July 10, 2001

July 10 – Catalina Island

When visiting Catalina, $3.50 will buy you an evening trip ashore – but not back out – on the shoreboat, or a big burger at the Reef Restaurant in Two Harbors. Take your pick.

Photos Latitude/Richard

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Philippe
Kahn and Pegasus Take Barn Door Honors by One Hour

July 9 – Honolulu

When it comes to the TransPac, the big deal is winning the Barn
Door Trophy, indicative of the fastest elapsed time. In one of
the most hotly contested TransPacs ever, Phillipe Kahn and his
Santa Cruz-based R/P 75 Pegasus from Santa Cruz took honors.
Rich Roberts reports:

“Captains of industry, as well as sailing
ships, have tried for nearly a century to win the TransPacific
Yacht Race, some successfully, many in vain. It took Roy E. Disney
two decades to claim the wooden Barn Door trophy, symbolic of
the fastest elapsed time. Philippe Kahn, a, French-born software
developer from Santa Cruz, won it Monday on his second try when
he sailed his 75-foot ultralight sloop Pegasus past the
finish line off Diamond Head after 8 days 2 hours 34 minutes 3
seconds. Pegasus was an hour and three minutes ahead of
Disney’s Pyewacket to climax an epochal three-way battle
across 2,225 nautical miles from Los Angeles that also included
Bob McNulty’s boat Chance. Kahn, 49, has been sailing competitively
for little more than two years. He surfaced as a major player
on the world scene in this event two years ago when he finished
fifth in Division I in a second-hand boat. This time he had his
own boat built with the express purpose of winning the TransPac
and recruited some of his adopted country’s best sailors to help
him sail it. The least experienced sailors aboard were Kahn and
his 11-year-old son Samuel – nicknamed ‘Shark’ – who is believed
to be the youngest person ever to participate in a TransPac. The
12-person crew included world-class household names such as Mark
Rudiger, navigator extraordinaire; Jeff Madrigali; bowman Curtis
Blewett; Morgan Larson; and Zan Drejes, who won the event’s Don
Vaughan award as best crewmen on the winning boat with Pyewacket
in ’99.

“Kahn said, ‘We started working on
this two years ago. We built a boat and we trained a team. Pyewacket
has a great team, but we were lucky and we outsailed them.’

“Disney said, ‘It was kind of long
and slow, but it was three boats glued together. The only time
we were out of sight was today.’ Often the boats were within shouting
distance, ‘but we both restrained ourselves,’ Disney said. Disney
said that in breeze above 20 knots Pyewacket seemed faster,
but Robbie Haines, his sailing manager, said, ‘When we were alongside
we could see they were faster. They had a faster boat and did
a nice job sailing it. It was great sailing – a 2,300-mile match
race.’

“It also was more tactical and less
navigational than most TransPacs. One time Pegasus broke
away but quickly lost distance and rejoined the other two. ‘Everywhere
we went they went, too,’ Haines said. Rudiger said, ‘That was
Philippe’s thing. He’s more tactical. But we thought we had more
speed than they did.’

The happy Pegasus crew at Transpac Row Photo Lisa Niemczura Courtesy TransPacific Yacht Club

“Kahn’s eagerness to improve his sailing
skills is boundless. He competes in several difficult classes
and pulls equal weight on the boat with his crew. Even Shark fell
into the routine of standing regular watch duty as the race progressed.
Kahn does have rules, however: no tobacco, no alcohol, no drugs
and no sailor-type language on his boats. Nobody seems to mind.
In his e-mail commentary along the way, Kahn often deferred to
Pyewacket’s superior experience. But Madrigali, a two-time
Olympian and veteran of nine TransPacs, said, ‘Philippe likes
to play it down. These are the greatest sailors I’ve ever sailed
with. We had flawless crew work.’

“The time didn’t approach Pyewacket’s
record of 7:11:41:27 set in the windier previous race in 1999,
but it was well under the legendary Merlin’s former record
of 8 days that stood for 20 years. Chance, a boat similar
to Pegasus, posted the race’s third fastest elapsed time,
about 1.5 hours behind Pyewacket. That’s as far apart as
the trio ever was after settling into a tense tactical game from
the start.

“All that remained was to determine
whether Pegasus would score an uncommon TransPac sweep:
best elapsed time, first in class and first overall on corrected
time. That hasn’t been done since 1993, and the strongest threat
to Pegasus is Seth Radow’s Bull, a Sydney 40 leading
in Division III. If Bull can finish by shortly after Hawaiian
sunrise Wednesday, it will beat Pegasus on handicap time,
but it needs to maintain its current speed of just under 10 knots
over the last 350 miles.”

For additional information and features,
visit www.transpacificyc.org.

Brothers and Sisters on July Fourth July 10 – North Bay The only regatta on the Bay on the Fourth of July, Tiburon Yacht Club’s Brothers and Sisters Regatta was sailed by two PHRF divisions in warm breezes mostly in the low teens. The regatta gets its name, not because it is sailed by brothers and sisters, but because the course takes racers around the Brother and Sister islands. The Brothers are known for the lighthouse inn on the larger of the two islands. The Sisters are smaller rocks a little further north. This year the race committee also threw in a reach around Red Rock on the way up. On the beat back south a wind hole just north of the Richmond Bridge acted almost like a second starting line, stalling the bigger boats and allowing the smaller boats to catch up. At least partly due to a frustrating half hour trying to find breeze, five-time winner Jarlen, Bob Bloom’s J/35, did not bring home any new glassware. Taking top honors in Division I (PHRF 0-150) was Stan Martin’s Moore 24 Sunshine. Veteran TYC racer Don Kunstler won Division II (PHRF 150+) with his Santana 28, Don Wan. For complete results, see http://tyc.org/race.html. Tim Russell drives Jarlen, with Bill and Susan Hoehler’s J/105 Joyride in the background. It was shirtsleeves and shorts the whole race on the toasty North Bay. Photos Latitude/Chris

Jason Woodley’s Santana 30/30 Laniakea on the short first leg to the TYC turning mark. David Crewe on spinnaker trim and Nick Burke on the guy aboard Jarlen. Rounding the reaching mark, aka Red Rock.

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Capricorn
Cat Almost Home

July 10 – Pacific Ocean

Last Friday, Blair and Joan Grinols of the
Vallejo-based Capricorn Cat, sailing back to California
from Hawaii, had to make a decision about the Pacific High. “We
ran right up into the Pacific High last night about 10 pm, and
have been motoring ever since. We are now at 35 deg 41’N, 143
deg 55’W and may have to motor for another day or so, but I think
this is better than sailing two days north to stay in the wind,
and then still be the same distance from SF. We are now 1,000
miles from San Francisco. The weather fax shows wind about 200
miles ahead. Also, I notice my barometer is dropping, a good sign.”

Apparently it was a good decision, as here’s
their latest report: “We’re on the rhumb line and things
are working out great. Besides the Las Palmas Rum lasting until
we get home, we made the right decision about running under the
Pacific High. We had to motor east for just 34 hours at six knots
until this morning at 8:00 am when we caught northeast winds at
15 to 20 knots. We’ve been running at 7 to 9 1/2 knots all day,
and the weatherfax shows wind the 850 miles to San Francisco.
It’s possible we’ll make it back by Friday, in which case it would
be 13 days, a new record for us.”

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Thai-tening
up the Rules on Yachts

July 10 – Thailand

“The Thai government has decided to apply more strictly a
law which has been in force for a few years already but has rarely
been applied to visiting cruising boats,” reports Jimmy Cornell
at www.noonsite.com. “Owners
of boats who wish to remain in Thailand over the currently permitted
six months will have to import their vessels into Thailand and
pay a number of taxes: 35% import duty, 50% excise duty and 10%
luxury tax. This ruling is also applied to foreign flagged boats
being used for commercial purposes. Intense lobbying from influential
persons in local sailing circles, including the organizing committee
of the annual King’s Cup, may lead to a relaxation of this drastic
rule. Also, it is reported that a recommendation has been made
by the Ministry of Finance to extend the grace period from six
to 12 months.”

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Weather
Sours for Fossett

June 10 – Atlantic Ocean

Steve Fossett’s attempt to set a new Transatlantic sailing record
with his maxi cat PlayStation has temporarily been scratched
due to poor weather conditions.

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Crossing
the Atlantic on Another’s Bottom

July 10 – Atlantic Ocean

Tom Reardon and the legendary Herreschoff
designed 72-ft Ticonderoga won’t have to worry about weather
later this month when crossing from Newport, Rhode Island, to
Cowes, England, for the America’s Cup Jubilee. That’s because
they and 24 other boats from the New York YC – including 12 America’s
Cup 12 Meters – will be making the 3,100-mile trip aboard Dockwise
Yacht Transport’s Super Servant 3, a submersible yacht
carrier. The ship submerses itself, boats drive onto it, divers
secure the yachts to cradles, then the ship is pumped out. Finally,
the cradles are welded to the deck of the ship. Over 2,000 yachts
have been transported this way. There’s only one drawback. It’s
not cheap. For details, see www.yacht-transport.com.

Dockwise Yacht Transport’s routing map

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YOTREPS

July 10 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? Check out YOTREPS –
‘yacht reports’ – at http://www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/

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Weather
Updates

July 10 – Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

To see what the winds are like on the Bay
and just outside the Gate right now, check out http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/wind/.

California Coast Weather

Looking for current as well as recent wind
and sea readings from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena
and the Mexican border? Here’s the place – which has further links
to weather buoys and stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/stuff/southwest/swstmap.shtml.

Pacific Sea State

Check out the Pacific Ocean sea states at:
http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.

For another view, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/global.html.