2008 Red Bull Air Races
We are very lucky to have friends with fun (and expensive) hobbies. Rick (one of Mat’s co-workers) is in the Harbor Island Yacht Club in San Diego. For the 2007 Red Bull Air Races Rick and Ben (Mat’s Boss) rented a boat and went in the harbor to watch the races. This year Rick wanted to “go big”. We got a group of people together and rented a 40′ Beneteau called Havana Daydreamin’.
The day started out cool and 10:00 am where we boarded as Rick was still familiarizing himself with this beauty of a boat. We had a full 12 people and there was plenty of room. We got a tour of the cabin, and Eric (one of Mat’s other co-workers) grew up sailing as well, so we had a co-captain. We headed out of the harbor trying to get out to open waters, but getting out of the channel on such a busy day was interesting. There was a lot of traffic including an aircraft carrier leaving the bay. They had many escorts in the water, and in the air.
Once out to the open water we saw a couple regattas enjoying the beautiful weather. There was so much traffic that we knew was going to the Red Bull Air Races that we didn’t spend much time out in the “open water” before heading back into the channel to get a spot in the harbor.
We got into the harbor with the help of the motor to get there quickly and hopefully beat some people to the point where the US Coast Guard stops spectator boats from going any further. We got some beautiful views of downtown San Diego and two Princess cruise ships that were in port. We arrived to a harbor already full of boats.
We saw a couple boats that were clearly party boats because they were so loaded with people! When we navigated our way to the front of the pack, we dropped anchor. Some of the whiny people started yelling at us because they came in a tiny boat and had gotten there a few hours ago to grab a spot. Rick wanted to make everybody happy, so we pulled up anchor and moved. Once we found a more suitable place to anchor, the winch for the anchor stopped working, so we ended up having to motor through all the boats the whole time. Our view changed rapidly from a great view where we could see the planes and the course well, to seeing the masts of a hundred boats, and only see the helicopters there to video the event. Just as quickly it would change back to an amazing view. It made for a fun day, and immediately after the race we motored back to the marina along with a couple thousand other boats so the channel was very choppy.
Here are the rest of the pictures from our day:
