The 2012 Baja Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally
Yachting News: Baha Ha-Ha Time Again!!!!
26 August, 2012
This year’s Baha Ha-Ha Cruiser´s Rally will be the 19thand will be held from October 28th to November 10th. The Rally has seen nearly 2,500 boats and about 9,000 participants during it´s nearly two decades and has also covered nearly 16,000 miles of Open Ocean. The rally this year will travel its traditional 750 mile route from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.The Rally will be open to all vessels over 27´and the smallest entry so far is only 28´. The entry fee this year is $375 and single handing is not allowed. The Baha ha-ha is not a race in any sense of the world, nor is it a party trip. While drinking is not prohibited, wild and crazy behavior or drinking heavily while under power/sail is discouraged. There will be two stops, the first at Turtle Bay (Bahia Tortugas) and Bahia Santa Maria and timing of the trip is set up to allow even the slowest vessels to take advantage of at least 36 hours R & R at each stop. While the official starting point of the Rally will be in San Diego some entrants will choose to get an early (or even late) start in Mexico at Ensenada and others may choose different stopping points, such as Isla Cedros or even Guadeloupe. You are not even required to have an SSB radios, although having at least a VHF relay system for the purposes of roll calls and you will want to make sure to go over your lists of safety equipment and update if necessary. The goal of the Baha Ha-Ha is for all vessels to arrive in Cabo San Lucas in good shape and to have a lot of good clean fun getting there.
Sailing conditions are expected to be excellent this year. The Rally has had a total of 54 legs during its history and only two of those legs have been upwind and this year both winds and seas are expected to be light to moderate. Participants are warned however that this is still the Pacific Ocean and a body of water this large cannot possibly be considered a controlled environment. The Rules committee does no inspections for safety equipment, leaving these decisions to the various skippers. Weather forecasts will be provided by Captain Weather, which does forecasting for some of the best racing boats in the world and these reports will be provided during morning roll call.
Berths in Cabo San Lucas are assigned based on the order to sign up and registration packets are mailed out. This means that if you want a good berthing early sign up is a must. Sign-up began on May 1st and will formally end on September 10, 2012. After sign-up fleet members receive many benefits from Sponsors, such as “swag-bags” that contain fun things like sun glasses, T-shirts, beach balls, event programs, and starting timers and Captains/First Mates receive free invitations to the Costume Party Kick-off, which is sponsored by West Marine and the Almar Marinas, which offers free food and drink. There will also be beach parties held at all official stops and at Cabo San Lucas.