Newport Harbor Yacht Club has enjoyed a long-standing tradition of hosting the Newport to Cabo San Lucas Yacht Race. Since its first race in 1971, sailors have enjoyed the 800 mile race down the Baja coastline to the warm weather and big breeze of Cabo San Lucas. Over the 40+ years of hosting the Cabo Race, NHYC has witnessed the tremendous evolution of yacht design and offshore sailing. Typical entries in the 70’s and early 80’s we IOR boats with unique downwind sailing characteristics; the ultralight (ULDB) boats arrived in the early 80’s with the Santa Cruz 50 making their debut in 1981. These offwind speedsters opened the door to bigger ULDB’s and the 70 footers began their reign of the Mexican Races in the mid 80’s. Bigger, faster boats evolved through the 80’s into the 90’s with the development of the 80 footers like Magnitude and Pyewacket. These boats brought along asymmetrical spinnakers, canting keels, and daggerboards. Elapsed times records were always at stake once the 80 footers arrived.
Today we see a resurgence of the legacy ULDB boats with the 50 and 70 footers returning to the West Coast for the offwind races like Cabo and Transpac. We also continue to see new designs in all size ranges and speeds to compete in these tremendous offwind races.
Previous Overall Winners of the Newport to Cabo San Lucas Yacht Race:
| Year | Boat | Owner |
| 1971 | Kahili | Wright / Ficker |
| 1973 | Moonday | G.A. Wolfard |
| 1975 | Ariana | George Thorsen |
| 1977 | Miramar | John Scripps |
| 1979 | Swiftsure | Nick Frazee |
| 1981 | Intrepid | John Delaura |
| 1983 | Celerity | Bill Ostermiller |
| 1985 | Swiftsure | Nick & Robert Frazee |
| 1987 | Ragtime | Pat Farrah |
| 1989 | Silver Bullet | John Delaura |
| 1991 | Silver Bullet | John Delaura |
| 2002 | J-Bird | David Janes |
| 2005 | Peregrine | Simon Garland |
| 2007 | Grand Illusion | Edward McDowell |
| 2009 | Stark Raving Mad V | James Madden |
| 2011 | Horizon | Jack Taylor |
| 2013 | Pyewacket | Roy P. Disney |
| 2015 | Pyewacket | Roy P. Disney |
| 2017 | Grand Illusion | Edward McDowell |
| 2019 | Fast Exit | John Raymont |
