| 1st Annual Zihua Sailing Festival, February 1st-3rd 2002 |
by Catherine Krantz
The 1st Annual Zihua Sailing Festival kicked off Feb 1st and brought a splash of color to Zihuatanejo Bay. The weekend long festivities brought together the resident and the regular visiting Zihuatanejo boating community, a.k.a. The Cruisers. Spurred on by the promise of a visit by Latitude 38 magazine, the California based “Bible for all Sailing Vessels” with their catamaran, “Profligate” to inaugurate the festival, the cruisers got straight to work. Displaying an impressive amount of organization and cruiser community cohesion, the event was thrown together with a mere 3 weeks notice and managed to bring together hundreds of participants. It began as a idea to bring the boating community together and to give the many sailing yacht owners who regularly visit Zihua a chance to show their colors, and ended as a fun and successful event for the whole community.
The events included numerous parties, competitions – a beach volleyball tournament and blind folded dinghy races to name a few, a parade and a charity fundraising regatta. The festival kicked off with a Friday afternoon cocktail party aboard the Profligate moored alongside the Capricorn Cat (the two catamarans slotted for the Sunday afternoon race) and was attended by as many as 200 people on both boats. A lively sight to see just off La Ropa beach, the two large catamarans surrounded by a swarm of dinghies.
And if that wasn’t enough to let you know just how many people were involved, Saturday’s main event was the sailing parade from the Bay to Ixtapa Island. 46 boats signed up and lined up with sails unfurled to make the many passes in formation around Zihuatanejo Bay before heading out to sea, along the coast to Ixtapa Island. By the time the first few boats reached Ixtapa Island the last were just making it out of the Bay, cutting a spectacular trail of sails all along the coastline. Beach goers in Ixtapa caught the best views as the boats just kept coming. Leading the pack in the Harbor Master’s boat complete with flashing lights was Rick Carpenter of Rick’s Bar. Saturday night brought a buffet dinner of 220 people and charity check presentation upstairs at Rick’s Bar. And Sunday morning was the fundraising regatta. The competitors were Latitude 38’s Profligate and Blair & Joan Grinols’ Capricorn Cat of Lakeport, CA.
The race included on board spectators who each shelled out 200 pesos toward the festival’s charity of choice. This year’s charity was the Netzahualcotyl Indian School of Zihuatanejo and over $40,000 pesos were raised for the school that teaches indigenous children Spanish so they can attend public school. The festival was sponsored by Rick’s Bar, La Perla Restaurant on La Ropa Beach, MJ Ritchie Restaurant on La Madera Beach, Casa Bahia Restaurant on the road to Puerto Mio and the Zihuatanejo Yacht Club housed at Casa Bahia, with gracious support by Latitude 38 magazine.
Plans are already underway for next years’ festival slated again for the 1st weekend in February which hopes to be twice the size with plans for a full regatta.
Rows and rows of beautiful sailing vessels are a common enough sight in Zihuatanejo Bay this time of year, but its not every day we get to see them in their glory. The 1st Annual Zihua Sailing Festival was a fun celebration for the cruisers and a spectacular sight for the rest of us, a great way to appreciate the shear number and wide array of the regularly visiting sailing vessels we are fortunate to have here.
February 2002
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