It's party time for OEX captain and crew in Cabo San Lucas

Congratulations (and margaritas) are in order for Peter Tong and the crew of his Santa Cruz 70, OEX (pictured).

The vessel this afternoon finished first in the Long Beach to Cabo San Lucas International Yacht Race, setting a record time of 2 days, 22 hours, 50 minutes, 9 seconds. That eclipses the 23-year elapsed-time race record by nearly five hours.

"It was a wonderful trip," Tong said. "The first night was pretty rough and we made a couple of errors. But once we sorted it all out and regrouped we got back on track.

"Sunday morning we were neck-and-neck with Grand Illusion so we had to figure out how to distance ourselves from them… which we did."

Finishing behind OEX and also breaking the previous record were, in order, Bob Lane’s Medicine Man; Ed McDowell’s Grand Illusion, and Brack Duker’s Holua. Per Peterson’s Alchemy also finished this afternoon, missing the record by just more than 33 minutes.

Chris Slagerman’s Cheetah will be last to finish sometime Wednesday morning.

Doug Baker’s Magnitude 80, the pre-race favorite, was knocked out of the race early on the second day when the vessel lost its mast. Kevin Flanigan’s Ocelot was retired from the race  the same day.

-- Pete Thomas

Photo courtesy of Rick Roberts