42th Biennial Transpacific Yacht Race / Los Angeles to Hawaii Transpacific Yacht Club, Brad Avery, Commodore April 30, 2003 BARKER, ISLER BEEF UP THE PYEWACKET TEAM. LONG BEACH, Calif.---Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker and longtime Stars & Stripes navigator Peter Isler will be new members of the Pyewacket crew when the record-holding Reichel/Pugh 77 sails its last race for Roy E. Disney in the 42nd Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii in July. Disney has sold the boat to an undisclosed Asian buyer to make room for a maxZ86---his fourth Pyewacket---currently under construction in New Zealand. That new class will be part of the 2005 Transpac. The 2003 contest looms as a 2,225-nautical mile match race against Philippe Kahn's own R/P 77, Pegasus, the 2001 Barn Door winner. Barker will play a key role.
Roy Pat Disney, son of the owner, said, "We'll need a bunch of good drivers." And a first-rate navigator. Replacing Stan Honey, who will be sailing his own Cal 40 in a special revival of the class, is a tall order. Honey has won eight of the 17 races he has navigated from the West Coast to Hawaii. Isler said, "It's gigantic shoes to fill. They're more like snowshoes or Shaquille O'Neal's sneakers." But any doubts were dismissed after last weekend's 56th Tommy Bahama Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race. Isler, aboard Pyewacket for his first tune-up race with the team, called the move that brought Pyewacket from behind the powerful new Alchemy to win the 125-nautical mile California classic to Baja California in record time. Roy Pat Disney, who took over as skipper in his father's business-related absence, said, "That boat we were racing was easily faster than us." But, Isler said, "We jibed about 32 miles from the finish line, essentially on the lay line. [Alchemy's] mistake was that they should have jibed first, because by the time they jibed we had been sailing toward the [finish line]." Isler and Honey attended Yale at the same time. Isler majored in meteorology, Honey in electrical engineering, and they taught wintertime navigation classes together at Yale Corinthian Yacht Club. Barker's reputation has not suffered despite his team's dismal 0-5 showing against Switzerland's Alinghi in the America's Cup match. "He's a fine sailor [who] got saddled with a boat that was too thin," Roy Pat Disney said. "Because Philippe spends so bloody much money [hiring world-class crews], we felt we needed a bunch of good drivers. That's one of the edges on a long race." Two years ago Kahn won with what crew member Zan Drejes called "the best crew money can buy." Drejes is a Pyewacket alumnus who won Transpac's top crew award in successive years on the two boats. Kahn said, "I think that it's a match race with Pyewacket favored because they are Pyewacket. We'll just try to keep up with them and see if we can get lucky." TRANSPAC CAMEOS Twenty-five Transpac entries, including Pyewacket, tuned up by racing in the 461-boat fleet from Newport Beach to Ensenada last weekend. Photos of several in action will be available in a photo gallery at www.transpacificyc.org. . . . Bengal II, Yoshihiko Murase's Ohashi 52 from Nagoya, Japan has re-entered for 2003. In 2001 Bengal II won the Pacific High trophy by venturing farther north of the rhumb line than anyone. Meanwhile, two other entries---Bob Saielli's Santa Cruz 70, Mongoose, San Diego, and Jim Scott's Valiant 40, Scaurend II, Edmonton, Alberta---dropped out. The current total is 59 entries. The entry deadline is May 23. . . . Philippe Kahn's son Samuel, a.k.a. "Shark," was thought to be the youngest Transpac crew member ever when he sailed on Pegasus in 2001 at 11 years of age. Two more candidates have surfaced since. Larry Folsom and Virginia Czarnecki (nee Munsey) were also 11 when they sailed in 1977 and '57, respectively, but apparently a younger 11 than young Kahn. Munsey's birthday is May 23 and Folsom's May 29. Nod to Folsom by six days. Any other candidates? . . . An early bid for the unofficial oldest crew award in this race is Roger and Brenda Kuske's Aloha Division entry, the Dynamique 52 Lady Bleu II, from San Diego. The average age is 54 but the Transpac experience is extensive. "We should be able to find Oahu," crew member Barry Ault said. "Only problem may be how long it takes us to find it." . . . The last Safety at Sea seminar before the race---required of 30 per cent of the crew within the last five years---is scheduled June 28 at the Orange Coast College of Sailing and Seamanship in Newport Beach. The most recent one in March drew a full house of 126 people, most of them Transpac participants, so those interested are urged to sign up by phone at (949) 645-9412, ext. 2. OFFICIAL ENTRIES (as of April 30, 2003):(Division assignments provisional) RACING DIVISION
Division 1 (starts July 6)
DH - Doublehanded ALOHA DIVISION (starts July 1)Aloha A
Aloha B
Transpac Documentary Video/DVD The two-hour historical documentary "Transpac/A Century Across the Pacific" is on sale in marine stores and nautical museums or may be ordered online with a credit card through a link on the Web site home page www.transpacificyc.org. The Web site also has a mail-order form. The video format $39.95, DVD $49.95 and PAL $49.95 for countries requiring that medium. COMMODOREBrad Avery (949) 645-9412 brad@occsailing.com ENTRIES PRESS OFFICER WEB PAGE
The official 2003 TransPac Yacht Race Website http://www.transpacificyc.org
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