They're off! All starters have left for Puerto Vallarta after this afternoon's last three starts for the big boat and multi-hull divisions. The little guys who started Thursday got a jump and are nearly to Cedros Island after just the first day with steady 20+ knot winds and boat speeds exceeding 10 knots. Let's hope the good winds hold and that Alaska Air arrives on time as Race Chair Steve Malowney, Jeff, Jared and myself need to arrive quickly to get the finish ship on-station. Finish ship? ... you bet! The Mexican Navy is helping us out on the other end, which shows the level of cooperation we are enjoying.
Last weekend, our Board of Directors dedicated a day and a half for our semi-annual Strategic Planning session. Over that time, we dove into the deep end on serious topics that will affect all our members in the coming year such as dock refurbishment, marina dredging, overall governance, partnerships, and member recruitment. Added to that was a heavy dose of economic reality. One of our exercises was a review of the SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) we put together three years ago when Andy La Dow was Commodore and an interesting result was that about 75% of the weaknesses we identified then were either eliminated this time or actually turned into strengths! This was a great realization for us because it showed that we are truly much better off as a Club than we were three years ago! The session also showed us that we have some tough economic decisions in our immediate future which we will be sharing with you in the coming months leading up to our Semi-Annual meeting in June, so please stay tuned.
Have a good week everyone, hopefully I will be able to provide a first-hand update next Friday, direct from Puerto Vallarta.