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Two Years After the Mast
By Rich Roberts
SAN PEDRO, Calif.—With apologies to Richard Henry Dana, who called here once, this year's Transpac has a critical story line: Two Years AFTER the Mast.
It was in 1997 that the magnificent dark green, 75-foot maxi sled Zephyrus IV led the fleet out into the Pacific in its maiden race, only to have its mast collapse at the 36th hour. Co-owner skippers John Parrish of San Diego and Bob McNeil of San Francisco were crushed as they jury rigged and limped back home.
Roy E. Disney's Pyewacket, 25 or 30 miles behind at the time, went on to set the elapsed time record and gather up the glory of several other West Coast marks, while all Zephyrus IV's crew could do was wait for their time to come.
Their time may well be now.
Disney built his new Pyewacket because he didn't think his old one could beat Zephyrus IV—and he's only slightly confident that the new Pye can.
"It's a wonderful boat," Disney said this week, "and it has a great crew. They won't make many mistakes."
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Bob McNeil stands before the mast.
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This Pyewacket has never met Zephyrus IV, which never beat the old Pyewacket—but, then, those two never met except for a day and a half two years ago, almost as if they were avoiding each other, like the two head gunslingers around town.
One reason was that Zephyrus IV lost another mast at the Big Boat Series in San Francisco the following year.
Both boats were designed by Reichel/Pugh of San Diego, but Pyewacket is more than three feet shorter at 71.68 feet and almost 2,000 pounds lighter at 28,572 to Zephyrus IV's 30,361.
Lighter is faster—but so is waterline length on a reach--and Zephyrus IV's navigator, Mark Rudiger, figures there will be an abnormal amount of reaching in this Transpac, perhaps halfway to Hawaii.
You've probably heard of Rudiger. He guided Paul Cayard's EF Language around the world to an overwhelming victory in the Whitbread race.
The rest of the crew reads from a who's who of West Coast sailboat racing: Jeff Madrigali, John Bertrand, Dave Culver, Chris Busch, Mark Sims, Rolfie Steitz, Keith Stahnke, Scott Dickson.
Dickson, younger brother of Chris, replaced sailing master John Driscoll just this week after Driscoll had emergency gall bladder surgery. He will be one of the principal helmsmen, along with McNeil, Bertrand and Madrigali—the latter two former Olympic medalists.
Parrish said, "We think it's a good boat and we want it to prove itself. People say it's a navigator's race, and we have the best."
Parrish was on deck that night when the mast fell. Jim Pugh, one of the designers, was driving on a close reach. The wind was howling at 30 knots. The seas were 6 to 8 feet.
"It was 1:30 a.m. and we were about 500 miles out," Parrish said. "No warning. It just twisted and fell."
The mast torqued and broke below the lower spreaders, and as it fell the leverage pulled the base out of the deck like tree roots.
McNeil said, "Roy's got a better boat [than the old Pyewacket], and I think he's faster than us. A newer boat is going to be faster. His crew is good—they have Robbie Haines and Stan Honey [as navigator]. They're a formidable bunch of guys."
Zephyrus IV is expected to enjoy the first two or three days because it's stronger on the wind.
"Yeah, but that's just going around [Santa] Catalina [Island]," McNeil said. "Weight may be a bigger influence, and they're a lot lighter."
Also, Zephyrus IV remains haunted by memories. All of its masts have come from the same sparmaker.
"There's a real concern about gear here," McNeil said. "Our mast was built by Omohundro and [Pyewacket's] was built by Hall Spars. I'm real nervous about that."
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