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43rd Biennial Transpacific Yacht Race / Los Angeles to Hawaii Transpacific Yacht Club, Jerry Montgomery, Commodore July 10, 2005 First 34 of 75 Boats Start a Special Transpac Monday LONG BEACH, Calif.---The 43rd biennial Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii unfolds in the first of three colorful phases when 34 of the 75 entries set sail Monday. It's the Centennial Transpac with an entry list exceeded only by 80 in 1979, celebrating their bold predecessors who first contested the 2,225 nautical miles in 1906, at one point farther from land than any other place on earth
The first starters will be Division 5, Aloha A and B and 14 Cal 40s. They'll be followed Friday by 20 boats in Divisions III and IV and on Sunday by the 20 top-rated boats, including a few that are the fastest ever to sail the race. In slightly revised ratings, a pair of canting-keel maxZ86s---Roy Disney's Pyewacket and Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory---are now the scratch boats, each giving only 23 seconds for the race to Randall Pittman's slightly depowered 90-foot Genuine Risk as they attack Disney's elapsed time record for monohulls of 7 days 11 hours 41 minutes 27 seconds. John Davis of Long Beach, competing in Aloha B, also has a target. "I won the 'Tail-End Charlie' award as the last finisher last time and I still have the slowest-rated boat, so I think I have a good chance of defending my title," he said.
All starts will be at 1 p.m. off the Palos Verdes Peninsula at 33-42.8 N latitude and 118-20.3 W longitude. The finish will be off the landmark Diamond Head volcano at 21-14.8 N and 157-48.9 W. For some of the boats, it's not only a race but a family affair. Reinrag2, the J/125 that won Division III in 2003, will have five Garniers on board, matching the De Sarachos of Mazatlan, Mexico on their bright red Jeanneau 54, Enchilado. Doug Ayres will sail a Santa Cruz 70, Skylark, named for the boat his grandfather and father first raced in 1947. "My son Dorian, 17, will be the fourth generation of our family to be in this race," Ayres said. Rick Gorman's daughter Megan, 18, and son Daniel, 16, will be aboard Incredible for their first Transpacs. Patricia Steele of Maui traces her racing roots back several decades. She's the new owner of the legendary Merlin that held the record for 20 years and will stay apace of another icon, Ragtime, when both sail their 13th Transpacs. Scott Abrams, 63, a Matson Navigation Co. captain, is the grandson of Clarence MacFarlane, who founded Transpac in 1906. He has guided ships on about 600 voyages over the same route, plus sailed 12 Transpacs, although none in recent years. Appropriately, for the Centennial Transpac, he'll sail on Odyssey, a 58-foot wooden yawl that did the race with Steele's ancestor as skipper in 1939. "I sort of had to go," Abrams said. Steve Calhoun of Palos Verdes Estates, Calif. will sail Psyche, which under Don Salisbury's captaincy was the first of three Cal 40s to win successive laurels and the King Kalakaua Trophy as first overall on corrected handicap time in 1965, '67 and '69. Disney, 75, will start his 15th and final Transpac. Indy 500 veteran Dick Simon, a rookie skipper in this game, and Lloyd Sellinger, each 72, will be sailing their first Transpacs, the latter as skipper of the Cal 40 Bubala with the oldest crew ever---all six hands age 65 or older. Five of the doublehanded entries will start Monday, including the first such women's team: Patricia Garfield and Diane Murray on a Catalina 47, Charmed Life, from San Francisco. Thirteen Transpacific Yacht Club directors will race on various boats. But one of the most compelling tales is the return of Challenged America, the team of disabled sailors from San Diego that proved competitive in Division V last time and is returning with a partially new crew. The hull of their Tripp 40, B'Quest, will be encircled with "in memory of" hull stickers. "It's something we just have to do," said Kevin Wixom, leg amputee and new crew member. "Although I've been with the program for a little more than a year, my teammates and I realize that there have been many before us who made this all possible. They too had dreams of one day racing to Hawaii but, unfortunately, are no longer with us. We're the sailors who are now fulfilling their dreams, and they will always be part of the crew." James Warmington's 74-foot Shanakee II, rated about 29 hours faster than the next Aloha boat, will give the other Alohas a four-day head start by going Friday. Transpac Trivia Quiz What boat won the Barn Door for fastest elapsed time despite a broken mast? Answer below.. Simon Says He's Ready for the Indy 500 of Sailing When Dick Simon drives his a Cabo Rico 56, Madrina, across the starting line in Aloha A class Monday, it might be scarier than the 19 Indy 500s he drove---his first sailboat race. "I'm going to the Indianapolis 500 for my first race," he said. "We didn’t get started sailing until 1993. Everybody laughed at me: 'Wait a minute – you're used to going 240 m.p.h. down the backstretch into Turn 3 and you’re doing 8 or 9 knots?' " Bruce Cooper of Ullman Sails is a crew member. He talked Simon into it after checking out the boat and telling him, "You have a satellite receiver to watch TV, home theater, washer-dryer, three air conditioners -- but this boat looks fast." Simon added that he also has "a 75-gallons-per-hour water maker, so we can have showers on the way. "But we've very serious. We'll be going in style, but we are going as a racing boat. "I'm taking it so seriously I can't believe it." Trivia Answer In 1995 Cheval, Dr. Hal Ward's ultralight 70, lost the upper half of its mast off Molokai 28 miles from the finish line but rebuilt a jury rig from salvaged parts and beat Dick DeVos's Windquest by 1 hour 7 minutes and Larry Ellison's Sayonara by 2 1/2 hours. Schrader, Sally Honey Cal 40 Co-Favorites Rating the Cal 40 fleet, with 14 boats the largest turnout of the class since 16 in 1971, Mark Schrader's Dancing Bear and Sally Lindsay Honey's Illusion look like co-favorites. Schrader did a singlehanded circumnavigation in 1982-83 and a crewed on a BOC Challenge in '86-87. His seven-man crew includes fellow ocean racing veteran Peter Hogg and Cruising World magazine writer Herb McCormick, plus sailing photographer Billy Black. Kimball Livingston of Sail magazine will crew on Fin Beven's Cal 40, Radiant. Honey, the wife of Pyewacket navigator Stan Honey, will sail with Liz Baylis, Melinda Erkelens and Charlie Arms---a four-person team of accomplished women racers. With Honey, her husband and Transpac veterans Jon Andron and Skip Allan, Illusion led the 2003 race on handicap time until the last two days, finishing third overall. Official entries Division I (starts July 17)
Division II (Starts July 17)
Division III (Starts July 15)
Division IV (Starts July 15)
Division V (Starts July 11)
Cal 40 (Starts July 11)
Aloha A (Starts July 11)
Aloha B (Starts July 11)
DH---Doublehanded. *---Starts July 15.
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 here. 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. COMMODOREJerry Montgomery (562) 427-3116 mmmont@aol.com HONOLULU CHAIRMAN ENTRIES PRESS OFFICER WEB PAGE
The official 2005 TransPac Yacht Race Website http://www.transpacificyc.org
07/10/05 |
