Puerto Vallarta to host big time sailing in 2007

November 24th, 2006

Sometimes it’s a little hard to imagine just how spectacular is life along Mexico’s Pacific coast. We write all the time about the great ocean related sports available, and sometimes we’re wondering who’s got time to actually take them up. For sheer spectacle though, Banderas News offered great news earlier this week. The J24 World Championships will be held in Puerto Vallarta March 4th to 9th, 2007. One of the yachting worlds most accessible and beautiful competitions and maybe, one more reason to get there while it is still freezing up north? According to the Banderas News piece:

The J24 is a fiberglass sailboat 24 feet (7.32 meters) long, with a beam of 9 feet (2.70 meters). These measurements were determined by the size of the garage attached to the family house of Rodney Johnstone, who is the creator of the J24. On May 15, 1976, Ragtime, the first J24 sailboat touched water. The J24 is usually sailed with a crew of 4 or 5 sailors.

For those of you who know all this and just want to sail yourselves, 1st Mate, at Bliss in San Carlos has been keeping up some excellent blog posts on the ins and outs of keeping a boat after buying that dream house. 1st Mate hails from San Carlos a little further up the coast, and her posts offer a wealth of insight on home-owning, boat-keeping and most recently, some excellent research on the current state of desalinization and alternative fuels in Mexico.