Cruising down from San Diego to mainland mexico

[sailor4life7777]

Thank you for all the helpful advice! Based on all the feedback, most likely I will add either kites (need to investigate more though) or rig her with mast and sails.

Yes I plan to make a more permanent mooring with helical screw anchors and plan to hire scuba divers to set them. I want to be able to live aboard for multiple seasons there so I would need it to be able to survive the hurricane season. Does anyone know what the seabed is like in Puerto Marques and if it's amenable for screw anchors?

Also anyone have any experience with rigging kites on a sailboat?

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by sailor4life7777

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Does anyone know what the seabed is like in Puerto Marques and if it's amenable for screw anchors?

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Wouldn't a parallel if not more important question be will the authorities who my have jurisdiction allow you to do so?

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Wouldn't a parallel if not more important question be will the authorities who my have jurisdiction allow you to do so?

Definitely!

Is Puerto Marques under the Acupulco Port Captain's jurisdiction? If yes, they will likely have something to say about it (positive or. negative).

Likely there will be a daily port fee payable to API.


FYI:
Rains says Marques suffers from SW swell
Charlie's Charts warns "The safety of a vessel in this anchorage is questionable abd security concerns discourage leaving your dinghy on nearby beaches."

[Scorpius]

Let's review the situation:
1. We have an OP who, it appears, has little or no sailing experience,
2. We have a brand new (home built?) catamaran that has not been tested, and does not have a rig or sails,
3. We are planning a 2000 mile open ocean voyage along a coastline (much or all of it a lee shore),
4. Said lee shore is in a foreign, non-English speaking country with relatively poorer charts, poorer, or non-existent navaids, and poorer weather forecasting than one can expect in the United States,
5. We don't know much about the crew, but I'll bet nobody expected to be on this boat has any experience with such a long trip on such a small boat.
6. We are talking about using outboard motors and/or kiteboard kites for propulsion. I'm not sure about catamarans but I know that a monohull without a mast has a most unpleasant, violent motion. The inertia of that stick, with or without (but FAR better with) a sail on it has a HUGE damping effect making a pretty well unpalatable motion at least bearable.
7. Although there has been a lot of (theoretical) talk on this thread about using kiteboard kites for propulsion, we've yet to hear from anyone who has actually done it on anything bigger than a kiteboard. NO practical experiences recounted - and yet here we are, suggesting it as a primary means of propulsion.

When we on Scorpius made this trip there were three groups of cruisers in San Diego preparing to go down:
1. Beginners from Southern California that were scared stiff to leave the motherland and step off into the unknown,
2. Beginners from Southern California that were gung-ho and couldn't wait to step off into the unknown, and
3. Cruisers from San Francisco and north who had had at least a modicum of experience dealing with the open Pacific and its dangers - and had some idea of what they were getting into.

I expect many of the first group are still in San Diego "getting ready", their waterlines several inches further up their hulls from the weight of all the "stuff" they are taking aboard.

Many of the second group are now sitting in La Paz (the first hospitable port south of San Diego and Ensenada) and probably won't go any further having been terrified by the trip down the outside of the Baja. Many are now single men, drinking away their frustrations of broken dreams, their wives having fled after said terrifying trip.

I count ourselves in the third group having had several years experience in the Salish Sea of British Columbia and Washington State before embarking on the FAR more challenging expedition down the exposed "Graveyard of the Pacific" coast from Cape Flattery to San Diego - and we were damned lucky to have survived that trip as neophytes on the open ocean. And we had a proven, well shaken-down vessel.

During our trip down the outside of the Baja one cruising sailboat was lost when driven ashore just south of Mag Bay in a blow. Fortunately the people were saved and brought ashore by local fishermen. Language was a HUGE problem during the rescue.

This proposed trip has all the makings and markings of a disaster and I hope the OP will reconsider.

[Don C L]

We’ll… it’ll be an adventure!

[PineyWoodsPete]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

PWP, he stipulates a trip SD to Acapulco, and depending on routing it does approach 2000 miles.

Jim

Sorry, Jim, I was thinking Cabo, of course. One would think that after 82 years I'd have learned to read more carefully, but unfortunately it seems to work the opposite way...

We last came down there in the Fall of '96 out of Seattle on our 37' FP cat, and remember getting thrown around a bit with the wind and seas picking up between Is. Cedros and the Baja mainland.

Pete

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by PineyWoodsPete

We last came down there in the Fall of '96 out of Seattle on our 37' FP cat, and remember getting thrown around a bit with the wind and seas picking up between Is. Cedros and the Baja mainland.

Pete

Yes, shallow water, choppy seas. The OP has a 33 ft. cat, as remarked above by Scorpius, of unknown-to-us construction. It would probably get thrown around a lot more than your 37 footer.

Ann

[Benz]

The irony of the OP's handle is delicious: a "sailor for life" who possibly has never sailed, wanting to motor an unfinished boat, that was designed for sailing, thousands of miles to park it for use as a floating condo....
Aside from the difficulties already listed, you can't just "send divers to set helical anchors," those things require specialized equipment and professional installation that may not be available in Mex.
Also--having sailed up and down that coast several times--the idea of motoring it in a boat not designed for motoring, without the option to sail, is horrifying.
As for kites, look how big a kite is in relation to a 180-lb person. How much kite will it take to move a 30+ foot cat, with four people and all their kit and food and water and fuel and 7lbs of anchor chain? How will you untangle the kitelines when it ditches in a seaway, provided you can even retrieve it? The whole idea is batty.

[PineyWoodsPete]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Yes, shallow water, choppy seas. The OP has a 33 ft. cat, as remarked above by Scorpius, of unknown-to-us construction. It would probably get thrown around a lot more than your 37 footer.

Ann

No doubt!

The FP Antigua 37 was somewhat unique in that her hull was a very stiff true monocoque design, with no visible hull-deck joint and compound curves. All-in-all, we put over 20,000nm on her in 4 years, and she took great care of us.

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Benz

As for kites, look how big a kite is in relation to a 180-lb person. How much kite will it take to move a 30+ foot cat, with four people and all their kit and food and water and fuel and 7lbs of anchor chain? How will you untangle the kitelines when it ditches in a seaway, provided you can even retrieve it? The whole idea is batty.

I first mention it is foolish to attempt without mast and sails, but consider I encountered winds 20-30 knots the entire way to cabo, it's not unreasonable to assume a fairly small kite would provide a strong pull. The same amount of sail area would easily power such a boat 4-5 knots, and the kite is up higher in stronger wind.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by seandepagnier

I first mention it is foolish to attempt without mast and sails, but consider I encountered winds 20-30 knots the entire way to cabo, it's not unreasonable to assume a fairly small kite would provide a strong pull. The same amount of sail area would easily power such a boat 4-5 knots, and the kite is up higher in stronger wind.

I'd love to see it tried--there'd be a lot of control/reefing/deployment/retrieval issues that would have to be worked out. It might take a specially engineered custom kite to handle the loads, at which point slapping a light pole on the boat for a mast and buying used sails would be cheaper and easier.
But it should probably NOT be tried by someone with no sailing experience who doesn't already know how dangerous it would be to tow a panga at sea.....

[Don C L]

I suspect that within the first 5 minutes of trying a kite you'll see why they invented the mast 10,000 years ago.

[sailcub]

Ok, I cruised from Marina del Rey to as far south as Zihua and up into the Sea of Cortez, so I say this i a nice way, if you are asking all of these questions, you are not ready to cruise down to Mexico...UST my ho

[Cynara]

I know you already have your boat, but I'm going to suggest you do this trip on a power boat.

Friends of mine did it twice. From Long Beach California through the Panama canal and back.

You'll be carrying diesel instead of gasoline, which is more dangerous.

Otherwise good luck

[drdoyle]

It's down wind. Put a small mast on it and a small spinnaker. Going south is easy, going north in an outboard pusher is not possible. Do not tow your dingy, it will surf up behind you then broach off to the side and roll over (if you are lucky, if unlucky you will be ramed and sunk). Or when the slack comes out of the towline it will snap or rip off your cleats.