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All it took was a year of elbow grease and a little bit of TLC for Alex Simanis to get his newly restored Pt Bonita 27, Pell Mell, back into the water and titled a winner. The smallest boat on the course for the duration of the 2022 California Offshore Race Week (CORW) has proved that it is heart and skill that gets you first overall, not size.
The week-long journey down the California coast is broken into separate races: Spinnaker Cup (San Francisco to Monterey, 86 miles), Coastal Cup (Monterey to Santa Barbara, 204 miles), SoCal 300 (Santa Barbara to San Diego, 245 miles): June 2-4. Skippers and crews are encouraged to participate in the entirety of the CORW, but have the option to opt into any of the individual legs. In 2016, the SoCal 300 synced up with the Spinnaker Cup and the Coastal Cup, resulting in the California Offshore Race Week.
Simanis’ Pell Mell is the official winner of not just the SoCal 300, but the overall series winner of CORW. Originally built in the mid 80’s, the Point Bonita 27′ Pell Mell was designed to be more of a cruiser, with inspiration from the Dogpatch 26, without the hard chines below the waterline. Her ample room below decks makes things more comfortable for distance-racing. Simanis found the boat languishing in Poulsbo in the Pacific Northwest West, and spent an entire year bringing her into her potential, and this past October, she returned to the water and began collecting trophies…
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