to do it solo. Pat sold her boat in 2007, finally parting with the 31 foot vessel that was for so long her home. In an early edition of our SALTS & SIGHTS LOFT, Pat tells us about the transition to her new home, Puerto Vallarta.

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Admin@BoatMexico.Com

The Australian America Cup’s boat, OneAustralia AUS-35, sank in less than two minutes in 20 knots of wind and 1.5 meter seas. She was racing 5 miles off of San Diego in 1995. After she sunk, her sister-ship, OneAustralia AUS-31, replaced her.

AUS-31 was built for the team before AUS-35 and weighed 300 kilos more, or should we say “stronger”? The newer boat had been built lighter for even better performance, but she had also hit a submerged object, perhaps a whale. That may have weakened her beyond the already sacrificed strength for speed.

After AUS-35 sank, OneAustralia AUS-31 was unable to win the cup. She continued to race in subsequent years and was also used for extensive training for other cups. Many believe the slightly faster AUS-35 would have won if she her hull wouldn’t have failed.

Also racing in the 1995 America’s Cup was a second Australian boat, Sydney-95 AUS-29. She raced later as well.

Now, Vallarta Adventures owner, Ricardo Farkas (Vallarta Adventures Blog), has brought BOTH of these famous carbon fiber boats from Australia to Puerto Vallarta. Apparently always with an eye for the adventures that will entice his customers, Farkas told BoatMexico.Com his simple reason for investing in America’s Cup boats:

“It looked like something that might work.”

And well it might, we’d concur. Puerto Vallarta is the mecca of boating in Mexico. The growth here is phenomenal. Everybody loves the water and most people want to experience it in all of its glory and varied aspects.

Last Saturday, Sept. 29th, Vallarta Adventures launched
AUS-31 and AUS-29 from Opequimar
Boat Yard after about a month of refurbishing. Farkas’s Australian consultant on this project, David Sampson, has arrived in PV to continue his assistance with the preparation.

Sampson knows these boats well. He was one of the original pit crew in 1995 and along with Puerto Vallartan Captain and surveyor Doug Danielson assisted Farkas immensely with the preliminary work in Sydney. Mike Danielson of North Sails-Puerto Vallarta is teamed with Captain Doug (as he is known in these parts) and Sampson to put these boats in top shape. The project is set for a mid-October opening to the public. Six Australian crew-members will arrive here shortly. They will split into two teams of three Aussies for each boat, each to be augmented by two Mexican crew members. Each team of five professional sailors will then invite up to 15 customers to experience the exhilaration of sailing one of these thoroughbreds.

As of the time of publication of this article, (Oct. 5th), these boats were statically tuned on O-Dock in Marina Vallarta.

Saturday, they will head into Banderas Bay for sea trials and tuning. When all the stays have been tensioned and the systems checked, crew training will commence. Routine and emergency procedures will be rehearsed so that the public will have not only a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, but a lifetime full of enviable memories. We at BoatMexico.Com hope to get a chance to do the same!

BoatMexico.Com thanks Vallarta Adventures, Mike Danielson of North Sails-Puerto Vallarta, and Captain Doug Danielson for their assistance in bringing you this story.
By the way, keep your eyes on Mike & Leah (Leah is a racer too.) Danielson’s son, Merrick.
He has the boating genes and was at the helm of AUS-31 when she left the yard for Marina Vallarta. Our camera caught him strategizing AUS-31’s next rounding.

CORRECTION: BoatMexico.Com previously printed an error on the ownership of “Canvas Connection”. Canvas Connection is owned by Karen Danielson.