BANDERAS BAY REGATTA XXX —

All are welcome at the Regata Internacional Bahía de Banderas. What started out as a regatta for cruisers to race their homes has embraced all types of sailboats, from a beach cat to a cruising cat with a cast of 25 or more, from one-design J/80s and Capri 37s to racer/cruisers with the emphasis on serious racing. And, yes, liveaboards and long-distance voyagers still race in the Cruising divisions.

The "bay of flags" got the flags waving in westerly wind from the mid-teens to low 20s on March 15-18. This 30th edition of the regatta kicked off with a skippers' meeting and fiesta on March 14 at the hosting Vallarta Yacht Club, adjacent to the Paradise Village Marina in Riviera Nayarit, just north of Puerto Vallarta. A mariachi band, the best we've seen, entertained the sailors.

The first day of sailing wasn't a counter. Instead, the club ran starting practices and a final beer-can race of the season. The blue waters of the bay were lively with whitecaps, dolphins and humpback whales. The smallest boat in the fleet, a Hobie 16, dismasted in the stiff breeze. Fortunately, her skipper, Bart Goodell, director of the club's junior program, kept her rig up for the races that counted — one race on each of three days.

The first race, on Thursday the 16th, was a pursuit. Three of the multihulls, with the Hobie leading the way, were the first of the 34 boats to finish. Second was the other cat in the race, Parlay Revival, Colin MacRae's Lagoon 450. The courses for all three races had a lot of reaching legs, with a windward