Barra Cruise-In Week 2021 – How to Play

Thank you for your interest in helping the schools of our charming little Mexican beach village, Barra de Navidad, located on the Pacific coast in the state of Jalisco. The boat race is scheduled for Friday, February 26, 2021 starting at noon central time. Sailboats will start entering the bay sometime around 11:30 a.m. in order to prepare for the starting time.

HOW IT WORKS

Donors to the winning boat will have their names put into a hat and drawn raffle-style. Prizes include restaurant vouchers and the grand prize of a 2-night stay at the fabulous Hotel Barra here in Barra de Navidad (will be good next season too, and Linda Bello Ruiz will hold your prize certificate until next year).

Each 100 pesos ($5 USD, $6 CDN) donated will qualify you for one ticket in the prize drawing. You may donate as many times as you wish to however many boats you choose. After the winning boat is announced the organizing committee will draw donor prize winners from the winning boat’s “hat”.

For example, you donate 500 pesos, $25 US, or $30 CDN) to the boat named “Boaty McBoatface”. Five tickets with your name are placed in Boaty’s “hat”. If Boaty and her crew win the race, you now have 5 chances to win! And if Boaty doesn’t win, you’ve still made a 500 peso donation for the kids!

HOW TO PLAY

PICK A BOAT!
1. Scroll down to see photos of the boats entering the race. Pick your favorite.
2. Decide if you want your donation to qualify you for a prize drawing, or if you want to make a donation without being entered in the drawing.
3. The boat with the most pesos donated will win a prize, so pick your favorite boat even if you don’t want to enter the drawing!
MAKE A DONATION
1. Cash donations in person before the race at the Hotel Barra – put your pesos in an envelope with your name, email and/or contact phone number, and the name of the boat you want to sponsor.
2. Cash donations on race day will be collected up until the start of the race by volunteers at the race viewing locations (Nacho’s, Sea Master, Sunset Bar, and Hotel Barra).
3. To donate electronically:
  1. PayPal, Venmo or Zelle to Linda Bello Ruiz at lmbelloruiz@gmail.com
  2. Canadian E-transfer to deniselepchuk@gmail.com
    When making your electronic donation, include a note with your name, the boat name you are sponsoring and if you want to be entered for the drawing or are just donating to support your selected boat.
CHEER FOR YOUR BOAT AND CREW
1. Race day is Friday 26 February, starting time set for noon central time (1 pm eastern, 11 am mountain, 10 am pacific)
2. If you are in the area, watch in person. Choose a location along the beach or at one of our sponsor locations which will have no-host cold beverages, lunch, or snacks available (Nacho’s, Sea Master, Sunset Bar, and Hotel Barra). As always, please respect distancing and mask protocols. Binoculars may enhance your viewing pleasure.
3. We will be using Facebook Live on the Barra Community facebook page to show key points of the race such as the start, the turn and the finish.
RAFFLE DRAWING
1. After the race, the organizing committee will draw for the prizes from all the entries in the winning boat’s “hat”.
2. Winners will be announced on the Facebook page Barra Community.
3. Linda Bello Ruiz will distribute the prizes and will hold onto yours until next season if you are not here.

MESSAGE FROM THE SAILING COMMUNITY

And a little bit about sailboat racing

We, the expat sailors of Mexico’s Gold Coast are pleased that we are able to help the school kids of Barra de Navidad. We’ll miss the social contact of the sailboat rides that we’ve done with you in the past, but we hope you’ll enjoy watching us while we play on the water. A few things to remember about sailboat races:

We need some wind, but not too much wind. The boats are also our homes and will have a bellyful of pots & pans, wineglasses, and family photos. Too little wind, we just bob. Too much, we break wineglasses.
If the wind is coming up later than noon, the race start may be delayed a bit. Bear with us, it’s not much fun to watch boats bob and sails flap.
This isn’t NASCAR, or the Preakness, or the 100-meter Olympic dash. The wind is what the wind is, and we can’t go faster just because the starting horn sounded!
The race will start near the malecon in Barra de Navidad, the boats will head toward the Melaque end of the beach, go around a marker, and return to the finish line near where we started.
The race may not be a straight line. Some boats will go left, some will go right, then everybody will switch places (called “tacking”). All boats should “round the marker” with the mark on their left side – no cutting corners.
The motor vessel “Miss Kelly” will be the committee boat and will also host John Adams, who with his family will be streaming parts of the race on Facebook and taking pictures to enjoy later.