TRANSPAC '99 - THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

For such a small race - just 33 boats, the smallest fleet since 1963 - the 40th biennial TransPac actually produced an inordinate amount of excitement. Most of the news was good - Pyewacket shattered the record again, Magnitude set a new 24-hour record, Bay Area sailors distinguished themselves, global wireless phone company Iridium came through with race sponsorship, and so on.

With the good came a little bad, such as Double Bullet II capsizing, and the continuing decline of entries in this great race. Then there's the plain ugly - notably the 18.5-day disappearing act pulled by the B-25 Vapor. It's hard to say who suffered most from that situation, the two sailors aboard the crippled boat, or the hundreds of people agonizing over their whereabouts.

The fleet departed from Point Fermin in four waves - cruisers and the two doublehanders on June 29, small racers on July 2, big racers on July 3, and the lone multihull on July 6. Conditions for the classic 2,225-mile race were ideal - a cooperative Pacific High served up 20-35 knots of breeze, only moderate squalls and encouraged courses not too far off the rhumbline. Pitch-black evenings, however, made for interesting steering. "It was like playing a really good arcade game," enthused one racer. "The nights were terrifying," commented another.

"Anyone who participated in this year's TransPac came away a better sailor," noted TransPac YC Commodore L.J. Edgcomb. "It raised everyone's game a few notches."

Turbos - Pyewacket

At 9:41 p.m. on Saturday night, Roy E. Disney's R/P 72 Pyewacket streaked out of the darkness and into the record books, blazing through the Diamond Head finish line to lower the TransPac record to just 7 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes and 27 seconds. Fittingly, Disney was at the helm on the homestretch, hitting 22.7 knots - the high for the race - in 30-knot puffs as his gorgeous new steed charged home to claim Barn Door honors.

Disney and his close-knit crew (see sidebar) averaged 12.4 knots on the course, in the process knocking 3 hours, 43 minutes off their previous Pyewacket's '97 record. That's a huge chunk of time to take off an already solid record - a tribute to a really fast and well-sailed boat, a windy year, and a near-perfect route courtesy of navigator Stan Honey. "About halfway over, we knew we had a shot at the record again," said Roy, who missed the '97 trip due to a broken leg. "The last record was really Roy Pat's (his son), but this one is ours."

Though almost universally picked to finish first, Pyewacket didn't appear to be a sure bet at first, trailing near-sistership Zepyhrus IV for several days. After backing down to shed a huge piece of kelp, Pyewacket began playing catch-up. On the fourth day, they made a bold move to the south. "It was setting up just like 20 years ago," said Honey. "I told the guys to put on the left-hand blinkers, to work south whenever possible. Listening to the radio the next morning, we'd gone from 12 to 54 miles ahead of Zephyrus. There was so much whooping and hollering, I couldn't hear the next few reports!"

Interestingly, Zephyrus navigator Mark Rudiger analyzed the same situation differently, opting for the 'high road' approach. At one point they were about 125 miles north of Pyewacket. "We're stretching the rubber band," said Zephyrus watch captain John Bertrand via Iridium phone. "We're gonna let it go and zoom in there!" Unfortunately, the rubber band snapped instead, leaving Zephyrus five hours behind Pyewacket at the finish line.

Don't look for a rematch between Zephyrus and Pyewacket anytime soon - they're off to different corners of the world, with Zephyrus apparently opting for January's Cape Town-Rio Race. Pyewacket will head to Europe this winter, presumably taking their asymmetrical kite arsenal and bigger bulb keel. "Racing in TransPac trim - round kites and training wheels - isn't quite as fun as going all-out, like the Jamaica Race," commented Roy.

Coming in second, an hour and five minutes after the Disney gang, was Doug Baker's Andrews 70+ Magnitude. They also broke the existing '97 race record, and had the satisfaction of setting a new TransPac 24-hour distance record of 353 miles. Had the race lasted another day, Baker and his buddies might have won. "We ran out of race track," said Doug. "We gave it a good shot, definitely gaining on them the last two days." It was a bittersweet finish for Magnitude - better than last time (when both she and Zephyrus lost rigs), but not quite what they wanted. "So close, yet so far," lamented 'Typhoid Steve' Dodd, who infected five of the Magnitude crew with a debilitating flu bug during the race.

Like Pyewacket - and we imagine most of the big boats - Magnitude jibed relentlessly. Each jibe was an all-hands deal and everyone religiously took the same position every time. Magnitude, with Keith Kilpatrick driving, hit 28 knots coming down the Molokai Channel - the highest speed of any boat in the race.

The two older Andrew Sisters, Front Runner and Pegasus, brought up the rear. At least both their crews ate well -"We had Flintstone-size steaks and wines that were so far out of my league, I'd never heard of them," reported Front Runner's navigator Dale Nordin. Pegasus had owner Philippe Kahn's private chef along for their trip, as well as his snowboard instructor. "It was a 2,500 mile shakedown for us," claimed Jack Halterman. "It was our first race, and we're still learning the boat."

70-Footers - Grand Illusion

Ten years ago, the SC 70 Grand Illusion was one of 18 ULDB 70s competing in the '89 TransPac - the sled class's finest hour. GI didn't get very far that year, dropping out with a broken boom. This time, Grand Illusion sailed flawlessly, finishing in just 8 days, 2 hours and 52 minutes - an 11.42-knot average and the fastest time ever posted by a ULDB 70 in this race! Skipper James McDowell, navigator Patrick O'Brien, Kiernan Tarbet, Dave McCalley, Ty Pryne and four young Bay Area rising stars - Roland Brun, Hogan Beatie, Will Paxton and John Sweeney - won the TransPac overall in the process, robbing Pyewacket of a clean sweep.

McDowell, age 39, has sailed six TransPacs on his father Ed's 13-year-old Grand Illusion (and skippered the last three). James, who lives in Maui, was modest in victory: "We chased the squalls and made the correct decision to go south early, the same day that Pyewacket did. The crew gave 110, and I can't credit Paddy (O'Brien) enough. It was our best trip ever!"

Whereas most of the boats seemed to finish at night this year, Grand Illusion had the good taste to finish - minus a panel in their main - in the middle of the afternoon. Their one-year-old North 3DL main split during a jibe about 150 miles from the finish, but fortunately one of the two leech cords held the two pieces together. "We hit speeds in the low 20s, the high for the trip, with the ripped main," noted James.

Steve Popovich's Andrews 68 Cheval, which bounced off a whale on the second day, pulled in half a day behind GI. "We were sailing with asymmetrical kites for the first time. The loads were pretty big, and we broke lots of stuff," reported watch captain Linda Elias, a cancer survivor currently between cycles of chemotherapy. "It was a tough trip for me physically. The adrenaline kept me going," she said, but added cheerfully. "I'm really lucky just to be here. Roy Disney and I (who both missed the last race) are probably the two happiest people in Hawaii right now!"

Velos, raced by 15 Etchells and Schock 35 sailors, looked great in the reaching half of the course, but wandered too far north to do better than third in this class. They took a hellacious knockdown on the homestretch, a full-on 'yard sale' that splattered their 47,000-pound wave crusher over about an acre of the Molokai Channel, leaving them in irons. "It was the first time we've ever tried to jibe in that much wind," said a crewmember. "Normally, we chicken-jibe when it's that windy - now I know why!" Keeping alive a TransPac tradition, Velos boat captain Chris Doolittle of San Diego married his longtime girlfriend Nannette after the race. "It was both premeditated and spontaneous," he said. "She didn't know she was getting married until 9:30 that morning. By 10:00, the deed was done."

Mongoose, in fourth, was hampered by fiberglass and 'bog' peeling off their keel. "We also missed a critical jibe," they confessed. The souped-up Medicine Man, one of the stars of the '97 show, came in a humbling fifth. "My arms are six inches longer from driving," joked Seth Morrell, pointing to the tiller on the speedy 56-footer. "This is an interesting 'science project'. With water ballast, huge poles and asymmetrical kites, we're rated faster than the sleds - lots of speed for about one fifth the cost. But we've also created a really tough boat to sail, right at the limits of what's physically possible to handle. We're all pretty exhausted!"

50-Footers - Gone With the Wind

Bill LeRoy and Jim Cascino sailed their turboed SC 50 Gone With the Wind to a 4.5-hour victory in this tiny class, proving yet again that this venerable Bill Lee design is one of the all-time greatest TransPac boats. GWTW also won the race overall on 'straight' PHRF (as opposed to the VPP-based TransPac ratings), though we're still not sure why the TransPac YC confuses the issue by scoring the race under multiple systems.

"We didn't intend to go south, but we started seeing other people clocking big numbers down there," said LeRoy, who previously sailed the then-unmodified GWTW to third in class in the '93 Trans-Pac. "Fortunately, we found a night where we were able to work south, and that was the difference."

Crewing on GWTW were the talented Perkins brothers, Chris and Phil, up-and-coming navigator Gerry Swinton, Dave Kresge, Mike Ratiani, Terry Ranahan and Bill's daughter Aimee LeRoy, who according to Jim, "brought a degree of gentility to the crew." This was Cascino's first TransPac, a real baptism by fire: "There was no moon and a cloud cover most of the way, not to mention confused seas and pretty high winds. We were hitting warp speeds in total darkness, much of the time without instruments, just crossing our fingers the whole time. I have new respect for Mother Nature!"

Stealth Chicken, under charter to Jerry Montgomery and the gang that won the '97 race overall with the SC 50 Ralphie, was second, followed closely by Fred Howe's beautiful new SC 52 Warpath, hull #18 out of 20. Andre Lacour, who moved from Santa Cruz to San Diego to become Warpath's project manager, was a little bummed: "We sailed right next to Gone With the Wind the last day, and yet had to give them five hours. The ratings just don't reflect all the furniture we're pushing around - there's just no way a 52 can beat a 50 downwind!" That may not be a problem in next summer's Pacific Cup, which apparently will see enough SC 52s to form a one design class.

The fourth boat in Division III, the two-year-old M-Project cracked her rudder post in three places and withdrew. She was 1.5 days into the race and 300 miles offshore. Beating home into 25 knot headwinds with reduced steerage, it took M-Project 2.5 days to get back to Newport Beach - yuck!

40-Footers - Great Scot

"We're proof that you don't need to be millionaires to do the TransPac!" claimed Tom Garnier, who estimates that some of the turbos spent more than his J/35 Great Scot is worth preparing for this race. Sailing light (four crew total) and on a budget, Garnier beat up the seven other bigger boats in Division IV, correcting out on pre-race favorite Tower by over six hours.

What made the victory all the sweeter was that everyone on Great Scot was related - Tom and Al Garnier are brothers, Darrin Garnier is Al's son, and Jarad Lathrop is Tom and Al's sister's son (therefore, their nephew and Darrin's cousin). Got all that? This is the same family that raced two doublehanded Express 27s, Chimera and Locomotion against each other in the '94 Pacific Cup. "After that trip, this was like being on a Cunard Cruise liner!" said Tom. "It was really a harmonious trip - we got all our fighting out of the way years ago!"
The Garnier family arrived on TransPac Row flying their 'Team Rein Rag' battleflag (Garnier, backwards) and sporting blue zinc oxide chevrons on their arms. "Every stripe was a five-knot barrier," they explained. "All of us earned three stripes (15 knots), but no one could quite get four." Their 'secret weapon' was a spinnaker net, which kept their kite from wrapping when they plastered it - apparently often - against the rig while surfing down big rollers.

Don Clothier's Lidgard 45 Tower, one of two Hawaiian entries, came in second despite popping one of her swept-back leeward lower shrouds on their last jibe. "I had visions of finishing like Cheval," said navigator John Jourdane, veteran of 40 Pacific crossings now. "The accident even occurred in the same place." The crew was able to jury-rig a spectra halyard around their lower spreader, holding the rig in place for the final few hours.
Glama!, a new Sydney 41 owned by 35-year-old Seth Radow, was a distant third, with the other five boats in this class even more spread out. The entire Glama! crew were TransPac virgins, and some had barely been offshore before. They blew up "seven or eight" sails and had "tons of problems." Radow, however, was thrilled. "We're buoy racers, like Cayard and his guys in the Whitbread," he explained. "To us, it was just a series of three-hour races. We'll definitely be back for more!"

Doublehanders - Two Guys

There have been five doublehanded efforts since the TransPac created this class in '95. The MacGregor 65 Blackjack - which made it in 11 days, 17 hours -and the Peterson 41 Irrational, were the pioneers in '95. Honolulu real estate developer Dan Doyle started the race in '97 in his Sonoma 30 Two Guys on the Edge, but quickly dropped out with a broken rudder. This time, the B-25 Vapor and Two Guys were the only doublehanded entries. Doyle was psyched to take Two Guys again, this time with J/35 sailor Les Vasconcellos. "This was Dan's passion, not mine," admitted Les. "I made a commitment to go, but I wasn't really looking forward to it!"

When Doyle was sidelined at the last minute with business problems, he still wanted his boat to compete. Bruce Burgess, another Hawaiian friend, was contacted in Australia and invited. "I showed up in Long Beach the night before the race," said Bruce, who normally does TransPacs on Merlin. "I'd never sailed on the boat, and had almost no idea what I was getting into."

Les, age 53, and Bruce, 45, may not have been familiar with the boat or practiced together, but they both knew the race - this was the tenth TransPac for each of them. They footed south immediately, putting up the masthead kite early and tying a cinder block on the gas pedal - given their head start, they led the entire fleet for two thirds of the race. "There were times when I'd come up and tell Bruce we had to reduce sail, that it was too windy," said Les. "He'd just laugh and remind me that the boat was named Two Guys on the Edge, not Two Old Ladies at the Bridge Club."

They only had the masthead kite down twice - once when they broke their masthead halyard (Burgess free-climbed above the hounds to rerig it) and for the last few hours in the Molokai Channel. "We fell off a wave doing 19 knots off Ilio Point, and buried the boat up to the cockpit in water," claimed Les. "The boat stopped and broached, emptying the cockpit of everything, including our two handheld GPSs. It was pitch-black, really scary. We decided to put the #3 up for the reach across to Diamond Head."

According to Bruce, "We were pushing the envelope all the way over, and finally went over the edge that last night! When we had things under control again, I picked up our Iridium phone and called the bar at Waikiki YC - the only number I knew offhand - and asked them to inform the race committee we'd be a little late! . . . On the whole, it was a great trip, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it again."

As the popular local duo basked in the limelight for their gutsy 12-day, 10-hour trip, tensions were mounting as to the fate of Vapor, which had been out of radio contact from the beginning. The dinghy-like B-25, which features a deckstepped mast and transom-hung rudder, was the smallest and diciest boat ever allowed in the TransPac - and skipper Bill Boyd and crew Scott Atwood were on a tight budget that precluded buying a new radio or renting an Iridium phone. But they were also highly-regarded sailors and, thankfully, no EBIRB had gone off.

Knowing the conditions and Vapor's speed potential, race officials concluded that the boat was overdue after 16 days. The Coast Guard was reluctantly called and an alert issued, but by now any search for Vapor would have had to cover half the Pacific Ocean. Worries that Boyd and Atwood had 'vaporized' escalated as the days passed, but finally the duo coaxed a garbled morning check-in out of their faulty SSB. They were 262 miles from the finish, fine except hobbled by a broken rudder. The collective sigh of relief on TransPac Row could be heard on the mainland.

Two hundred people celebrated when Vapor plodded in after 18 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes - missing the awards banquet, and posting the slowest time in the last 38 years. "We were going 20 knots on the second night in the trades when our rudder broke," they explained. The duo repaired their split rudder with a splint, but that, too, failed when they were 500 miles from Hawaii. Their emergency rudder wobbled at speeds over five knots, forcing them to take down their main and sail in under working jib alone - "agony for two racers," claimed Atwood, a 9-time TransPac vet.

Cruising - Hurricane

"We worked the squalls hard," admitted Kim Stebbins, who demolished the seven other cruisers with his Seattle-based Sceptre 41 Hurricane. "Our goal was to stay relaxed, but still be competitive. About the worst problem we had was burning the popcorn one night during the movies!"

Stebbins and his crew of five finished first among the Cruisers, passing the Diamond Head buoy after 14 days, 7 hours. Considering that Hurricane then got time from all her peers but one, it was a great performance. "We were last to finish the Vic-Maui race a year ago, so this was a real thrill," admitted Kim, recently retired and off on an extended South Seas cruise. We get the impression, however, that he'll hang out in Hawaii awhile before shoving off - for wheels, he had his black Hummer shipped over from the mainland! It had every option except machine guns, and was easily the coolest support vehicle on TransPac Row.

The cruising class, now in its second year, fielded eight boats - up only one from 1997. As opposed to last time, all eight cruisers finished, though two came in wounded. The 1965 Cal 40 Willow Wind broke her boom at the vang, but managed a professional-level repair at sea. By cutting out the bent section and sleeving the boom back together, they were able to complete the race under reefed main, claiming a third place trophy. "Competing in the TransPac was my dream," said owner Wendy Siegal, the only woman skipper this year. "I live on my boat, and basically put everything I have into making this trip a reality."

Returning veteran Endeavor III, the Canadian C&C 40 which broke her steering cables in the '97 race, was dealt another bad hand. Halfway across, naturally at night with the chute up, their port D-1 shroud parted with a tremendous bang. "It dimpled the mast in about an inch near the gooseneck. I'm not really sure why it didn't fall down," said owner Randy Bell. The crew was able to rig three substitute shrouds - one wire (emergency steering cables) and two spectra - which held the compromised mast up to the finish line.

"We were doing well until then," said Bell. "After the accident, we had to throttle way back. It was obviously disappointing." When asked if he and his Toronto-based crew intended to come back in 2001, he replied wearily, "No comment."

Howard Raphael sailed his Sausalito-based Beneteau 40 Tango to a comfortable fourth place finish. He reported a casual trip, reading two books, watching VCR movies at night and eating well. "Sometimes, we'd tie the TV up on deck under the dodger so everyone could watch the show," admitted Howard, who is looking forward to cruising the Hawaiian Islands for the rest of the summer. "I was struck by the vastness of the ocean," he marveled. "The actual sailing was a piece of cake. The hard part was getting the boat ready, and now finding dock space in Hawaii."

Multihulls - Double Bullet II

This was the third year that multihulls have been allowed to compete in the TransPac, as well as the third year that Bob Hanel's custom 75-foot cat Double Bullet II has entered. Previously, in '95, Bullet completed the course in 7 days, 6 hours, coming in 14 hours behind Lakota. In '97, when Explorer set a new record of 5:09:18, Bullet broke her mast just past Catalina. This year, after Pacific Challenge was dismasted and abandoned off Northern California en route to the start, Double Bullet II was the sole multihull in the TransPac.

Hanel and his five veteran crew, including watch captains Randy Smyth and Bob Dixon, got off to a good start on July 6, no doubt with high hopes of lowering Explorer's record or at least their own. The party ended abruptly about 12 hours and 188 miles later, when the catamaran flipped in winds up to 30 knots and 8-10 foot seas. They'd been pressing hard at the time, flying a hull.

Hanel lit off the boat's EBIRB, which was properly registered to Double Bullet, and stayed on top of one upturned hull while the crew huddled safely inside the now-upside-down cat. A C-130 spotter plane and a Jayhawk helicopter were dispatched to the scene, which fortunately was just inside the helicopter's 200-mile range. All six crew were airlifted off the boat in a textbook-perfect rescue, arriving back in San Diego at 6:40 a.m. Other than one man, who suffered from hypothermia and seasickness, the crew came through shaken, but unscathed. "The EPIRB saved their lives," said a Coast Guard spokesman.

Double Bullet was located several days later drifting some 200 miles off San Diego, and towed upside down at four knots to a shipyard in San Pedro. Pacific Challenge, as far as we know, has yet to be recovered. "Not a very good year for funny boats, was it?" noted observer Peter Hogg, an experienced multihuller. (Shortly after making this comment, Hogg was dis-masted on Stars & Stripes, Steve Fossett's 60-foot cat, in the Port Huron-Mack race.)

At the awards banquet, several individuals were singled out: Zan Drejes of Pyewacket was recognized as the Outstanding Crew, the crew of Willow Wind won the Seamanship Trophy for their nifty boom fix, Zephyrus 'won' the Farthest North Trophy (Rudiger accepted it with good humor, saying, "The crew made me come up here and get this. I guess they thought I had something to do with it!") and Honolulu sailor Doug Vann was presented the Best Volunteer trophy for creating and maintaining the TransPac's excellent website (www.transpacificyc.org). The site got about 50,000 page views a day while the race was going on, evidence that someone was paying attention.

Anyone interested in one last TransPac 'fix' should stay tuned for ESPN's sure-to-be spectacular half-hour TransPac special in early October (check back next month for details). Well, that's about it - more than anyone needs to know about the intimate '99 TransPac, yet only about one tenth of the stories we heard last month on TransPac Row.

Good, bad and ugly - the TransPac, with its glorious past and uncertain future, lurches on.
- latitude/rkm