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44th Biennial Transpacific Yacht Race / Los Angeles to Hawaii Transpacific Yacht Club, Al Garnier, Commodore May 30, 2007 Transpac tops 70 with June 7 entry deadline near LONG BEACH, Calif.---With a record number in sight, entries for the 44th Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii will close Thursday, June 7. There are currently 73 registered and paid entries, approaching the total of 75 in 2005 that was the second most ever. The record is 80 in 1979. The complete current list is below. Transpac grows younger with age As Transpac becomes more than 100 years old, the sailors are getting younger.
Lindsey Austin, 22, will be skipper on Bill Myers' Standfast 40, Cirrus, with an all-woman crew, except for Myers. Austin was one of 30 finalists for the Morning Light team before it was trimmed to 15 in tryouts at Long Beach last summer. "I knew I was going to do Transpac with or without Morning Light," Austin said. "I wasn't going to let that stop me." Austin, who has a 100-ton Master's license from the Pacific Maritime Center in Hawaii, comes from a family of mariners, including her mother Donna, who also will be on the boat. She met Myers when she delivered his boat to San Francisco for the start of last year's Pacific Cup, after bad weather foiled Myers' earlier effort. "So when Transpac came around and I didn't have a boat to do it, I asked Bill," she said. It is believed that Austin will be the second youngest female skipper in Transpac history after Terri Clapp, who at 21 led the race's first all-woman crew on Concubine in 1979. They plan to leave Honolulu Saturday to bring Myers' boat to Long Beach for final pre-race preparations and activities in Rainbow Harbor, the new mainland home of Transpac. Myers, 71, spent a 40-year scientific career at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California doing research and development on dynamic nuclear properties. He retired to Hawaii several years ago and started sailing Cirrus seriously. He was keen on giving Austin this opportunity, he said, because of "my excellent experience with women sailors. I also had friends on the [Linda Elias] all-woman crew that raced in 1997, which was my first Transpac." Cirrus' rivals will include On the Edge of Destiny. The Doyle brothers sailed the 2006 Pacific Cup from San Francisco to Kaneohe with their dad, who also has done four Transpacs doublehanded but will not sail this time. Sean will be skipper, Justin navigator, and other crew members will be Tedd White, 23, of Goleta, Calif., and Cameron Biehl, 19, San Diego, watch captains, and Roscoe Fowler, 20, Honolulu, medic.
Dan Doyle can't race this time because of his role on Transpac's Honolulu Committee. "I have to be here to greet the boats when they come in," he said. "I started talking to Sean and Justin and thought it would be a great year for them to take the boat, if they wanted to. Morning Light had a little bit to do with it . . . the inspiration to put a bunch of kids together came from there." He said he won't worry about them. "When we started off in Pac Cup I took one watch and put them together [on the other watch]," Doyle said. "After about three days it was real clear they were totally confident and reliable, so we split up into three watches." Justin said, "It's gonna be cool because it's a bunch of guys around my age, and I get to sail with my brother. I've spent a lot of time on the boat. We know what it likes to do and how it goes fast." Transpac activities will start with the July 7 unveiling of 11 Walk of Fame monuments---one for each decade of the race---to be placed around Rainbow Harbor, a popular tourist site surrounded by restaurants, shops and the Aquarium of the Pacific. This summer's month-long schedule of pre-race activities will be integrated into the city's annual Sea Festival celebration. As in 2005, complimentary dock space will be provided in Rainbow Harbor for all boats, local and from out of town, to make their final preparations there in the days and weeks before the race. This year they will include Disney's modified 94-foot Pyewacket and the Morning Light team. On the three start days July 9, 12 and 15 the various divisions will depart amid public fanfare past the Queen Mary and to the starting line below Point Fermin Park in nearby San Pedro. The Transpacific Yacht Club has joined with Casio Computer Co., Ltd., in a sponsorship agreement to make the company's Oceanus watch the official timekeeper of the 44th biennial race. The Oceanus is a solar-powered chronograph watch with a time signal-calibration function developed by making full use of Casio's advanced electronic technologies. News and product information: http://world.casio.com/ Official entries to date:
Multihull
MEDIA CONTACT 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. COMMODOREAl Garnier (310) 600-0158 reinrag@aol.com HONOLULU CHAIRMAN ENTRIES PRESS OFFICER WEB PAGE
The official 2007 TransPac Yacht Race Website http://www.transpacificyc.org
05/30/07 |
